LV. OF WHAT BEFELL SANCHO ON THE ROAD, AND OTHER THINGS THAT CANNOT BE SURPASSED…

LV. OF WHAT BEFELL SANCHO ON THE ROAD, AND OTHER THINGS THAT CANNOT BE SURPASSED

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The length of time he delayed with Ricote prevented Sancho from reaching the duke’s castle that day, though he was within half a league of it when night, somewhat dark and cloudy, overtook him. This, however, as it was summer time, did not give him much uneasiness, and he turned aside out of the road intending to wait for morning; but his ill luck and hard fate so willed it that as he was searching about for a place to make himself as comfortable as possible, he and Dapple fell into a deep dark hole that lay among some very old buildings. As he fell he commended himself with all his heart to God, fancying he was not going to stop until he reached the depths of the bottomless pit; but it did not turn out so, for at little more than thrice a man’s height Dapple touched bottom, and he found himself sitting on him without having received any hurt or damage whatever. He felt himself all over and held his breath to try whether he was quite sound or had a hole made in him anywhere, and finding himself all right and whole and in perfect health he was profuse in his thanks to God our Lord for the mercy that had been shown him, for he made sure he had been broken into a thousand pieces. He also felt along the sides of the pit with his hands to see if it were possible to get out of it without help, but he found they were quite smooth and afforded no hold anywhere, at which he was greatly distressed, especially when he heard how pathetically and dolefully Dapple was bemoaning himself, and no wonder he complained, nor was it from ill-temper, for in truth he was not in a very good case. “Alas,” said Sancho, “what unexpected accidents happen at every step to those who live in this miserable world! Who would have said that one who saw himself yesterday sitting on a throne, governor of an island, giving orders to his servants and his vassals, would see himself to-day buried in a pit without a soul to help him, or servant or vassal to come to his relief? Here must we perish with hunger, my ass and myself, if indeed we don’t die first, he of his bruises and injuries, and I of grief and sorrow. At any rate I’ll not be as lucky as my master Don Quixote of La Mancha, when he went down into the cave of that enchanted Montesinos, where he found people to make more of him than if he had been in his own house; for it seems he came in for a table laid out and a bed ready made. There he saw fair and pleasant visions, but here I’ll see, I imagine, toads and adders. Unlucky wretch that I am, what an end my follies and fancies have come to! They’ll take up my bones out of this, when it is heaven’s will that I’m found, picked clean, white and polished, and my good Dapple’s with them, and by that, perhaps, it will be found out who we are, at least by such as have heard that Sancho Panza never separated from his ass, nor his ass from Sancho Panza. Unlucky wretches, I say again, that our hard fate should not let us die in our own country and among our own people, where if there was no help for our misfortune, at any rate there would be someone to grieve for it and to close our eyes as we passed away! O comrade and friend, how ill have I repaid thy faithful services! Forgive me, and entreat Fortune, as well as thou canst, to deliver us out of this miserable strait we are both in; and I promise to put a crown of laurel on thy head, and make thee look like a poet laureate, and give thee double feeds.”

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In this strain did Sancho bewail himself, and his ass listened to him, but answered him never a word, such was the distress and anguish the poor beast found himself in. At length, after a night spent in bitter moanings and lamentations, day came, and by its light Sancho perceived that it was wholly impossible to escape out of that pit without help, and he fell to bemoaning his fate and uttering loud shouts to find out if there was anyone within hearing; but all his shouting was only crying in the wilderness, for there was not a soul anywhere in the neighbourhood to hear him, and then at last he gave himself up for dead. Dapple was lying on his back, and Sancho helped him to his feet, which he was scarcely able to keep; and then taking a piece of bread out of his alforjas which had shared their fortunes in the fall, he gave it to the ass, to whom it was not unwelcome, saying to him as if he understood him, “With bread all sorrows are less.”

And now he perceived on one side of the pit a hole large enough to admit a person if he stooped and squeezed himself into a small compass. Sancho made for it, and entered it by creeping, and found it wide and spacious on the inside, which he was able to see as a ray of sunlight that penetrated what might be called the roof showed it all plainly. He observed too that it opened and widened out into another spacious cavity; seeing which he made his way back to where the ass was, and with a stone began to pick away the clay from the hole until in a short time he had made room for the beast to pass easily, and this accomplished, taking him by the halter, he proceeded to traverse the cavern to see if there was any outlet at the other end. He advanced, sometimes in the dark, sometimes without light, but never without fear; “God Almighty help me!” said he to himself; “this that is a misadventure to me would make a good adventure for my master Don Quixote. He would have been sure to take these depths and dungeons for flowery gardens or the palaces of Galiana, and would have counted upon issuing out of this darkness and imprisonment into some blooming meadow; but I, unlucky that I am, hopeless and spiritless, expect at every step another pit deeper than the first to open under my feet and swallow me up for good; ‘welcome evil, if thou comest alone.’”

In this way and with these reflections he seemed to himself to have travelled rather more than half a league, when at last he perceived a dim light that looked like daylight and found its way in on one side, showing that this road, which appeared to him the road to the other world, led to some opening.

Here Cide Hamete leaves him, and returns to Don Quixote, who in high spirits and satisfaction was looking forward to the day fixed for the battle he was to fight with him who had robbed Doña Rodriguez’s daughter of her honour, for whom he hoped to obtain satisfaction for the wrong and injury shamefully done to her. It came to pass, then, that having sallied forth one morning to practise and exercise himself in what he would have to do in the encounter he expected to find himself engaged in the next day, as he was putting Rocinante through his paces or pressing him to the charge, he brought his feet so close to a pit that but for reining him in tightly it would have been impossible for him to avoid falling into it. He pulled him up, however, without a fall, and coming a little closer examined the hole without dismounting; but as he was looking at it he heard loud cries proceeding from it, and by listening attentively was able to make out that he who uttered them was saying, “Ho, above there! is there any Christian that hears me, or any charitable gentleman that will take pity on a sinner buried alive, on an unfortunate disgoverned governor?”

It struck Don Quixote that it was the voice of Sancho Panza he heard, whereat he was taken aback and amazed, and raising his own voice as much as he could, he cried out, “Who is below there? Who is that complaining?”

“Who should be here, or who should complain,” was the answer, “but the forlorn Sancho Panza, for his sins and for his ill-luck governor of the island of Barataria, squire that was to the famous knight Don Quixote of La Mancha?”

When Don Quixote heard this his amazement was redoubled and his perturbation grew greater than ever, for it suggested itself to his mind that Sancho must be dead, and that his soul was in torment down there; and carried away by this idea he exclaimed, “I conjure thee by everything that as a Catholic Christian I can conjure thee by, tell me who thou art; and if thou art a soul in torment, tell me what thou wouldst have me do for thee; for as my profession is to give aid and succour to those that need it in this world, it will also extend to aiding and succouring the distressed of the other, who cannot help themselves.”

“In that case,” answered the voice, “your worship who speaks to me must be my master Don Quixote of La Mancha; nay, from the tone of the voice it is plain it can be nobody else.”

“Don Quixote I am,” replied Don Quixote, “he whose profession it is to aid and succour the living and the dead in their necessities; wherefore tell me who thou art, for thou art keeping me in suspense; because, if thou art my squire Sancho Panza, and art dead, since the devils have not carried thee off, and thou art by God’s mercy in purgatory, our holy mother the Roman Catholic Church has intercessory means sufficient to release thee from the pains thou art in; and I for my part will plead with her to that end, so far as my substance will go; without further delay, therefore, declare thyself, and tell me who thou art.”

“By all that’s good,” was the answer, “and by the birth of whomsoever your worship chooses, I swear, Señor Don Quixote of La Mancha, that I am your squire Sancho Panza, and that I have never died all my life; but that, having given up my government for reasons that would require more time to explain, I fell last night into this pit where I am now, and Dapple is witness and won’t let me lie, for more by token he is here with me.”

Nor was this all; one would have fancied the ass understood what Sancho said, because that moment he began to bray so loudly that the whole cave rang again.

“Famous testimony!” exclaimed Don Quixote; “I know that bray as well as if I was its mother, and thy voice too, my Sancho. Wait while I go to the duke’s castle, which is close by, and I will bring someone to take thee out of this pit into which thy sins no doubt have brought thee.”

“Go, your worship,” said Sancho, “and come back quick for God’s sake; for I cannot bear being buried alive any longer, and I’m dying of fear.”

Don Quixote left him, and hastened to the castle to tell the duke and duchess what had happened Sancho, and they were not a little astonished at it; they could easily understand his having fallen, from the confirmatory circumstance of the cave which had been in existence there from time immemorial; but they could not imagine how he had quitted the government without their receiving any intimation of his coming. To be brief, they fetched ropes and tackle, as the saying is, and by dint of many hands and much labour they drew up Dapple and Sancho Panza out of the darkness into the light of day. A student who saw him remarked, “That’s the way all bad governors should come out of their governments, as this sinner comes out of the depths of the pit, dead with hunger, pale, and I suppose without a farthing.”

Sancho overheard him and said, “It is eight or ten days, brother growler, since I entered upon the government of the island they gave me, and all that time I never had a bellyful of victuals, no not for an hour; doctors persecuted me and enemies crushed my bones; nor had I any opportunity of taking bribes or levying taxes; and if that be the case, as it is, I don’t deserve, I think, to come out in this fashion; but ‘man proposes and God disposes;’ and God knows what is best, and what suits each one best; and ‘as the occasion, so the behaviour;’ and ‘let nobody say “I won’t drink of this water;”’ and ‘where one thinks there are flitches, there are no pegs;’ God knows my meaning and that’s enough; I say no more, though I could.”

“Be not angry or annoyed at what thou hearest, Sancho,” said Don Quixote, “or there will never be an end of it; keep a safe conscience and let them say what they like; for trying to stop slanderers’ tongues is like trying to put gates to the open plain. If a governor comes out of his government rich, they say he has been a thief; and if he comes out poor, that he has been a noodle and a blockhead.”

“They’ll be pretty sure this time,” said Sancho, “to set me down for a fool rather than a thief.”

Thus talking, and surrounded by boys and a crowd of people, they reached the castle, where in one of the corridors the duke and duchess stood waiting for them; but Sancho would not go up to see the duke until he had first put up Dapple in the stable, for he said he had passed a very bad night in his last quarters; then he went upstairs to see his lord and lady, and kneeling before them he said, “Because it was your highnesses’ pleasure, not because of any desert of my own, I went to govern your island of Barataria, which ‘I entered naked, and naked I find myself; I neither lose nor gain.’ Whether I have governed well or ill, I have had witnesses who will say what they think fit. I have answered questions, I have decided causes, and always dying of hunger, for Doctor Pedro Recio of Tirteafuera, the island and governor doctor, would have it so. Enemies attacked us by night and put us in a great quandary, but the people of the island say they came off safe and victorious by the might of my arm; and may God give them as much health as there’s truth in what they say. In short, during that time I have weighed the cares and responsibilities governing brings with it, and by my reckoning I find my shoulders can’t bear them, nor are they a load for my loins or arrows for my quiver; and so, before the government threw me over I preferred to throw the government over; and yesterday morning I left the island as I found it, with the same streets, houses, and roofs it had when I entered it. I asked no loan of anybody, nor did I try to fill my pocket; and though I meant to make some useful laws, I made hardly any, as I was afraid they would not be kept; for in that case it comes to the same thing to make them or not to make them. I quitted the island, as I said, without any escort except my ass; I fell into a pit, I pushed on through it, until this morning by the light of the sun I saw an outlet, but not so easy a one but that, had not heaven sent me my master Don Quixote, I’d have stayed there till the end of the world. So now my lord and lady duke and duchess, here is your governor Sancho Panza, who in the bare ten days he has held the government has come by the knowledge that he would not give anything to be governor, not to say of an island, but of the whole world; and that point being settled, kissing your worships’ feet, and imitating the game of the boys when they say, ‘leap thou, and give me one,’ I take a leap out of the government and pass into the service of my master Don Quixote; for after all, though in it I eat my bread in fear and trembling, at any rate I take my fill; and for my part, so long as I’m full, it’s all alike to me whether it’s with carrots or with partridges.”

Here Sancho brought his long speech to an end, Don Quixote having been the whole time in dread of his uttering a host of absurdities; and when he found him leave off with so few, he thanked heaven in his heart. The duke embraced Sancho and told him he was heartily sorry he had given up the government so soon, but that he would see that he was provided with some other post on his estate less onerous and more profitable. The duchess also embraced him, and gave orders that he should be taken good care of, as it was plain to see he had been badly treated and worse bruised.

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CHAPTER LVI. OF THE PRODIGIOUS AND UNPARALLELED BATTLE THAT TOOK PLACE BETWEEN DON QUIXOTE OF LA MANCHA AND THE LACQUEY TOSILOS IN DEFENCE OF THE DAUGHTER OF DOÑA RODRIGUEZ

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The duke and duchess had no reason to regret the joke that had been played upon Sancho Panza in giving him the government; especially as their majordomo returned the same day, and gave them a minute account of almost every word and deed that Sancho uttered or did during the time; and to wind up with, eloquently described to them the attack upon the island and Sancho’s fright and departure, with which they were not a little amused. After this the history goes on to say that the day fixed for the battle arrived, and that the duke, after having repeatedly instructed his lacquey Tosilos how to deal with Don Quixote so as to vanquish him without killing or wounding him, gave orders to have the heads removed from the lances, telling Don Quixote that Christian charity, on which he plumed himself, could not suffer the battle to be fought with so much risk and danger to life; and that he must be content with the offer of a battlefield on his territory (though that was against the decree of the holy Council, which prohibits all challenges of the sort) and not push such an arduous venture to its extreme limits. Don Quixote bade his excellence arrange all matters connected with the affair as he pleased, as on his part he would obey him in everything. The dread day, then, having arrived, and the duke having ordered a spacious stand to be erected facing the court of the castle for the judges of the field and the appellant duennas, mother and daughter, vast crowds flocked from all the villages and hamlets of the neighbourhood to see the novel spectacle of the battle; nobody, dead or alive, in those parts having ever seen or heard of such a one.

The first person to enter the field and the lists was the master of the ceremonies, who surveyed and paced the whole ground to see that there was nothing unfair and nothing concealed to make the combatants stumble or fall; then the duennas entered and seated themselves, enveloped in mantles covering their eyes, nay even their bosoms, and displaying no slight emotion as Don Quixote appeared in the lists. Shortly afterwards, accompanied by several trumpets and mounted on a powerful steed that threatened to crush the whole place, the great lacquey Tosilos made his appearance on one side of the courtyard with his visor down and stiffly cased in a suit of stout shining armour. The horse was a manifest Frieslander, broad-backed and flea-bitten, and with half a hundred of wool hanging to each of his fetlocks. The gallant combatant came well primed by his master the duke as to how he was to bear himself against the valiant Don Quixote of La Mancha; being warned that he must on no account slay him, but strive to shirk the first encounter so as to avoid the risk of killing him, as he was sure to do if he met him full tilt. He crossed the courtyard at a walk, and coming to where the duennas were placed stopped to look at her who demanded him for a husband; the marshal of the field summoned Don Quixote, who had already presented himself in the courtyard, and standing by the side of Tosilos he addressed the duennas, and asked them if they consented that Don Quixote of La Mancha should do battle for their right. They said they did, and that whatever he should do in that behalf they declared rightly done, final and valid. By this time the duke and duchess had taken their places in a gallery commanding the enclosure, which was filled to overflowing with a multitude of people eager to see this perilous and unparalleled encounter. The conditions of the combat were that if Don Quixote proved the victor his antagonist was to marry the daughter of Doña Rodriguez; but if he should be vanquished his opponent was released from the promise that was claimed against him and from all obligations to give satisfaction. The master of the ceremonies apportioned the sun to them, and stationed them, each on the spot where he was to stand. The drums beat, the sound of the trumpets filled the air, the earth trembled under foot, the hearts of the gazing crowd were full of anxiety, some hoping for a happy issue, some apprehensive of an untoward ending to the affair, and lastly, Don Quixote, commending himself with all his heart to God our Lord and to the lady Dulcinea del Toboso, stood waiting for them to give the necessary signal for the onset. Our lacquey, however, was thinking of something very different; he only thought of what I am now going to mention.

It seems that as he stood contemplating his enemy she struck him as the most beautiful woman he had ever seen all his life; and the little blind boy whom in our streets they commonly call Love had no mind to let slip the chance of triumphing over a lacquey heart, and adding it to the list of his trophies; and so, stealing gently upon him unseen, he drove a dart two yards long into the poor lacquey’s left side and pierced his heart through and through; which he was able to do quite at his ease, for Love is invisible, and comes in and goes out as he likes, without anyone calling him to account for what he does. Well then, when they gave the signal for the onset our lacquey was in an ecstasy, musing upon the beauty of her whom he had already made mistress of his liberty, and so he paid no attention to the sound of the trumpet, unlike Don Quixote, who was off the instant he heard it, and, at the highest speed Rocinante was capable of, set out to meet his enemy, his good squire Sancho shouting lustily as he saw him start, “God guide thee, cream and flower of knights-errant! God give thee the victory, for thou hast the right on thy side!” But though Tosilos saw Don Quixote coming at him he never stirred a step from the spot where he was posted; and instead of doing so called loudly to the marshal of the field, to whom when he came up to see what he wanted he said, “Señor, is not this battle to decide whether I marry or do not marry that lady?” “Just so,” was the answer. “Well then,” said the lacquey, “I feel qualms of conscience, and I should lay a heavy burden upon it if I were to proceed any further with the combat; I therefore declare that I yield myself vanquished, and that I am willing to marry the lady at once.”

The marshal of the field was lost in astonishment at the words of Tosilos; and as he was one of those who were privy to the arrangement of the affair he knew not what to say in reply. Don Quixote pulled up in mid career when he saw that his enemy was not coming on to the attack. The duke could not make out the reason why the battle did not go on; but the marshal of the field hastened to him to let him know what Tosilos said, and he was amazed and extremely angry at it. In the meantime Tosilos advanced to where Doña Rodriguez sat and said in a loud voice, “Señora, I am willing to marry your daughter, and I have no wish to obtain by strife and fighting what I can obtain in peace and without any risk to my life.”

The valiant Don Quixote heard him, and said, “As that is the case I am released and absolved from my promise; let them marry by all means, and as ‘God our Lord has given her, may Saint Peter add his blessing.’”

The duke had now descended to the courtyard of the castle, and going up to Tosilos he said to him, “Is it true, sir knight, that you yield yourself vanquished, and that moved by scruples of conscience you wish to marry this damsel?”

“It is, señor,” replied Tosilos.

“And he does well,” said Sancho, “for what thou hast to give to the mouse, give to the cat, and it will save thee all trouble.”

Tosilos meanwhile was trying to unlace his helmet, and he begged them to come to his help at once, as his power of breathing was failing him, and he could not remain so long shut up in that confined space. They removed it in all haste, and his lacquey features were revealed to public gaze. At this sight Doña Rodriguez and her daughter raised a mighty outcry, exclaiming, “This is a trick! This is a trick! They have put Tosilos, my lord the duke’s lacquey, upon us in place of the real husband. The justice of God and the king against such trickery, not to say roguery!”

“Do not distress yourselves, ladies,” said Don Quixote; “for this is no trickery or roguery; or if it is, it is not the duke who is at the bottom of it, but those wicked enchanters who persecute me, and who, jealous of my reaping the glory of this victory, have turned your husband’s features into those of this person, who you say is a lacquey of the duke’s; take my advice, and notwithstanding the malice of my enemies marry him, for beyond a doubt he is the one you wish for a husband.”

When the duke heard this all his anger was near vanishing in a fit of laughter, and he said, “The things that happen to Señor Don Quixote are so extraordinary that I am ready to believe this lacquey of mine is not one; but let us adopt this plan and device; let us put off the marriage for, say, a fortnight, and let us keep this person about whom we are uncertain in close confinement, and perhaps in the course of that time he may return to his original shape; for the spite which the enchanters entertain against Señor Don Quixote cannot last so long, especially as it is of so little advantage to them to practise these deceptions and transformations.”

