Lhasa Luo borrowed a stone pillar to injure the blind man and then fled

Lázaro’s flight from the blind man is a carefully staged reversal: using a swollen stream, a stone pillar, and the blind man’s reliance on his guide, Lázaro turns the obligations of service into a weapon and escapes. The blow leaves the blind man gravely injured, while Lázaro abandons him among the people who come to help and runs to Torrijos. The scene closes their apprenticeship in hardship with a cruel answer to the blind man’s earlier lessons in survival.

Causes and Background

By the time Lázaro acts, he has already resolved to leave. The blind man’s latest trick confirms a decision formed through their repeated clashes, and the account presents the escape not as a sudden impulse but as a plan Lázaro has been considering. His opportunity comes on a day of persistent rain, after a night of heavy downpour, when the two are out begging in a village. The blind man stays beneath porticoes to avoid getting wet; as evening approaches and the rain continues, he proposes that they go to an inn.

Getting there requires them to cross a stream swollen by the rain. The blind man cannot judge the crossing for himself and depends on Lázaro to lead him. Lázaro exploits that practical dependence, claiming that he knows a place where the stream narrows enough for them to cross quickly without getting wet. The false offer fits their familiar relationship: the boy appears to be carrying out his duty as guide, while quietly directing his master into danger.

The Deception at the Pillar

The blind man welcomes the advice and tells Lázaro to take him to the narrow point. He explains that it is winter, the water is unhealthy, and wet feet are especially unwelcome. Lázaro draws him out from under the porticoes and positions him directly before a stone pillar in the village square. The pillar supports the arcades of the surrounding houses; it is solid architecture, not a crossing over water. Lázaro nevertheless identifies it as the stream’s narrowest point.

The rain is pouring down, and the blind man is getting soaked. Lázaro’s deception succeeds because the circumstances make haste desirable and because the blind man trusts him to choose the route. At Lázaro’s instruction, the blind man stands at the exact spot, while Lázaro jumps behind the pillar, out of his path. He urges the blind man to leap as far as possible to reach the other side. The supposed guide has arranged the scene so that the blind man’s attempt to follow his directions will bring him headlong into stone.

The blind man steps back to gain momentum, then launches himself with full force and strikes the pillar with his head. The impact reverberates through the square; he falls backward, nearly dead, with his head badly smashed. The crossing that was supposed to spare him cold water has instead left him gravely hurt. The reversal is physical and immediate: the master who has repeatedly used his wits against a dependent guide is now undone by trusting that guide’s false directions.

Escape and Aftermath

Lázaro answers the fallen blind man with a taunt that recalls their earlier encounter with the sausage and the pillar. This reference makes the escape more than a practical break: Lázaro frames the injury as a repayment for the blind man’s previous tricks. His words sharpen the scene’s reversal, but the narration also records its human cost in the description of the blind man lying nearly dead with his head broken.

A crowd gathers to help the injured man. Lázaro leaves him in their hands, runs through the village gate, and reaches Torrijos before nightfall. He does not learn what becomes of the blind man afterward, and says he did not care to find out. The escape therefore ends not with reconciliation or a confirmed death, but with separation and deliberate uncertainty about the injured man’s fate.

Narrative Significance

The episode converts the blind man’s dependence on Lázaro into the means of Lázaro’s liberation. Rain, darkness, the swollen stream, and the need to hurry all belong to the immediate situation; none changes the fact that the pillar is a fixed obstacle. What changes the outcome is the imbalance of knowledge between the two: Lázaro can see where he is placing his master, while the blind man must act on his guide’s account of the crossing. The master–servant arrangement that once made Lázaro vulnerable now gives him the opportunity to deceive and escape.

The ending is deliberately double-edged. Lázaro achieves the freedom he has decided to seek, and the blind man’s injury settles their contest through a harsh reversal. Yet Lázaro’s flight leaves the injured man with strangers and closes the episode without disclosing whether he recovers. The scene thus makes escape a decisive gain for Lázaro, but one accomplished through calculated violence rather than a clean severing of service.