Episode 4

Being then in such affliction—from which may it please the Lord to deliver every faithful Christian—and knowing not what counsel to take, seeing myself go from bad to worse, one day when my miserable, wretched master had gone out of town, there came by chance to my door a tinker, who I believe was an angel sent to me by the hand of God in that guise. He asked me whether I had anything to mend.

“In me you would have plenty to do, and you would do no small thing if you could mend me,” said I softly, so that he heard me not; but as it was no time to spend in making jests, enlightened by the Holy Ghost, I said unto him:

“Uncle, I have lost a key to this chest, and I fear my master will beat me. For your life’s sake, see whether among those you carry there is one that will fit it, and I will pay you for it.”

The angelic tinker began to try one key after another from a great bunch he carried, while I helped him with my feeble prayers. Before I knew it, I saw in the shape of loaves, as they say, the very face of God inside that chest; and having opened it, I said unto him:

“I have no money to give you for the key, but take your payment from there.”

He took one of those church loaves, the one that seemed best to him, and giving me my key, went his way right well pleased, leaving me better pleased still. But I touched nothing for the present, lest the loss should be noticed; and moreover, seeing myself master of so great a treasure, methought hunger dared not approach me. My miserable master returned, and God willed that he noticed not the loaf which the angel had carried off.

The next day, as soon as he went forth from the house, I opened my honeycomb paradise, took a loaf between hands and teeth, and in the space of two credos made it invisible, not forgetting to lock the chest again; and I began to sweep the house with great joy, thinking that with that remedy I should henceforth mend my wretched life. And so I spent that day and the next right merrily. But it was not my good fortune that this relief should last me long: for on the third day my ague came upon me in earnest, and that was that I saw him who starved me standing over our chest at an unseasonable hour, turning and tossing, counting and recounting the loaves.

I dissembled, and in my secret prayer and devotions kept saying: “Saint John, blind his eyes!”

After he had spent a long time casting his accounts, counting by days and fingers, he said:

“Were not this chest kept in such safe custody, I should say that loaves had been taken from it; but from this day forward, merely to shut the door against suspicion, I will keep a strict reckoning of them: nine remain, and a piece.”

“May God send thee evil tidings!” said I unto myself.

It seemed to me, hearing what he said, as if a hunter’s arrow had pierced my heart, and my stomach began to gnaw with hunger, seeing itself put upon the former diet. He went out of the house; and I, to comfort myself, opened the chest, and seeing the bread, began to worship it, not daring to partake of it. I counted the loaves, to see if by chance the wretch had miscalculated, and found his count more accurate than I could have wished. All I could do was to bestow a thousand kisses upon them, and as delicately as I could, from the broken loaf I pared a tiny crumb where it was already broken; and with that I passed that day, not so joyful as the last.

But hunger increasing—the more so as my stomach had grown accustomed to more bread during those two or three days—I was dying an evil death: so much so that when I found myself alone I did naught but open and shut the chest and contemplate that face of God, as children are wont to call it. But God Himself, who succors the afflicted, seeing me in such straits, brought a little remedy to my mind; for reflecting within myself, I said:

“This great chest is old and broken in some parts, though the holes are small. It may well be thought that mice, entering therein, do damage to this bread. To take it out whole is not convenient, for he who makes me live in such want will see the loss. But this may well be borne.”

And I began to crumble the bread upon some not very costly table linen that lay there; and I took one loaf and left another, so that from each of three or four I crumbled a little; then, like one taking comfits, I ate it, and found some comfort therein. But when he came to dine and opened the chest, he saw the mischief, and undoubtedly believed that mice had done the damage, for it was counterfeit to the very life, just as they are wont to do it. He looked the chest all over from one end to the other, and saw certain holes through which he suspected they had entered. He called me, saying:

“Lázaro! Look, look what a persecution hath fallen upon our bread this night!”

I feigned great wonder, asking him what it could be.

“What should it be!” said he. “Mice, that leave nothing alive!”

We sat down to dine, and God willed that even in this I fared well: for more bread fell to my share than the miserable pittance he was wont to give me, since with a knife he scraped off all that he thought was gnawed by mice, saying:

“Eat that: the mouse is a clean creature.”

And so that day, adding the allowance gained by the labor of my hands—or rather of my nails—we finished eating, though I had never begun. And straightway another fright came upon me, which was to see him bustling about, pulling nails from the walls and seeking bits of board, wherewith he nailed up and stopped all the holes in the old chest.

“O Lord!” said I then. “Unto how much misery, fortune, and disaster are mortals subject, and how short-lived are the pleasures of this our toilsome life! Lo, here was I thinking with this poor, wretched shift to mend and ease my misery, and was already somewhat merry and of good cheer; but my ill luck would not have it so, awakening this miserable master of mine and giving him more diligence than was naturally his own (for misers are seldom lacking in that quality); now, by stopping the holes in the chest, the door is shut against my comfort and opened unto my afflictions.”