“Oh, señor,” said Sancho, “those scoundrels are well used to changing whatever concerns my master from one thing into another. A knight that he overcame some time back, called the Knight of the Mirrors, they turned into the shape of the bachelor Samson Carrasco of our town and a great friend of ours; and my lady Dulcinea del Toboso they have turned into a common country wench; so I suspect this lacquey will have to live and die a lacquey all the days of his life.”

Here the Rodriguez’s daughter exclaimed, “Let him be who he may, this man that claims me for a wife; I am thankful to him for the same, for I had rather be the lawful wife of a lacquey than the cheated mistress of a gentleman; though he who played me false is nothing of the kind.”

To be brief, all the talk and all that had happened ended in Tosilos being shut up until it was seen how his transformation turned out. All hailed Don Quixote as victor, but the greater number were vexed and disappointed at finding that the combatants they had been so anxiously waiting for had not battered one another to pieces, just as the boys are disappointed when the man they are waiting to see hanged does not come out, because the prosecution or the court has pardoned him. The people dispersed, the duke and Don Quixote returned to the castle, they locked up Tosilos, Doña Rodriguez and her daughter remained perfectly contented when they saw that any way the affair must end in marriage, and Tosilos wanted nothing else.

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CHAPTER LVII. WHICH TREATS OF HOW DON QUIXOTE TOOK LEAVE OF THE DUKE, AND OF WHAT FOLLOWED WITH THE WITTY AND IMPUDENT ALTISIDORA, ONE OF THE DUCHESS’S DAMSELS

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Don Quixote now felt it right to quit a life of such idleness as he was leading in the castle; for he fancied that he was making himself sorely missed by suffering himself to remain shut up and inactive amid the countless luxuries and enjoyments his hosts lavished upon him as a knight, and he felt too that he would have to render a strict account to heaven of that indolence and seclusion; and so one day he asked the duke and duchess to grant him permission to take his departure. They gave it, showing at the same time that they were very sorry he was leaving them.

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The duchess gave his wife’s letters to Sancho Panza, who shed tears over them, saying, “Who would have thought that such grand hopes as the news of my government bred in my wife Teresa Panza’s breast would end in my going back now to the vagabond adventures of my master Don Quixote of La Mancha? Still I’m glad to see my Teresa behaved as she ought in sending the acorns, for if she had not sent them I’d have been sorry, and she’d have shown herself ungrateful. It is a comfort to me that they can’t call that present a bribe; for I had got the government already when she sent them, and it’s but reasonable that those who have had a good turn done them should show their gratitude, if it’s only with a trifle. After all I went into the government naked, and I come out of it naked; so I can say with a safe conscience—and that’s no small matter—‘naked I was born, naked I find myself, I neither lose nor gain.’”

Thus did Sancho soliloquise on the day of their departure, as Don Quixote, who had the night before taken leave of the duke and duchess, coming out made his appearance at an early hour in full armour in the courtyard of the castle. The whole household of the castle were watching him from the corridors, and the duke and duchess, too, came out to see him. Sancho was mounted on his Dapple, with his alforjas, valise, and proven supremely happy because the duke’s majordomo, the same that had acted the part of the Trifaldi, had given him a little purse with two hundred gold crowns to meet the necessary expenses of the road, but of this Don Quixote knew nothing as yet. While all were, as has been said, observing him, suddenly from among the duennas and handmaidens the impudent and witty Altisidora lifted up her voice and said in pathetic tones:

Give ear, cruel knight; Draw rein; where’s the need Of spurring the flanks Of that ill-broken steed? From what art thou flying? No dragon I am, Not even a sheep, But a tender young lamb. Thou hast jilted a maiden As fair to behold As nymph of Diana Or Venus of old. Bireno, Æneas, what worse shall I call thee? Barabbas go with thee! All evil befall thee!

In thy claws, ruthless robber, Thou bearest away The heart of a meek Loving maid for thy prey, Three kerchiefs thou stealest, And garters a pair, From legs than the whitest Of marble more fair; And the sighs that pursue thee Would burn to the ground Two thousand Troy Towns, If so many were found. Bireno, Æneas, what worse shall I call thee? Barabbas go with thee! All evil befall thee!

May no bowels of mercy To Sancho be granted, And thy Dulcinea Be left still enchanted, May thy falsehood to me Find its punishment in her, For in my land the just Often pays for the sinner. May thy grandest adventures Discomfitures prove, May thy joys be all dreams, And forgotten thy love. Bireno, Æneas, what worse shall I call thee? Barabbas go with thee! All evil befall thee!

May thy name be abhorred For thy conduct to ladies, From London to England, From Seville to Cadiz; May thy cards be unlucky, Thy hands contain ne’er a King, seven, or ace When thou playest primera; When thy corns are cut May it be to the quick; When thy grinders are drawn May the roots of them stick. Bireno, Æneas, what worse shall I call thee? Barabbas go with thee! All evil befall thee!

All the while the unhappy Altisidora was bewailing herself in the above strain Don Quixote stood staring at her; and without uttering a word in reply to her he turned round to Sancho and said, “Sancho my friend, I conjure thee by the life of thy forefathers tell me the truth; say, hast thou by any chance taken the three kerchiefs and the garters this love-sick maid speaks of?”

To this Sancho made answer, “The three kerchiefs I have; but the garters, as much as ‘over the hills of Úbeda.’”

The duchess was amazed at Altisidora’s assurance; she knew that she was bold, lively, and impudent, but not so much so as to venture to make free in this fashion; and not being prepared for the joke, her astonishment was all the greater. The duke had a mind to keep up the sport, so he said, “It does not seem to me well done in you, sir knight, that after having received the hospitality that has been offered you in this very castle, you should have ventured to carry off even three kerchiefs, not to say my handmaid’s garters. It shows a bad heart and does not tally with your reputation. Restore her garters, or else I defy you to mortal combat, for I am not afraid of rascally enchanters changing or altering my features as they changed his who encountered you into those of my lacquey, Tosilos.”

“God forbid,” said Don Quixote, “that I should draw my sword against your illustrious person from which I have received such great favours. The kerchiefs I will restore, as Sancho says he has them; as to the garters that is impossible, for I have not got them, neither has he; and if your handmaiden here will look in her hiding-places, depend upon it she will find them. I have never been a thief, my lord duke, nor do I mean to be so long as I live, if God cease not to have me in his keeping. This damsel by her own confession speaks as one in love, for which I am not to blame, and therefore need not ask pardon, either of her or of your excellence, whom I entreat to have a better opinion of me, and once more to give me leave to pursue my journey.”

“And may God so prosper it, Señor Don Quixote,” said the duchess, “that we may always hear good news of your exploits; God speed you; for the longer you stay, the more you inflame the hearts of the damsels who behold you; and as for this one of mine, I will so chastise her that she will not transgress again, either with her eyes or with her words.”

“One word and no more, O valiant Don Quixote, I ask you to hear,” said Altisidora, “and that is that I beg your pardon about the theft of the garters; for by God and upon my soul I have got them on, and I have fallen into the same blunder as he did who went looking for his ass being all the while mounted on it.”

“Didn’t I say so?” said Sancho. “I’m a likely one to hide thefts! Why if I wanted to deal in them, opportunities came ready enough to me in my government.”

Don Quixote bowed his head, and saluted the duke and duchess and all the bystanders, and wheeling Rocinante round, Sancho following him on Dapple, he rode out of the castle, shaping his course for Saragossa.

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CHAPTER LVIII. WHICH TELLS HOW ADVENTURES CAME CROWDING ON DON QUIXOTE IN SUCH NUMBERS THAT THEY GAVE ONE ANOTHER NO BREATHING-TIME

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When Don Quixote saw himself in open country, free, and relieved from the attentions of Altisidora, he felt at his ease, and in fresh spirits to take up the pursuit of chivalry once more; and turning to Sancho, he said, “Freedom, Sancho, is one of the most precious gifts that heaven has bestowed upon men; no treasures that the earth holds buried or the sea conceals can compare with it; for freedom, as for honour, life may and should be ventured; and on the other hand, captivity is the greatest evil that can fall to the lot of man. I say this, Sancho, because thou hast seen the good cheer, the abundance we have enjoyed in this castle we are leaving; well then, amid those dainty banquets and snow-cooled beverages I felt as though I were undergoing the straits of hunger, because I did not enjoy them with the same freedom as if they had been mine own; for the sense of being under an obligation to return benefits and favours received is a restraint that checks the independence of the spirit. Happy he, to whom heaven has given a piece of bread for which he is not bound to give thanks to any but heaven itself!”

“For all your worship says,” said Sancho, “it is not becoming that there should be no thanks on our part for two hundred gold crowns that the duke’s majordomo has given me in a little purse which I carry next my heart, like a warming plaster or comforter, to meet any chance calls; for we shan’t always find castles where they’ll entertain us; now and then we may light upon roadside inns where they’ll cudgel us.”

In conversation of this sort the knight and squire errant were pursuing their journey, when, after they had gone a little more than half a league, they perceived some dozen men dressed like labourers stretched upon their cloaks on the grass of a green meadow eating their dinner. They had beside them what seemed to be white sheets concealing some objects under them, standing upright or lying flat, and arranged at intervals. Don Quixote approached the diners, and, saluting them courteously first, he asked them what it was those cloths covered. “Señor,” answered one of the party, “under these cloths are some images carved in relief intended for a retablo we are putting up in our village; we carry them covered up that they may not be soiled, and on our shoulders that they may not be broken.”

“With your good leave,” said Don Quixote, “I should like to see them; for images that are carried so carefully no doubt must be fine ones.”

“I should think they were!” said the other; “let the money they cost speak for that; for as a matter of fact there is not one of them that does not stand us in more than fifty ducats; and that your worship may judge; wait a moment, and you shall see with your own eyes;” and getting up from his dinner he went and uncovered the first image, which proved to be one of Saint George on horseback with a serpent writhing at his feet and the lance thrust down its throat with all that fierceness that is usually depicted. The whole group was one blaze of gold, as the saying is. On seeing it Don Quixote said, “That knight was one of the best knights-errant the army of heaven ever owned; he was called Don Saint George, and he was moreover a defender of maidens. Let us see this next one.”

The man uncovered it, and it was seen to be that of Saint Martin on his horse, dividing his cloak with the beggar. The instant Don Quixote saw it he said, “This knight too was one of the Christian adventurers, but I believe he was generous rather than valiant, as thou mayest perceive, Sancho, by his dividing his cloak with the beggar and giving him half of it; no doubt it was winter at the time, for otherwise he would have given him the whole of it, so charitable was he.”

“It was not that, most likely,” said Sancho, “but that he held with the proverb that says, ‘For giving and keeping there’s need of brains.’”

Don Quixote laughed, and asked them to take off the next cloth, underneath which was seen the image of the patron saint of the Spains seated on horseback, his sword stained with blood, trampling on Moors and treading heads underfoot; and on seeing it Don Quixote exclaimed, “Ay, this is a knight, and of the squadrons of Christ! This one is called Don Saint James the Moorslayer, one of the bravest saints and knights the world ever had or heaven has now.”

They then raised another cloth which it appeared covered Saint Paul falling from his horse, with all the details that are usually given in representations of his conversion. When Don Quixote saw it, rendered in such lifelike style that one would have said Christ was speaking and Paul answering, “This,” he said, “was in his time the greatest enemy that the Church of God our Lord had, and the greatest champion it will ever have; a knight-errant in life, a steadfast saint in death, an untiring labourer in the Lord’s vineyard, a teacher of the Gentiles, whose school was heaven, and whose instructor and master was Jesus Christ himself.”

There were no more images, so Don Quixote bade them cover them up again, and said to those who had brought them, “I take it as a happy omen, brothers, to have seen what I have; for these saints and knights were of the same profession as myself, which is the calling of arms; only there is this difference between them and me, that they were saints, and fought with divine weapons, and I am a sinner and fight with human ones. They won heaven by force of arms, for heaven suffereth violence; and I, so far, know not what I have won by dint of my sufferings; but if my Dulcinea del Toboso were to be released from hers, perhaps with mended fortunes and a mind restored to itself I might direct my steps in a better path than I am following at present.”

“May God hear and sin be deaf,” said Sancho to this.

The men were filled with wonder, as well at the figure as at the words of Don Quixote, though they did not understand one half of what he meant by them. They finished their dinner, took their images on their backs, and bidding farewell to Don Quixote resumed their journey.

Sancho was amazed afresh at the extent of his master’s knowledge, as much as if he had never known him, for it seemed to him that there was no story or event in the world that he had not at his fingers’ ends and fixed in his memory, and he said to him, “In truth, master mine, if this that has happened to us to-day is to be called an adventure, it has been one of the sweetest and pleasantest that have befallen us in the whole course of our travels; we have come out of it unbelaboured and undismayed, neither have we drawn sword nor have we smitten the earth with our bodies, nor have we been left famishing; blessed be God that he has let me see such a thing with my own eyes!”

“Thou sayest well, Sancho,” said Don Quixote, “but remember all times are not alike nor do they always run the same way; and these things the vulgar commonly call omens, which are not based upon any natural reason, will by him who is wise be esteemed and reckoned happy accidents merely. One of these believers in omens will get up of a morning, leave his house, and meet a friar of the order of the blessed Saint Francis, and, as if he had met a griffin, he will turn about and go home. With another Mendoza the salt is spilt on his table, and gloom is spilt over his heart, as if nature was obliged to give warning of coming misfortunes by means of such trivial things as these. The wise man and the Christian should not trifle with what it may please heaven to do. Scipio on coming to Africa stumbled as he leaped on shore; his soldiers took it as a bad omen; but he, clasping the soil with his arms, exclaimed, ‘Thou canst not escape me, Africa, for I hold thee tight between my arms.’ Thus, Sancho, meeting those images has been to me a most happy occurrence.”

“I can well believe it,” said Sancho; “but I wish your worship would tell me what is the reason that the Spaniards, when they are about to give battle, in calling on that Saint James the Moorslayer, say ‘Santiago and close Spain!’ Is Spain, then, open, so that it is needful to close it; or what is the meaning of this form?”

“Thou art very simple, Sancho,” said Don Quixote; “God, look you, gave that great knight of the Red Cross to Spain as her patron saint and protector, especially in those hard struggles the Spaniards had with the Moors; and therefore they invoke and call upon him as their defender in all their battles; and in these he has been many a time seen beating down, trampling under foot, destroying and slaughtering the Hagarene squadrons in the sight of all; of which fact I could give thee many examples recorded in truthful Spanish histories.”

Sancho changed the subject, and said to his master, “I marvel, señor, at the boldness of Altisidora, the duchess’s handmaid; he whom they call Love must have cruelly pierced and wounded her; they say he is a little blind urchin who, though blear-eyed, or more properly speaking sightless, if he aims at a heart, be it ever so small, hits it and pierces it through and through with his arrows. I have heard it said too that the arrows of Love are blunted and robbed of their points by maidenly modesty and reserve; but with this Altisidora it seems they are sharpened rather than blunted.”

“Bear in mind, Sancho,” said Don Quixote, “that love is influenced by no consideration, recognises no restraints of reason, and is of the same nature as death, that assails alike the lofty palaces of kings and the humble cabins of shepherds; and when it takes entire possession of a heart, the first thing it does is to banish fear and shame from it; and so without shame Altisidora declared her passion, which excited in my mind embarrassment rather than commiseration.”

“Notable cruelty!” exclaimed Sancho; “unheard-of ingratitude! I can only say for myself that the very smallest loving word of hers would have subdued me and made a slave of me. The devil! What a heart of marble, what bowels of brass, what a soul of mortar! But I can’t imagine what it is that this damsel saw in your worship that could have conquered and captivated her so. What gallant figure was it, what bold bearing, what sprightly grace, what comeliness of feature, which of these things by itself, or what all together, could have made her fall in love with you? For indeed and in truth many a time I stop to look at your worship from the sole of your foot to the topmost hair of your head, and I see more to frighten one than to make one fall in love; moreover I have heard say that beauty is the first and main thing that excites love, and as your worship has none at all, I don’t know what the poor creature fell in love with.”

“Recollect, Sancho,” replied Don Quixote, “there are two sorts of beauty, one of the mind, the other of the body; that of the mind displays and exhibits itself in intelligence, in modesty, in honourable conduct, in generosity, in good breeding; and all these qualities are possible and may exist in an ugly man; and when it is this sort of beauty and not that of the body that is the attraction, love is apt to spring up suddenly and violently. I, Sancho, perceive clearly enough that I am not beautiful, but at the same time I know I am not hideous; and it is enough for an honest man not to be a monster to be an object of love, if only he possesses the endowments of mind I have mentioned.”

While engaged in this discourse they were making their way through a wood that lay beyond the road, when suddenly, without expecting anything of the kind, Don Quixote found himself caught in some nets of green cord stretched from one tree to another; and unable to conceive what it could be, he said to Sancho, “Sancho, it strikes me this affair of these nets will prove one of the strangest adventures imaginable. May I die if the enchanters that persecute me are not trying to entangle me in them and delay my journey, by way of revenge for my obduracy towards Altisidora. Well then let me tell them that if these nets, instead of being green cord, were made of the hardest diamonds, or stronger than that wherewith the jealous god of blacksmiths enmeshed Venus and Mars, I would break them as easily as if they were made of rushes or cotton threads.” But just as he was about to press forward and break through all, suddenly from among some trees two shepherdesses of surpassing beauty presented themselves to his sight—or at least damsels dressed like shepherdesses, save that their jerkins and sayas were of fine brocade; that is to say, the sayas were rich farthingales of gold embroidered tabby. Their hair, that in its golden brightness vied with the beams of the sun itself, fell loose upon their shoulders and was crowned with garlands twined with green laurel and red everlasting; and their years to all appearance were not under fifteen nor above eighteen.

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Such was the spectacle that filled Sancho with amazement, fascinated Don Quixote, made the sun halt in his course to behold them, and held all four in a strange silence. One of the shepherdesses, at length, was the first to speak and said to Don Quixote, “Hold, sir knight, and do not break these nets; for they are not spread here to do you any harm, but only for our amusement; and as I know you will ask why they have been put up, and who we are, I will tell you in a few words. In a village some two leagues from this, where there are many people of quality and rich gentlefolk, it was agreed upon by a number of friends and relations to come with their wives, sons and daughters, neighbours, friends and kinsmen, and make holiday in this spot, which is one of the pleasantest in the whole neighbourhood, setting up a new pastoral Arcadia among ourselves, we maidens dressing ourselves as shepherdesses and the youths as shepherds. We have prepared two eclogues, one by the famous poet Garcilasso, the other by the most excellent Camoens, in its own Portuguese tongue, but we have not as yet acted them. Yesterday was the first day of our coming here; we have a few of what they say are called field-tents pitched among the trees on the bank of an ample brook that fertilises all these meadows; last night we spread these nets in the trees here to snare the silly little birds that startled by the noise we make may fly into them. If you please to be our guest, señor, you will be welcomed heartily and courteously, for here just now neither care nor sorrow shall enter.”

She held her peace and said no more, and Don Quixote made answer, “Of a truth, fairest lady, Actaeon when he unexpectedly beheld Diana bathing in the stream could not have been more fascinated and wonderstruck than I at the sight of your beauty. I commend your mode of entertainment, and thank you for the kindness of your invitation; and if I can serve you, you may command me with full confidence of being obeyed, for my profession is none other than to show myself grateful, and ready to serve persons of all conditions, but especially persons of quality such as your appearance indicates; and if, instead of taking up, as they probably do, but a small space, these nets took up the whole surface of the globe, I would seek out new worlds through which to pass, so as not to break them; and that ye may give some degree of credence to this exaggerated language of mine, know that it is no less than Don Quixote of La Mancha that makes this declaration to you, if indeed it be that such a name has reached your ears.”

“Ah! friend of my soul,” instantly exclaimed the other shepherdess, “what great good fortune has befallen us! Seest thou this gentleman we have before us? Well then let me tell thee he is the most valiant and the most devoted and the most courteous gentleman in all the world, unless a history of his achievements that has been printed and I have read is telling lies and deceiving us. I will lay a wager that this good fellow who is with him is one Sancho Panza his squire, whose drolleries none can equal.”

“That’s true,” said Sancho; “I am that same droll and squire you speak of, and this gentleman is my master Don Quixote of La Mancha, the same that’s in the history and that they talk about.”

“Oh, my friend,” said the other, “let us entreat him to stay; for it will give our fathers and brothers infinite pleasure; I too have heard just what thou hast told me of the valour of the one and the drolleries of the other; and what is more, of him they say that he is the most constant and loyal lover that was ever heard of, and that his lady is one Dulcinea del Toboso, to whom all over Spain the palm of beauty is awarded.”

“And justly awarded,” said Don Quixote, “unless, indeed, your unequalled beauty makes it a matter of doubt. But spare yourselves the trouble, ladies, of pressing me to stay, for the urgent calls of my profession do not allow me to take rest under any circumstances.”

At this instant there came up to the spot where the four stood a brother of one of the two shepherdesses, like them in shepherd costume, and as richly and gaily dressed as they were. They told him that their companion was the valiant Don Quixote of La Mancha, and the other Sancho his squire, of whom he knew already from having read their history. The gay shepherd offered him his services and begged that he would accompany him to their tents, and Don Quixote had to give way and comply. And now the game was started, and the nets were filled with a variety of birds that deceived by the colour fell into the danger they were flying from. Upwards of thirty persons, all gaily attired as shepherds and shepherdesses, assembled on the spot, and were at once informed who Don Quixote and his squire were, whereat they were not a little delighted, as they knew of him already through his history. They repaired to the tents, where they found tables laid out, and choicely, plentifully, and neatly furnished. They treated Don Quixote as a person of distinction, giving him the place of honour, and all observed him, and were full of astonishment at the spectacle. At last the cloth being removed, Don Quixote with great composure lifted up his voice and said:

“One of the greatest sins that men are guilty of is—some will say pride—but I say ingratitude, going by the common saying that hell is full of ingrates. This sin, so far as it has lain in my power, I have endeavoured to avoid ever since I have enjoyed the faculty of reason; and if I am unable to requite good deeds that have been done me by other deeds, I substitute the desire to do so; and if that be not enough I make them known publicly; for he who declares and makes known the good deeds done to him would repay them by others if it were in his power, and for the most part those who receive are the inferiors of those who give. Thus, God is superior to all because he is the supreme giver, and the offerings of man fall short by an infinite distance of being a full return for the gifts of God; but gratitude in some degree makes up for this deficiency and shortcoming. I therefore, grateful for the favour that has been extended to me here, and unable to make a return in the same measure, restricted as I am by the narrow limits of my power, offer what I can and what I have to offer in my own way; and so I declare that for two full days I will maintain in the middle of this highway leading to Saragossa, that these ladies disguised as shepherdesses, who are here present, are the fairest and most courteous maidens in the world, excepting only the peerless Dulcinea del Toboso, sole mistress of my thoughts, be it said without offence to those who hear me, ladies and gentlemen.”

On hearing this Sancho, who had been listening with great attention, cried out in a loud voice, “Is it possible there is anyone in the world who will dare to say and swear that this master of mine is a madman? Say, gentlemen shepherds, is there a village priest, be he ever so wise or learned, who could say what my master has said; or is there knight-errant, whatever renown he may have as a man of valour, that could offer what my master has offered now?”

Don Quixote turned upon Sancho, and with a countenance glowing with anger said to him, “Is it possible, Sancho, there is anyone in the whole world who will say thou art not a fool, with a lining to match, and I know not what trimmings of impertinence and roguery? Who asked thee to meddle in my affairs, or to inquire whether I am a wise man or a blockhead? Hold thy peace; answer me not a word; saddle Rocinante if he be unsaddled; and let us go to put my offer into execution; for with the right that I have on my side thou mayest reckon as vanquished all who shall venture to question it;” and in a great rage, and showing his anger plainly, he rose from his seat, leaving the company lost in wonder, and making them feel doubtful whether they ought to regard him as a madman or a rational being. In the end, though they sought to dissuade him from involving himself in such a challenge, assuring him they admitted his gratitude as fully established, and needed no fresh proofs to be convinced of his valiant spirit, as those related in the history of his exploits were sufficient, still Don Quixote persisted in his resolve; and mounted on Rocinante, bracing his buckler on his arm and grasping his lance, he posted himself in the middle of a high road that was not far from the green meadow. Sancho followed on Dapple, together with all the members of the pastoral gathering, eager to see what would be the upshot of his vainglorious and extraordinary proposal.

Don Quixote, then, having, as has been said, planted himself in the middle of the road, made the welkin ring with words to this effect: “Ho ye travellers and wayfarers, knights, squires, folk on foot or on horseback, who pass this way or shall pass in the course of the next two days! Know that Don Quixote of La Mancha, knight-errant, is posted here to maintain by arms that the beauty and courtesy enshrined in the nymphs that dwell in these meadows and groves surpass all upon earth, putting aside the lady of my heart, Dulcinea del Toboso. Wherefore, let him who is of the opposite opinion come on, for here I await him.”

Twice he repeated the same words, and twice they fell unheard by any adventurer; but fate, that was guiding affairs for him from better to better, so ordered it that shortly afterwards there appeared on the road a crowd of men on horseback, many of them with lances in their hands, all riding in a compact body and in great haste. No sooner had those who were with Don Quixote seen them than they turned about and withdrew to some distance from the road, for they knew that if they stayed some harm might come to them; but Don Quixote with intrepid heart stood his ground, and Sancho Panza shielded himself with Rocinante’s hind-quarters. The troop of lancers came up, and one of them who was in advance began shouting to Don Quixote, “Get out of the way, you son of the devil, or these bulls will knock you to pieces!”

“Rabble!” returned Don Quixote, “I care nothing for bulls, be they the fiercest Jarama breeds on its banks. Confess at once, scoundrels, that what I have declared is true; else ye have to deal with me in combat.”

The herdsman had no time to reply, nor Don Quixote to get out of the way even if he wished; and so the drove of fierce bulls and tame bullocks, together with the crowd of herdsmen and others who were taking them to be penned up in a village where they were to be run the next day, passed over Don Quixote and over Sancho, Rocinante and Dapple, hurling them all to the earth and rolling them over on the ground. Sancho was left crushed, Don Quixote scared, Dapple belaboured and Rocinante in no very sound condition.

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They all got up, however, at length, and Don Quixote in great haste, stumbling here and falling there, started off running after the drove, shouting out, “Hold! stay! ye rascally rabble, a single knight awaits you, and he is not of the temper or opinion of those who say, ‘For a flying enemy make a bridge of silver.’” The retreating party in their haste, however, did not stop for that, or heed his menaces any more than last year’s clouds. Weariness brought Don Quixote to a halt, and more enraged than avenged he sat down on the road to wait until Sancho, Rocinante and Dapple came up. When they reached him master and man mounted once more, and without going back to bid farewell to the mock or imitation Arcadia, and more in humiliation than contentment, they continued their journey.

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CHAPTER LIX. WHEREIN IS RELATED THE STRANGE THING, WHICH MAY BE REGARDED AS AN ADVENTURE, THAT HAPPENED DON QUIXOTE

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A clear limpid spring which they discovered in a cool grove relieved Don Quixote and Sancho of the dust and fatigue due to the unpolite behaviour of the bulls, and by the side of this, having turned Dapple and Rocinante loose without headstall or bridle, the forlorn pair, master and man, seated themselves. Sancho had recourse to the larder of his alforjas and took out of them what he called the prog; Don Quixote rinsed his mouth and bathed his face, by which cooling process his flagging energies were revived. Out of pure vexation he remained without eating, and out of pure politeness Sancho did not venture to touch a morsel of what was before him, but waited for his master to act as taster. Seeing, however, that, absorbed in thought, he was forgetting to carry the bread to his mouth, he said never a word, and trampling every sort of good breeding under foot, began to stow away in his paunch the bread and cheese that came to his hand.

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“Eat, Sancho my friend,” said Don Quixote; “support life, which is of more consequence to thee than to me, and leave me to die under the pain of my thoughts and pressure of my misfortunes. I was born, Sancho, to live dying, and thou to die eating; and to prove the truth of what I say, look at me, printed in histories, famed in arms, courteous in behaviour, honoured by princes, courted by maidens; and after all, when I looked forward to palms, triumphs, and crowns, won and earned by my valiant deeds, I have this morning seen myself trampled on, kicked, and crushed by the feet of unclean and filthy animals. This thought blunts my teeth, paralyses my jaws, cramps my hands, and robs me of all appetite for food; so much so that I have a mind to let myself die of hunger, the cruelest death of all deaths.”

“So then,” said Sancho, munching hard all the time, “your worship does not agree with the proverb that says, ‘Let Martha die, but let her die with a full belly.’ I, at any rate, have no mind to kill myself; so far from that, I mean to do as the cobbler does, who stretches the leather with his teeth until he makes it reach as far as he wants. I’ll stretch out my life by eating until it reaches the end heaven has fixed for it; and let me tell you, señor, there’s no greater folly than to think of dying of despair as your worship does; take my advice, and after eating lie down and sleep a bit on this green grass-mattress, and you will see that when you awake you’ll feel something better.”

Don Quixote did as he recommended, for it struck him that Sancho’s reasoning was more like a philosopher’s than a blockhead’s, and said he, “Sancho, if thou wilt do for me what I am going to tell thee my ease of mind would be more assured and my heaviness of heart not so great; and it is this; to go aside a little while I am sleeping in accordance with thy advice, and, making bare thy carcase to the air, to give thyself three or four hundred lashes with Rocinante’s reins, on account of the three thousand and odd thou art to give thyself for the disenchantment of Dulcinea; for it is a great pity that the poor lady should be left enchanted through thy carelessness and negligence.”

“There is a good deal to be said on that point,” said Sancho; “let us both go to sleep now, and after that, God has decreed what will happen. Let me tell your worship that for a man to whip himself in cold blood is a hard thing, especially if the stripes fall upon an ill-nourished and worse-fed body. Let my lady Dulcinea have patience, and when she is least expecting it, she will see me made a riddle of with whipping, and ‘until death it’s all life;’ I mean that I have still life in me, and the desire to make good what I have promised.”

Don Quixote thanked him, and ate a little, and Sancho a good deal, and then they both lay down to sleep, leaving those two inseparable friends and comrades, Rocinante and Dapple, to their own devices and to feed unrestrained upon the abundant grass with which the meadow was furnished. They woke up rather late, mounted once more and resumed their journey, pushing on to reach an inn which was in sight, apparently a league off. I say an inn, because Don Quixote called it so, contrary to his usual practice of calling all inns castles. They reached it, and asked the landlord if they could put up there. He said yes, with as much comfort and as good fare as they could find in Saragossa. They dismounted, and Sancho stowed away his larder in a room of which the landlord gave him the key. He took the beasts to the stable, fed them, and came back to see what orders Don Quixote, who was seated on a bench at the door, had for him, giving special thanks to heaven that this inn had not been taken for a castle by his master. Supper-time came, and they repaired to their room, and Sancho asked the landlord what he had to give them for supper. To this the landlord replied that his mouth should be the measure; he had only to ask what he would; for that inn was provided with the birds of the air and the fowls of the earth and the fish of the sea.

“There’s no need of all that,” said Sancho; “if they’ll roast us a couple of chickens we’ll be satisfied, for my master is delicate and eats little, and I’m not over and above gluttonous.”

The landlord replied he had no chickens, for the kites had stolen them.

“Well then,” said Sancho, “let señor landlord tell them to roast a pullet, so that it is a tender one.”

“Pullet! My father!” said the landlord; “indeed and in truth it’s only yesterday I sent over fifty to the city to sell; but saving pullets ask what you will.”

“In that case,” said Sancho, “you will not be without veal or kid.”

“Just now,” said the landlord, “there’s none in the house, for it’s all finished; but next week there will be enough and to spare.”

“Much good that does us,” said Sancho; “I’ll lay a bet that all these short-comings are going to wind up in plenty of bacon and eggs.”

“By God,” said the landlord, “my guest’s wits must be precious dull; I tell him I have neither pullets nor hens, and he wants me to have eggs! Talk of other dainties, if you please, and don’t ask for hens again.”

“Body o’ me!” said Sancho, “let’s settle the matter; say at once what you have got, and let us have no more words about it.”

“In truth and earnest, señor guest,” said the landlord, “all I have is a couple of cow-heels like calves’ feet, or a couple of calves’ feet like cowheels; they are boiled with chick-peas, onions, and bacon, and at this moment they are crying ‘Come eat me, come eat me.”

“I mark them for mine on the spot,” said Sancho; “let nobody touch them; I’ll pay better for them than anyone else, for I could not wish for anything more to my taste; and I don’t care a pin whether they are feet or heels.”

“Nobody shall touch them,” said the landlord; “for the other guests I have, being persons of high quality, bring their own cook and caterer and larder with them.”

“If you come to people of quality,” said Sancho, “there’s nobody more so than my master; but the calling he follows does not allow of larders or store-rooms; we lay ourselves down in the middle of a meadow, and fill ourselves with acorns or medlars.”

Here ended Sancho’s conversation with the landlord, Sancho not caring to carry it any farther by answering him; for he had already asked him what calling or what profession it was his master was of.

Supper-time having come, then, Don Quixote betook himself to his room, the landlord brought in the stew-pan just as it was, and he sat himself down to sup very resolutely. It seems that in another room, which was next to Don Quixote’s, with nothing but a thin partition to separate it, he overheard these words, “As you live, Señor Don Jeronimo, while they are bringing supper, let us read another chapter of the Second Part of ‘Don Quixote of La Mancha.’”

The instant Don Quixote heard his own name he started to his feet and listened with open ears to catch what they said about him, and heard the Don Jeronimo who had been addressed say in reply, “Why would you have us read that absurd stuff, Don Juan, when it is impossible for anyone who has read the First Part of the history of ‘Don Quixote of La Mancha’ to take any pleasure in reading this Second Part?”

“For all that,” said he who was addressed as Don Juan, “we shall do well to read it, for there is no book so bad but it has something good in it. What displeases me most in it is that it represents Don Quixote as now cured of his love for Dulcinea del Toboso.”

On hearing this Don Quixote, full of wrath and indignation, lifted up his voice and said, “Whoever he may be who says that Don Quixote of La Mancha has forgotten or can forget Dulcinea del Toboso, I will teach him with equal arms that what he says is very far from the truth; for neither can the peerless Dulcinea del Toboso be forgotten, nor can forgetfulness have a place in Don Quixote; his motto is constancy, and his profession to maintain the same with his life and never wrong it.”

“Who is this that answers us?” said they in the next room.

“Who should it be,” said Sancho, “but Don Quixote of La Mancha himself, who will make good all he has said and all he will say; for pledges don’t trouble a good payer.”

Sancho had hardly uttered these words when two gentlemen, for such they seemed to be, entered the room, and one of them, throwing his arms round Don Quixote’s neck, said to him, “Your appearance cannot leave any question as to your name, nor can your name fail to identify your appearance; unquestionably, señor, you are the real Don Quixote of La Mancha, cynosure and morning star of knight-errantry, despite and in defiance of him who has sought to usurp your name and bring to naught your achievements, as the author of this book which I here present to you has done;” and with this he put a book which his companion carried into the hands of Don Quixote, who took it, and without replying began to run his eye over it; but he presently returned it saying, “In the little I have seen I have discovered three things in this author that deserve to be censured. The first is some words that I have read in the preface; the next that the language is Aragonese, for sometimes he writes without articles; and the third, which above all stamps him as ignorant, is that he goes wrong and departs from the truth in the most important part of the history, for here he says that my squire Sancho Panza’s wife is called Mari Gutierrez, when she is called nothing of the sort, but Teresa Panza; and when a man errs on such an important point as this there is good reason to fear that he is in error on every other point in the history.”

“A nice sort of historian, indeed!” exclaimed Sancho at this; “he must know a deal about our affairs when he calls my wife Teresa Panza, Mari Gutierrez; take the book again, señor, and see if I am in it and if he has changed my name.”

“From your talk, friend,” said Don Jeronimo, “no doubt you are Sancho Panza, Señor Don Quixote’s squire.”

“Yes, I am,” said Sancho; “and I’m proud of it.”

“Faith, then,” said the gentleman, “this new author does not handle you with the decency that displays itself in your person; he makes you out a heavy feeder and a fool, and not in the least droll, and a very different being from the Sancho described in the First Part of your master’s history.”

“God forgive him,” said Sancho; “he might have left me in my corner without troubling his head about me; ‘let him who knows how ring the bells; ‘Saint Peter is very well in Rome.’”

The two gentlemen pressed Don Quixote to come into their room and have supper with them, as they knew very well there was nothing in that inn fit for one of his sort. Don Quixote, who was always polite, yielded to their request and supped with them. Sancho stayed behind with the stew. and invested with plenary delegated authority seated himself at the head of the table, and the landlord sat down with him, for he was no less fond of cow-heel and calves’ feet than Sancho was.

While at supper Don Juan asked Don Quixote what news he had of the lady Dulcinea del Toboso, was she married, had she been brought to bed, or was she with child, or did she in maidenhood, still preserving her modesty and delicacy, cherish the remembrance of the tender passion of Señor Don Quixote?

To this he replied, “Dulcinea is a maiden still, and my passion more firmly rooted than ever, our intercourse unsatisfactory as before, and her beauty transformed into that of a foul country wench;” and then he proceeded to give them a full and particular account of the enchantment of Dulcinea, and of what had happened him in the cave of Montesinos, together with what the sage Merlin had prescribed for her disenchantment, namely the scourging of Sancho.

Exceedingly great was the amusement the two gentlemen derived from hearing Don Quixote recount the strange incidents of his history; and if they were amazed by his absurdities they were equally amazed by the elegant style in which he delivered them. On the one hand they regarded him as a man of wit and sense, and on the other he seemed to them a maundering blockhead, and they could not make up their minds whereabouts between wisdom and folly they ought to place him.

Sancho having finished his supper, and left the landlord in the X condition, repaired to the room where his master was, and as he came in said, “May I die, sirs, if the author of this book your worships have got has any mind that we should agree; as he calls me glutton (according to what your worships say) I wish he may not call me drunkard too.”

“But he does,” said Don Jeronimo; “I cannot remember, however, in what way, though I know his words are offensive, and what is more, lying, as I can see plainly by the physiognomy of the worthy Sancho before me.”

“Believe me,” said Sancho, “the Sancho and the Don Quixote of this history must be different persons from those that appear in the one Cide Hamete Benengeli wrote, who are ourselves; my master valiant, wise, and true in love, and I simple, droll, and neither glutton nor drunkard.”

“I believe it,” said Don Juan; “and were it possible, an order should be issued that no one should have the presumption to deal with anything relating to Don Quixote, save his original author Cide Hamete; just as Alexander commanded that no one should presume to paint his portrait save Apelles.”

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“Let him who will paint me,” said Don Quixote; “but let him not abuse me; for patience will often break down when they heap insults upon it.”

“None can be offered to Señor Don Quixote,” said Don Juan, “that he himself will not be able to avenge, if he does not ward it off with the shield of his patience, which, I take it, is great and strong.”

A considerable portion of the night passed in conversation of this sort, and though Don Juan wished Don Quixote to read more of the book to see what it was all about, he was not to be prevailed upon, saying that he treated it as read and pronounced it utterly silly; and, if by any chance it should come to its author’s ears that he had it in his hand, he did not want him to flatter himself with the idea that he had read it; for our thoughts, and still more our eyes, should keep themselves aloof from what is obscene and filthy.

They asked him whither he meant to direct his steps. He replied, to Saragossa, to take part in the harness jousts which were held in that city every year. Don Juan told him that the new history described how Don Quixote, let him be who he might, took part there in a tilting at the ring, utterly devoid of invention, poor in mottoes, very poor in costume, though rich in sillinesses.

