ket, and I ate it like a human being. It was the winter
season, when manchets and mantequillas abound in Seville; and I was so
well supplied with them, that many an Antonio was pawned or sold that I
might breakfast. In short, I spent a student's life, without hunger or
itch, and that is saying everything for it; for if hunger and itch were
not identified with the student's life, there would be none more
agreeable in the world; since virtue and pleasure go hand in hand
through it, and it is passed in learning and taking diversion. This
happy life ended too soon for me. It appeared to the professors that the
students spent the half-hour between the classes not in studying their
lessons, but in playing with me; and therefore they ordered my masters
not to bring me any more to the college. I was left at home accordingly,
at my old post behind the door; and notwithstanding the order graciously
given by the head of the family, that I should be at liberty day and
night, I was again confined to a small mat, with a chain round my neck.
Ah, friend Scipio, did you but know how sore a thing it is to pass from
a state of happiness to one of wretchedness! When sorrows and distresses
flood the whole course of life, either they soon end in death, or their
continuance begets a habit of endurance, which generally alleviates
their greatest rigour; but when one passes suddenly and unexpectedly
from a miserable and calamitous lot to one of prosperity and enjoyment,
and soon after relapses into his former state of woe and suffering: this
is such a poignant affliction, that if it does not extinguish life, it
is only to make it a prolonged torment. Well, I returned to my ordinary
rations, and to the bones which were flung to me by a negress belonging
to the house; but even these were partly filched from me by two cats,
who very nimbly snapped up whatever fell beyond the range of my chain.
Brother Scipio, as you hope that heaven will prosper all your desires,
do suffer me to philosophise a little at present; for unless I utter the
reflections which have now occurred to my mind, I feel that my story
will not be complete or duly edifying.

_Scip._ Beware, Berganza, that this inclination to philosophise is not a
temptation of the fiend; for slander has no better cloak to conceal its
malice than the pretence that all it utters are maxims of philosophers,
that evil speaking is moral reproval, and the exposure of the faults of
others is nothing but ho