There is no position,no science or art a man does not have to apply all his intelligence to if he wants to perfect his knowledge of it.Suppose a cobbler has been working at his job for thirty years.Tell him to make you a pair of shoes that are wide at the toe,high at the instep,with laces.
Will he make them?Before you get a pair the way you asked him,your feet will be shriveled.Ask a philosopher why a fly's stool comes out black when it's on a white object and white when it's on something black.He'll turn as red as a maiden who is caught doing it by candlelight,and he won't know what to answer.Or if he does answer this question,he won't be able to answer a hundred other tomfooleries.
Near the town of Illescas,I ran into a fellow who I knew was an archpicaro by the way he looked.I went up to him the way I would to an oracle to ask him how I should act in this new life of mine so I wouldn't be arrested.He said that if I wanted to keep free of the law I should combine Mary's idleness with Martha's work.In other words,if I was going to be a picaro I should also be a kitchenhelper,a brothel servant,a slaughterhouse boy,or a baggage carrier,which was a way of covering up for the picaresque life.Furthermore,he said that because he hadn't done this,even after the twenty years he'd been following his profession,they had just yesterday whipped him up one side and down the other for being a tramp.
I thanked him for the warning and took his advice.When I got to Madrid I bought a porter's strap and stood in the middle of the square,happier than a cat with gibblets.As luck would have it,the first person to put me to work was a maiden (God forgive my lie)about eighteen years old,but more primped up than a novice in a convent.She told me to follow her.She took me down so many streets that I thought she was getting paid for walking or was playing a trick on me.After a while we came to a house that I recognized as one of ill repute when I saw the side door,the patio,and the beastly old maids dancing there.
We went into her cell,and she asked me if I wanted her to pay me for my work before we left.I told her I would wait until we got to the place where I was taking the bundle.I loaded it on my back and started down the road to the Guadalajara gate.She told me to put it in a carriage to go to the Nagera fair.The load was light since it was mainly made up of mortars,cosmetics,and perfume bottles.On the way I found out that she had been in that profession for eight years.
"The first one to prick me,"she said,"was the Father Rector at Seville,where I'm from,and he did it with such devotion that from that day to this I'm very devoted to them.He put me in the charge of a holy woman,and she provided me with everything I needed for more than six months.Then a captain took me from there.And since that time I've been led from pillar to post until here I am,like this.I wish to God I had never left that good father who treated me like a daughter and loved me like his sister.Anyway,I've had to work just to be able to eat."