Thus did I lament, while my diligent carpenter with many nails and boards finished his work, saying: “Now, master traitor mice, it behooves you to change your purpose, for in this house you will find poor picking.”

As soon as he left the house, I went to inspect his handiwork, and found that in that poor old chest he had not left a hole large enough for even a mosquito to enter. I opened it with my useless key, without hope of drawing any profit, and saw the two or three broken loaves which my master believed had been gnawed by mice, and from them I still drew a little scrap, touching them very lightly, after the fashion of a skillful swordsman. Necessity being so great a schoolmistress, finding myself in such dire need, night and day I was ever meditating upon what means I might find to sustain my life; and I think that in finding these dark remedies hunger was my light, for they say that wit is sharpened by hunger and dulled by repletion, and so it was truly with me.

Being then awake one night in these thoughts, considering how I might help myself and make use of the chest, I perceived that my master was asleep, as he showed by his snoring and the great snorts he gave when sleeping. I arose very softly, and having during the day considered what I had to do, and left an old knife that lay about where I could find it, I went to the wretched chest, and attacking it with the knife where I had observed it had least defense, I used it after the fashion of a gimlet. And the ancient chest, being of so many years’ standing, being weak and heartless, but rather soft and worm-eaten, straightway yielded to me and consented to a goodly hole in its side for my relief. This done, I opened the wounded chest very softly, and feeling with my fingers, from the broken bread I found I did as is written above. And being somewhat comforted thereby, locking it again, I returned to my straw, upon which I rested and slept a little—which I did poorly, laying the blame upon my empty stomach; and so it must have been, for certainly at that time the cares of the King of France took not away my rest.

The next day the damage done both to the bread and to the hole I had made was seen by my master, and he began to give the mice to the devil, saying:

“What shall we say to this? Never have mice been felt in this house until now!”

And doubtless he spoke the truth: for if any house in the kingdom might justly be privileged from them, that house by right should have been it, for they are not wont to dwell where there is naught to eat. He began again to seek nails about the house and along the walls, and boards to stop them with. Night and his rest being come, straightway was I upon my feet with my tools; and as many as he stopped by day, I unstopped by night. In such wise did it go, and such haste did we make, that without doubt it was said for this cause: “Where one door shuts, another opens.” In short, we seemed to have Penelope’s web in hand: for what he wove by day, I unwove by night; and in a few days and nights we brought the poor pantry to such a pass that whoever wished to speak properly of it would have called it an old suit of armor of former times rather than a chest, by reason of the nails and tacks it had upon it.

When he saw that his remedy availed him nothing, he said:

“This chest is so battered and made of such old, frail wood that no mouse can be kept out of it; and it is now in such a state that if we handle it further, it will leave us without defense; and worse still, though it serves little, it would yet be missed, and would put me to the expense of three or four reals. The best remedy I find, since what has been done hitherto avails not, is to set a trap inside for these cursed mice.”

Straightway he borrowed a mousetrap, and with rinds of cheese which he begged of the neighbors, the trap was continually set inside the chest, which was a singular help to me: for though I needed not many sauces to eat, I was yet right glad of the cheese rinds which I took from the trap, and besides this I spared not the gnawing of the church bread.

When he found the bread gnawed, the cheese eaten, and yet the mouse that ate it uncaught, he gave himself to the devil, inquiring of the neighbors how it could be that the cheese was eaten and taken from the trap, and yet no mouse caught or left inside, while the trapdoor was fallen. The neighbors agreed that it was not a mouse that did this mischief, for it could not have failed to be caught sometime. A neighbor said unto him:

“In your house I remember that a snake was wont to go about, and this is without doubt it. And it stands to reason: for being long, it has room to take the bait; and though the trapdoor falls upon it, since its whole body is not inside, it turns and slips out again.”

What he said pleased them all, and greatly disturbed my master; and thenceforward he slept not so soundly, so that whenever a woodworm sounded by night, he thought it was the snake gnawing his chest. Straightway he would leap to his feet, and with a cudgel which he kept at his bedhead since they told him that, he would lay great blows upon the sinful chest, thinking to scare the snake. He awoke the neighbors with the din he made, and let me have no sleep. He would come to my straw and turn it upside down, and me with it, thinking that it was coming toward me and coiling itself in my straw or in my coat; for they told him that by night these creatures, seeking warmth, were wont to go to the cradles where children lay, and even bite them and put their lives in peril. For the most part I feigned to be asleep, and in the morning he would say to me: