Don Quixote [Trans. by Edith Grossman] (79 page)

“Not at all,” responded Sansón, “because it is so clear that there is nothing in it to cause difficulty: children look at it, youths read it, men understand it, the old celebrate it, and, in short, it is so popular and so widely read and so well-known by every kind of person that as soon as people see a skinny old nag they say: ‘There goes Rocinante.’ And those who have been fondest of reading it are the pages. There is no lord’s antechamber where one does not find a copy of
Don Quixote:
as soon as it is put down it is picked up again; some rush at it, and others ask for it. In short, this history is the most enjoyable and least harmful entertainment ever seen, because nowhere in it can one find even the semblance of an untruthful word or a less than Catholic thought.”

“Writing in any other fashion,” said Don Quixote, “would mean not writing truths, but lies, and historians who make use of lies ought to be burned, like those who make counterfeit money; I do not know what moved the author to resort to other people’s novels and stories when there was so much to write about mine: no doubt he must have been guided by the proverb that says: ‘Straw or hay, it’s the same either way.’ For the truth is that if he had concerned himself only with my thoughts, my sighs, my tears, my virtuous desires, and my brave deeds, he could have had a volume larger than, or just as large as, the collected works of EI Tostado.
⁴
In fact, as far as I can tell, Señor Bachelor, in order to write histories and books of any kind, one must have great judgment and mature understanding. To say witty things and to write cleverly requires
great intelligence: the most perceptive character in a play is the fool, because the man who wishes to seem simple cannot possibly be a simpleton. History is like a sacred thing; it must be truthful, and wherever truth is, there God is; but despite this, there are some who write and toss off books as if they were fritters.”

“There is no book so bad,” said the bachelor, “that it does not have something good in it.”

“There is no doubt about that,” replied Don Quixote, “but it often happens that those who had deservedly won and achieved great fame because of their writings lost their fame, or saw it diminished, when they had their works printed.”

“The reason for that,” said Sansón, “is that since printed works are looked at slowly, their faults are easily seen, and the greater the fame of their authors, the more closely they are scrutinized. Men who are famous for their talent, great poets, eminent historians, are always, or almost always, envied by those whose particular pleasure and entertainment is judging other people’s writings without ever having brought anything of their own into the light of day.”

“That is not surprising,” said Don Quixote, “for there are many theologians who are not good in the pulpit but are excellent at recognizing the lacks or excesses of those who preach.”

“All this is true, Señor Don Quixote,” said Carrasco, “but I should like those censurers to be more merciful and less severe and not pay so much attention to the motes in the bright sun of the work they criticize, for if
aliquando bonus dormitat Homerus,
⁵
they should consider how often he was awake to give a brilliant light to his work with the least amount of shadow possible; and it well may be that what seem defects to them are birthmarks that often increase the beauty of the face where they appear; and so I say that whoever prints a book exposes himself to great danger, since it is utterly impossible to write in a way that will satisfy and please everyone who reads it.”

“The one that tells about me,” said Don Quixote, “must have pleased very few.”

“Just the opposite is true; since
stultorum infinitus est numerus,
⁶
an infinite number of people have enjoyed the history, though some have found fault and failure in the author’s memory, because he forgets to tell
who the thief was who stole Sancho’s donkey, for it is never stated and can only be inferred from the writing that it was stolen, and soon after that we see Sancho riding on that same donkey and don’t know how it reappears. They also say that he forgot to put in what Sancho did with the hundred
escudos he
found in the traveling case in the Sierra Morena, for it is never mentioned again, and there are many who wish to know what he did with them, or how he spent them, for that is one of the substantive points of error in the work.”

Sancho responded:

“I, Señor Sansón, am in no condition now to give accounts or accountings; my stomach has begun to flag, and if I don’t restore it with a couple of swallows of mellow wine, I’ll be nothing but skin and bone. I keep some at home; my missus is waiting for me; when I finish eating I’ll come back and satisfy your grace and anybody else who wants to ask questions about the loss of my donkey or the hundred
escudos.”

