The Life of Lazarillo de Tormes

LAZARO RELATES THE WAY OF HIS BIRTH AND TELLS WHOSE SON HE IS

Well! your Honour must know, before anything else, that they call me Lazarillo de Tormes, and that I am the son of Thomé Gonçales and Antonia Perez, natives of Tejares, a village near Salamanca. My birth was in the river Tormes, for which reason I have the river for a surname, and it was in this manner.

My father, whom God pardon, had charge of a flour mill which was on the banks of that river. He was the miller there for over fifteen years, and my mother, being one night taken with me in the mill, she gave birth to me there. So that I may say with truth that I was born in the river.

When I was a child of eight years old, they accused my father of certain misdeeds done to the sacks of those who came to have their corn ground. He was taken into custody, and confessed and denied not, suffering persecution for justice’s sake. So I trust in God that he is in glory, for the Evangelist tells us that such are blessed. At that time there was a certain expedition against the Moors and among the adventurers was my father, who was banished for the affair already mentioned. He went in the position of attendant on a knight who also went, and, with his master, like a loyal servant, he ended his life.