Don Quixote [Trans. by Edith Grossman] (137 page)

“Nobody will touch them,” said the innkeeper, “because the other guests I have are so highborn they brought their own cook and steward, and their own provisions.”

“If it’s highborn you want,” said Sancho, “there’s nobody better than my master, but his profession doesn’t allow any butlers or wine stewards; we just lie down in the middle of a meadow and eat our fill of acorns and medlar fruit.”

This was the conversation that Sancho had with the innkeeper; Sancho did not want to answer any of his questions, for he had already asked about his master’s profession or office.

The time for supper arrived, Don Quixote returned to his room, the landlord brought in the
olla
full of stew, and Don Quixote sat down to eat very deliberately. It seems that in the next room, which was separated from his only by a thin partition, Don Quixote heard someone say:

“By heaven, Señor Don Jerónimo, while they bring in our supper, let us read another chapter of the second part of
Don Quixote of La Mancha.”

As soon as Don Quixote heard his name, he stood and listened very carefully to what they were saying about him, and he heard the man called Don Jerónimo respond:

“Señor Don Juan, why does your grace want us to read this nonsense? Whoever has read the first part of the history of Don Quixote of La Mancha cannot possibly derive any pleasure from reading this second part.”

“Even so,” said Don Juan, “it would be nice to read it because there’s no book so bad that it doesn’t have something good in it. What I dislike the most in this one is that it depicts Don Quixote as having fallen out of love with Dulcinea of Toboso.”
¹

When he heard this, Don Quixote, full of wrath and fury, raised his voice and said:

“If anyone says that Don Quixote of La Mancha has forgotten or ever can forget Dulcinea of Toboso, I shall make him understand with the most steadfast arms that he is very far from the truth, because the peerless Dulcinea of Toboso cannot be forgotten, nor does forgetting have any place in Don Quixote, for his coat of arms is constancy and his profession is to preserve it gently, and without force of any kind.”

“Who is answering us?” came the response from the next room.

“Who can it be,” responded Sancho, “but Don Quixote of La Mancha
himself, who’ll carry out everything he’s said, and even what he might say? For the man who pays his debts doesn’t worry about guaranties.”

As soon as Sancho said this, two gentlemen, for that is what they seemed to be, came in through the door of the room, and one of them threw his arms around Don Quixote’s neck and said:

“Your presence cannot give the lie to your name, nor can your name not vouch for your presence: there is no doubt, Señor, that you are the true Don Quixote of La Mancha, the polestar and guiding light of knight errantry, notwithstanding and despite one who has wanted to usurp your name and annihilate your deeds, as the author of this book, which I give to you now, has done.”

And he placed a book in his hands, which his companion had been carrying; Don Quixote accepted it and without saying a word began to leaf through it, and in a little while he returned it, saying:

“In this short perusal I have found three things in this author that are worthy of reprimand. The first is some words that I have read in the prologue;
²
the second is that the language is Aragonese, because sometimes he writes without articles;
³
the third, which confirms his ignorance, is that he strays and deviates from the truth in the most important part of the history, because he says that the wife of my squire, Sancho Panza, is named Mari Gutiérrez, which is incorrect, for her name is Teresa Panza;
⁴
if he errs in something so important, it is reasonable to fear that he will err in everything else.”

To which Sancho said:

“That’s a nice thing in a historian! He must certainly know all about us if he calls my wife Mari Gutiérrez instead of Teresa Panza! Look at the book again, Señor, and see if I’m in it, and if he’s changed my name.”

“From what I have heard you say, my friend,” said Don Jerónimo, “you undoubedly are Sancho Panza, the squire to Señor Don Quixote.”

“Yes, I am,” responded Sancho, “and proud of it.”

“Well, by my faith,” said the gentleman, “this modern author does not treat you with the decency you demonstrate in your person: he depicts you as gluttonous, and simpleminded, and not at all amusing, and very different from the Sancho described in the first part of the history of your master.”
⁵

“May God forgive him,” said Sancho. “He should have left me in my corner and forgotten about me, because you shouldn’t play music unless you know how, and St. Peter’s just fine in Rome.”

