Chap­ter I opens with a can­did address from Lazaril­lo, who intro­duces his life as a tale shaped by adver­si­ty and sur­vival, not grandeur. He was born by the Tormes Riv­er, which earned him his sur­name, to par­ents who had lit­tle to offer besides their good inten­tions. His father, Tome Gon­za­les, worked at a mill but was lat­er caught steal­ing from sacks of grain. The pun­ish­ment was swift—he was sen­tenced and sent to serve in the army, where he even­tu­al­ly died. Left alone, his moth­er, Antona Perez, moved with Lazaro to the city and did what she could to keep them afloat. Even­tu­al­ly, she took in laun­dry and served food to stu­dents and sol­diers to earn a liv­ing. Dur­ing this time, she began a rela­tion­ship with a black man named Zaide, who brought warmth, food, and even affec­tion into their lives—until he too was caught steal­ing and was bru­tal­ly pun­ished, leav­ing the fam­i­ly in worse straits than before.

It was in this cycle of brief com­forts and sud­den loss­es that Lazarillo’s ear­ly char­ac­ter took shape. Neces­si­ty forced him to under­stand the world quick­ly, and hunger sharp­ened his instincts more than any for­mal edu­ca­tion could have. When he was still quite young, his moth­er arranged for him to serve a blind man, believ­ing it would offer him a more sta­ble life. The blind man, how­ev­er, was no gen­tle guardian. He was a mas­ter of trick­ery and tight-fist­ed with food, often forc­ing Lazaro to sur­vive on the scraps that clev­er­ness could earn. Though phys­i­cal­ly weak, the blind man’s mind was razor-sharp, and his dai­ly cons—from fake mir­a­cles to false blessings—taught Lazaro the dark­er sides of human nature. In this cru­el appren­tice­ship, Lazaril­lo began to absorb the tools he would use for the rest of his life: obser­va­tion, adap­ta­tion, and an unwa­ver­ing instinct to endure.

The rela­tion­ship between Lazaril­lo and his mas­ter is marked by a tense bal­ance of fear, depen­dence, and revenge. The blind man’s cru­el­ty is not random—it is cal­cu­lat­ed, a means of keep­ing Lazaril­lo des­per­ate and obe­di­ent. But the boy slow­ly learns how to turn the blind man’s own tricks against him. In one episode, he man­ages to siphon wine from the jug the blind man keeps close, using a straw made from bread. When caught, he’s beat­en mer­ci­less­ly, yet even this does­n’t stop him from con­tin­u­ing his small rebel­lions. He ties the jug so tight­ly that it breaks, tricks the blind man into smash­ing his head against a stone post, and swaps sausages with turnips just to taste some­thing bet­ter. These acts, though mis­chie­vous, are born of neces­si­ty and show the begin­ning of his trans­for­ma­tion from vic­tim to sur­vivor.

Their trav­els bring them to Escalona, a place that marks the end of their trou­bled jour­ney togeth­er. It is here that Lazarillo’s resent­ment reach­es its peak. After endur­ing beat­ings, lies, and con­stant hunger, he takes a cal­cu­lat­ed risk. Dur­ing a meal, he removes the sausage the blind man was about to eat and replaces it with a bit­ter root. The blind man, enraged and sus­pect­ing foul play, forces Lazaril­lo to open his mouth. The decep­tion is dis­cov­ered, and in a fit of fury, the blind man strikes him so vio­lent­ly that it opens a wound on his head. But in the very next moment, Lazaril­lo gets the final word—he tricks the blind man into leap­ing head­first into a stone post while attempt­ing to cross a stream, then runs away, leav­ing him behind. That act, bru­tal as it was, marks the end of Lazarillo’s first chap­ter and the begin­ning of his jour­ney on his own terms.

Reflect­ing on these ear­ly mis­for­tunes, Lazaril­lo doesn’t ask for pity. Instead, he offers his sto­ry as an exam­ple of what the world tru­ly demands from those born into hard­ship: wit, flex­i­bil­i­ty, and the abil­i­ty to find dig­ni­ty in undig­ni­fied sit­u­a­tions. His lessons are not drawn from books but from bruis­es, missed meals, and the cold cal­cu­la­tions of sur­vival. The tone is both wry and hon­est, and even as he recounts acts of deceit, he main­tains a sharp aware­ness of the social hypocrisy around him. In this first chap­ter, he lays the foun­da­tion for a sto­ry that is not just about suf­fer­ing, but about how a clever boy learns to live in a world that offers lit­tle kind­ness to the pow­er­less. Through trick­ery and resilience, he begins to carve out a place for himself—not through virtue, but through a relent­less refusal to be defeat­ed.