they found them.There were many witnesses who told the truth.My good lawyers and counselors and the court clerk saw how thin and weak my pocketbook was getting,and they began to falter.It reached the point where I had to spur them harder than a hired mule to get them to make a move.
The slowdown was so great that when the archpriest and his group heard about it,they started crowing and anointing the hands and feet of my representatives.They seemed like the weights on a clock that were going up just as fast as mine were coming down.They managed it so well that in two weeks the archpriest and my wife were out of jail on bond,and in less than one week more they condemned Lazaro with false witnesses so that he had to apologize,pay the court costs,and be banished from Toledo forever.
I apologized the way I should have,since with only two hundred silver pieces I had taken a lawsuit out against a man who had that much money to burn.I gave them the shirt off my back to help pay the court costs,and I left the city in the raw.
There I was,rich for an instant,suing a dignitary of the Holy Church of Toledo,an undertaking fit only for a prince.I had been respected by my friends,feared by my enemies,in the position of a gentleman who wouldn't put up with a whisper of aspersion.And just as suddenly I found myself thrown out--not from any earthly paradise with figleaves to cover my private parts,but from the place I loved most and where I had gotten so much comfort and pleasure,using some rags I found in a rubbish heap to cover my nakedness.
I took refuge in the common consolation of all unfortunates.I thought that since I was at the bottom of the wheel of fortune I would be certain to go back up.I recall now what I once heard my master,the blind man (who was like a fox whenever he started to preach),say:Every man in the world rose and fell on the wheel of fortune;some followed the movement of the wheel,and others went against it.And there was this difference between them:those who followed the wheel's movement fell as quickly as they rose;and those who went against it,once they reached the top--even if they had to work hard at it--they stayed there longer than the others.
According to this,I was going right with the grain--and so quickly that I was barely on top when I found myself in the abyss of misery.
I found myself a picaro--and a real one,since I had only been pretending up to then.And I could really say:Naked was I born,naked am I now,nothing lost and nothing gained.
I started off toward Madrid,begging along the way since that was something I knew how to do very well.So there I was again,back at my trade.I told everyone about my troubles:some felt sorry,others laughed,and some gave me alms.Since I had no wife or children to support,with what they gave me I had more than enough to eat,and to drink,too.That year people had harvested so many grapes for wine that at nearly every door I went to they asked if I wanted anything to drink,because they didn't have any bread to give me.I never refused,and so sometimes I would down a good two gallons of wine before eating anything,and I'd be happier than a girl on the eve of a party.
Let me tell you what I really think:the picaresque life is the only life.There is nothing in the world like it.If rich men tried it,they would give up their estates for it,just the way the ancient philosophers gave up all they possessed to go over to that life.I say "go over"because the life of a philosopher and the life of a picaro is the same.The only difference is that philosophers gave up all they had for their love of that kind of life,and picaros find it without giving up anything.Philosophers abandoned their estates to contemplate natural and divine things,the movements of the heavens,with less distraction;picaros do it to sow all their wild oats.Philosophers threw their goods into the sea;picaros throw them in their stomachs.Philosophers despised those things as vain and transitory;while picaros don't care for them because they bring along cares and work--something that goes against their profession.So the picaresque life is more leisurely than the life of kings,emperors,and popes.I decided to travel this road because it was freer,less dangerous,and never sad.
