Don Quixote [Trans. by Edith Grossman] (126 page)

One man paid, the other received, the latter left the ínsula, the former went home, and the governor remained, saying:

“Now, either I’m mistaken or I’m going to close down these gambling houses, because it seems clear to me that they’re very harmful.”

“Your grace won’t be able to close down this one, at least,” said a scribe, “because it’s owned by a very important person, and what he loses every year at cards is incomparably more than what he wins. Your grace can show your power against other gambling dens of less distinction, which are the ones that do more harm and harbor more outrages; in the houses of highborn gentlemen and nobles, the notorious cheats don’t dare to use their tricks, and since the vice of gambling has become so widespread, it’s better to gamble in distinguished houses than in those of workmen, where they keep a poor wretch for half the night and skin him alive.”

“Now, Scribe,” said Sancho, “I know there’s a lot to say about this.”

At that moment a constable came up to them, holding a young man, and he said:

“Señor Governor, this lad was coming toward us, and as soon as he saw that we were the law, he turned his back and began to run like a deer, a sign that he must be a criminal. I went after him, and if he hadn’t tripped and fallen, I never would have caught him.”

“Why were you running away?” asked Sancho.

To which the young man responded:

“Señor, to avoid answering all the questions that constables ask.”

“What’s your trade?”

“A weaver.”

“And what do you weave?”

“The iron tips of lances, with your grace’s kind permission.”

“Are you being funny with me? Are you proud of being a joker? Fine! Where were you going now?”

“Señor, to take the air.”

“And where do you take the air on this ínsula?”

“Wherever it blows.”

“Good: your answers are right to the point! You’re clever, boy, but you should know that I’m the air, and I’m blowing at your back and sending you to prison. You there, seize him and take him away, and I’ll make him sleep without any air tonight!”

“By God!” said the young man. “Your grace will make me sleep in prison when you make me king!”

“And why can’t I make you sleep in prison?” responded Sancho. “Don’t I have the power to arrest you and let you go whenever I want to?”

“No matter how much power your grace has,” said the young man, “it won’t be enough to make me sleep in prison.”

“You think so?” replied Sancho. “Take him right now to the place where he’ll see the truth with his own eyes, no matter how much the warden tries to use self-interested generosity with him; I’ll fine the warden two thousand
ducados
if he lets you take one step out of prison.”

“All this is laughable,” responded the young man. “The fact is that every man alive today won’t make me sleep in prison.”

“Tell me, you demon,” said Sancho, “do you have an angel who’ll take you out and remove the irons that I plan to put on you?”

“Now, Señor Governor,” the young man responded with great charm, “let’s use our reason and come to the point. Suppose, your grace, that you order me taken to prison, and there I’m put in irons and chains, and placed in a cell, and the warden will suffer great penalties if he lets me out, and he obeys every order you give him; even so, if I don’t want to sleep, and stay awake the whole night without closing my eyes, is all your grace’s power enough to make me sleep if I don’t want to?”

“No, of course not,” said the secretary, “and the man has proven his point.”

“Which means,” said Sancho, “that you wouldn’t sleep simply because it’s your will not to, not because you want to go against mine.”

“No, Señor,” said the young man, “I wouldn’t dream of that.”

“Well then,” said Sancho, “go with God back to your house to sleep, and may God give you a sound sleep, for I don’t want to rob you of that, but I do advise that from now on you don’t mock the law because you may come across a constable who’ll take the joke out of your hide.”

The young man left, and the governor continued on his patrol, and in a little while two constables came along holding a man, and they said:

“Señor Governor, this person who looks like a man isn’t one, she’s a woman, and not an ugly one, and she’s dressed in men’s clothes.”

