Don Quixote [Trans. by Edith Grossman] (140 page)

Don Quixote and Sancho remounted; accompanied by the same acclamation and music, they arrived at the house of their guide, which was large and imposing, as befitted a wealthy gentleman, and there we shall leave them for now, since this is the wish of Cide Hamete.

CHAPTER LXII

Don Antonio Moreno was the name of Don Quixote’s host, a wealthy and discerning gentleman, very fond of seemly and benign amusements, who, finding Don Quixote in his house, sought ways to make his madness public without harming him; for jests that cause pain are not jests, and entertainments are not worthwhile if they injure another. The first thing he did was to have Don Quixote remove his armor and to take him, dressed in the tight-fitting chamois clothes we have already described and depicted, out to a balcony that overlooked one of the principal streets in the city, in plain view of passersby and boys, who looked at him as if he were a monkey. Once again the horsemen in livery galloped before him, as if they had put on finery for him alone and not to celebrate the feast day, and Sancho was extremely happy because it seemed to him that without knowing how or why, he found himself at another Camacho’s wedding, another house like Don Diego de Miranda’s, another castle like the duke’s.

Some of Don Antonio’s friends ate dinner with him that day, and they all honored Don Quixote and treated him as if he were a knight errant, which so filled him with pride and vanity that he could hardly contain his joy. Sancho made so many comical remarks that all the servants in the house, and everyone else who heard him, hung on his every word. When they were at the table, Don Antonio said to Sancho:

“We have heard, good Sancho, that you are so fond of white morsels,
¹
and of rissoles, that if any are left over, you keep them in your shirt for the next day.”
²

“No, Señor, that isn’t so,” responded Sancho, “because I’m more clean than gluttonous, and my master, Don Quixote, here before you, knows very well that we both can go a week on a handful of acorns or nuts. It’s true that if somebody happens to give me a calf, I come running with the rope; I mean, I eat what I’m given, and take advantage of the opportunities I find, and anybody who says I’m dirty and stuff myself when I eat doesn’t know what he’s talking about, and I’d say it another way if I didn’t see so many honorable beards at this table.”

“There is no doubt,” said Don Quixote, “that the moderation and cleanliness with which Sancho eats could be written and engraved on bronze plates and remembered forever in times to come. True, when he is hungry, he seems something of a glutton because he eats quickly and chews voraciously, but he is always perfectly clean, and during the time he was governor he learned to eat so fastidiously that he ate grapes, and even the seeds of a pomegranate, with a fork.”

“What?” said Don Antonio. “Sancho was a governor?”

“Yes,” responded Sancho, “of an ínsula called Barataria. For ten days I governed it as nicely as you please, and during that time I lost my peace of mind and learned to look down on all the governorships in the world; I left there in a hurry, and fell into a pit where I thought I was going to die, and by a miracle I came out of it alive.”

Don Quixote recounted in detail the story of Sancho’s governorship, affording great pleasure to those who heard him.

When the table had been cleared, Don Antonio took Don Quixote by the hand and led him to a side room where the only furnishing was a table, apparently of jasper, on a base of the same material, and on it there was a head, made in the fashion of the busts of Roman emperors, which seemed to be of bronze. Don Antonio walked with Don Quixote around the chamber, circling the table many times, and then he said:

“Now that I am certain, Señor Don Quixote, that no one is listening, and no one can hear us, and the door is closed, I want to tell your grace about one of the strangest adventures, or I should say marvels, that anyone could imagine, on the condition that whatever I tell your grace must be buried in the deepest recesses of secrecy.”

“I swear to that,” responded Don Quixote, “and I shall even place a stone over it for greater security, because I want your grace to know, Señor Don Antonio”—for by now Don Quixote knew his name—“that you are speaking to one who has ears to hear but no tongue with which to speak; therefore your grace can safely transfer what is in your heart to mine and be certain it has been thrown into the abysses of silence.”