The two gentlemen asked Don Quixote to come into their room and have supper with them, for they knew very well that the inn did not have food worthy of his person. Don Quixote, who was always courteous, agreed to their request and had supper with them, and Sancho was left with the power of life and death and absolute jurisdiction over the
olla;
he sat at the head of the table, along with the innkeeper, who was no less fond than Sancho of feet and heels.

In the course of their supper, Don Juan asked Don Quixote if he had news of Señora Dulcinea of Toboso: if she had married, or given birth, or was pregnant, or if she was still a virgin and remembered—within the bounds of her modesty and decorum—the amorous thoughts of Señor Don Quixote. To which he responded:

“Dulcinea is a virgin, and my thoughts are more constant than ever; our communications, as barren as always; her beauty, transformed into that of a crude peasant.”

And then he recounted, point by point, the enchantment of Señora Dulcinea and what had happened to him in the Cave of Montesinos, along with the instructions the wise Merlin had given him on how to disenchant her, which had to do with Sancho’s lashes.

The two gentlemen were exceedingly happy to hear Don Quixote relate the strange events of his history, and they were as amazed by the nonsensical things he said as by the elegant manner in which he said them. Here they considered him intelligent, and there he seemed to slip into foolishness, and they could not determine where precisely to place him between intelligence and madness.

Sancho finished eating, and leaving the innkeeper looking like an X,
⁶
he went to the room where his master was having supper, and when he entered he said:

“By my soul, Señores, I don’t think the author of this book that your graces have wants to get along with me; since he calls me a glutton, as your graces say, I wouldn’t want him to call me a drunkard, too.”

“He does say that,” said Don Jerónimo, “but I don’t remember precisely how, although I do know that his words are offensive, and false as well, as I can see by the physiognomy of the good Sancho here present.”

“Believe me, your graces,” said Sancho, “the Sancho and the Don Quixote in that history are not the ones who appear in the history composed by Cide Hamete Benengeli, the ones who are us: my master is valiant, intelligent, and in love, and I’m simple, amusing, and not a glutton or a drunkard.”

“I believe that,” said Don Juan, “and if it were possible, I would order that no one could dare to deal with the affairs of the great Don Quixote except Cide Hamete, the first author, just as Alexander the Great ordered that no one could dare paint his portrait except Apelles.”

“Let anyone who wishes to,” said Don Quixote, “portray me, but not mistreat me, for patience often falters when it is loaded down with injuries.”

“No injury,” said Don Juan, “can be done to Señor Don Quixote that he cannot avenge, if he does not ward it off with the shield of his patience, which, in my opinion, is strong and great.”

They spent a good part of the night in these and other similar conversations, and although Don Juan wanted Don Quixote to read more of the book in order to hear his comments, he would not be persuaded, saying he considered that he had read it, and confirmed that all of it was foolish, and if it happened to come to the attention of the author that he had held it in his hands, he did not want him to celebrate the idea that Don Quixote had read it, for one’s thoughts must eschew obscene and indecent things, as must one’s eyes. They asked him where he had decided to travel. He responded to Zaragoza, to take part in the jousts for the suit of armor that are held in the city every year. Don Juan told him that in the new history, the account of how Don Quixote, or whoever he was, ran at the ring
⁷
was lacking in invention, poor in letters,
⁸
and very poor in liveries,
⁹
though rich in stupidities.

“For this very reason,” responded Don Quixote, “I shall not set foot in Zaragoza, and in this way I shall proclaim the lies of this modern historian to the world, and then people will see that I am not the Don Quixote he says I am.”

“That would be very wise,” said Don Jerónimo. “There are other jousts in Barcelona, where Señor Don Quixote will be able to prove his valor.”

“I intend to do that,” said Don Quixote, “and if your graces will permit me, it is time for me to go to bed, and I hope you will consider and count me among your greatest friends and servants.”