“For that very reason,” said Don Quixote, “I will not set foot in Saragossa; and by that means I shall expose to the world the lie of this new history writer, and people will see that I am not the Don Quixote he speaks of.”

“You will do quite right,” said Don Jeronimo; “and there are other jousts at Barcelona in which Señor Don Quixote may display his prowess.”

“That is what I mean to do,” said Don Quixote; “and as it is now time, I pray your worships to give me leave to retire to bed, and to place and retain me among the number of your greatest friends and servants.”

“And me too,” said Sancho; “maybe I’ll be good for something.”

With this they exchanged farewells, and Don Quixote and Sancho retired to their room, leaving Don Juan and Don Jeronimo amazed to see the medley he made of his good sense and his craziness; and they felt thoroughly convinced that these, and not those their Aragonese author described, were the genuine Don Quixote and Sancho. Don Quixote rose betimes, and bade adieu to his hosts by knocking at the partition of the other room. Sancho paid the landlord magnificently, and recommended him either to say less about the providing of his inn or to keep it better provided.

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LX. OF WHAT HAPPENED DON QUIXOTE ON HIS WAY TO BARCELONA

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It was a fresh morning giving promise of a cool day as Don Quixote quitted the inn, first of all taking care to ascertain the most direct road to Barcelona without touching upon Saragossa; so anxious was he to make out this new historian, who they said abused him so, to be a liar. Well, as it fell out, nothing worthy of being recorded happened him for six days, at the end of which, having turned aside out of the road, he was overtaken by night in a thicket of oak or cork trees; for on this point Cide Hamete is not as precise as he usually is on other matters.

Master and man dismounted from their beasts, and as soon as they had settled themselves at the foot of the trees, Sancho, who had had a good noontide meal that day, let himself, without more ado, pass the gates of sleep. But Don Quixote, whom his thoughts, far more than hunger, kept awake, could not close an eye, and roamed in fancy to and fro through all sorts of places. At one moment it seemed to him that he was in the cave of Montesinos and saw Dulcinea, transformed into a country wench, skipping and mounting upon her she-ass; again that the words of the sage Merlin were sounding in his ears, setting forth the conditions to be observed and the exertions to be made for the disenchantment of Dulcinea. He lost all patience when he considered the laziness and want of charity of his squire Sancho; for to the best of his belief he had only given himself five lashes, a number paltry and disproportioned to the vast number required. At this thought he felt such vexation and anger that he reasoned the matter thus: “If Alexander the Great cut the Gordian knot, saying, ‘To cut comes to the same thing as to untie,’ and yet did not fail to become lord paramount of all Asia, neither more nor less could happen now in Dulcinea’s disenchantment if I scourge Sancho against his will; for, if it is the condition of the remedy that Sancho shall receive three thousand and odd lashes, what does it matter to me whether he inflicts them himself, or someone else inflicts them, when the essential point is that he receives them, let them come from whatever quarter they may?”

With this idea he went over to Sancho, having first taken Rocinante’s reins and arranged them so as to be able to flog him with them, and began to untie the points (the common belief is he had but one in front) by which his breeches were held up; but the instant he approached him Sancho woke up in his full senses and cried out, “What is this? Who is touching me and untrussing me?”

“It is I,” said Don Quixote, “and I come to make good thy shortcomings and relieve my own distresses; I come to whip thee, Sancho, and wipe off some portion of the debt thou hast undertaken. Dulcinea is perishing, thou art living on regardless, I am dying of hope deferred; therefore untruss thyself with a good will, for mine it is, here, in this retired spot, to give thee at least two thousand lashes.”

“Not a bit of it,” said Sancho; “let your worship keep quiet, or else by the living God the deaf shall hear us; the lashes I pledged myself to must be voluntary and not forced upon me, and just now I have no fancy to whip myself; it is enough if I give you my word to flog and flap myself when I have a mind.”

“It will not do to leave it to thy courtesy, Sancho,” said Don Quixote, “for thou art hard of heart and, though a clown, tender of flesh;” and at the same time he strove and struggled to untie him.

Seeing this Sancho got up, and grappling with his master he gripped him with all his might in his arms, giving him a trip with the heel stretched him on the ground on his back, and pressing his right knee on his chest held his hands in his own so that he could neither move nor breathe.

“How now, traitor!” exclaimed Don Quixote. “Dost thou revolt against thy master and natural lord? Dost thou rise against him who gives thee his bread?”

“I neither put down king, nor set up king,” said Sancho; “I only stand up for myself who am my own lord; if your worship promises me to be quiet, and not to offer to whip me now, I’ll let you go free and unhindered; if not—

Traitor and Doña Sancha’s foe, Thou diest on the spot.”

Don Quixote gave his promise, and swore by the life of his thoughts not to touch so much as a hair of his garments, and to leave him entirely free and to his own discretion to whip himself whenever he pleased.

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Sancho rose and removed some distance from the spot, but as he was about to place himself leaning against another tree he felt something touch his head, and putting up his hands encountered somebody’s two feet with shoes and stockings on them. He trembled with fear and made for another tree, where the very same thing happened to him, and he fell a-shouting, calling upon Don Quixote to come and protect him. Don Quixote did so, and asked him what had happened to him, and what he was afraid of. Sancho replied that all the trees were full of men’s feet and legs. Don Quixote felt them, and guessed at once what it was, and said to Sancho, “Thou hast nothing to be afraid of, for these feet and legs that thou feelest but canst not see belong no doubt to some outlaws and freebooters that have been hanged on these trees; for the authorities in these parts are wont to hang them up by twenties and thirties when they catch them; whereby I conjecture that I must be near Barcelona;” and it was, in fact, as he supposed; with the first light they looked up and saw that the fruit hanging on those trees were freebooters’ bodies.

And now day dawned; and if the dead freebooters had scared them, their hearts were no less troubled by upwards of forty living ones, who all of a sudden surrounded them, and in the Catalan tongue bade them stand and wait until their captain came up. Don Quixote was on foot with his horse unbridled and his lance leaning against a tree, and in short completely defenceless; he thought it best therefore to fold his arms and bow his head and reserve himself for a more favourable occasion and opportunity. The robbers made haste to search Dapple, and did not leave him a single thing of all he carried in the alforjas and in the valise; and lucky it was for Sancho that the duke’s crowns and those he brought from home were in a girdle that he wore round him; but for all that these good folk would have stripped him, and even looked to see what he had hidden between the skin and flesh, but for the arrival at that moment of their captain, who was about thirty-four years of age apparently, strongly built, above the middle height, of stern aspect and swarthy complexion. He was mounted upon a powerful horse, and had on a coat of mail, with four of the pistols they call petronels in that country at his waist. He saw that his squires (for so they call those who follow that trade) were about to rifle Sancho Panza, but he ordered them to desist and was at once obeyed, so the girdle escaped. He wondered to see the lance leaning against the tree, the shield on the ground, and Don Quixote in armour and dejected, with the saddest and most melancholy face that sadness itself could produce; and going up to him he said, “Be not so cast down, good man, for you have not fallen into the hands of any inhuman Busiris, but into Roque Guinart’s, which are more merciful than cruel.”

“The cause of my dejection,” returned Don Quixote, “is not that I have fallen into thy hands, O valiant Roque, whose fame is bounded by no limits on earth, but that my carelessness should have been so great that thy soldiers should have caught me unbridled, when it is my duty, according to the rule of knight-errantry which I profess, to be always on the alert and at all times my own sentinel; for let me tell thee, great Roque, had they found me on my horse, with my lance and shield, it would not have been very easy for them to reduce me to submission, for I am Don Quixote of La Mancha, he who hath filled the whole world with his achievements.”

Roque Guinart at once perceived that Don Quixote’s weakness was more akin to madness than to swagger; and though he had sometimes heard him spoken of, he never regarded the things attributed to him as true, nor could he persuade himself that such a humour could become dominant in the heart of man; he was extremely glad, therefore, to meet him and test at close quarters what he had heard of him at a distance; so he said to him, “Despair not, valiant knight, nor regard as an untoward fate the position in which thou findest thyself; it may be that by these slips thy crooked fortune will make itself straight; for heaven by strange circuitous ways, mysterious and incomprehensible to man, raises up the fallen and makes rich the poor.”

Don Quixote was about to thank him, when they heard behind them a noise as of a troop of horses; there was, however, but one, riding on which at a furious pace came a youth, apparently about twenty years of age, clad in green damask edged with gold and breeches and a loose frock, with a hat looped up in the Walloon fashion, tight-fitting polished boots, gilt spurs, dagger and sword, and in his hand a musketoon, and a pair of pistols at his waist.

Roque turned round at the noise and perceived this comely figure, which drawing near thus addressed him, “I came in quest of thee, valiant Roque, to find in thee if not a remedy at least relief in my misfortune; and not to keep thee in suspense, for I see thou dost not recognise me, I will tell thee who I am; I am Claudia Jeronima, the daughter of Simon Forte, thy good friend, and special enemy of Clauquel Torrellas, who is thine also as being of the faction opposed to thee. Thou knowest that this Torrellas has a son who is called, or at least was not two hours since, Don Vicente Torrellas. Well, to cut short the tale of my misfortune, I will tell thee in a few words what this youth has brought upon me. He saw me, he paid court to me, I listened to him, and, unknown to my father, I loved him; for there is no woman, however secluded she may live or close she may be kept, who will not have opportunities and to spare for following her headlong impulses. In a word, he pledged himself to be mine, and I promised to be his, without carrying matters any further. Yesterday I learned that, forgetful of his pledge to me, he was about to marry another, and that he was to go this morning to plight his troth, intelligence which overwhelmed and exasperated me; my father not being at home I was able to adopt this costume you see, and urging my horse to speed I overtook Don Vicente about a league from this, and without waiting to utter reproaches or hear excuses I fired this musket at him, and these two pistols besides, and to the best of my belief I must have lodged more than two bullets in his body, opening doors to let my honour go free, enveloped in his blood. I left him there in the hands of his servants, who did not dare and were not able to interfere in his defence, and I come to seek from thee a safe-conduct into France, where I have relatives with whom I can live; and also to implore thee to protect my father, so that Don Vicente’s numerous kinsmen may not venture to wreak their lawless vengeance upon him.”

Roque, filled with admiration at the gallant bearing, high spirit, comely figure, and adventure of the fair Claudia, said to her, “Come, señora, let us go and see if thy enemy is dead; and then we will consider what will be best for thee.” Don Quixote, who had been listening to what Claudia said and Roque Guinart said in reply to her, exclaimed, “Nobody need trouble himself with the defence of this lady, for I take it upon myself. Give me my horse and arms, and wait for me here; I will go in quest of this knight, and dead or alive I will make him keep his word plighted to so great beauty.”

“Nobody need have any doubt about that,” said Sancho, “for my master has a very happy knack of matchmaking; it’s not many days since he forced another man to marry, who in the same way backed out of his promise to another maiden; and if it had not been for his persecutors the enchanters changing the man’s proper shape into a lacquey’s the said maiden would not be one this minute.”

Roque, who was paying more attention to the fair Claudia’s adventure than to the words of master or man, did not hear them; and ordering his squires to restore to Sancho everything they had stripped Dapple of, he directed them to return to the place where they had been quartered during the night, and then set off with Claudia at full speed in search of the wounded or slain Don Vicente. They reached the spot where Claudia met him, but found nothing there save freshly spilt blood; looking all round, however, they descried some people on the slope of a hill above them, and concluded, as indeed it proved to be, that it was Don Vicente, whom either dead or alive his servants were removing to attend to his wounds or to bury him. They made haste to overtake them, which, as the party moved slowly, they were able to do with ease. They found Don Vicente in the arms of his servants, whom he was entreating in a broken feeble voice to leave him there to die, as the pain of his wounds would not suffer him to go any farther. Claudia and Roque threw themselves off their horses and advanced towards him; the servants were overawed by the appearance of Roque, and Claudia was moved by the sight of Don Vicente, and going up to him half tenderly half sternly, she seized his hand and said to him, “Hadst thou given me this according to our compact thou hadst never come to this pass.”

The wounded gentleman opened his all but closed eyes, and recognising Claudia said, “I see clearly, fair and mistaken lady, that it is thou that hast slain me, a punishment not merited or deserved by my feelings towards thee, for never did I mean to, nor could I, wrong thee in thought or deed.”

“It is not true, then,” said Claudia, “that thou wert going this morning to marry Leonora the daughter of the rich Balvastro?”

“Assuredly not,” replied Don Vicente; “my cruel fortune must have carried those tidings to thee to drive thee in thy jealousy to take my life; and to assure thyself of this, press my hands and take me for thy husband if thou wilt; I have no better satisfaction to offer thee for the wrong thou fanciest thou hast received from me.”

Claudia wrung his hands, and her own heart was so wrung that she lay fainting on the bleeding breast of Don Vicente, whom a death spasm seized the same instant. Roque was in perplexity and knew not what to do; the servants ran to fetch water to sprinkle their faces, and brought some and bathed them with it. Claudia recovered from her fainting fit, but not so Don Vicente from the paroxysm that had overtaken him, for his life had come to an end. On perceiving this, Claudia, when she had convinced herself that her beloved husband was no more, rent the air with her sighs and made the heavens ring with her lamentations; she tore her hair and scattered it to the winds, she beat her face with her hands and showed all the signs of grief and sorrow that could be conceived to come from an afflicted heart. “Cruel, reckless woman!” she cried, “how easily wert thou moved to carry out a thought so wicked! O furious force of jealousy, to what desperate lengths dost thou lead those that give thee lodging in their bosoms! O husband, whose unhappy fate in being mine hath borne thee from the marriage bed to the grave!”

So vehement and so piteous were the lamentations of Claudia that they drew tears from Roque’s eyes, unused as they were to shed them on any occasion. The servants wept, Claudia swooned away again and again, and the whole place seemed a field of sorrow and an abode of misfortune. In the end Roque Guinart directed Don Vicente’s servants to carry his body to his father’s village, which was close by, for burial. Claudia told him she meant to go to a monastery of which an aunt of hers was abbess, where she intended to pass her life with a better and everlasting spouse. He applauded her pious resolution, and offered to accompany her whithersoever she wished, and to protect her father against the kinsmen of Don Vicente and all the world, should they seek to injure him. Claudia would not on any account allow him to accompany her; and thanking him for his offers as well as she could, took leave of him in tears. The servants of Don Vicente carried away his body, and Roque returned to his comrades, and so ended the love of Claudia Jeronima; but what wonder, when it was the insuperable and cruel might of jealousy that wove the web of her sad story?

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Roque Guinart found his squires at the place to which he had ordered them, and Don Quixote on Rocinante in the midst of them delivering a harangue to them in which he urged them to give up a mode of life so full of peril, as well to the soul as to the body; but as most of them were Gascons, rough lawless fellows, his speech did not make much impression on them. Roque on coming up asked Sancho if his men had returned and restored to him the treasures and jewels they had stripped off Dapple. Sancho said they had, but that three kerchiefs that were worth three cities were missing.

“What are you talking about, man?” said one of the bystanders; “I have got them, and they are not worth three reals.”

“That is true,” said Don Quixote; “but my squire values them at the rate he says, as having been given me by the person who gave them.”

Roque Guinart ordered them to be restored at once; and making his men fall in in line he directed all the clothing, jewellery, and money that they had taken since the last distribution to be produced; and making a hasty valuation, and reducing what could not be divided into money, he made shares for the whole band so equitably and carefully, that in no case did he exceed or fall short of strict distributive justice.

When this had been done, and all left satisfied, Roque observed to Don Quixote, “If this scrupulous exactness were not observed with these fellows there would be no living with them.”

Upon this Sancho remarked, “From what I have seen here, justice is such a good thing that there is no doing without it, even among the thieves themselves.”

One of the squires heard this, and raising the butt-end of his harquebuss would no doubt have broken Sancho’s head with it had not Roque Guinart called out to him to hold his hand. Sancho was frightened out of his wits, and vowed not to open his lips so long as he was in the company of these people.

At this instant one or two of those squires who were posted as sentinels on the roads, to watch who came along them and report what passed to their chief, came up and said, “Señor, there is a great troop of people not far off coming along the road to Barcelona.”

To which Roque replied, “Hast thou made out whether they are of the sort that are after us, or of the sort we are after?”

“The sort we are after,” said the squire.

“Well then, away with you all,” said Roque, “and bring them here to me at once without letting one of them escape.”

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They obeyed, and Don Quixote, Sancho, and Roque, left by themselves, waited to see what the squires brought, and while they were waiting Roque said to Don Quixote, “It must seem a strange sort of life to Señor Don Quixote, this of ours, strange adventures, strange incidents, and all full of danger; and I do not wonder that it should seem so, for in truth I must own there is no mode of life more restless or anxious than ours. What led me into it was a certain thirst for vengeance, which is strong enough to disturb the quietest hearts. I am by nature tender-hearted and kindly, but, as I said, the desire to revenge myself for a wrong that was done me so overturns all my better impulses that I keep on in this way of life in spite of what conscience tells me; and as one depth calls to another, and one sin to another sin, revenges have linked themselves together, and I have taken upon myself not only my own but those of others: it pleases God, however, that, though I see myself in this maze of entanglements, I do not lose all hope of escaping from it and reaching a safe port.”

Don Quixote was amazed to hear Roque utter such excellent and just sentiments, for he did not think that among those who followed such trades as robbing, murdering, and waylaying, there could be anyone capable of a virtuous thought, and he said in reply, “Señor Roque, the beginning of health lies in knowing the disease and in the sick man’s willingness to take the medicines which the physician prescribes; you are sick, you know what ails you, and heaven, or more properly speaking God, who is our physician, will administer medicines that will cure you, and cure gradually, and not of a sudden or by a miracle; besides, sinners of discernment are nearer amendment than those who are fools; and as your worship has shown good sense in your remarks, all you have to do is to keep up a good heart and trust that the weakness of your conscience will be strengthened. And if you have any desire to shorten the journey and put yourself easily in the way of salvation, come with me, and I will show you how to become a knight-errant, a calling wherein so many hardships and mishaps are encountered that if they be taken as penances they will lodge you in heaven in a trice.”

Roque laughed at Don Quixote’s exhortation, and changing the conversation he related the tragic affair of Claudia Jeronima, at which Sancho was extremely grieved; for he had not found the young woman’s beauty, boldness, and spirit at all amiss.

And now the squires despatched to make the prize came up, bringing with them two gentlemen on horseback, two pilgrims on foot, and a coach full of women with some six servants on foot and on horseback in attendance on them, and a couple of muleteers whom the gentlemen had with them. The squires made a ring round them, both victors and vanquished maintaining profound silence, waiting for the great Roque Guinart to speak. He asked the gentlemen who they were, whither they were going, and what money they carried with them; “Señor,” replied one of them, “we are two captains of Spanish infantry; our companies are at Naples, and we are on our way to embark in four galleys which they say are at Barcelona under orders for Sicily; and we have about two or three hundred crowns, with which we are, according to our notions, rich and contented, for a soldier’s poverty does not allow a more extensive hoard.”

Roque asked the pilgrims the same questions he had put to the captains, and was answered that they were going to take ship for Rome, and that between them they might have about sixty reals. He asked also who was in the coach, whither they were bound and what money they had, and one of the men on horseback replied, “The persons in the coach are my lady Doña Guiomar de Quiñones, wife of the regent of the Vicaria at Naples, her little daughter, a handmaid and a duenna; we six servants are in attendance upon her, and the money amounts to six hundred crowns.”

“So then,” said Roque Guinart, “we have got here nine hundred crowns and sixty reals; my soldiers must number some sixty; see how much there falls to each, for I am a bad arithmetician.” As soon as the robbers heard this they raised a shout of “Long life to Roque Guinart, in spite of the lladres that seek his ruin!”