They raised two or three lanterns up to her eyes, and in their light they saw the face of a woman who seemed to be sixteen years old, or perhaps a little older, with her hair caught up in a net of gold-and-green silk, and as beautiful as a thousand pearls. They looked at her from head to toe and saw that she was wearing stockings of scarlet silk, with garters of white taffeta edged in gold and seed pearls; her breeches were green, made of cloth of gold, as was her jacket or loose coat, under which she wore a doublet of a very fine gold-and-white cloth, and her men’s shoes were white. On her belt she did not wear a sword but a richly decorated dagger, and on her fingers there were many precious rings. In short, everyone thought the girl was lovely, and no one recognized her, and the residents of the village said they could not think who she might be, and those who were privy to the tricks that were to be played on Sancho were the ones who were most bewildered, because they had not arranged this incident and discovery, and so they were in doubt, waiting to see how the matter would turn out.

Sancho was amazed at the girl’s beauty, and he asked her who she was, where she was going, and what had moved her to dress in those clothes. She, her eyes lowered in modesty and shame, responded:

“I cannot, Señor, say publicly what it has been so important for me to keep secret, but I want one thing understood: I am not a thief or a wicked person, but an unfortunate maiden forced by the power of jealousy to break with the decorum owed to modesty.”

Hearing this, the steward said to Sancho:

“Señor Governor, have these other people move away so the lady can say whatever she wishes with less embarrassment.”

The governor so ordered, and everyone moved away except the steward, the butler, and the secretary. When they were alone, the maiden continued, saying:

“Señores, I am the daughter of Pedro Pérez Mazorca, the tax collector for wool in this village, who often comes to my father’s house.”

“This doesn’t make sense, Señora,” said the steward, “because I know Pedro Pérez very well, and I know he has no children, male or female, and besides, you say he’s your father and then you add that he often comes to your father’s house.”

“I noticed that, too,” said Sancho.

“Now, Señores, I’m very upset, and I don’t know what I’m saying,” responded the maiden, “but the truth is that I’m the daughter of Diego de la Llana, whom all of your graces must know.”

“Now that makes sense,” responded the steward, “for I know Diego de la Llana, and I know he’s a distinguished gentleman, and very rich, and that he has a son and a daughter, and since he was widowed there’s no one in the entire village who can say he’s seen the face of his daughter, for he keeps her so secluded not even the sun can see her; and, even so, the rumor is that she’s extremely beautiful.”

“That is true,” responded the maiden, “and I’m that daughter, and you, Señores, can say now if the rumor about my beauty is false or not, for you have seen me.”

And then she began to weep most piteously; seeing this, the secretary leaned toward the butler’s ear and said very quietly:

“There can be no doubt that something important has happened to this poor maiden, because in these clothes, and at this hour, and being a gentlewoman, she’s not in her house.”

“No doubt about it,” responded the butler, “and her tears confirm your suspicion.”

Sancho consoled her with the best words he knew and asked her to have no fear and tell them what had happened to her, and all of them would attempt very earnestly to remedy it in every way possible.

“The fact is, Señores,” she responded, “that my father has kept me secluded for ten years, the same amount of time my mother has been in the ground. At home Mass is said in a magnificent oratory, and in all this time I have not seen more than the sun in the sky during the day, and the moon and stars at night, and I don’t know what streets or squares or temples or even men look like, except for my father and a brother of mine, and Pedro Pérez, the tax collector, and because he normally comes to my house, I had the idea of saying he was my father in order not to reveal who mine really is. This seclusion, and my father’s refusal to allow me to leave the house, not even to go to church, have made me very unhappy for many long days and months; I would like to see the world, or, at least, the village where I was born, and it seemed to me that this desire did not go against the decorum that wellborn maidens ought to observe. When I heard that people had bullfights and cane fights
⁴
and put on plays, I asked my brother, who is a year younger than I am, to tell me what those things were, as well as many other things I had not seen; he told me in the best way he could, but this only inflamed my desire to see them. Finally, to shorten the tale of my perdition, I’ll say that I begged
and pleaded with my brother, and I wish I never had begged and pleaded for anything….”

And she began to cry again. The steward said to her:

“Your grace should continue, Señora, and finish telling us what has happened, for your words and your tears have us all in suspense.”

