"A prosperous man who acts unwisely should not be angry when misfortune comes."I'm writing this epigram for a reason:I never had the mentality or the ability to keep myself in a good position when fortune had put me there.Change was a fundamental part of my life that remained with me both in good,prosperous times and in bad,disastrous ones.As it was,I was living as good a life as any patriarch ever had,eating more than a friar who has been invited out to dinner,drinking more than a thirsty quack doctor,better dressed than a priest,and in my pocket were two dozen pieces of silver--more reliable than a beggar in Madrid.My house was as well stocked as a beehive filled with honey,my daughter was born with the odor of saintliness about her,and I had a job that even a pew opener in the church at Toledo would have envied.
Then I heard about the fleet making ready to sail for Algiers.The news intrigued me,and like a good son I decided to follow in the footsteps of my good father Tome Gonzalez (may he rest in peace).I wanted to be an example--a model--for posterity.I didn't want to be remembered for leading that crafty blind man,or for nibbling on the bread of the stingy priest,or for serving that penniless squire,or even for calling out other people's crimes.The kind of example I wanted to be was one who would show those blind Moors the error of their ways,tear open and sink those arrogant pirate ships,serve under a valiant captain who belonged to the Order of Saint John (and I did enlist with a man like that as his valet,with the condition that everything I took from the Moors I would be able to keep,and it turned out that way).Finally,what I wanted to do was to be a model for shouting at and rousing the troops with our war cry:"Saint James be with us....Attack,Spaniards!"
I said good-by to my adoring wife and my dear daughter.My daughter begged me not to forget to bring her back a nice Moorish boy,and my wife told me to be sure to send,by the first messenger,a slave girl to wait on her and some Barbary gold to console her while I was gone.I asked my
lord the archpriest's permission,and I put my wife and daughter in his charge so he would take care of them and provide for them.He promised me he would treat them as his very own.
I left Toledo happy,proud,and content,full of high hopes--the way men are when they go to war.With me were a great number of friends and neighbors who were going on the same expedition,hoping to better their fortunes.We arrived at Murcia with the intention of going to Cartagena to embark.And there something happened me that I had no desire for.I saw that fortune had put me at the top of its whimsical wheel and with its usual swiftness had pushed me to the heights of worldly prosperity,and now it was beginning to throw me down to the very bottom.
It happened that when I went to an inn,I saw a half-man who,with all the loose and knotted threads hanging from his clothes,had more the appearance of an old goat than a man.His hat was pulled down so far you couldn't see his face,his cheek was resting on his hand,and one leg was lying on his sword,which was in a half scabbard made of strips of cloth.He had his hat cocked jauntily over one ear (there was no crown on it,so all the hot air coming out of his head could evaporate).His jacket was cut in the French style--so slashed there wasn't a piece big enough to wrap a mustard seed in.His shirt was skin:you could see it through the lattice work of his clothes.His pants were the same material.As for his stockings,one was green and the other red,and they barely covered his ankles.His shoes were in the barefoot style:worn both up and down.By a feather sewn in his hat,the way soldiers dressed,I suspected that he was,in fact,a soldier.
With this thought in mind,I asked him where he was from and where he was going.He raised his eyes to see who was asking,and we both recognized each other:it was the squire I had served under at Toledo.I was astonished to see him in that suit.
When the squire saw my look of amazement,he said:"I'm not surprised to see how startled you are to see me this way,but you won't be when I tell you what happened to me from that day I left you in Toledo until today.As I was going back to the house with the change from the doubloon to pay my creditors,I came across a veiled woman who pulled at my cloak and,sighing and sobbing,pleaded with me to help her out of the plight she was in.