The captains showed plainly the concern they felt, the regent’s lady was downcast, and the pilgrims did not at all enjoy seeing their property confiscated. Roque kept them in suspense in this way for a while; but he had no desire to prolong their distress, which might be seen a bowshot off, and turning to the captains he said, “Sirs, will your worships be pleased of your courtesy to lend me sixty crowns, and her ladyship the regent’s wife eighty, to satisfy this band that follows me, for ‘it is by his singing the abbot gets his dinner;’ and then you may at once proceed on your journey, free and unhindered, with a safe-conduct which I shall give you, so that if you come across any other bands of mine that I have scattered in these parts, they may do you no harm; for I have no intention of doing injury to soldiers, or to any woman, especially one of quality.”

Profuse and hearty were the expressions of gratitude with which the captains thanked Roque for his courtesy and generosity; for such they regarded his leaving them their own money. Señora Doña Guiomar de Quiñones wanted to throw herself out of the coach to kiss the feet and hands of the great Roque, but he would not suffer it on any account; so far from that, he begged her pardon for the wrong he had done her under pressure of the inexorable necessities of his unfortunate calling. The regent’s lady ordered one of her servants to give the eighty crowns that had been assessed as her share at once, for the captains had already paid down their sixty. The pilgrims were about to give up the whole of their little hoard, but Roque bade them keep quiet, and turning to his men he said, “Of these crowns two fall to each man and twenty remain over; let ten be given to these pilgrims, and the other ten to this worthy squire that he may be able to speak favourably of this adventure;” and then having writing materials, with which he always went provided, brought to him, he gave them in writing a safe-conduct to the leaders of his bands; and bidding them farewell let them go free and filled with admiration at his magnanimity, his generous disposition, and his unusual conduct, and inclined to regard him as an Alexander the Great rather than a notorious robber.

One of the squires observed in his mixture of Gascon and Catalan, “This captain of ours would make a better friar than highwayman; if he wants to be so generous another time, let it be with his own property and not ours.”

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The unlucky wight did not speak so low but that Roque overheard him, and drawing his sword almost split his head in two, saying, “That is the way I punish impudent saucy fellows.” They were all taken aback, and not one of them dared to utter a word, such deference did they pay him. Roque then withdrew to one side and wrote a letter to a friend of his at Barcelona, telling him that the famous Don Quixote of La Mancha, the knight-errant of whom there was so much talk, was with him, and was, he assured him, the drollest and wisest man in the world; and that in four days from that date, that is to say, on Saint John the Baptist’s Day, he was going to deposit him in full armour mounted on his horse Rocinante, together with his squire Sancho on an ass, in the middle of the strand of the city; and bidding him give notice of this to his friends the Niarros, that they might divert themselves with him. He wished, he said, his enemies the Cadells could be deprived of this pleasure; but that was impossible, because the crazes and shrewd sayings of Don Quixote and the humours of his squire Sancho Panza could not help giving general pleasure to all the world. He despatched the letter by one of his squires, who, exchanging the costume of a highwayman for that of a peasant, made his way into Barcelona and gave it to the person to whom it was directed.

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CHAPTER LXI. OF WHAT HAPPENED DON QUIXOTE ON ENTERING BARCELONA, TOGETHER WITH OTHER MATTERS THAT PARTAKE OF THE TRUE RATHER THAN OF THE INGENIOUS

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Don Quixote passed three days and three nights with Roque, and had he passed three hundred years he would have found enough to observe and wonder at in his mode of life. At daybreak they were in one spot, at dinner-time in another; sometimes they fled without knowing from whom, at other times they lay in wait, not knowing for what. They slept standing, breaking their slumbers to shift from place to place. There was nothing but sending out spies and scouts, posting sentinels and blowing the matches of harquebusses, though they carried but few, for almost all used flintlocks. Roque passed his nights in some place or other apart from his men, that they might not know where he was, for the many proclamations the viceroy of Barcelona had issued against his life kept him in fear and uneasiness, and he did not venture to trust anyone, afraid that even his own men would kill him or deliver him up to the authorities; of a truth, a weary miserable life! At length, by unfrequented roads, short cuts, and secret paths, Roque, Don Quixote, and Sancho, together with six squires, set out for Barcelona. They reached the strand on Saint John’s Eve during the night; and Roque, after embracing Don Quixote and Sancho (to whom he presented the ten crowns he had promised but had not until then given), left them with many expressions of good-will on both sides.

Roque went back, while Don Quixote remained on horseback, just as he was, waiting for day, and it was not long before the countenance of the fair Aurora began to show itself at the balconies of the east, gladdening the grass and flowers, if not the ear, though to gladden that too there came at the same moment a sound of clarions and drums, and a din of bells, and a tramp, tramp, and cries of “Clear the way there!” of some runners, that seemed to issue from the city.

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The dawn made way for the sun that with a face broader than a buckler began to rise slowly above the low line of the horizon; Don Quixote and Sancho gazed all round them; they beheld the sea, a sight until then unseen by them; it struck them as exceedingly spacious and broad, much more so than the lakes of Ruidera which they had seen in La Mancha. They saw the galleys along the beach, which, lowering their awnings, displayed themselves decked with streamers and pennons that trembled in the breeze and kissed and swept the water, while on board the bugles, trumpets, and clarions were sounding and filling the air far and near with melodious warlike notes. Then they began to move and execute a kind of skirmish upon the calm water, while a vast number of horsemen on fine horses and in showy liveries, issuing from the city, engaged on their side in a somewhat similar movement. The soldiers on board the galleys kept up a ceaseless fire, which they on the walls and forts of the city returned, and the heavy cannon rent the air with the tremendous noise they made, to which the gangway guns of the galleys replied. The bright sea, the smiling earth, the clear air—though at times darkened by the smoke of the guns—all seemed to fill the whole multitude with unexpected delight. Sancho could not make out how it was that those great masses that moved over the sea had so many feet.

And now the horsemen in livery came galloping up with shouts and outlandish cries and cheers to where Don Quixote stood amazed and wondering; and one of them, he to whom Roque had sent word, addressing him exclaimed, “Welcome to our city, mirror, beacon, star and cynosure of all knight-errantry in its widest extent! Welcome, I say, valiant Don Quixote of La Mancha; not the false, the fictitious, the apocryphal, that these latter days have offered us in lying histories, but the true, the legitimate, the real one that Cide Hamete Benengeli, flower of historians, has described to us!”

Don Quixote made no answer, nor did the horsemen wait for one, but wheeling again with all their followers, they began curvetting round Don Quixote, who, turning to Sancho, said, “These gentlemen have plainly recognised us; I will wager they have read our history, and even that newly printed one by the Aragonese.”

The cavalier who had addressed Don Quixote again approached him and said, “Come with us, Señor Don Quixote, for we are all of us your servants and great friends of Roque Guinart’s;” to which Don Quixote returned, “If courtesy breeds courtesy, yours, sir knight, is daughter or very nearly akin to the great Roque’s; carry me where you please; I will have no will but yours, especially if you deign to employ it in your service.”

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The cavalier replied with words no less polite, and then, all closing in around him, they set out with him for the city, to the music of the clarions and the drums. As they were entering it, the wicked one, who is the author of all mischief, and the boys who are wickeder than the wicked one, contrived that a couple of these audacious irrepressible urchins should force their way through the crowd, and lifting up, one of them Dapple’s tail and the other Rocinante’s, insert a bunch of furze under each. The poor beasts felt the strange spurs and added to their anguish by pressing their tails tight, so much so that, cutting a multitude of capers, they flung their masters to the ground. Don Quixote, covered with shame and out of countenance, ran to pluck the plume from his poor jade’s tail, while Sancho did the same for Dapple. His conductors tried to punish the audacity of the boys, but there was no possibility of doing so, for they hid themselves among the hundreds of others that were following them. Don Quixote and Sancho mounted once more, and with the same music and acclamations reached their conductor’s house, which was large and stately, that of a rich gentleman, in short; and there for the present we will leave them, for such is Cide Hamete’s pleasure.

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CHAPTER LXII. WHICH DEALS WITH THE ADVENTURE OF THE ENCHANTED HEAD, TOGETHER WITH OTHER TRIVIAL MATTERS WHICH CANNOT BE LEFT UNTOLD

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Don Quixote’s host was one Don Antonio Moreno by name, a gentleman of wealth and intelligence, and very fond of diverting himself in any fair and good-natured way; and having Don Quixote in his house he set about devising modes of making him exhibit his mad points in some harmless fashion; for jests that give pain are no jests, and no sport is worth anything if it hurts another. The first thing he did was to make Don Quixote take off his armour, and lead him, in that tight chamois suit we have already described and depicted more than once, out on a balcony overhanging one of the chief streets of the city, in full view of the crowd and of the boys, who gazed at him as they would at a monkey. The cavaliers in livery careered before him again as though it were for him alone, and not to enliven the festival of the day, that they wore it, and Sancho was in high delight, for it seemed to him that, how he knew not, he had fallen upon another Camacho’s wedding, another house like Don Diego de Miranda’s, another castle like the duke’s. Some of Don Antonio’s friends dined with him that day, and all showed honour to Don Quixote and treated him as a knight-errant, and he becoming puffed up and exalted in consequence could not contain himself for satisfaction. Such were the drolleries of Sancho that all the servants of the house, and all who heard him, were kept hanging upon his lips. While at table Don Antonio said to him, “We hear, worthy Sancho, that you are so fond of manjar blanco and forced-meat balls, that if you have any left, you keep them in your bosom for the next day.”

“No, señor, that’s not true,” said Sancho, “for I am more cleanly than greedy, and my master Don Quixote here knows well that we two are used to live for a week on a handful of acorns or nuts. To be sure, if it so happens that they offer me a heifer, I run with a halter; I mean, I eat what I’m given, and make use of opportunities as I find them; but whoever says that I’m an out-of-the-way eater or not cleanly, let me tell him that he is wrong; and I’d put it in a different way if I did not respect the honourable beards that are at the table.”

“Indeed,” said Don Quixote, “Sancho’s moderation and cleanliness in eating might be inscribed and graved on plates of brass, to be kept in eternal remembrance in ages to come. It is true that when he is hungry there is a certain appearance of voracity about him, for he eats at a great pace and chews with both jaws; but cleanliness he is always mindful of; and when he was governor he learned how to eat daintily, so much so that he eats grapes, and even pomegranate pips, with a fork.”

“What!” said Don Antonio, “has Sancho been a governor?”

“Ay,” said Sancho, “and of an island called Barataria. I governed it to perfection for ten days; and lost my rest all the time; and learned to look down upon all the governments in the world; I got out of it by taking to flight, and fell into a pit where I gave myself up for dead, and out of which I escaped alive by a miracle.”

Don Quixote then gave them a minute account of the whole affair of Sancho’s government, with which he greatly amused his hearers.

On the cloth being removed Don Antonio, taking Don Quixote by the hand, passed with him into a distant room in which there was nothing in the way of furniture except a table, apparently of jasper, resting on a pedestal of the same, upon which was set up, after the fashion of the busts of the Roman emperors, a head which seemed to be of bronze. Don Antonio traversed the whole apartment with Don Quixote and walked round the table several times, and then said, “Now, Señor Don Quixote, that I am satisfied that no one is listening to us, and that the door is shut, I will tell you of one of the rarest adventures, or more properly speaking strange things, that can be imagined, on condition that you will keep what I say to you in the remotest recesses of secrecy.”

“I swear it,” said Don Quixote, “and for greater security I will put a flag-stone over it; for I would have you know, Señor Don Antonio” (he had by this time learned his name), “that you are addressing one who, though he has ears to hear, has no tongue to speak; so that you may safely transfer whatever you have in your bosom into mine, and rely upon it that you have consigned it to the depths of silence.”

“In reliance upon that promise,” said Don Antonio, “I will astonish you with what you shall see and hear, and relieve myself of some of the vexation it gives me to have no one to whom I can confide my secrets, for they are not of a sort to be entrusted to everybody.”

Don Quixote was puzzled, wondering what could be the object of such precautions; whereupon Don Antonio taking his hand passed it over the bronze head and the whole table and the pedestal of jasper on which it stood, and then said, “This head, Señor Don Quixote, has been made and fabricated by one of the greatest magicians and wizards the world ever saw, a Pole, I believe, by birth, and a pupil of the famous Escotillo of whom such marvellous stories are told. He was here in my house, and for a consideration of a thousand crowns that I gave him he constructed this head, which has the property and virtue of answering whatever questions are put to its ear. He observed the points of the compass, he traced figures, he studied the stars, he watched favourable moments, and at length brought it to the perfection we shall see to-morrow, for on Fridays it is mute, and this being Friday we must wait till the next day. In the interval your worship may consider what you would like to ask it; and I know by experience that in all its answers it tells the truth.”

Don Quixote was amazed at the virtue and property of the head, and was inclined to disbelieve Don Antonio; but seeing what a short time he had to wait to test the matter, he did not choose to say anything except that he thanked him for having revealed to him so mighty a secret. They then quitted the room, Don Antonio locked the door, and they repaired to the chamber where the rest of the gentlemen were assembled. In the meantime Sancho had recounted to them several of the adventures and accidents that had happened his master.

That afternoon they took Don Quixote out for a stroll, not in his armour but in street costume, with a surcoat of tawny cloth upon him, that at that season would have made ice itself sweat. Orders were left with the servants to entertain Sancho so as not to let him leave the house. Don Quixote was mounted, not on Rocinante, but upon a tall mule of easy pace and handsomely caparisoned. They put the surcoat on him, and on the back, without his perceiving it, they stitched a parchment on which they wrote in large letters, “This is Don Quixote of La Mancha.” As they set out upon their excursion the placard attracted the eyes of all who chanced to see him, and as they read out, “This is Don Quixote of La Mancha,” Don Quixote was amazed to see how many people gazed at him, called him by his name, and recognised him, and turning to Don Antonio, who rode at his side, he observed to him, “Great are the privileges knight-errantry involves, for it makes him who professes it known and famous in every region of the earth; see, Don Antonio, even the very boys of this city know me without ever having seen me.”

“True, Señor Don Quixote,” returned Don Antonio; “for as fire cannot be hidden or kept secret, virtue cannot escape being recognised; and that which is attained by the profession of arms shines distinguished above all others.”

It came to pass, however, that as Don Quixote was proceeding amid the acclamations that have been described, a Castilian, reading the inscription on his back, cried out in a loud voice, “The devil take thee for a Don Quixote of La Mancha! What! art thou here, and not dead of the countless drubbings that have fallen on thy ribs? Thou art mad; and if thou wert so by thyself, and kept thyself within thy madness, it would not be so bad; but thou hast the gift of making fools and blockheads of all who have anything to do with thee or say to thee. Why, look at these gentlemen bearing thee company! Get thee home, blockhead, and see after thy affairs, and thy wife and children, and give over these fooleries that are sapping thy brains and skimming away thy wits.”

“Go your own way, brother,” said Don Antonio, “and don’t offer advice to those who don’t ask you for it. Señor Don Quixote is in his full senses, and we who bear him company are not fools; virtue is to be honoured wherever it may be found; go, and bad luck to you, and don’t meddle where you are not wanted.”

“By God, your worship is right,” replied the Castilian; “for to advise this good man is to kick against the pricks; still for all that it fills me with pity that the sound wit they say the blockhead has in everything should dribble away by the channel of his knight-errantry; but may the bad luck your worship talks of follow me and all my descendants, if, from this day forth, though I should live longer than Methuselah, I ever give advice to anybody even if he asks me for it.”

The advice-giver took himself off, and they continued their stroll; but so great was the press of the boys and people to read the placard, that Don Antonio was forced to remove it as if he were taking off something else.

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Night came and they went home, and there was a ladies’ dancing party, for Don Antonio’s wife, a lady of rank and gaiety, beauty and wit, had invited some friends of hers to come and do honour to her guest and amuse themselves with his strange delusions. Several of them came, they supped sumptuously, the dance began at about ten o’clock. Among the ladies were two of a mischievous and frolicsome turn, and, though perfectly modest, somewhat free in playing tricks for harmless diversion’s sake. These two were so indefatigable in taking Don Quixote out to dance that they tired him down, not only in body but in spirit. It was a sight to see the figure Don Quixote made, long, lank, lean, and yellow, his garments clinging tight to him, ungainly, and above all anything but agile.

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The gay ladies made secret love to him, and he on his part secretly repelled them, but finding himself hard pressed by their blandishments he lifted up his voice and exclaimed, “Fugite, partes adversæ! Leave me in peace, unwelcome overtures; avaunt, with your desires, ladies, for she who is queen of mine, the peerless Dulcinea del Toboso, suffers none but hers to lead me captive and subdue me;” and so saying he sat down on the floor in the middle of the room, tired out and broken down by all this exertion in the dance.

Don Antonio directed him to be taken up bodily and carried to bed, and the first that laid hold of him was Sancho, saying as he did so, “In an evil hour you took to dancing, master mine; do you fancy all mighty men of valour are dancers, and all knights-errant given to capering? If you do, I can tell you you are mistaken; there’s many a man would rather undertake to kill a giant than cut a caper. If it had been the shoe-fling you were at I could take your place, for I can do the shoe-fling like a gerfalcon; but I’m no good at dancing.”

With these and other observations Sancho set the whole ball-room laughing, and then put his master to bed, covering him up well so that he might sweat out any chill caught after his dancing.

The next day Don Antonio thought he might as well make trial of the enchanted head, and with Don Quixote, Sancho, and two others, friends of his, besides the two ladies that had tired out Don Quixote at the ball, who had remained for the night with Don Antonio’s wife, he locked himself up in the chamber where the head was. He explained to them the property it possessed and entrusted the secret to them, telling them that now for the first time he was going to try the virtue of the enchanted head; but except Don Antonio’s two friends no one else was privy to the mystery of the enchantment, and if Don Antonio had not first revealed it to them they would have been inevitably reduced to the same state of amazement as the rest, so artfully and skilfully was it contrived.

The first to approach the ear of the head was Don Antonio himself, and in a low voice but not so low as not to be audible to all, he said to it, “Head, tell me by the virtue that lies in thee what am I at this moment thinking of?”

The head, without any movement of the lips, answered in a clear and distinct voice, so as to be heard by all, “I cannot judge of thoughts.”

All were thunderstruck at this, and all the more so as they saw that there was nobody anywhere near the table or in the whole room that could have answered. “How many of us are here?” asked Don Antonio once more; and it was answered him in the same way softly, “Thou and thy wife, with two friends of thine and two of hers, and a famous knight called Don Quixote of La Mancha, and a squire of his, Sancho Panza by name.”

Now there was fresh astonishment; now everyone’s hair was standing on end with awe; and Don Antonio retiring from the head exclaimed, “This suffices to show me that I have not been deceived by him who sold thee to me, O sage head, talking head, answering head, wonderful head! Let someone else go and put what question he likes to it.”

And as women are commonly impulsive and inquisitive, the first to come forward was one of the two friends of Don Antonio’s wife, and her question was, “Tell me, Head, what shall I do to be very beautiful?” and the answer she got was, “Be very modest.”

“I question thee no further,” said the fair querist.

Her companion then came up and said, “I should like to know, Head, whether my husband loves me or not;” the answer given to her was, “Think how he uses thee, and thou mayest guess;” and the married lady went off saying, “That answer did not need a question; for of course the treatment one receives shows the disposition of him from whom it is received.”

Then one of Don Antonio’s two friends advanced and asked it, “Who am I?” “Thou knowest,” was the answer. “That is not what I ask thee,” said the gentleman, “but to tell me if thou knowest me.” “Yes, I know thee, thou art Don Pedro Noriz,” was the reply.

“I do not seek to know more,” said the gentleman, “for this is enough to convince me, O Head, that thou knowest everything;” and as he retired the other friend came forward and asked it, “Tell me, Head, what are the wishes of my eldest son?”

“I have said already,” was the answer, “that I cannot judge of wishes; however, I can tell thee the wish of thy son is to bury thee.”

“That’s ‘what I see with my eyes I point out with my finger,’” said the gentleman, “so I ask no more.”

