Pablo de Segovia, the Spanish Sharper - Francisco de Quevedo (good summer reads .TXT) 📗

Some gave her the name of a pleasure-broker, others of a reconciler; but the ruder sort, in coarse language, called her downright bawd, and universal money-catcher. It would make anybody in love with her to see with what a pleasant countenance she took this from all persons. I shall not spend much time in relating what a penitential life she led; but she had a room into which nobody went besides herself, and sometimes I was admitted on account of my tender years; it was all beset with dead men’s skulls, which she said were to put her in mind of mortality, though others in spite to her pretended they were to put tricks upon the living. Her bed was corded with halters malefactors had been hanged in; and she used to say to me: “D’ye see these things? I show them as remembrances to those I have a kindness for, that they may take heed how they live, and avoid coming to such an end.”

My parents had much bickering about me, each of them contending to have me brought up to his or her trade; but I, who from my infancy had more gentleman like thoughts, applied myself to neither. My father used to say to me: “My child, this trade of stealing is no mechanic trade, but a liberal art.” Then pausing and fetching a sigh, he went on: “There is no living in this world without stealing. Why do you think the constables and other officers hate us as they do? Why do they sometimes banish, sometimes whip us at the cart’s tail, and at last hang us up like flitches of bacon without waiting for All Saints’ Day to come?”5 (I cannot refrain from tears when I think of it, for the good old man wept like a child, remembering how often they had flogged him.) “The reason is, because they would have no other thieves among them but themselves and their gang; but a sharp wit brings us out of all dangers. In my younger days I plied altogether in the churches, not out of pure religious zeal, and had been long ago carted, but that I never told tales, though they put me to the rack; for I never confessed but when our holy mother the Church commands us. With this business and my trade, I have made a shift to maintain your mother as decently as I could.” “You maintain me!” answered my mother, in a great rage (for she was vexed I would not apply me to the sorcery), “it was I that maintained you; I brought you out of prison by my art, and kept you there with my money. You may thank the potions I gave you for not confessing, and not your own courage. My good pots did the feat; and were it not for fear I should be heard in the streets, I would tell all the story, how I got in at the chimney, and brought you out at the top of the house.” Her passion was so high, that she would not have given over here, had not the string of a pair of beads broke, which were all dead men’s teeth she kept for private uses. I told them very resolutely I would apply myself to virtue, and go on in the good way I had proposed, and therefore desired them to put me to school, for nothing was to be done without reading and writing. They approved of what I said, though they both muttered at it a while betwixt them. My mother fell to stringing her dead men’s teeth, and my father went away, as he said, to trim one⁠—I know not whether he meant his beard or his purse. I was left alone, praising God that he had given me such clever parents, and so zealous for my welfare.

II

How I went to school, and what happened to me there.

The next day my primer was bought, and my schoolmaster bespoke. I went to school, sir, and he received me with a pleasant countenance, telling me I had the looks of a sharp lad and intelligent. That he might not seem to be mistaken in his judgment, I took care to learn my lessons well that morning. My master made me sit next to him, and gave me good marks every day, because I came first and went away last, staying behind to run on some errands for my mistress, and thus I gained all their affections. They favoured me so much that all the boys were envious. I made it my business to keep company with gentlemen’s sons, above all others, but particularly with a son of Don Alonso Coronel de Zuñiga: I used to eat my afternoon’s luncheon with him, went to his house every holiday, and waited on him upon other days. The other boys, either because I took no notice of them, or that they thought I aimed too high, were continually giving of me nicknames relating to my father’s trade. Some called me Mr. Razor, others Mr. Stuckup. One to excuse his envy would say he hated me, because my mother had sucked the blood of his two little sisters in the night; another, that my father had been sent for to his house to frighten away the vermin, for nothing was safe where he came. Some, as I passed by cried out “Cat”; others, “Puss, Puss.” Another said, “I threw rotten oranges at his mother when she was carted.” Yet, for all their backbiting, glory to God, my shoulders were broad enough to bear it; and though I was out of countenance yet I took no notice, but put all up, till one day a boy had the impudence to call me son of a whore and a witch; he spoke it so plain, that though I had been glad it had been better wrapped up, I took up a stone, and