Don Quixote [Trans. by Edith Grossman] (78 page)

“That,” said Don Quixote, “has nothing to do with me, because I am always well-dressed, and never in patches; my clothes may be frayed, but more by my armor than by time.”

“As for your grace’s valor, courtesy, deeds, and undertakings,” Sancho continued, “there are different opinions. Some say, ‘Crazy, but amusing’; others, ‘Brave, but unfortunate’; and others, ‘Courteous, but insolent’; and they go on and on so much in this vein that they don’t leave an untouched bone in your grace’s body or mine.”

“Look, Sancho,” said Don Quixote, “wherever extraordinary virtue resides, there it is persecuted. Very few, if any, of the famous men of the past escaped the slanders of the wicked. Julius Caesar, that most spirited, prudent, and valiant captain, was called ambitious and not particularly clean in his clothing or habits. Alexander, whose feats earned him the title of Great, was said to have been something of a drunkard. Hercules, with all his labors, was called lascivious and soft. Don Galaor, the brother of Amadís of Gaul, was whispered to be more than a little quarrelsome, and his brother was called tearful. And so, dear Sancho, with so many calumnies directed against good men, let them say what they wish about me, as long as there is no more than what you have told me.”

“That’s the problem, I swear by my father!” replied Sancho.

“Then, there is more?” asked Don Quixote.

“And something much worse,” said Sancho. “So far it’s been nothing but child’s play, but if your grace wants to know all the slander they’re saying about you, I’ll bring somebody here who will tell you everything and not leave out a crumb; last night Bartolomé Carrasco’s son, who’s been studying at Salamanca, came home with his bachelor’s degree, and I went to welcome him home and he told me that the history of your grace is already in books, and it’s called
The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha;
and he says that in it they mention me, Sancho Panza, by name, and my lady Dulcinea of Toboso, and other things that happened when we were alone, so that I crossed myself in fear at how the historian who wrote them could have known about them.”

“I assure you, Sancho,” said Don Quixote, “that the author of our history must be some wise enchanter, for nothing is hidden from them if they wish to write about it.”

“Well,” said Sancho, “if he was wise and an enchanter, then how is it
possible (according to what Bachelor Sansón Carrasco says, for that’s the name of the person I was telling you about) that the author of the history is named Cide Hamete Berenjena?”

“That is a Moorish name,” responded Don Quixote.

“It must be,” responded Sancho, “because I’ve heard that most Moors are very fond of eggplant.”
²

“You must be mistaken, Sancho,” said Don Quixote, “in the last name of this Cide, which in Arabic means
señor.”

“That may be,” replied Sancho, “but if your grace would like me to bring Sansón Carrasco here, I’ll go find him right away.”

“I would like that very much, my friend,” said Don Quixote. “What you have told me has left me in suspense, and nothing I eat will taste good until I learn everything.”

“Then I’ll go for him now,” responded Sancho.

And leaving his master, he went to find the bachelor, with whom he returned in a very short while, and the three of them had a most amusing conversation.

CHAPTER III

Don Quixote was extremely thoughtful as he awaited Bachelor Carrasco, from whom he hoped to hear the news about himself that had been put into a book, as Sancho had said, though he could not persuade himself that such a history existed, for the blood of the enemies he had slain was not yet dry on the blade of his sword and his chivalric exploits were already in print. Even so, he imagined that some wise man, either a friend or an enemy, by the arts of enchantment had printed them: if a friend, in order to elevate them and raise them above the most famous deeds of any knight errant; if an enemy, to annihilate them and place them lower than the basest acts ever attributed to the basest squire, al-
though—he said to himself—the acts of squires were never written down; if such a history did exist, because it was about a knight errant it would necessarily be grandiloquent, noble, distinguished, magnificent, and true.