Don Antonio’s wife came up and said, “I know not what to ask thee, Head; I would only seek to know of thee if I shall have many years of enjoyment of my good husband;” and the answer she received was, “Thou shalt, for his vigour and his temperate habits promise many years of life, which by their intemperance others so often cut short.”

Then Don Quixote came forward and said, “Tell me, thou that answerest, was that which I describe as having happened to me in the cave of Montesinos the truth or a dream? Will Sancho’s whipping be accomplished without fail? Will the disenchantment of Dulcinea be brought about?”

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“As to the question of the cave,” was the reply, “there is much to be said; there is something of both in it. Sancho’s whipping will proceed leisurely. The disenchantment of Dulcinea will attain its due consummation.”

“I seek to know no more,” said Don Quixote; “let me but see Dulcinea disenchanted, and I will consider that all the good fortune I could wish for has come upon me all at once.”

The last questioner was Sancho, and his questions were, “Head, shall I by any chance have another government? Shall I ever escape from the hard life of a squire? Shall I get back to see my wife and children?” To which the answer came, “Thou shalt govern in thy house; and if thou returnest to it thou shalt see thy wife and children; and on ceasing to serve thou shalt cease to be a squire.”

“Good, by God!” said Sancho Panza; “I could have told myself that; the prophet Perogrullo could have said no more.”

“What answer wouldst thou have, beast?” said Don Quixote; “is it not enough that the replies this head has given suit the questions put to it?”

“Yes, it is enough,” said Sancho; “but I should have liked it to have made itself plainer and told me more.”

The questions and answers came to an end here, but not the wonder with which all were filled, except Don Antonio’s two friends who were in the secret. This Cide Hamete Benengeli thought fit to reveal at once, not to keep the world in suspense, fancying that the head had some strange magical mystery in it. He says, therefore, that on the model of another head, the work of an image maker, which he had seen at Madrid, Don Antonio made this one at home for his own amusement and to astonish ignorant people; and its mechanism was as follows. The table was of wood painted and varnished to imitate jasper, and the pedestal on which it stood was of the same material, with four eagles’ claws projecting from it to support the weight more steadily. The head, which resembled a bust or figure of a Roman emperor, and was coloured like bronze, was hollow throughout, as was the table, into which it was fitted so exactly that no trace of the joining was visible. The pedestal of the table was also hollow and communicated with the throat and neck of the head, and the whole was in communication with another room underneath the chamber in which the head stood. Through the entire cavity in the pedestal, table, throat and neck of the bust or figure, there passed a tube of tin carefully adjusted and concealed from sight. In the room below corresponding to the one above was placed the person who was to answer, with his mouth to the tube, and the voice, as in an ear-trumpet, passed from above downwards, and from below upwards, the words coming clearly and distinctly; it was impossible, thus, to detect the trick. A nephew of Don Antonio’s, a smart sharp-witted student, was the answerer, and as he had been told beforehand by his uncle who the persons were that would come with him that day into the chamber where the head was, it was an easy matter for him to answer the first question at once and correctly; the others he answered by guess-work, and, being clever, cleverly. Cide Hamete adds that this marvellous contrivance stood for some ten or twelve days; but that, as it became noised abroad through the city that he had in his house an enchanted head that answered all who asked questions of it, Don Antonio, fearing it might come to the ears of the watchful sentinels of our faith, explained the matter to the inquisitors, who commanded him to break it up and have done with it, lest the ignorant vulgar should be scandalised. By Don Quixote, however, and by Sancho the head was still held to be an enchanted one, and capable of answering questions, though more to Don Quixote’s satisfaction than Sancho’s.

The gentlemen of the city, to gratify Don Antonio and also to do the honours to Don Quixote, and give him an opportunity of displaying his folly, made arrangements for a tilting at the ring in six days from that time, which, however, for reason that will be mentioned hereafter, did not take place.

Don Quixote took a fancy to stroll about the city quietly and on foot, for he feared that if he went on horseback the boys would follow him; so he and Sancho and two servants that Don Antonio gave him set out for a walk. Thus it came to pass that going along one of the streets Don Quixote lifted up his eyes and saw written in very large letters over a door, “Books printed here,” at which he was vastly pleased, for until then he had never seen a printing office, and he was curious to know what it was like. He entered with all his following, and saw them drawing sheets in one place, correcting in another, setting up type here, revising there; in short all the work that is to be seen in great printing offices. He went up to one case and asked what they were about there; the workmen told him, he watched them with wonder, and passed on. He approached one man, among others, and asked him what he was doing. The workman replied, “Señor, this gentleman here” (pointing to a man of prepossessing appearance and a certain gravity of look) “has translated an Italian book into our Spanish tongue, and I am setting it up in type for the press.”

“What is the title of the book?” asked Don Quixote; to which the author replied, “Señor, in Italian the book is called Le Bagatelle.”

“And what does Le Bagatelle import in our Spanish?” asked Don Quixote.

“Le Bagatelle,” said the author, “is as though we should say in Spanish Los Juguetes; but though the book is humble in name it has good solid matter in it.”

“I,” said Don Quixote, “have some little smattering of Italian, and I plume myself on singing some of Ariosto’s stanzas; but tell me, señor—I do not say this to test your ability, but merely out of curiosity—have you ever met with the word pignatta in your book?”

“Yes, often,” said the author.

“And how do you render that in Spanish?”

“How should I render it,” returned the author, “but by olla?”

“Body o’ me,” exclaimed Don Quixote, “what a proficient you are in the Italian language! I would lay a good wager that where they say in Italian piace you say in Spanish place, and where they say piu you say mas, and you translate sù by arriba and giù by abajo.”

“I translate them so of course,” said the author, “for those are their proper equivalents.”

“I would venture to swear,” said Don Quixote, “that your worship is not known in the world, which always begrudges their reward to rare wits and praiseworthy labours. What talents lie wasted there! What genius thrust away into corners! What worth left neglected! Still it seems to me that translation from one language into another, if it be not from the queens of languages, the Greek and the Latin, is like looking at Flemish tapestries on the wrong side; for though the figures are visible, they are full of threads that make them indistinct, and they do not show with the smoothness and brightness of the right side; and translation from easy languages argues neither ingenuity nor command of words, any more than transcribing or copying out one document from another. But I do not mean by this to draw the inference that no credit is to be allowed for the work of translating, for a man may employ himself in ways worse and less profitable to himself. This estimate does not include two famous translators, Doctor Cristóbal de Figueroa, in his Pastor Fido, and Don Juan de Jáuregui, in his Aminta, wherein by their felicity they leave it in doubt which is the translation and which the original. But tell me, are you printing this book at your own risk, or have you sold the copyright to some bookseller?”

“I print at my own risk,” said the author, “and I expect to make a thousand ducats at least by this first edition, which is to be of two thousand copies that will go off in a twinkling at six reals apiece.”

“A fine calculation you are making!” said Don Quixote; “it is plain you don’t know the ins and outs of the printers, and how they play into one another’s hands. I promise you when you find yourself saddled with two thousand copies you will feel so sore that it will astonish you, particularly if the book is a little out of the common and not in any way highly spiced.”

“What!” said the author, “would your worship, then, have me give it to a bookseller who will give three maravedis for the copyright and think he is doing me a favour? I do not print my books to win fame in the world, for I am known in it already by my works; I want to make money, without which reputation is not worth a rap.”

“God send your worship good luck,” said Don Quixote; and he moved on to another case, where he saw them correcting a sheet of a book with the title of “Light of the Soul;” noticing it he observed, “Books like this, though there are many of the kind, are the ones that deserve to be printed, for many are the sinners in these days, and lights unnumbered are needed for all that are in darkness.”

He passed on, and saw they were also correcting another book, and when he asked its title they told him it was called, “The Second Part of the Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha,” by one of Tordesillas.

“I have heard of this book already,” said Don Quixote, “and verily and on my conscience I thought it had been by this time burned to ashes as a meddlesome intruder; but its Martinmas will come to it as it does to every pig; for fictions have the more merit and charm about them the more nearly they approach the truth or what looks like it; and true stories, the truer they are the better they are;” and so saying he walked out of the printing office with a certain amount of displeasure in his looks. That same day Don Antonio arranged to take him to see the galleys that lay at the beach, whereat Sancho was in high delight, as he had never seen any all his life. Don Antonio sent word to the commandant of the galleys that he intended to bring his guest, the famous Don Quixote of La Mancha, of whom the commandant and all the citizens had already heard, that afternoon to see them; and what happened on board of them will be told in the next chapter.

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CHAPTER LXIII. OF THE MISHAP THAT BEFELL SANCHO PANZA THROUGH THE VISIT TO THE GALLEYS, AND THE STRANGE ADVENTURE OF THE FAIR MORISCO

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Profound were Don Quixote’s reflections on the reply of the enchanted head, not one of them, however, hitting on the secret of the trick, but all concentrated on the promise, which he regarded as a certainty, of Dulcinea’s disenchantment. This he turned over in his mind again and again with great satisfaction, fully persuaded that he would shortly see its fulfillment; and as for Sancho, though, as has been said, he hated being a governor, still he had a longing to be giving orders and finding himself obeyed once more; this is the misfortune that being in authority, even in jest, brings with it.

To resume; that afternoon their host Don Antonio Moreno and his two friends, with Don Quixote and Sancho, went to the galleys. The commandant had been already made aware of his good fortune in seeing two such famous persons as Don Quixote and Sancho, and the instant they came to the shore all the galleys struck their awnings and the clarions rang out. A skiff covered with rich carpets and cushions of crimson velvet was immediately lowered into the water, and as Don Quixote stepped on board of it, the leading galley fired her gangway gun, and the other galleys did the same; and as he mounted the starboard ladder the whole crew saluted him (as is the custom when a personage of distinction comes on board a galley) by exclaiming “Hu, hu, hu,” three times. The general, for so we shall call him, a Valencian gentleman of rank, gave him his hand and embraced him, saying, “I shall mark this day with a white stone as one of the happiest I can expect to enjoy in my lifetime, since I have seen Señor Don Quixote of La Mancha, pattern and image wherein we see contained and condensed all that is worthy in knight-errantry.”

Don Quixote delighted beyond measure with such a lordly reception, replied to him in words no less courteous. All then proceeded to the poop, which was very handsomely decorated, and seated themselves on the bulwark benches; the boatswain passed along the gangway and piped all hands to strip, which they did in an instant. Sancho, seeing such a number of men stripped to the skin, was taken aback, and still more when he saw them spread the awning so briskly that it seemed to him as if all the devils were at work at it; but all this was cakes and fancy bread to what I am going to tell now. Sancho was seated on the captain’s stage, close to the aftermost rower on the right-hand side. He, previously instructed in what he was to do, laid hold of Sancho, hoisting him up in his arms, and the whole crew, who were standing ready, beginning on the right, proceeded to pass him on, whirling him along from hand to hand and from bench to bench with such rapidity that it took the sight out of poor Sancho’s eyes, and he made quite sure that the devils themselves were flying away with him; nor did they leave off with him until they had sent him back along the left side and deposited him on the poop; and the poor fellow was left bruised and breathless and all in a sweat, and unable to comprehend what it was that had happened to him.

Don Quixote when he saw Sancho’s flight without wings asked the general if this was a usual ceremony with those who came on board the galleys for the first time; for, if so, as he had no intention of adopting them as a profession, he had no mind to perform such feats of agility, and if anyone offered to lay hold of him to whirl him about, he vowed to God he would kick his soul out; and as he said this he stood up and clapped his hand upon his sword. At this instant they struck the awning and lowered the yard with a prodigious rattle. Sancho thought heaven was coming off its hinges and going to fall on his head, and full of terror he ducked it and buried it between his knees; nor were Don Quixote’s knees altogether under control, for he too shook a little, squeezed his shoulders together and lost colour. The crew then hoisted the yard with the same rapidity and clatter as when they lowered it, all the while keeping silence as though they had neither voice nor breath. The boatswain gave the signal to weigh anchor, and leaping upon the middle of the gangway began to lay on to the shoulders of the crew with his courbash or whip, and to haul out gradually to sea.

When Sancho saw so many red feet (for such he took the oars to be) moving all together, he said to himself, “It’s these that are the real chanted things, and not the ones my master talks of. What can those wretches have done to be so whipped; and how does that one man who goes along there whistling dare to whip so many? I declare this is hell, or at least purgatory!”

Don Quixote, observing how attentively Sancho regarded what was going on, said to him, “Ah, Sancho my friend, how quickly and cheaply might you finish off the disenchantment of Dulcinea, if you would strip to the waist and take your place among those gentlemen! Amid the pain and sufferings of so many you would not feel your own much; and moreover perhaps the sage Merlin would allow each of these lashes, being laid on with a good hand, to count for ten of those which you must give yourself at last.”

The general was about to ask what these lashes were, and what was Dulcinea’s disenchantment, when a sailor exclaimed, “Monjui signals that there is an oared vessel off the coast to the west.”

On hearing this the general sprang upon the gangway crying, “Now then, my sons, don’t let her give us the slip! It must be some Algerine corsair brigantine that the watchtower signals to us.” The three others immediately came alongside the chief galley to receive their orders. The general ordered two to put out to sea while he with the other kept in shore, so that in this way the vessel could not escape them. The crews plied the oars driving the galleys so furiously that they seemed to fly. The two that had put out to sea, after a couple of miles sighted a vessel which, so far as they could make out, they judged to be one of fourteen or fifteen banks, and so she proved. As soon as the vessel discovered the galleys she went about with the object and in the hope of making her escape by her speed; but the attempt failed, for the chief galley was one of the fastest vessels afloat, and overhauled her so rapidly that they on board the brigantine saw clearly there was no possibility of escaping, and the rais therefore would have had them drop their oars and give themselves up so as not to provoke the captain in command of our galleys to anger. But chance, directing things otherwise, so ordered it that just as the chief galley came close enough for those on board the vessel to hear the shouts from her calling on them to surrender, two Toraquis, that is to say two Turks, both drunken, that with a dozen more were on board the brigantine, discharged their muskets, killing two of the soldiers that lined the sides of our vessel. Seeing this the general swore he would not leave one of those he found on board the vessel alive, but as he bore down furiously upon her she slipped away from him underneath the oars. The galley shot a good way ahead; those on board the vessel saw their case was desperate, and while the galley was coming about they made sail, and by sailing and rowing once more tried to sheer off; but their activity did not do them as much good as their rashness did them harm, for the galley coming up with them in a little more than half a mile threw her oars over them and took the whole of them alive. The other two galleys now joined company and all four returned with the prize to the beach, where a vast multitude stood waiting for them, eager to see what they brought back. The general anchored close in, and perceived that the viceroy of the city was on the shore. He ordered the skiff to push off to fetch him, and the yard to be lowered for the purpose of hanging forthwith the rais and the rest of the men taken on board the vessel, about six-and-thirty in number, all smart fellows and most of them Turkish musketeers. He asked which was the rais of the brigantine, and was answered in Spanish by one of the prisoners (who afterwards proved to be a Spanish renegade), “This young man, señor, that you see here is our rais,” and he pointed to one of the handsomest and most gallant-looking youths that could be imagined. He did not seem to be twenty years of age.

“Tell me, dog,” said the general, “what led thee to kill my soldiers, when thou sawest it was impossible for thee to escape? Is that the way to behave to chief galleys? Knowest thou not that rashness is not valour? Faint prospects of success should make men bold, but not rash.”

The rais was about to reply, but the general could not at that moment listen to him, as he had to hasten to receive the viceroy, who was now coming on board the galley, and with him certain of his attendants and some of the people.

“You have had a good chase, señor general,” said the viceroy.

“Your excellency shall soon see how good, by the game strung up to this yard,” replied the general.

“How so?” returned the viceroy.

“Because,” said the general, “against all law, reason, and usages of war they have killed on my hands two of the best soldiers on board these galleys, and I have sworn to hang every man that I have taken, but above all this youth who is the rais of the brigantine,” and he pointed to him as he stood with his hands already bound and the rope round his neck, ready for death.

The viceroy looked at him, and seeing him so well-favoured, so graceful, and so submissive, he felt a desire to spare his life, the comeliness of the youth furnishing him at once with a letter of recommendation. He therefore questioned him, saying, “Tell me, rais, art thou Turk, Moor, or renegade?”

To which the youth replied, also in Spanish, “I am neither Turk, nor Moor, nor renegade.”

“What art thou, then?” said the viceroy.

“A Christian woman,” replied the youth.

“A woman and a Christian, in such a dress and in such circumstances! It is more marvellous than credible,” said the viceroy.

“Suspend the execution of the sentence,” said the youth; “your vengeance will not lose much by waiting while I tell you the story of my life.”

What heart could be so hard as not to be softened by these words, at any rate so far as to listen to what the unhappy youth had to say? The general bade him say what he pleased, but not to expect pardon for his flagrant offence. With this permission the youth began in these words.

“Born of Morisco parents, I am of that nation, more unhappy than wise, upon which of late a sea of woes has poured down. In the course of our misfortune I was carried to Barbary by two uncles of mine, for it was in vain that I declared I was a Christian, as in fact I am, and not a mere pretended one, or outwardly, but a true Catholic Christian. It availed me nothing with those charged with our sad expatriation to protest this, nor would my uncles believe it; on the contrary, they treated it as an untruth and a subterfuge set up to enable me to remain behind in the land of my birth; and so, more by force than of my own will, they took me with them. I had a Christian mother, and a father who was a man of sound sense and a Christian too; I imbibed the Catholic faith with my mother’s milk, I was well brought up, and neither in word nor in deed did I, I think, show any sign of being a Morisco. To accompany these virtues, for such I hold them, my beauty, if I possess any, grew with my growth; and great as was the seclusion in which I lived it was not so great but that a young gentleman, Don Gaspar Gregorio by name, eldest son of a gentleman who is lord of a village near ours, contrived to find opportunities of seeing me. How he saw me, how we met, how his heart was lost to me, and mine not kept from him, would take too long to tell, especially at a moment when I am in dread of the cruel cord that threatens me interposing between tongue and throat; I will only say, therefore, that Don Gregorio chose to accompany me in our banishment. He joined company with the Moriscoes who were going forth from other villages, for he knew their language very well, and on the voyage he struck up a friendship with my two uncles who were carrying me with them; for my father, like a wise and far-sighted man, as soon as he heard the first edict for our expulsion, quitted the village and departed in quest of some refuge for us abroad. He left hidden and buried, at a spot of which I alone have knowledge, a large quantity of pearls and precious stones of great value, together with a sum of money in gold cruzadoes and doubloons. He charged me on no account to touch the treasure, if by any chance they expelled us before his return. I obeyed him, and with my uncles, as I have said, and others of our kindred and neighbours, passed over to Barbary, and the place where we took up our abode was Algiers, much the same as if we had taken it up in hell itself. The king heard of my beauty, and report told him of my wealth, which was in some degree fortunate for me. He summoned me before him, and asked me what part of Spain I came from, and what money and jewels I had. I mentioned the place, and told him the jewels and money were buried there; but that they might easily be recovered if I myself went back for them. All this I told him, in dread lest my beauty and not his own covetousness should influence him. While he was engaged in conversation with me, they brought him word that in company with me was one of the handsomest and most graceful youths that could be imagined. I knew at once that they were speaking of Don Gaspar Gregorio, whose comeliness surpasses the most highly vaunted beauty. I was troubled when I thought of the danger he was in, for among those barbarous Turks a fair youth is more esteemed than a woman, be she ever so beautiful. The king immediately ordered him to be brought before him that he might see him, and asked me if what they said about the youth was true. I then, almost as if inspired by heaven, told him it was, but that I would have him to know it was not a man, but a woman like myself, and I entreated him to allow me to go and dress her in the attire proper to her, so that her beauty might be seen to perfection, and that she might present herself before him with less embarrassment. He bade me go by all means, and said that the next day we should discuss the plan to be adopted for my return to Spain to carry away the hidden treasure. I saw Don Gaspar, I told him the danger he was in if he let it be seen he was a man, I dressed him as a Moorish woman, and that same afternoon I brought him before the king, who was charmed when he saw him, and resolved to keep the damsel and make a present of her to the Grand Signor; and to avoid the risk she might run among the women of his seraglio, and distrustful of himself, he commanded her to be placed in the house of some Moorish ladies of rank who would protect and attend to her; and thither he was taken at once. What we both suffered (for I cannot deny that I love him) may be left to the imagination of those who are separated if they love one another dearly. The king then arranged that I should return to Spain in this brigantine, and that two Turks, those who killed your soldiers, should accompany me. There also came with me this Spanish renegade”—and here she pointed to him who had first spoken—“whom I know to be secretly a Christian, and to be more desirous of being left in Spain than of returning to Barbary. The rest of the crew of the brigantine are Moors and Turks, who merely serve as rowers. The two Turks, greedy and insolent, instead of obeying the orders we had to land me and this renegade in Christian dress (with which we came provided) on the first Spanish ground we came to, chose to run along the coast and make some prize if they could, fearing that if they put us ashore first, we might, in case of some accident befalling us, make it known that the brigantine was at sea, and thus, if there happened to be any galleys on the coast, they might be taken. We sighted this shore last night, and knowing nothing of these galleys, we were discovered, and the result was what you have seen. To sum up, there is Don Gregorio in woman’s dress, among women, in imminent danger of his life; and here am I, with hands bound, in expectation, or rather in dread, of losing my life, of which I am already weary. Here, sirs, ends my sad story, as true as it is unhappy; all I ask of you is to allow me to die like a Christian, for, as I have already said, I am not to be charged with the offence of which those of my nation are guilty;” and she stood silent, her eyes filled with moving tears, accompanied by plenty from the bystanders. The viceroy, touched with compassion, went up to her without speaking and untied the cord that bound the hands of the Moorish girl.