And without waiting for a reply or saying another word, he left for his house.

Don Quixote asked and invited the bachelor to stay and eat with him. The bachelor accepted: he stayed, a couple of squab were added to the ordinary meal, chivalry was discussed at the table, Carrasco humored the knight, the banquet ended, they took a siesta, Sancho returned, and their earlier conversation was resumed.

CHAPTER IV

Sancho came back to Don Quixote’s house, and returning to their earlier discussion, he said:

“As for what Señor Sansón said about people wanting to know who stole my donkey, and how, and when, I can answer by saying that on the same night we were running from the Holy Brotherhood, and entered the Sierra Morena after the misadventurous adventure of the galley slaves, and of the dead man being carried to Segovia, my master and I
rode into a stand of trees where my master rested on his lance, and I on my donkey, and battered and tired from our recent skirmishes, we began to sleep as if we were lying on four featherbeds; I was so sound asleep that whoever the thief was could come up to me, and put me on four stakes that he propped under the four sides of my packsaddle, and leave me mounted on them, and take my donkey out from under me without my even knowing it.”

“That is an easy thing to do, and nothing new; the same thing happened to Sacripante when he was at the siege of Albraca; with that same trick the famous thief named Brunelo took his horse from between his legs.”
¹

“Dawn broke,” Sancho continued, “and as soon as I moved, the stakes gave way and I fell to the ground; I looked for the donkey and didn’t see him; tears filled my eyes, and I began to lament, and if the author of our history didn’t put that in, you can be sure he left out something good. After I don’t know how many days, when we were traveling with the Señora Princess Micomicona, I saw my donkey, and riding him, dressed like a Gypsy, was Ginés de Pasamonte, the lying crook that my master and I freed from the chain.”

“The error doesn’t lie there,” replied Sansón, “but in the fact that before the donkey appeared, the author says that Sancho was riding on that same animal.”

“I don’t know how to answer that,” said Sancho, “except to say that either the historian was wrong or the printer made a mistake.”

“That must be the case, no doubt about it,” said Sansón, “but what happened to the hundred
escudos?
Are they gone?”

“I spent them for myself, and my wife, and my children, and they are the reason my wife patiently puts up with my traveling highways and byways in the service of my master, Don Quixote; if after so much time I came back home without a
blanca
and without my donkey, a black future would be waiting for me; if there’s any more to know about me, here I am, and I’ll answer the king himself in person, and nobody has any reason to worry about whether I kept them or didn’t keep them, spent them or didn’t spend them; if the beatings I got on these journeys were paid for in money, even if they didn’t cost more than four
maravedís
a piece, another hundred
escudos
wouldn’t pay for half of them; so let each man put his hand over his own heart and not start
judging white as black and black as white; each of us is as God made him, and often much worse.”

“I’ll be sure,” said Carrasco, “to tell the author of the history that if it has a second printing, he should not forget what our good Sancho has said, for that would elevate it a good half-span higher than it is now.”

“Is there anything else that needs to be corrected in the book, Señor Bachelor?” asked Don Quixote.

“I’m sure there is,” he responded, “but nothing as important as the ones we’ve already mentioned.”

“And by any chance,” said Don Quixote, “does the author promise a second part?”

“Yes, he does,” responded Sansón, “but he says he hasn’t found it and doesn’t know who has it, and so we don’t know if it will be published or not; for this reason, and because some people say: ‘Second parts were never very good,’ and others say: ‘What’s been written about Don Quixote is enough,’ there is some doubt there will be a second part; but certain people who are more jovial than saturnine say: ‘Let’s have more quixoticies: let Don Quixote go charging and Sancho Panza keep talking, and whatever else happens, that will make us happy.’”

“And what does the author say to all of this?”

“He says,” responded Sansón, “that as soon as he finds the history, which he is searching for with extraordinary diligence, he will immediately have it printed, for he is more interested in earning his profit than in winning any praise.”