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

With this they took their leave, and Don Quixote and Sancho withdrew to their room, leaving Don Juan and Don Jerónimo astonished by the mixture of intelligence and madness they had seen and convinced that these were the true Don Quixote and Sancho, not the ones described by the Aragonese author.

Don Quixote awoke at dawn, and knocking on the wall of their room, he said goodbye to his supper hosts. Sancho paid the innkeeper very generously and advised him to praise the provisions of his inn a little less or to keep it better supplied.

CHAPTER LX

The morning was cool, and it showed signs of remaining cool for the rest of the day when Don Quixote left the inn, first having learned the most direct road to Barcelona that avoided Zaragoza, so great was his desire to prove that the new historian, who, they said, had so maligned him, was a liar.

As it happened, in more than six days nothing occurred that was worth recording, but then, at the end of that time, when he had wandered away from the road, night overtook him in a thick stand of oak or cork trees; in this instance, Cide Hamete does not honor the exactitude he usually observes in such matters.

Master and servant climbed down from their mounts, and leaning against the tree trunks, Sancho, who had eaten that afternoon, allowed himself to rush headlong through the doors of sleep, but Don Quixote,
whose imagination kept him awake much more than hunger did, could not close his eyes; instead, his thoughts wandered back and forth through a thousand different places. Now he seemed to find himself in the Cave of Montesinos; then he saw Dulcinea, transformed into a peasant, leaping onto the back of her donkey; next the words of the wise Merlin resounded in his ears, telling him the conditions that had to be met and the tasks that had to be completed in order to disenchant Dulcinea. He despaired to see the carelessness and lack of charity in Sancho his squire, who, he believed, had given himself only five lashes, a painfully small quantity considering the infinite number he still had to administer, and this caused him so much grief and anger that he reasoned in this fashion:

“If Alexander the Great cut the Gordian knot, saying: ‘It does not matter if it is cut or untied,’ and that did not keep him from being the universal lord of all Asia, then in the disenchantment of Dulcinea it might not matter if I whip Sancho against his will, for if the condition of this remedy is that Sancho receive some three thousand lashes, what difference does it make to me if he administers them himself or if another does, since the essence of the matter is that he receive them regardless of where they come from?”

With this thought in mind he approached Sancho, having first taken Rocinante’s reins and arranged them so that he could use them as a whip, and began to remove the cords that held up Sancho’s breeches, although it is believed he had them only in front; but no sooner had Don Quixote come up to him than Sancho started, fully awake, and said:

“What is it? Who’s touching me and untying my cords?”

“I am,” responded Don Quixote. “I have come to make up for your failings and to put an end to my travails: I have come to whip you, Sancho, and to discharge, in part, the debt you have assumed. Dulcinea perishes; you live in negligence; I die of desire; and so, expose yourself of your own free will, for mine is to give you at least two thousand lashes in this solitary place.”

“Oh, no,” said Sancho, “your grace had better stand still; if not, by the true God, even the deaf will hear us. The lashes I promised to give myself must be voluntary, not given by force, and now I don’t feel like lashing myself; it’s enough for me to give your grace my word to flog and thrash myself as soon as I feel that desire.”

“It must not be left to your courtesy, Sancho,” said Don Quixote, “because you have a hard heart, and although you are a peasant, your flesh is tender.”

And so he attempted and struggled to untie the cords, seeing which
Sancho Panza got to his feet, rushed at his master in a fury, and tripped him so that he fell to the ground and lay there faceup; Sancho placed his right knee on his chest, and with his hands he held down his master’s hands, not allowing him to move and barely permitting him to breathe. Don Quixote said to him:

“What, you traitor? You dare to raise your hand against your natural lord and master? You presume to defy the person who gives you your bread?”

“I depose no king, I impose no king,” responded Sancho, “but I’ll help myself, for I’m my own lord.
¹
Promise me, your grace, that you’ll stay where you are, and won’t try to whip me now, and I’ll let you go and set you free; if not,