But all the while the Morisco Christian was telling her strange story, an elderly pilgrim, who had come on board of the galley at the same time as the viceroy, kept his eyes fixed upon her; and the instant she ceased speaking he threw himself at her feet, and embracing them said in a voice broken by sobs and sighs, “O Ana Felix, my unhappy daughter, I am thy father Ricote, come back to look for thee, unable to live without thee, my soul that thou art!”

At these words of his, Sancho opened his eyes and raised his head, which he had been holding down, brooding over his unlucky excursion; and looking at the pilgrim he recognised in him that same Ricote he met the day he quitted his government, and felt satisfied that this was his daughter. She being now unbound embraced her father, mingling her tears with his, while he addressing the general and the viceroy said, “This, sirs, is my daughter, more unhappy in her adventures than in her name. She is Ana Felix, surnamed Ricote, celebrated as much for her own beauty as for my wealth. I quitted my native land in search of some shelter or refuge for us abroad, and having found one in Germany I returned in this pilgrim’s dress, in the company of some other German pilgrims, to seek my daughter and take up a large quantity of treasure I had left buried. My daughter I did not find, the treasure I found and have with me; and now, in this strange roundabout way you have seen, I find the treasure that more than all makes me rich, my beloved daughter. If our innocence and her tears and mine can with strict justice open the door to clemency, extend it to us, for we never had any intention of injuring you, nor do we sympathise with the aims of our people, who have been justly banished.”

“I know Ricote well,” said Sancho at this, “and I know too that what he says about Ana Felix being his daughter is true; but as to those other particulars about going and coming, and having good or bad intentions, I say nothing.”

While all present stood amazed at this strange occurrence the general said, “At any rate your tears will not allow me to keep my oath; live, fair Ana Felix, all the years that heaven has allotted you; but these rash insolent fellows must pay the penalty of the crime they have committed;” and with that he gave orders to have the two Turks who had killed his two soldiers hanged at once at the yard-arm. The viceroy, however, begged him earnestly not to hang them, as their behaviour savoured rather of madness than of bravado. The general yielded to the viceroy’s request, for revenge is not easily taken in cold blood. They then tried to devise some scheme for rescuing Don Gaspar Gregorio from the danger in which he had been left. Ricote offered for that object more than two thousand ducats that he had in pearls and gems; they proposed several plans, but none so good as that suggested by the renegade already mentioned, who offered to return to Algiers in a small vessel of about six banks, manned by Christian rowers, as he knew where, how, and when he could and should land, nor was he ignorant of the house in which Don Gaspar was staying. The general and the viceroy had some hesitation about placing confidence in the renegade and entrusting him with the Christians who were to row, but Ana Felix said she could answer for him, and her father offered to go and pay the ransom of the Christians if by any chance they should not be forthcoming. This, then, being agreed upon, the viceroy landed, and Don Antonio Moreno took the fair Morisco and her father home with him, the viceroy charging him to give them the best reception and welcome in his power, while on his own part he offered all that house contained for their entertainment; so great was the good-will and kindliness the beauty of Ana Felix had infused into his heart.

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CHAPTER LXIV. TREATING OF THE ADVENTURE WHICH GAVE DON QUIXOTE MORE UNHAPPINESS THAN ALL THAT HAD HITHERTO BEFALLEN HIM

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The wife of Don Antonio Moreno, so the history says, was extremely happy to see Ana Felix in her house. She welcomed her with great kindness, charmed as well by her beauty as by her intelligence; for in both respects the fair Morisco was richly endowed, and all the people of the city flocked to see her as though they had been summoned by the ringing of the bells.

Don Quixote told Don Antonio that the plan adopted for releasing Don Gregorio was not a good one, for its risks were greater than its advantages, and that it would be better to land himself with his arms and horse in Barbary; for he would carry him off in spite of the whole Moorish host, as Don Gaiferos carried off his wife Melisendra.

“Remember, your worship,” observed Sancho on hearing him say so, “Señor Don Gaiferos carried off his wife from the mainland, and took her to France by land; but in this case, if by chance we carry off Don Gregorio, we have no way of bringing him to Spain, for there’s the sea between.”

“There’s a remedy for everything except death,” said Don Quixote; “if they bring the vessel close to the shore we shall be able to get on board though all the world strive to prevent us.”

“Your worship hits it off mighty well and mighty easy,” said Sancho; “but ‘it’s a long step from saying to doing;’ and I hold to the renegade, for he seems to me an honest good-hearted fellow.”

Don Antonio then said that if the renegade did not prove successful, the expedient of the great Don Quixote’s expedition to Barbary should be adopted. Two days afterwards the renegade put to sea in a light vessel of six oars a-side manned by a stout crew, and two days later the galleys made sail eastward, the general having begged the viceroy to let him know all about the release of Don Gregorio and about Ana Felix, and the viceroy promised to do as he requested.

One morning as Don Quixote went out for a stroll along the beach, arrayed in full armour (for, as he often said, that was “his only gear, his only rest the fray,” and he never was without it for a moment), he saw coming towards him a knight, also in full armour, with a shining moon painted on his shield, who, on approaching sufficiently near to be heard, said in a loud voice, addressing himself to Don Quixote, “Illustrious knight, and never sufficiently extolled Don Quixote of La Mancha, I am the Knight of the White Moon, whose unheard-of achievements will perhaps have recalled him to thy memory. I come to do battle with thee and prove the might of thy arm, to the end that I make thee acknowledge and confess that my lady, let her be who she may, is incomparably fairer than thy Dulcinea del Toboso. If thou dost acknowledge this fairly and openly, thou shalt escape death and save me the trouble of inflicting it upon thee; if thou fightest and I vanquish thee, I demand no other satisfaction than that, laying aside arms and abstaining from going in quest of adventures, thou withdraw and betake thyself to thine own village for the space of a year, and live there without putting hand to sword, in peace and quiet and beneficial repose, the same being needful for the increase of thy substance and the salvation of thy soul; and if thou dost vanquish me, my head shall be at thy disposal, my arms and horse thy spoils, and the renown of my deeds transferred and added to thine. Consider which will be thy best course, and give me thy answer speedily, for this day is all the time I have for the despatch of this business.”

Don Quixote was amazed and astonished, as well at the Knight of the White Moon’s arrogance, as at his reason for delivering the defiance, and with calm dignity he answered him, “Knight of the White Moon, of whose achievements I have never heard until now, I will venture to swear you have never seen the illustrious Dulcinea; for had you seen her I know you would have taken care not to venture yourself upon this issue, because the sight would have removed all doubt from your mind that there ever has been or can be a beauty to be compared with hers; and so, not saying you lie, but merely that you are not correct in what you state, I accept your challenge, with the conditions you have proposed, and at once, that the day you have fixed may not expire; and from your conditions I except only that of the renown of your achievements being transferred to me, for I know not of what sort they are nor what they may amount to; I am satisfied with my own, such as they be. Take, therefore, the side of the field you choose, and I will do the same; and to whom God shall give it may Saint Peter add his blessing.”

The Knight of the White Moon had been seen from the city, and it was told the viceroy how he was in conversation with Don Quixote. The viceroy, fancying it must be some fresh adventure got up by Don Antonio Moreno or some other gentleman of the city, hurried out at once to the beach accompanied by Don Antonio and several other gentlemen, just as Don Quixote was wheeling Rocinante round in order to take up the necessary distance. The viceroy upon this, seeing that the pair of them were evidently preparing to come to the charge, put himself between them, asking them what it was that led them to engage in combat all of a sudden in this way. The Knight of the White Moon replied that it was a question of precedence of beauty; and briefly told him what he had said to Don Quixote, and how the conditions of the defiance agreed upon on both sides had been accepted. The viceroy went over to Don Antonio, and asked in a low voice did he know who the Knight of the White Moon was, or was it some joke they were playing on Don Quixote. Don Antonio replied that he neither knew who he was nor whether the defiance was in joke or in earnest. This answer left the viceroy in a state of perplexity, not knowing whether he ought to let the combat go on or not; but unable to persuade himself that it was anything but a joke he fell back, saying, “If there be no other way out of it, gallant knights, except to confess or die, and Don Quixote is inflexible, and your worship of the White Moon still more so, in God’s hand be it, and fall on.”

He of the White Moon thanked the viceroy in courteous and well-chosen words for the permission he gave them, and so did Don Quixote, who then, commending himself with all his heart to heaven and to his Dulcinea, as was his custom on the eve of any combat that awaited him, proceeded to take a little more distance, as he saw his antagonist was doing the same; then, without blast of trumpet or other warlike instrument to give them the signal to charge, both at the same instant wheeled their horses; and he of the White Moon, being the swifter, met Don Quixote after having traversed two-thirds of the course, and there encountered him with such violence that, without touching him with his lance (for he held it high, to all appearance purposely), he hurled Don Quixote and Rocinante to the earth, a perilous fall. He sprang upon him at once, and placing the lance over his visor said to him, “You are vanquished, sir knight, nay dead unless you admit the conditions of our defiance.”

Don Quixote, bruised and stupefied, without raising his visor said in a weak feeble voice as if he were speaking out of a tomb, “Dulcinea del Toboso is the fairest woman in the world, and I the most unfortunate knight on earth; it is not fitting that this truth should suffer by my feebleness; drive your lance home, sir knight, and take my life, since you have taken away my honour.”

“That will I not, in sooth,” said he of the White Moon; “live the fame of the lady Dulcinea’s beauty undimmed as ever; all I require is that the great Don Quixote retire to his own home for a year, or for so long a time as shall by me be enjoined upon him, as we agreed before engaging in this combat.”

The viceroy, Don Antonio, and several others who were present heard all this, and heard too how Don Quixote replied that so long as nothing in prejudice of Dulcinea was demanded of him, he would observe all the rest like a true and loyal knight. The engagement given, he of the White Moon wheeled about, and making obeisance to the viceroy with a movement of the head, rode away into the city at a half gallop. The viceroy bade Don Antonio hasten after him, and by some means or other find out who he was. They raised Don Quixote up and uncovered his face, and found him pale and bathed with sweat.

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Rocinante from the mere hard measure he had received lay unable to stir for the present. Sancho, wholly dejected and woebegone, knew not what to say or do. He fancied that all was a dream, that the whole business was a piece of enchantment. Here was his master defeated, and bound not to take up arms for a year. He saw the light of the glory of his achievements obscured; the hopes of the promises lately made him swept away like smoke before the wind; Rocinante, he feared, was crippled for life, and his master’s bones out of joint; for if he were only shaken out of his madness it would be no small luck. In the end they carried him into the city in a hand-chair which the viceroy sent for, and thither the viceroy himself returned, eager to ascertain who this Knight of the White Moon was who had left Don Quixote in such a sad plight.

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CHAPTER LXV. WHEREIN IS MADE KNOWN WHO THE KNIGHT OF THE WHITE MOON WAS; LIKEWISE DON GREGORIO’S RELEASE, AND OTHER EVENTS

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Don Antonio Moreno followed the Knight of the White Moon, and a number of boys followed him too, nay pursued him, until they had him fairly housed in a hostel in the heart of the city. Don Antonio, eager to make his acquaintance, entered also; a squire came out to meet him and remove his armour, and he shut himself into a lower room, still attended by Don Antonio, whose bread would not bake until he had found out who he was. He of the White Moon, seeing then that the gentleman would not leave him, said, “I know very well, señor, what you have come for; it is to find out who I am; and as there is no reason why I should conceal it from you, while my servant here is taking off my armour I will tell you the true state of the case, without leaving out anything. You must know, señor, that I am called the bachelor Samson Carrasco. I am of the same village as Don Quixote of La Mancha, whose craze and folly make all of us who know him feel pity for him, and I am one of those who have felt it most; and persuaded that his chance of recovery lay in quiet and keeping at home and in his own house, I hit upon a device for keeping him there. Three months ago, therefore, I went out to meet him as a knight-errant, under the assumed name of the Knight of the Mirrors, intending to engage him in combat and overcome him without hurting him, making it the condition of our combat that the vanquished should be at the disposal of the victor. What I meant to demand of him (for I regarded him as vanquished already) was that he should return to his own village, and not leave it for a whole year, by which time he might be cured. But fate ordered it otherwise, for he vanquished me and unhorsed me, and so my plan failed. He went his way, and I came back conquered, covered with shame, and sorely bruised by my fall, which was a particularly dangerous one. But this did not quench my desire to meet him again and overcome him, as you have seen to-day. And as he is so scrupulous in his observance of the laws of knight-errantry, he will, no doubt, in order to keep his word, obey the injunction I have laid upon him. This, señor, is how the matter stands, and I have nothing more to tell you. I implore of you not to betray me, or tell Don Quixote who I am; so that my honest endeavours may be successful, and that a man of excellent wits—were he only rid of the fooleries of chivalry—may get them back again.”

“O señor,” said Don Antonio, “may God forgive you the wrong you have done the whole world in trying to bring the most amusing madman in it back to his senses. Do you not see, señor, that the gain by Don Quixote’s sanity can never equal the enjoyment his crazes give? But my belief is that all the señor bachelor’s pains will be of no avail to bring a man so hopelessly cracked to his senses again; and if it were not uncharitable, I would say may Don Quixote never be cured, for by his recovery we lose not only his own drolleries, but his squire Sancho Panza’s too, any one of which is enough to turn melancholy itself into merriment. However, I’ll hold my peace and say nothing to him, and we’ll see whether I am right in my suspicion that Señor Carrasco’s efforts will be fruitless.”

The bachelor replied that at all events the affair promised well, and he hoped for a happy result from it; and putting his services at Don Antonio’s commands he took his leave of him; and having had his armour packed at once upon a mule, he rode away from the city the same day on the horse he rode to battle, and returned to his own country without meeting any adventure calling for record in this veracious history.

Don Antonio reported to the viceroy what Carrasco told him, and the viceroy was not very well pleased to hear it, for with Don Quixote’s retirement there was an end to the amusement of all who knew anything of his mad doings.

Six days did Don Quixote keep his bed, dejected, melancholy, moody and out of sorts, brooding over the unhappy event of his defeat. Sancho strove to comfort him, and among other things he said to him, “Hold up your head, señor, and be of good cheer if you can, and give thanks to heaven that if you have had a tumble to the ground you have not come off with a broken rib; and, as you know that ‘where they give they take,’ and that ‘there are not always fletches where there are pegs,’ a fig for the doctor, for there’s no need of him to cure this ailment. Let us go home, and give over going about in search of adventures in strange lands and places; rightly looked at, it is I that am the greater loser, though it is your worship that has had the worse usage. With the government I gave up all wish to be a governor again, but I did not give up all longing to be a count; and that will never come to pass if your worship gives up becoming a king by renouncing the calling of chivalry; and so my hopes are going to turn into smoke.”

“Peace, Sancho,” said Don Quixote; “thou seest my suspension and retirement is not to exceed a year; I shall soon return to my honoured calling, and I shall not be at a loss for a kingdom to win and a county to bestow on thee.”

“May God hear it and sin be deaf,” said Sancho; “I have always heard say that ‘a good hope is better than a bad holding.”

As they were talking Don Antonio came in looking extremely pleased and exclaiming, “Reward me for my good news, Señor Don Quixote! Don Gregorio and the renegade who went for him have come ashore—ashore do I say? They are by this time in the viceroy’s house, and will be here immediately.”

Don Quixote cheered up a little and said, “Of a truth I am almost ready to say I should have been glad had it turned out just the other way, for it would have obliged me to cross over to Barbary, where by the might of my arm I should have restored to liberty, not only Don Gregorio, but all the Christian captives there are in Barbary. But what am I saying, miserable being that I am? Am I not he that has been conquered? Am I not he that has been overthrown? Am I not he who must not take up arms for a year? Then what am I making professions for; what am I bragging about; when it is fitter for me to handle the distaff than the sword?”

“No more of that, señor,” said Sancho; “‘let the hen live, even though it be with her pip;’ ‘to-day for thee and to-morrow for me;’ in these affairs of encounters and whacks one must not mind them, for he that falls to-day may get up to-morrow; unless indeed he chooses to lie in bed, I mean gives way to weakness and does not pluck up fresh spirit for fresh battles; let your worship get up now to receive Don Gregorio; for the household seems to be in a bustle, and no doubt he has come by this time;” and so it proved, for as soon as Don Gregorio and the renegade had given the viceroy an account of the voyage out and home, Don Gregorio, eager to see Ana Felix, came with the renegade to Don Antonio’s house. When they carried him away from Algiers he was in woman’s dress; on board the vessel, however, he exchanged it for that of a captive who escaped with him; but in whatever dress he might be he looked like one to be loved and served and esteemed, for he was surpassingly well-favoured, and to judge by appearances some seventeen or eighteen years of age. Ricote and his daughter came out to welcome him, the father with tears, the daughter with bashfulness. They did not embrace each other, for where there is deep love there will never be overmuch boldness. Seen side by side, the comeliness of Don Gregorio and the beauty of Ana Felix were the admiration of all who were present. It was silence that spoke for the lovers at that moment, and their eyes were the tongues that declared their pure and happy feelings. The renegade explained the measures and means he had adopted to rescue Don Gregorio, and Don Gregorio at no great length, but in a few words, in which he showed that his intelligence was in advance of his years, described the peril and embarrassment he found himself in among the women with whom he had sojourned. To conclude, Ricote liberally recompensed and rewarded as well the renegade as the men who had rowed; and the renegade effected his readmission into the body of the Church and was reconciled with it, and from a rotten limb became by penance and repentance a clean and sound one.

Two days later the viceroy discussed with Don Antonio the steps they should take to enable Ana Felix and her father to stay in Spain, for it seemed to them there could be no objection to a daughter who was so good a Christian and a father to all appearance so well disposed remaining there. Don Antonio offered to arrange the matter at the capital, whither he was compelled to go on some other business, hinting that many a difficult affair was settled there with the help of favour and bribes.