“I have few words left to say,” responded the maiden, “but many tears to weep, because badly placed desires cannot bring any reduction,
⁵
only more of the same.”

The maiden’s beauty had left its mark in the butler’s soul, and once more he raised his lantern in order to see her again, and it seemed to him she was shedding not tears but seed pearls or the dew on the meadows, and he exalted them even higher and compared them to Oriental pearls, and he hoped her misfortune was not as great as her tears and sighs seemed to indicate. The governor was becoming impatient at the length of time it took the girl to tell her history, and he told her not to keep them in suspense any longer, for it was late and they still had a good part of the town to patrol. She, between interrupted sobs and broken sighs, said:

“My misfortune and my misery are simply that I asked my brother to let me dress as a man in some of his clothes, and to take me out one night to see the village while our father was sleeping; he, besieged by my pleas, agreed, and he gave me these clothes, and dressed himself in some of mine, which suited him as if he had been born to them because he doesn’t have a beard yet and looks exactly like a very beautiful maiden; and tonight, about an hour ago, more or less, we left the house, and guided by our young and foolish thoughts we walked all around the village; when we wanted to return home we saw a great crowd of people coming toward us, and my brother said to me: ‘Sister, this must be the patrol: put wings on your feet and run with me so they won’t recognize us, for that will not be in our favor.’ And saying this, he turned, and I won’t say he began to run, but to fly; before I had taken six steps I fell, I was so frightened, and then the officer of the law came and brought me before your graces, where, because I am wicked and capricious, I find myself shamed before so many people.”

“And so, Señora,” said Sancho, “no other misfortune has happened to you, not even the jealousy you mentioned at the beginning of your story, to bring you out of your house?”

“Nothing has happened to me, and jealousy didn’t bring me out, but only my desire to see the world, which didn’t go beyond seeing the streets of this town.”

And the truth of what the maiden had said was confirmed by the arrival of constables holding her brother, whom one of them had overtaken when he ran from his sister. He wore a rich skirt and a shawl of blue damask with fine gold passementerie, and no headdress or any other adornment on his head except for his hair, which was so blond and curly it looked like rings of gold. The governor, the steward, and the butler moved to one side with him, and not letting his sister hear what they were saying, they asked him why he was wearing those clothes, and he, with no less shame and embarrassment, told the same story that his sister had told, which brought great joy to the enamored butler. But the governor said:

“Certainly, Señores, this has been a childish prank, and to tell about this foolishness and daring, there was no need for so many long tears and sighs; just saying, ‘We’re so-and-so and such-and-such, and we left our father’s house in disguise to enjoy ourselves, just out of curiosity, for no other reason,’ would have been the end of the story without all that sobbing and weeping and carrying on.”

“That’s true,” responded the maiden, “but your graces should know I was so upset I could not be as brief as I should have been.”

“Nothing’s been lost,” responded Sancho. “Let’s go, and we’ll leave your graces at your father’s house; maybe he hasn’t missed you. And from now on don’t be so childish, or so eager to see the world; an honorable maiden and a broken leg stay in the house; and a woman and a hen are soon lost when they wander; and a woman who wants to see also wants to be seen. That’s all I’ll say.”

The boy thanked the governor for his kindness in taking them to their house, and so they set out, for it was not very far. When they arrived, the brother tossed a pebble at a jalousied window, and a maid who had been waiting for them came down immediately and opened the door, and they went in, leaving everyone amazed by their gentility and beauty, and by their desire to see the world, at night, and without leaving the village; but they attributed it all to their youth.

The butler’s heart had been pierced, and he resolved to go the next day and ask her father for her hand, certain he would not be denied since he was a servant to the duke; and even Sancho had a desire and a wish to marry the boy to his daughter, Sanchica, and he decided to do so when
the time came, believing that no husband could be denied the daughter of a governor.

With this the night’s patrol ended, and two days later the governorship and with it all his plans were wiped out and destroyed, as we shall see later.