This gave him some consolation, but it made him disconsolate to think that its author was a Moor, as suggested by the name Cide, and one could not expect truth from the Moors, because all of them are tricksters, liars, and swindlers. He feared his love had been treated with an indecency that would redound to the harm and detriment of the modesty of his lady Dulcinea of Toboso; he earnestly hoped there had been a declaration of the fidelity and decorum with which he had always behaved toward her, disdaining queens, empresses, and maidens of all ranks and keeping at bay the force of his natural passions; and so, rapt and enrapt in these and many other thoughts, he was found by Sancho and Carrasco, whom Don Quixote received with great courtesy.

The bachelor, though his name was Sansón,
¹
was not particularly large, but he was immensely sly; his color was pale, but his intelligence was very bright; he was about twenty-four years old, with a round face, a snub nose, and a large mouth, all signs of a mischievous nature and a fondness for tricks and jokes, which he displayed when, upon seeing Don Quixote, he kneeled before him and said:

“Your magnificence, Señor Don Quixote of La Mancha, give me your hands, for by the habit of St. Peter that I wear,
²
though I have taken only the first four orders, your grace is one of the most famous knights errant there ever was, or will be, anywhere on this round earth. Blessings on Cide Hamete Benengeli, who wrote the history of your great deeds, and double blessings on the inquisitive man who had it translated from Arabic into our vernacular Castilian, for the universal entertainment of all people.”

Don Quixote had him stand, and he said:

“So then, is it true that my history exists, and that it was composed by a wise Moor?”

“It is so true, Señor,” said Sansón, “that I believe there are more than twelve thousand copies of this history in print today; if you do not think so, let Portugal, Barcelona, and Valencia tell you so, for they were printed there; there is even a rumor that it is being printed in Antwerp,
and it is evident to me that every nation or language will have its translation of the book.”
³

“One of the things,” said Don Quixote, “that must give the greatest contentment to a virtuous and eminent man is to see, while he is still alive, his good name printed and published in the languages of different peoples. I said
good name,
for if it were the opposite, no death could be its equal.”

“In the matter of a good reputation and a good name,” said the bachelor, “your grace alone triumphs over all other knights errant, for the Moor in his language and the Christian in his were careful to depict very vividly the gallantry of your grace, your great courage in confronting danger, your patience in adversity, your forbearance in the face of misfortunes and wounds, the virtue and modesty of the Platonic love of your grace and my lady Doña Dulcinea of Toboso.”

“Never,” said Sancho Panza, “have I heard my lady Dulcinea called
Doña,
just
Señora Dulcinea of Toboso,
and that’s where the history’s wrong.”

“That is not an important objection,” responded Carrasco.

“No, of course not,” responded Don Quixote, “but tell me, Señor Bachelor: which deeds of mine are praised the most in this history?”

“In that regard,” responded the bachelor, “there are different opinions, just as there are different tastes: some prefer the adventure of the windmills, which your grace thought were Briareuses and giants; others, that of the waterwheel; one man favors the description of the two armies that turned out to be two flocks of sheeps; the other praises the adventure of the body that was being carried to Segovia for burial; one says that the adventure of the galley slaves is superior to all the rest; another, that none equals that of the two gigantic Benedictines and the dispute with the valiant Basque.”

“Tell me, Señor Bachelor,” said Sancho, “is the adventure of the Yanguesans mentioned, when our good Rocinante took a notion to ask for the moon?”

“The wise man,” responded Sansón, “left nothing in the inkwell; he
says everything and takes note of everything, even the capering that our good Sancho did in the blanket.”

“In the blanket I wasn’t capering,” responded Sancho, “but I was in the air, and more than I would have liked.”

“It seems to me,” said Don Quixote, “there is no human history in the world that does not have its ups and downs, especially those that deal with chivalry; they cannot be filled with nothing but successful exploits.”

“Even so,” responded the bachelor, “some people who have read the history say they would have been pleased if its authors had forgotten about some of the infinite beatings given to Señor Don Quixote in various encounters.”

“That’s where the truth of the history comes in,” said Sancho.

“They also could have kept quiet about them for the sake of fairness,” said Don Quixote, “because the actions that do not change or alter the truth of the history do not need to be written if they belittle the hero. By my faith, Aeneas was not as pious as Virgil depicts him, or Ulysses as prudent as Homer describes him.”