“Trusting in that promise,” responded Don Antonio, “I am going to astound your grace with what you will see and hear, and alleviate some of the sorrow I feel at not having anyone to whom I can communicate my secrets, for they are not the sort that can be entrusted to everyone.”

Don Quixote was perplexed, waiting to see where so many precautions would lead. At this point, Don Antonio took his hand and passed it over the bronze head, and around the entire table, and along the jasper base on which it rested, and then he said:

“This head, Señor Don Quixote, has been fabricated and made by one of the greatest enchanters and wizards the world has ever seen, a Pole, I believe, and a disciple of the famous Escotillo,
³
about whom so many marvels are told; he was here in my house, and for a thousand
escudos,
which I paid him, he fashioned this head, which has the property and virtue of responding to any question spoken into its ear. He determined the bearings, painted the characters, observed the stars, looked at the degrees, and finally completed this with all the perfection that we shall see tomorrow, because the head is mute on Fridays, and since today is Friday, we shall have to wait until tomorrow. During this time, your grace will be able to prepare the questions you wish to ask; through experience I know it is truthful in all its responses.”

Don Quixote, astonished at the head’s virtue and property, was inclined not to believe Don Antonio, but seeing how little time he would have to wait to experience it for himself, he said nothing except to thank him for having disclosed so great a secret to him. They left the room, Don Antonio locked the door with a key, and they went to the large room where the other gentlemen were waiting. During this time, Sancho had recounted to them many of the adventures and incidents that had befallen his master.

That afternoon the gentlemen took Don Quixote out riding, dressed not in armor but in ordinary street clothes, a long, caped cassock of tawny woolen cloth that would have made ice itself perspire at that time of year. The servants were told to keep Sancho entertained and not to let him leave the house. Don Quixote did not ride Rocinante but was mounted on a large, smooth-gaited mule with very fine trappings. They gave him the cassock to put on, and on the back, which he did not see, they had attached
a sign that read, in large letters:
This is Don Quixote of La Mancha.
As they were starting out, the announcement caught the eye of all the passersby, and since they read “This is Don Quixote of La Mancha,” Don Quixote was surprised to see that everyone who looked at him recognized him and knew his name; turning to Don Antonio, who was at his side, he said:

“Great is the prerogative contained within knight errantry, rendering the man who professes it well-known and famous everywhere on earth, for your grace will observe, Señor Don Antonio, that even the boys in this city, who have never seen me before, know who I am.”

“That is so, Señor Don Quixote,” responded Don Antonio, “for just as fire cannot be hidden and enclosed, virtue cannot fail to be recognized, and that which is achieved through the profession of arms exceeds and outshines all others.”

It so happened that while Don Quixote was receiving the acclaim that has been mentioned, a Castilian who read the sign on his back raised his voice and said:

“The devil take Don Quixote of La Mancha! How did you get this far without dying from all the beatings you’ve received? You’re a madman, and if you were a madman in private, behind the doors of your madness, it wouldn’t be so bad, but you have the attribute of turning everyone who deals with you or talks to you into madmen and fools, too; if you don’t believe me, just look at these gentlemen who are accompanying you. Return, fool, to your house, and look after your estate, your wife, and your children, and stop this nonsense that is rotting your brain and ruining your mind.”

“Brother,” said Don Antonio, “go on your way, and don’t give advice to people who don’t ask for it. Señor Don Quixote of La Mancha is a very prudent man, and we who accompany him are not dolts; virtue must be honored wherever it is found; go now, and bad luck to you, and stop minding other people’s business.”

“By God, your grace is right,” responded the Castilian. “Giving this good man advice is like kicking at thorns; even so, it makes me very sad that the good sense everyone says this fool has in other matters should run out into the gutter of his knight errantry; as for the bad luck your grace mentioned, let it be for me and all my descendants if after today, though I live longer than Methuselah, I ever give advice to anybody again, even if he asks for it.”

The dispenser of advice left, and the excursion continued, but there was such a crush of boys and other people reading the sign that Don
Antonio had to remove it, under the pretext that he was removing something else.