“Nay,” said Ricote, who was present during the conversation, “it will not do to rely upon favour or bribes, because with the great Don Bernardino de Velasco, Conde de Salazar, to whom his Majesty has entrusted our expulsion, neither entreaties nor promises, bribes nor appeals to compassion, are of any use; for though it is true he mingles mercy with justice, still, seeing that the whole body of our nation is tainted and corrupt, he applies to it the cautery that burns rather than the salve that soothes; and thus, by prudence, sagacity, care and the fear he inspires, he has borne on his mighty shoulders the weight of this great policy and carried it into effect, all our schemes and plots, importunities and wiles, being ineffectual to blind his Argus eyes, ever on the watch lest one of us should remain behind in concealment, and like a hidden root come in course of time to sprout and bear poisonous fruit in Spain, now cleansed, and relieved of the fear in which our vast numbers kept it. Heroic resolve of the great Philip the Third, and unparalleled wisdom to have entrusted it to the said Don Bernardino de Velasco!”

“At any rate,” said Don Antonio, “when I am there I will make all possible efforts, and let heaven do as pleases it best; Don Gregorio will come with me to relieve the anxiety which his parents must be suffering on account of his absence; Ana Felix will remain in my house with my wife, or in a monastery; and I know the viceroy will be glad that the worthy Ricote should stay with him until we see what terms I can make.”

The viceroy agreed to all that was proposed; but Don Gregorio on learning what had passed declared he could not and would not on any account leave Ana Felix; however, as it was his purpose to go and see his parents and devise some way of returning for her, he fell in with the proposed arrangement. Ana Felix remained with Don Antonio’s wife, and Ricote in the viceroy’s house.

The day for Don Antonio’s departure came; and two days later that for Don Quixote’s and Sancho’s, for Don Quixote’s fall did not suffer him to take the road sooner. There were tears and sighs, swoonings and sobs, at the parting between Don Gregorio and Ana Felix. Ricote offered Don Gregorio a thousand crowns if he would have them, but he would not take any save five which Don Antonio lent him and he promised to repay at the capital. So the two of them took their departure, and Don Quixote and Sancho afterwards, as has been already said, Don Quixote without his armour and in travelling gear, and Sancho on foot, Dapple being loaded with the armour.

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CHAPTER LXVI. WHICH TREATS OF WHAT HE WHO READS WILL SEE, OR WHAT HE WHO HAS IT READ TO HIM WILL HEAR

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As he left Barcelona, Don Quixote turned gaze upon the spot where he had fallen. “Here Troy was,” said he; “here my ill-luck, not my cowardice, robbed me of all the glory I had won; here Fortune made me the victim of her caprices; here the lustre of my achievements was dimmed; here, in a word, fell my happiness never to rise again.”

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“Señor,” said Sancho on hearing this, “it is the part of brave hearts to be patient in adversity just as much as to be glad in prosperity; I judge by myself, for, if when I was a governor I was glad, now that I am a squire and on foot I am not sad; and I have heard say that she whom commonly they call Fortune is a drunken whimsical jade, and, what is more, blind, and therefore neither sees what she does, nor knows whom she casts down or whom she sets up.”

“Thou art a great philosopher, Sancho,” said Don Quixote; “thou speakest very sensibly; I know not who taught thee. But I can tell thee there is no such thing as Fortune in the world, nor does anything which takes place there, be it good or bad, come about by chance, but by the special preordination of heaven; and hence the common saying that ‘each of us is the maker of his own Fortune.’ I have been that of mine; but not with the proper amount of prudence, and my self-confidence has therefore made me pay dearly; for I ought to have reflected that Rocinante’s feeble strength could not resist the mighty bulk of the Knight of the White Moon’s horse. In a word, I ventured it, I did my best, I was overthrown, but though I lost my honour I did not lose nor can I lose the virtue of keeping my word. When I was a knight-errant, daring and valiant, I supported my achievements by hand and deed, and now that I am a humble squire I will support my words by keeping the promise I have given. Forward then, Sancho my friend, let us go to keep the year of the novitiate in our own country, and in that seclusion we shall pick up fresh strength to return to the by me never-forgotten calling of arms.”

“Señor,” returned Sancho, “travelling on foot is not such a pleasant thing that it makes me feel disposed or tempted to make long marches. Let us leave this armour hung up on some tree, instead of someone that has been hanged; and then with me on Dapple’s back and my feet off the ground we will arrange the stages as your worship pleases to measure them out; but to suppose that I am going to travel on foot, and make long ones, is to suppose nonsense.”

“Thou sayest well, Sancho,” said Don Quixote; “let my armour be hung up for a trophy, and under it or round it we will carve on the trees what was inscribed on the trophy of Roland’s armour-

These let none move Who dareth not his might with Roland prove.”

“That’s the very thing,” said Sancho; “and if it was not that we should feel the want of Rocinante on the road, it would be as well to leave him hung up too.”

“And yet, I had rather not have either him or the armour hung up,” said Don Quixote, “that it may not be said, ‘for good service a bad return.’”

“Your worship is right,” said Sancho; “for, as sensible people hold, ‘the fault of the ass must not be laid on the pack-saddle;’ and, as in this affair the fault is your worship’s, punish yourself and don’t let your anger break out against the already battered and bloody armour, or the meekness of Rocinante, or the tenderness of my feet, trying to make them travel more than is reasonable.”

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In converse of this sort the whole of that day went by, as did the four succeeding ones, without anything occurring to interrupt their journey, but on the fifth as they entered a village they found a great number of people at the door of an inn enjoying themselves, as it was a holiday. Upon Don Quixote’s approach a peasant called out, “One of these two gentlemen who come here, and who don’t know the parties, will tell us what we ought to do about our wager.”

“That I will, certainly,” said Don Quixote, “and according to the rights of the case, if I can manage to understand it.”

“Well, here it is, worthy sir,” said the peasant; “a man of this village who is so fat that he weighs twenty stone challenged another, a neighbour of his, who does not weigh more than nine, to run a race. The agreement was that they were to run a distance of a hundred paces with equal weights; and when the challenger was asked how the weights were to be equalised he said that the other, as he weighed nine stone, should put eleven in iron on his back, and that in this way the twenty stone of the thin man would equal the twenty stone of the fat one.”

“Not at all,” exclaimed Sancho at once, before Don Quixote could answer; “it’s for me, that only a few days ago left off being a governor and a judge, as all the world knows, to settle these doubtful questions and give an opinion in disputes of all sorts.”

“Answer in God’s name, Sancho my friend,” said Don Quixote, “for I am not fit to give crumbs to a cat, my wits are so confused and upset.”

With this permission Sancho said to the peasants who stood clustered round him, waiting with open mouths for the decision to come from his, “Brothers, what the fat man requires is not in reason, nor has it a shadow of justice in it; because, if it be true, as they say, that the challenged may choose the weapons, the other has no right to choose such as will prevent and keep him from winning. My decision, therefore, is that the fat challenger prune, peel, thin, trim and correct himself, and take eleven stone of his flesh off his body, here or there, as he pleases, and as suits him best; and being in this way reduced to nine stone weight, he will make himself equal and even with nine stone of his opponent, and they will be able to run on equal terms.”

“By all that’s good,” said one of the peasants as he heard Sancho’s decision, “but the gentleman has spoken like a saint, and given judgment like a canon! But I’ll be bound the fat man won’t part with an ounce of his flesh, not to say eleven stone.”

“The best plan will be for them not to run,” said another, “so that neither the thin man break down under the weight, nor the fat one strip himself of his flesh; let half the wager be spent in wine, and let’s take these gentlemen to the tavern where there’s the best, and ‘over me be the cloak when it rains.’”

“I thank you, sirs,” said Don Quixote; “but I cannot stop for an instant, for sad thoughts and unhappy circumstances force me to seem discourteous and to travel apace;” and spurring Rocinante he pushed on, leaving them wondering at what they had seen and heard, at his own strange figure and at the shrewdness of his servant, for such they took Sancho to be; and another of them observed, “If the servant is so clever, what must the master be? I’ll bet, if they are going to Salamanca to study, they’ll come to be alcaldes of the Court in a trice; for it’s a mere joke—only to read and read, and have interest and good luck; and before a man knows where he is he finds himself with a staff in his hand or a mitre on his head.”

That night master and man passed out in the fields in the open air, and the next day as they were pursuing their journey they saw coming towards them a man on foot with alforjas at the neck and a javelin or spiked staff in his hand, the very cut of a foot courier; who, as soon as he came close to Don Quixote, increased his pace and half running came up to him, and embracing his right thigh, for he could reach no higher, exclaimed with evident pleasure, “O Señor Don Quixote of La Mancha, what happiness it will be to the heart of my lord the duke when he knows your worship is coming back to his castle, for he is still there with my lady the duchess!”

“I do not recognise you, friend,” said Don Quixote, “nor do I know who you are, unless you tell me.”

“I am Tosilos, my lord the duke’s lacquey, Señor Don Quixote,” replied the courier; “he who refused to fight your worship about marrying the daughter of Doña Rodriguez.”

“God bless me!” exclaimed Don Quixote; “is it possible that you are the one whom mine enemies the enchanters changed into the lacquey you speak of in order to rob me of the honour of that battle?”

“Nonsense, good sir!” said the messenger; “there was no enchantment or transformation at all; I entered the lists just as much lacquey Tosilos as I came out of them lacquey Tosilos. I thought to marry without fighting, for the girl had taken my fancy; but my scheme had a very different result, for as soon as your worship had left the castle my lord the duke had a hundred strokes of the stick given me for having acted contrary to the orders he gave me before engaging in the combat; and the end of the whole affair is that the girl has become a nun, and Doña Rodriguez has gone back to Castile, and I am now on my way to Barcelona with a packet of letters for the viceroy which my master is sending him. If your worship would like a drop, sound though warm, I have a gourd here full of the best, and some scraps of Tronchon cheese that will serve as a provocative and wakener of your thirst if so be it is asleep.”

“I take the offer,” said Sancho; “no more compliments about it; pour out, good Tosilos, in spite of all the enchanters in the Indies.”

“Thou art indeed the greatest glutton in the world, Sancho,” said Don Quixote, “and the greatest booby on earth, not to be able to see that this courier is enchanted and this Tosilos a sham one; stop with him and take thy fill; I will go on slowly and wait for thee to come up with me.”

The lacquey laughed, unsheathed his gourd, unwalletted his scraps, and taking out a small loaf of bread he and Sancho seated themselves on the green grass, and in peace and good fellowship finished off the contents of the alforjas down to the bottom, so resolutely that they licked the wrapper of the letters, merely because it smelt of cheese.

Said Tosilos to Sancho, “Beyond a doubt, Sancho my friend, this master of thine ought to be a madman.”

“Ought!” said Sancho; “he owes no man anything; he pays for everything, particularly when the coin is madness. I see it plain enough, and I tell him so plain enough; but what’s the use? especially now that it is all over with him, for here he is beaten by the Knight of the White Moon.”

Tosilos begged him to explain what had happened him, but Sancho replied that it would not be good manners to leave his master waiting for him; and that some other day if they met there would be time enough for that; and then getting up, after shaking his doublet and brushing the crumbs out of his beard, he drove Dapple on before him, and bidding adieu to Tosilos left him and rejoined his master, who was waiting for him under the shade of a tree.

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CHAPTER LXVII. OF THE RESOLUTION DON QUIXOTE FORMED TO TURN SHEPHERD AND TAKE TO A LIFE IN THE FIELDS WHILE THE YEAR FOR WHICH HE HAD GIVEN HIS WORD WAS RUNNING ITS COURSE; WITH OTHER EVENTS TRULY DELECTABLE AND HAPPY

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If a multitude of reflections used to harass Don Quixote before he had been overthrown, a great many more harassed him since his fall. He was under the shade of a tree, as has been said, and there, like flies on honey, thoughts came crowding upon him and stinging him. Some of them turned upon the disenchantment of Dulcinea, others upon the life he was about to lead in his enforced retirement. Sancho came up and spoke in high praise of the generous disposition of the lacquey Tosilos.

“Is it possible, Sancho,” said Don Quixote, “that thou dost still think that he yonder is a real lacquey? Apparently it has escaped thy memory that thou hast seen Dulcinea turned and transformed into a peasant wench, and the Knight of the Mirrors into the bachelor Carrasco; all the work of the enchanters that persecute me. But tell me now, didst thou ask this Tosilos, as thou callest him, what has become of Altisidora, did she weep over my absence, or has she already consigned to oblivion the love thoughts that used to afflict her when I was present?”

“The thoughts that I had,” said Sancho, “were not such as to leave time for asking fool’s questions. Body o’ me, señor! is your worship in a condition now to inquire into other people’s thoughts, above all love thoughts?”

“Look ye, Sancho,” said Don Quixote, “there is a great difference between what is done out of love and what is done out of gratitude. A knight may very possibly be proof against love; but it is impossible, strictly speaking, for him to be ungrateful. Altisidora, to all appearance, loved me truly; she gave me the three kerchiefs thou knowest of; she wept at my departure, she cursed me, she abused me, casting shame to the winds she bewailed herself in public; all signs that she adored me; for the wrath of lovers always ends in curses. I had no hopes to give her, nor treasures to offer her, for mine are given to Dulcinea, and the treasures of knights-errant are like those of the fairies,’ illusory and deceptive; all I can give her is the place in my memory I keep for her, without prejudice, however, to that which I hold devoted to Dulcinea, whom thou art wronging by thy remissness in whipping thyself and scourging that flesh—would that I saw it eaten by wolves—which would rather keep itself for the worms than for the relief of that poor lady.”

“Señor,” replied Sancho, “if the truth is to be told, I cannot persuade myself that the whipping of my backside has anything to do with the disenchantment of the enchanted; it is like saying, ‘If your head aches rub ointment on your knees;’ at any rate I’ll make bold to swear that in all the histories dealing with knight-errantry that your worship has read you have never come across anybody disenchanted by whipping; but whether or no I’ll whip myself when I have a fancy for it, and the opportunity serves for scourging myself comfortably.”

“God grant it,” said Don Quixote; “and heaven give thee grace to take it to heart and own the obligation thou art under to help my lady, who is thine also, inasmuch as thou art mine.”

As they pursued their journey talking in this way they came to the very same spot where they had been trampled on by the bulls. Don Quixote recognised it, and said he to Sancho, “This is the meadow where we came upon those gay shepherdesses and gallant shepherds who were trying to revive and imitate the pastoral Arcadia there, an idea as novel as it was happy, in emulation whereof, if so be thou dost approve of it, Sancho, I would have ourselves turn shepherds, at any rate for the time I have to live in retirement. I will buy some ewes and everything else requisite for the pastoral calling; and, I under the name of the shepherd Quixotize and thou as the shepherd Panzino, we will roam the woods and groves and meadows singing songs here, lamenting in elegies there, drinking of the crystal waters of the springs or limpid brooks or flowing rivers. The oaks will yield us their sweet fruit with bountiful hand, the trunks of the hard cork trees a seat, the willows shade, the roses perfume, the widespread meadows carpets tinted with a thousand dyes; the clear pure air will give us breath, the moon and stars lighten the darkness of the night for us, song shall be our delight, lamenting our joy, Apollo will supply us with verses, and love with conceits whereby we shall make ourselves famed for ever, not only in this but in ages to come.”

“Egad,” said Sancho, “but that sort of life squares, nay corners, with my notions; and what is more the bachelor Samson Carrasco and Master Nicholas the barber won’t have well seen it before they’ll want to follow it and turn shepherds along with us; and God grant it may not come into the curate’s head to join the sheepfold too, he’s so jovial and fond of enjoying himself.”

“Thou art in the right of it, Sancho,” said Don Quixote; “and the bachelor Samson Carrasco, if he enters the pastoral fraternity, as no doubt he will, may call himself the shepherd Samsonino, or perhaps the shepherd Carrascon; Nicholas the barber may call himself Niculoso, as old Boscan formerly was called Nemoroso; as for the curate I don’t know what name we can fit to him unless it be something derived from his title, and we call him the shepherd Curiambro. For the shepherdesses whose lovers we shall be, we can pick names as we would pears; and as my lady’s name does just as well for a shepherdess’s as for a princess’s, I need not trouble myself to look for one that will suit her better; to thine, Sancho, thou canst give what name thou wilt.”

“I don’t mean to give her any but Teresona,” said Sancho, “which will go well with her stoutness and with her own right name, as she is called Teresa; and then when I sing her praises in my verses I’ll show how chaste my passion is, for I’m not going to look ‘for better bread than ever came from wheat’ in other men’s houses. It won’t do for the curate to have a shepherdess, for the sake of good example; and if the bachelor chooses to have one, that is his look-out.”

“God bless me, Sancho my friend!” said Don Quixote, “what a life we shall lead! What hautboys and Zamora bagpipes we shall hear, what tabors, timbrels, and rebecks! And then if among all these different sorts of music that of the albogues is heard, almost all the pastoral instruments will be there.”

“What are albogues?” asked Sancho, “for I never in my life heard tell of them or saw them.”

“Albogues,” said Don Quixote, “are brass plates like candlesticks that struck against one another on the hollow side make a noise which, if not very pleasing or harmonious, is not disagreeable and accords very well with the rude notes of the bagpipe and tabor. The word albogue is Morisco, as are all those in our Spanish tongue that begin with al; for example, almohaza, almorzar, alhombra, alguacil, alhucema, almacen, alcancia, and others of the same sort, of which there are not many more; our language has only three that are Morisco and end in i, which are borceguí, zaquizamí, and maravedí. Alhelí and alfaquí are seen to be Arabic, as well by the al at the beginning as by the í they end with. I mention this incidentally, the chance allusion to albogues having reminded me of it; and it will be of great assistance to us in the perfect practice of this calling that I am something of a poet, as thou knowest, and that besides the bachelor Samson Carrasco is an accomplished one. Of the curate I say nothing; but I will wager he has some spice of the poet in him, and no doubt Master Nicholas too, for all barbers, or most of them, are guitar players and stringers of verses. I will bewail my separation; thou shalt glorify thyself as a constant lover; the shepherd Carrascon will figure as a rejected one, and the curate Curiambro as whatever may please him best; and so all will go as gaily as heart could wish.”

To this Sancho made answer, “I am so unlucky, señor, that I’m afraid the day will never come when I’ll see myself at such a calling. O what neat spoons I’ll make when I’m a shepherd! What messes, creams, garlands, pastoral odds and ends! And if they don’t get me a name for wisdom, they’ll not fail to get me one for ingenuity. My daughter Sanchica will bring us our dinner to the pasture. But stay—she’s good-looking, and shepherds there are with more mischief than simplicity in them; I would not have her ‘come for wool and go back shorn;’ love-making and lawless desires are just as common in the fields as in the cities, and in shepherds’ shanties as in royal palaces; ‘do away with the cause, you do away with the sin;’ ‘if eyes don’t see hearts don’t break’ and ‘better a clear escape than good men’s prayers.’”

“A truce to thy proverbs, Sancho,” exclaimed Don Quixote; “any one of those thou hast uttered would suffice to explain thy meaning; many a time have I recommended thee not to be so lavish with proverbs and to exercise some moderation in delivering them; but it seems to me it is only ‘preaching in the desert;’ ‘my mother beats me and I go on with my tricks.”

“It seems to me,” said Sancho, “that your worship is like the common saying, ‘Said the frying-pan to the kettle, Get away, blackbreech.’ You chide me for uttering proverbs, and you string them in couples yourself.”

“Observe, Sancho,” replied Don Quixote, “I bring in proverbs to the purpose, and when I quote them they fit like a ring to the finger; thou bringest them in by the head and shoulders, in such a way that thou dost drag them in, rather than introduce them; if I am not mistaken, I have told thee already that proverbs are short maxims drawn from the experience and observation of our wise men of old; but the proverb that is not to the purpose is a piece of nonsense and not a maxim. But enough of this; as nightfall is drawing on let us retire some little distance from the high road to pass the night; what is in store for us to-morrow God knoweth.”

They turned aside, and supped late and poorly, very much against Sancho’s will, who turned over in his mind the hardships attendant upon knight-errantry in woods and forests, even though at times plenty presented itself in castles and houses, as at Don Diego de Miranda’s, at the wedding of Camacho the Rich, and at Don Antonio Moreno’s; he reflected, however, that it could not be always day, nor always night; and so that night he passed in sleeping, and his master in waking.

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