“That is true,” replied Sansón, “but it is one thing to write as a poet and another to write as a historian: the poet can recount or sing about things not as they were, but as they should have been, and the historian must write about them not as they should have been, but as they were, without adding or subtracting anything from the truth.”

“Well, if this Moorish gentleman is interested in telling the truth,” said Sancho, “then among all the beatings my master received, you’re bound to find mine, because they never took the measure of his grace’s shoulders without taking it for my whole body; but there’s no reason for me to be surprised, because as my master himself says, all the members must share in the head’s pain.”

“You are very crafty, Sancho,” responded Don Quixote. “By my faith, you have no lack of memory when you want to remember.”

“When I would like to forget the beatings I’ve gotten,” said Sancho, “the welts won’t let me, because they’re still fresh on my ribs.”

“Be quiet, Sancho,” said Don Quixote, “and do not interrupt the bachelor, whom I implore to continue telling me what is said about me in this history.”

“And about me,” said Sancho. “They also say I’m one of the principal presonages in it.”

“
Personages,
not
presonages,
Sancho my friend,” said Sansón.

“Another one who corrects my vocablery?” said Sancho. “Well, both of you keep it up and we’ll never finish.”

“As God is my witness, Sancho,” responded the bachelor, “you are the second person in the history, and there are some who would rather hear you talk than the cleverest person in it, though there are also some who say you were much too credulous when you believed that the governorship of the ínsula offered to you by Señor Don Quixote, here present, could be true.”

“The sun has not yet gone down,” said Don Quixote, “and as Sancho grows older, with the experience granted by his years he will be more skilled and more capable of being a governor than he is now.”

“By God, Señor,” said Sancho, “the island that I can’t govern at the age I am now I won’t be able to govern if I get to be as old as Methuselah. The trouble is that this ínsula is hidden someplace, I don’t know where, it’s not that I don’t have the good sense to govern it.”

“Trust in God, Sancho,” said Don Quixote, “that everything will turn out well and perhaps even better than you expect; not a leaf quivers on a tree unless God wills it.”

“That’s true,” said Sansón. “If it is God’s will, Sancho will have a thousand islands to govern, not just one.”

“I have seen some governors,” said Sancho, “who, in my opinion, don’t come up to the sole of my shoe, and even so they’re called lordship and are served their food on silver.”

“They aren’t governors of ínsulas,” replied Sansón, “but of other, more tractable realms; those who govern ínsulas have to know grammar at the very least.”

“I can accept the
gram
all right,” said Sancho, “but the
mar
I won’t go near because I don’t understand it. But leaving the question of my being a governor in the hands of God, and may He place me wherever He chooses, I say, Señor Bachelor Sansón Carrasco, that it makes me very happy that the author of the history has spoken about me in such a way that the things said about me do not give offense; for by my faith as a good squire, if things had been said about me that did not suit an Old Christian, which is what I am, even the deaf would have heard us.”

“That would be performing miracles,” responded Sansón.

“Miracles or no miracles,” said Sancho, “each man should be careful how he talks or writes about people and not put down willy-nilly the first thing that comes into his head.”

“One of the objections people make to the history,” said the bache
lor, “is that its author put into it a novel called
The Man Who Was Recklessly Curious,
not because it is a bad novel or badly told, but because it is out of place and has nothing to do with the history of his grace Señor Don Quixote.”

“I’ll bet,” replied Sancho, “that the dogson mixed up apples and oranges.”

“Now I say,” said Don Quixote, “that the author of my history was no wise man but an ignorant gossip-monger who, without rhyme or reason, began to write, not caring how it turned out, just like Orbaneja, the painter of Úbeda, who, when asked what he was painting, replied: ‘Whatever comes out.’ Perhaps he painted a rooster in such a fashion and so unrealistically that he had to write beside it, in capital letters: ‘This is a rooster.’ And that must be how my history is: a commentary will be necessary in order to understand it.”