Sancho responded to this by saying:

“The author’s interested in money and profit? I’d be surprised if he got any, because all he’ll do is rush rush rush, like a tailor on the night before a holiday, and work done in a hurry is never as perfect as it should be. Let this Moorish gentleman, or whatever he is, pay attention to what he’s doing; my master and I will give him such an abundance of adventures and so many different deeds that he’ll be able to write not just a second part, but a hundred more parts. No doubt about it, the good man must think we’re asleep here; well, just let him try to shoe us, and he’ll know if we’re lame or not. What I can say is that if my master would take my advice, we’d already be out in those fields righting wrongs and undoing injustices, which is the habit and custom of good knights errant.”

No sooner had Sancho said these words than the sound of Rocinante neighing reached their ears; Don Quixote took this as a very good omen and resolved that in three or four days he would undertake another sally,
and after declaring his intention to the bachelor, he asked his advice as to the direction he should take on his journey; the bachelor responded that in his opinion, he ought to go to the kingdom of Aragón and the city of Zaragoza, where in a few days they would be holding solemn jousts for the Festival of San Jorge, and there he could win fame vanquishing all the Aragonese knights, which would be the same as vanquishing all the knights in the world. He praised his determination as being most honorable and brave and warned him to be more cautious about rushing into danger, because his life belonged not to him alone but to all those who needed him to protect and defend them in their misfortunes.

“That’s exactly what I hate most, Señor Sansón,” said Sancho. “My master goes charging at a hundred armed men like a greedy boy attacking half a dozen melons. Good Lord, Señor Bachelor! There are times to attack and times to retreat, and not everything’s ‘Charge for Santiago and Spain!’
²
And besides, I’ve heard it said, I think by my master himself, if I remember correctly, that between the extremes of cowardice and recklessness lies the middle way of valor, and if this is true, I don’t want him to run for no reason or attack when the numbers demand something else. But above all, I advise my master that if he wants to take me with him, it has to be on the condition that he’ll do all the battles and I won’t be obliged to do anything except look after his person in questions of cleanliness and food; as far as this goes, I’ll do everything he asks, but to think that I’ll raise my sword, even against lowborn scoundrels with their caps and axes, is to think something that will never happen. I, Señor Sansón, don’t plan to win fame as a valiant man but as the best and most loyal squire who ever served a knight errant; and if my master, Don Quixote, as a reward for my many good services, wants to give me one of the many ínsulas that his grace says are to be found out there, I’ll be very happy to accept it; and if he doesn’t give it to me, I’m a human being, and a man shouldn’t live depending on anybody but God; besides, bread will taste as good, and maybe even better, whether I’m a governor or not; for all I know, in those governorships the devil could have set a snare for me that will make me stumble and fall and knock out all my teeth. Sancho I was born, and Sancho I plan to die; but even so, if heaven should be so kind as to offer me, without too much trouble or risk, an ínsula or something else like that, I’m not such a fool that I’d turn it down, because, as they say: ‘When they give you a heifer, don’t
forget to bring a rope,’ and ‘When good comes along, lock it in your house.’”

“You, brother Sancho,” said Carrasco, “have spoken like a university professor, but still, trust in God and in Señor Don Quixote, who will give you a kingdom, not merely an ínsula.”

“Whatever it is, it’s all the same to me,” responded Sancho, “though I can tell Señor Carrasco that my master won’t be tossing that kingdom into a sack with holes in it; I’ve taken my own pulse and I’m healthy enough to rule kingdoms and govern ínsulas, and this is something I’ve already told my master.”

“Be careful, Sancho,” said Sansón, “for offices can alter behavior, and it might be that when you are governor you won’t know the mother who bore you.”

“That’s something that may apply,” responded Sancho, “to people of low birth, but not to those who have in their souls a little of the spirit of Old Christians, like me. No, first get to know my character and then tell me if I could be ungrateful to anybody!”