Chap­ter VI: How They Took Lazaro to Tole­do begins not with a jour­ney but with a night of utter con­fu­sion that spi­raled far beyond con­trol. In a crowd­ed inn brim­ming with sus­pi­cion, noise, and shad­ows, neigh­bors and con­sta­bles alike rushed in, respond­ing to cries of theft. Sailors claimed their fish had been stolen, prompt­ing a fran­tic search for cul­prits no one had seen. Amid the mad­ness, Lazaril­lo was not mere­ly a bystander. He was returned to the very vat where he had suf­fered once before, wedged into the space as if he were both part of the fur­ni­ture and the farce. From this dark, damp spot, he became an acci­den­tal wit­ness to a bizarre escape—a priest and the innkeeper’s daugh­ter scram­bling out a win­dow with­out clothes, drenched and ter­ri­fied. Their fool­ish dash under the moon­light was mis­tak­en for crim­i­nal flight, seal­ing their fate in jail and leav­ing Lazaril­lo, once again, stuck in a nar­ra­tive not of his mak­ing.

The morn­ing brought no clar­i­ty, only after­math. Fish­er­men, obliv­i­ous to the depth of the hav­oc they had caused, packed up and left for Tole­do, unaware their out­cry had sparked arrests and ridicule. For Lazaril­lo, the episode marked anoth­er bruise on a life already filled with humil­i­a­tions. He was dragged from the inn, not with sym­pa­thy, but as an incon­ve­nience blamed for what oth­ers had done. His guardians, angry and embar­rassed, saw him not as a boy but as a sym­bol of every mis­step, lash­ing out with words and fists. Along the way to Tole­do, he was beat­en relent­less­ly, their fury boil­ing over in curs­es. They shout­ed that he was like an oak tree—stubborn, unyield­ing, deserv­ing of pun­ish­ment until he broke or bled. Each step hurt more than the last, yet he remained silent, know­ing pain offered no defense and no reprieve.

The jour­ney to Tole­do was nei­ther a pun­ish­ment with pur­pose nor a hope for reform. It was sim­ply a release of frus­tra­tion, with Lazaril­lo as the out­let. His bruis­es became proof of oth­ers’ fail­ures, and no one asked what he had felt or seen. In his mind, he turned inward, try­ing to make sense of the events. He thought of how quick­ly roles change—how lovers become fugi­tives, how onlook­ers become sus­pects, how truth becomes irrel­e­vant when author­i­ty demands answers. His suf­fer­ing had no clear vil­lain and no res­o­lu­tion, just a tan­gled web of fool­ish­ness that left him hurt and blamed. He real­ized that some­times, mis­for­tune requires no planning—it sim­ply finds those too weak to resist it.

Tole­do, with its grand build­ings and crowd­ed streets, did not greet him with promise. It mere­ly became the next stage in a long pat­tern of insta­bil­i­ty. As Lazaril­lo limped into the city, he wasn’t curi­ous or afraid—just numb. His body ached, but worse was the weight of know­ing that those who brought him here would for­get his name long before his bruis­es healed. He saw how pow­er, whether reli­gious or legal, turned quick­ly against those with­out defense. The priest who ran naked into the night would like­ly be for­giv­en. Lazaril­lo, who had sim­ply exist­ed in the wrong place, would be remem­bered only as a trou­ble­mak­er, though he had caused no harm.

Still, in his qui­et reflec­tion, he clung to some­thing deep­er. He thought about his past mas­ters and the lessons each had taught him, not through kind­ness but through cru­el­ty. He remem­bered one who spoke of the futil­i­ty of striv­ing with­out the favor of heav­en, and the idea returned to him now with sharp clar­i­ty. Peo­ple may pun­ish each oth­er out of pride, but true peace—or success—must come from some­thing high­er. With­out divine grace, all efforts col­lapse into van­i­ty, like fish spilled on dry land. Lazaril­lo, though bro­ken, did not lose his faith in change. He believed that life might still hold a rever­sal for him, just as it had so often turned against him before.

In the qui­et of his pain, a strange sort of resilience grew. The city did not wel­come him, but he walked its stones any­way. His dig­ni­ty had been stripped away piece by piece, yet some­thing with­in him refused to sur­ren­der. He was still the boy who sur­vived every mas­ter, every lie, every fall. And now, in Tole­do, he would begin again—not by choice, but because mov­ing for­ward was the only direc­tion left. His sto­ry would go on, as long as he could keep walk­ing and keep telling it.