Pablo de Segovia, the Spanish Sharper by Francisco de Quevedo (e book reading free TXT) 📕

passed on till night. Don Diego asked me how he should do to persuade his guts that they had dined, for they would not believe it. That house was an hospital of dizzy heads, proceeding from empty stomachs, as others are of surfeits. Suppertime came, for afternoonings were never heard of there; it was much shorter than the dinner, and not mutton, but a little roasted goat: sure the devil could never have contrived worse. Our starveling Master Cabra said, “It is very wholesome and beneficial to eat light suppers, that the stomach may not be overburdened”; and then he quoted some cursed physician, that was long since in hell. He extolled spare diet, alleging that it prevented uneasy dreams, though he knew that in his house it was impossible to dream of anything but eating. They supped, and we supped, and none had supper. We went to bed, and neither Don Diego nor I could sleep one wink all that night, for he lay contriving how to complain to his father, that he might remove him, and I advising him so to do; and at last I said to him, “Pray, sir, are you sure we are alive, for, to tell you the truth, I have a strong fancy that we were slain in the battle with the herb-women, and are now souls suffering in purgatory, in which case it will be to no purpose to talk of your father’s fetching us away, without he has our souls prayed out of this place of punishment.” Having spent the whole night in this discourse, we got a little nap towards morning, till it was time to rise; six o’clock struck, Cabra called, and we all went to school; but when I went to dress me, my doublet was two handfuls too big; and my breeches, which before were close, now hung so loose as if they had been none of my own. My very teeth were already all furred, and looked as yellow as amber; such a wonderful change had one day wrought. When we came to school, I was ordered to decline some nouns, and was so wonderful hungry, that I ate half my words for want of more substantial diet. Any man will easily believe this, who does but hear what Cabra’s man told me, which was, that at his first coming he saw two great Flanders geldings brought into the house, and two days after they went out perfect racers, so light, that the very wind would carry them away; that he saw mastiff dogs come in, and in less than three hours they went out converted into greyhounds; that one Lent he saw abundance of men, some thrusting their heads, some their feet, and some their whole body, into the porch; and this continued a long time, very many people flocking from all parts to do so; and that he asking one day, what could be the meaning of it, Cabra was very angry, but one in the crowd answered, “Some of those people are troubled with chilblains, others with the itch, and others with lice; all which distempers and vermin died as soon as they came into that house, so that they never felt them more.” He assured me this was very true, and I, who was acquainted with the house, believe it, which I am fain to take notice of, lest what I say should be looked upon as an hyperbole.

To return to the school, he set us our lesson, and we conned it, and so we went on in the same course of life I have here delivered, only that our master added bacon in the boiling of his pot, because going abroad one day, he was told that to boil meat without bacon, betokened a scandalous race descended either from Moors or Jews. For this reason he provided a small tin case, all full of holes, like a nutmeg-grater, which he opened, and put in a bit of bacon that filled it; then shutting the box close, hung it with a string in the pot, that some relish of it might come through the holes, and the bacon remain for the next day. Afterwards he thought this too great an expense, and therefore for the future only dipped the bacon into the pot. It is easy to guess what a life we led with this sort of diet and usage. Don Diego and I were in such miserable condition, that since we could find no relief as to eating, after a month was expired, we contrived, at last, not to rise so early in the morning, and therefore resolved to pretend we were sick, but not feverish, because that cheat we thought would be easily discovered. The head or toothache were inconsiderable distempers; at last we said we had the gripes, believing, that rather than be at a penny charges, our master would apply no remedy. The devil ordered worse than we expected, for Cabra had an old receipt, which descended to him by inheritance from his father, who was an apothecary. As soon as he was told our distemper, he prepared a clyster, and sending for an old aunt of his, threescore and ten years of age, that served him for a nurse upon occasion, ordered her to give each of us a potion. She began with Don Diego; the poor wretch shrunk up, and the old jade being blind, and her hands shaking, instead of giving him it inwardly, let it fly betwixt his shirt and his back up to his very poll; so that became an outward ornament which should have served for a lining within. Only God knows how we were plagued with the old woman. She was so deaf, that she heard nothing, but understood by signs, though she was half blind; and such an everlasting prayer, that one day the string of her beads broke over the pot as it was boiling, and our broth came