Night fell; they returned home, where there was a soirée of ladies, for Don Antonio’s wife, who was wellborn, good-natured, beautiful, and clever, had invited her friends to come and honor their guest and enjoy his incomparable madness. A number of ladies attended, a splendid supper was served, and the soirée began when it was almost ten o’clock. Among the ladies there were two with mischievous and jocund tastes, and although very respectable, they were somewhat brash in devising amusing but harmless jokes. They were so insistent on Don Quixote’s dancing with them that they exhausted him, not only in body but in spirit. Don Quixote was a remarkable sight: tall, scrawny, lean, sallow, wearing tight-fitting clothes, awkward, and not at all graceful. The young ladies entreated him on the sly, and he, also on the sly, rejected them, but finding himself hard-pressed by their entreaties, he raised his voice and said:

“Fugite, partes adversae!
⁴
Leave me in peace, unwelcome thoughts. Señoras, control your desires, for she who is queen of mine, the peerless Dulcinea of Toboso, does not allow any but her own to subdue and defeat me.”

And having said this, he sat down on the floor in the middle of the room, exhausted and wearied by so much dancing. Don Antonio ordered him picked up and carried to his bed, and the first to lay hands on him was Sancho, saying:

“Unlucky for you, Señor Master, when you started dancing! Do you think all brave men are dancers and all knights errant spin around? I say that if you think so, you’re mistaken; there are men who’d dare to kill a giant before they’d prance around. If you’d been stamping your heels and toes, I’d have taken your place, because I’m a wonderful stamper, but as for dancing, I don’t know anything about it.”

With these and other words like them, Sancho gave those at the soirée reason for laughter, and he put his master to bed, wrapping him in blankets so that he would sweat out the chill he felt because of his dancing.

The next day, Don Antonio thought it would be a good idea to try the enchanted head, and with Don Quixote, Sancho, and another two friends, along with the two ladies who had exhausted Don Quixote with
their dancing, for they had spent the night with Don Antonio’s wife, he went into the room with the head and closed the door. He told them about its properties, charged them to keep the secret, and said that this was the first day the virtue of the enchanted head would be tested; except for Don Antonio’s two friends, no one else knew the secret of the enchantment, and if Don Antonio had not revealed it to them earlier, they too would have been as astounded as the others: it was so carefully planned and designed.

The first to go up to the ear of the head was Don Antonio himself, and he said in a quiet voice, but not so quiet that the others could not hear him:

“Tell me, head, by the virtue contained within you: what are my thoughts now?”

And the head responded, not moving its lips, in a clear and distinct voice, so that it was heard by everyone:

“I do not consider thoughts.”

When they heard this everyone was stunned, especially since nowhere in the room or near the table was there a human being who could have responded.

“How many people are here?” Don Antonio asked.

And in the same tone came the response:

“There are you and your wife, two friends of yours and two of hers, a famous knight called Don Quixote of La Mancha, and his squire, whose name is Sancho Panza.”

At this everyone certainly was stunned; at this everyone’s hair certainly stood on end from sheer terror! And Don Antonio, moving away from the head, said:

“This is enough for me to know I was not deceived by the one who sold you to me, O wise head, speaking head, responding head, admirable head! Let others come up and ask whatever they wish.”

And since women are ordinarily very hasty and fond of knowing, the first to approach was one of the two friends of Don Antonio’s wife, and the question she asked was:

“Tell me, head, what should I do to be very beautiful?”

And the response to her was:

“Be very virtuous.”

“I won’t ask you anything else,” said the questioner.

Then her friend approached and said:

“I’d like to know, head, if my husband really loves me.”

And the answer was:

“Think about what he does for you, and then you will know.”

The married woman moved away, saying:

“This answer didn’t need a question, because it is a fact that a man’s actions declare his feelings.”

Then one of Don Antonio’s two friends came up and asked:

“Who am I?”

And the response was: