Lázaro–the Toledo constable: employer–employee relationship

Lázaro’s employment under the Toledo constable is a short-lived attempt to exchange precarious service for safer, steadier work. It ends when criminals attack the two men with stones and clubs, leaving the constable badly injured and Lázaro unwilling to continue in a dangerous occupation.

Appointment and Circumstances

After saving enough through four years of selling water to buy respectable second-hand clothes, Lázaro leaves that work. He then takes a position as a guard under a constable. The appointment is presented as another practical step in his search for a livelihood, rather than a lasting vocation.

The Attack and Departure

Lázaro soon judges the guard’s work too dangerous. One night, criminals assault him and his master with stones and clubs. The constable confronts the attackers and is badly beaten, while Lázaro escapes capture. The difference in their immediate fates does not make the employment tolerable: Lázaro leaves the post soon afterward.

Significance in Lázaro’s Working Life

The brief service continues a pattern in which employment offers a possible foothold but exposes Lázaro to new risks. His departure follows not a dismissal or a stated dispute with the constable, but his assessment of the danger. He next seeks a more secure arrangement, and, with support from friends and people of rank, obtains work in the king’s service as a town crier. The constable episode thus forms a transition between Lázaro’s precarious jobs and the position on which he says he continues to live.