Chap­ter III: How Lazaro Escaped from the Sea begins with a chaot­ic, breath­less effort to grasp at both sur­vival and wealth. Trapped between ter­ror and hope, Lazaro push­es his body into the waves, claw­ing toward a chest of trea­sure float­ing just out of reach. He can­not swim, yet neces­si­ty com­pels him for­ward. The sea, cru­el and cold, bat­ters his limbs while fish snap at his skin as if mock­ing his des­per­a­tion. Every gulp of sea­wa­ter feels like pun­ish­ment, remind­ing him of the bit­ter con­coc­tion his wife once fed him—a joke then, but cru­el­ly echoed now. Just as his arms lose strength and his lungs cry out, a fish­ing net entan­gles him. Caught among flail­ing fish and suf­fo­cat­ing strands, Lazaro is dragged upward, bare­ly alive and far from tri­umphant. The water spits him out not as a vic­tor, but as part of the catch.

When the fish­er­men final­ly lift their net, they recoil at what they see. His body, wrapped in rope and sea­weed, appears half-human, half-demon to their fright­ened eyes. Pan­ic spreads among them; one man shouts to cut the line, fear­ing they’ve caught a cursed soul. A quick slice sev­ers the teth­er that once bound Lazaro to his hopes. Along with it, his dream of trea­sure sinks qui­et­ly back into the deep. The men, half-con­vinced they’ve encoun­tered some­thing unnat­ur­al, are star­tled to find him breath­ing. He is offered wine—sharp and stinging—yet it rush­es through his body like life itself, warm­ing a spir­it chilled by salt and despair. Lazaro, too exhaust­ed to move, lies there motion­less, torn between laugh­ter and mourn­ing.

Once awake, his thoughts turn first not to thanks, but to the rope. He asks where it came from and how long he had been bound, each answer weigh­ing heav­i­ly on his sense of betray­al. The fish­er­men, puz­zled and wide-eyed, say lit­tle, treat­ing him as both mar­vel and mys­tery. Lazaro real­izes they see him not as a man res­cued, but as a sto­ry, some­thing to tell oth­ers with wide ges­tures and wild details. He remains qui­et, know­ing too well how quick­ly pity turns to exploita­tion. Though fed and warmed, he can­not shake the feel­ing that he has exchanged one prison for anoth­er. The chest—his imag­ined escape from poverty—is gone. The sea has kept it, and he is left once again to start with noth­ing.

Despite his exhaus­tion, Lazaro’s wit does not aban­don him. He thinks about how fate has toyed with him, dan­gling rich­es only to rip them away. This game of near-tri­umph fol­lowed by cru­el rever­sal has become a pat­tern he knows too well. Inward­ly, he mocks the idea of divine favor, won­der­ing if heav­en watch­es for amuse­ment rather than jus­tice. Yet beneath the bit­ter­ness, there is a strange resilience. He has lived through more than most men could endure. If noth­ing else, he can say he sur­vived what oth­ers would not. His tone, sharp as ever, masks the ache of anoth­er loss, anoth­er chance swept away like foam on the tide.

This chap­ter cap­tures the frag­ile space between sur­vival and fail­ure, where effort is not always reward­ed and good for­tune slips through the cracks. Lazaro’s body may be weak, but his voice remains defi­ant, laced with sar­casm and strange pride. He may have emerged with­out gold, but he car­ries some­thing heavier—an unbreak­able under­stand­ing of how lit­tle con­trol a man has over his fate. The world, as he sees it, does not care for hon­esty or strength, only for spec­ta­cle and luck. Yet in the end, even soaked and pen­ni­less, he refus­es to col­lapse. He ris­es again, not because he believes in mir­a­cles, but because he knows that those who keep mov­ing often find new paths—even when the sea has swal­lowed the one they want­ed most.