Lhasaero uses reed to suck the drunk man's wine

Lázaro’s theft of wine from the blind man is a compact contest of appetite and ingenuity that ends in bodily retaliation. Unable to drink openly from the jug his master guards, Lázaro moves from quick, silent sips to a rye-straw siphon and then to a concealed hole sealed with wax. The escalating tricks briefly make the blind man’s precautions useless, but discovery turns a small act of survival into a lasting rupture between them.

The Guarded Jug

At meals, the blind man kept a small wine jug beside him. Lázaro would seize it swiftly, take a couple of silent swallows, and put it back. The theft worked only briefly: the diminishing wine gave him away, and the blind man began to hold the jug by its handle rather than leave it unprotected.

That precaution changed the shape of the theft but did not end it. Lázaro obtained a long rye straw, inserted it into the jug’s neck, and sucked out the wine while the blind man held the vessel. The image of attraction between iron and a magnet gives the maneuver a comic precision: the guarded wine seems to be drawn toward Lázaro despite the barrier of his master’s grip. The blind man, however, detected the loss and altered his method again, placing the jug between his legs and covering its mouth with his hand as he drank.

The Wax-Sealed Hole

Once the straw no longer worked, Lázaro devised a more elaborate way to reach the wine. He made a tiny hole in the bottom of the jug and carefully sealed it with a thin layer of wax. At mealtime he pretended to be cold and squeezed between the blind man’s legs, ostensibly to warm himself by the poor fire. Its heat melted the wax; wine trickled through the opening into Lázaro’s waiting mouth, and he positioned himself so that not a drop was lost.

The blind man drank from the jug and found it empty, yet could not at first understand how the wine had vanished. Lázaro denied taking it, pointing out that his master never removed his hand from the top. The denial exploits the difference between guarding the opening and guarding the whole vessel: the blind man’s attention has been fixed on the neck, while the concealed breach lies beneath it.

Discovery and Retaliation

By turning and feeling the jug, the blind man eventually found the hole and understood the trick. He did not confront Lázaro immediately. The next day, when Lázaro again settled beneath the vessel to drink, the blind man waited until his servant was absorbed in the pleasure of the wine, his face tilted upward and his eyes half closed. Then he lifted the jug with both hands and smashed it against Lázaro’s mouth with all his strength.

The blow knocked Lázaro unconscious. Shards cut his face in several places and broke his teeth, losses he says remained with him into the time of his narration. The punishment therefore outlasts the moment of the theft: the jug’s fragments mark Lázaro’s body and make the hidden contest’s cost permanent.

A Changed Master–Servant Bond

Afterward, the blind man washed the cuts with wine and, smiling, remarked, «The same thing that hurt you now heals you and makes you recover.» The wine that Lázaro had stolen becomes the substance used to treat the wounds inflicted in retaliation. The gesture joins mockery to care: the blind man tends the injuries, but his amusement makes clear that the punishment has also pleased him.

Lázaro says that from then on he hated the blind man, despite the master’s outward show of affection and attentive treatment. The attack is a turning point in their relationship, not an isolated correction. The blind man continued to strike him without apparent cause, slap his head, and pull his hair; Lázaro consequently resolved to free himself, though he waited for a safer and more convenient opportunity rather than acting at once. The wine episode thus establishes both sides of their unequal education: Lázaro learns to improvise against surveillance, while the blind man answers ingenuity with a violence that makes escape an objective.

Hunger, Ingenuity, and the Episode’s Form

The incident belongs to Lázaro’s early service under the blind man, where the need for food and drink repeatedly drives practical invention. Here the ordinary act of guarding and sharing a meal becomes a sequence of countermeasures: quick swallows, the straw, the jug’s repositioning, the wax seal, discovery, and the blow. Each new precaution prompts a new device, until the contest shifts from access to wine to the physical consequences of being caught.

Because Lázaro recounts the episode from a later point in his life, the narrative holds together the ingenuity of the boy and the permanent damage remembered by the adult narrator. The trick is presented with comic ingenuity, but the broken teeth and lasting scars prevent the comedy from canceling the violence. The vessel itself changes significance as the episode unfolds: first a tempting source of drink, then a barrier to be circumvented, then the weapon of retaliation, and finally the wine used to wash the wounds. That reversal makes the scene a concentrated instance of the resourcefulness and cruelty that define Lázaro’s first apprenticeship.