The History of Don Quixote, Vol. II., Part 29 - Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
"What is all this, brothers?" asked the duchess. "What is it? What do you
want to do to this good man? Do you forget he is a governor-elect?"
To which the barber kitchen-boy replied, "The gentleman will not let
himself be washed as is customary, and as my lord and the senor his
master have been."
"Yes, I will," said Sancho, in a great rage; "but I'd like it to be with
cleaner towels, clearer lye, and not such dirty hands; for there's not so
much difference between me and my master that he should be washed with
angels' water and I with devil's lye. The customs of countries and
princes' palaces are only good so long as they give no annoyance; but the
way of washing they have here is worse than doing penance. I have a clean
beard, and I don't require to be refreshed in that fashion, and whoever
comes to wash me or touch a hair of my head, I mean to say my beard, with
all due respect be it said, I'll give him a punch that will leave my fist
sunk in his skull; for cirimonies and soapings of this sort are more like
jokes than the polite attentions of one's host."
The duchess was ready to die with laughter when she saw Sancho's rage and
heard his words; but it was no pleasure to Don Quixote to see him in such
a sorry trim, with the dingy towel about him, and the hangers-on of the
kitchen all round him; so making a low bow to the duke and duchess, as if
to ask their permission to speak, he addressed the rout in a dignified
tone: "Holloa, gentlemen! you let that youth alone, and go back to where
you came from, or anywhere else if you like; my squire is as clean as any
other person, and those troughs are as bad as narrow thin-necked jars to
him; take my advice and leave him alone, for neither he nor I understand
joking."
Sancho took the word out of his mouth and went on, "Nay, let them come
and try their jokes on the country bumpkin, for it's about as likely I'll
stand them as that it's now midnight! Let them bring me a comb here, or
what they please, and curry this beard of mine, and if they get anything
out of it that offends against cleanliness, let them clip me to the
skin."
Upon this, the duchess, laughing all the while, said, "Sancho Panza is
right, and always will be in all he says; he is clean, and, as he says
himself, he does not require to be washed; and if our ways do not please
him, he is free to choose. Besides, you promoters of cleanliness have
been excessively careless and thoughtless, I don't know if I ought not to
say audacious, to bring troughs and wooden utensils and kitchen
dishclouts, instead of basins and jugs of pure gold and towels of
holland, to such a person and such a beard; but, after all, you are
ill-conditioned and ill-bred, and spiteful as you are, you cannot help
showing the grudge you have against the squires of knights-errant."
The impudent servitors, and even the seneschal who came with them, took
the duchess to be speaking in earnest, so they removed the
straining-cloth from Sancho's neck, and with something like shame and
confusion of face went off all of them and left him; whereupon he, seeing
himself safe out of that extreme danger, as it seemed to him, ran and
fell on his knees before the duchess, saying, "From great ladies great
favours may be looked for; this which your grace has done me today cannot
be requited with less than wishing I was dubbed a knight-errant, to
devote myself all the days of my life to the service of so exalted a
lady. I am a labouring man, my name is Sancho Panza, I am married, I have
children, and I am serving as a squire; if in any one of these ways I can
serve your highness, I will not be longer in obeying than your grace in
commanding."
"It is easy to see, Sancho," replied the duchess, "that you have learned
to be polite in the school of politeness itself; I mean to say it is easy
to see that you have been nursed in the bosom of Senor Don Quixote, who
is, of course, the cream of good breeding and flower of ceremony--or
cirimony, as you would say yourself. Fair be the fortunes of such a
master and such a servant, the one the cynosure of knight-errantry, the
other the star of squirely fidelity! Rise, Sancho, my friend; I will
repay your courtesy by taking care that my lord the duke makes good to
you the promised gift of the government as soon as possible."
With this, the conversation came to an end, and Don Quixote retired to
take his midday sleep; but the duchess begged Sancho, unless he had a
very great desire to go to sleep, to come and spend the afternoon with
her and her damsels in a very cool chamber. Sancho replied that, though
he certainly had the habit of sleeping four or five hours in the heat of
the day in summer, to serve her excellence he would try with all his
might not to sleep even one that day, and that he would come in obedience
to her command, and with that he went off. The duke gave fresh orders
with respect to treating Don Quixote as a knight-errant, without
departing even in smallest particular from the style in which, as the
stories tell us, they used to treat the knights of old.
CHAPTER XXXIII.
OF THE DELECTABLE DISCOURSE WHICH THE DUCHESS AND HER DAMSELS HELD WITH
SANCHO PANZA, WELL WORTH READING AND NOTING
The history records that Sancho did not sleep that afternoon, but in
order to keep his word came, before he had well done dinner, to visit the
duchess, who, finding enjoyment in listening to him, made him sit down
beside her on a low seat, though Sancho, out of pure good breeding,
wanted not to sit down; the duchess, however, told him he was to sit down
as governor and talk as squire, as in both respects he was worthy of even
the chair of the Cid Ruy Diaz the Campeador. Sancho shrugged his
shoulders, obeyed, and sat down, and all the duchess's damsels and
duennas gathered round him, waiting in profound silence to hear what he
would say. It was the duchess, however, who spoke first, saying:
"Now that we are alone, and that there is nobody here to overhear us, I
should be glad if the senor governor would relieve me of certain doubts I
have, rising out of the history of the great Don Quixote that is now in
print. One is: inasmuch as worthy Sancho never saw Dulcinea, I mean the
lady Dulcinea del Toboso, nor took Don Quixote's letter to her, for it
was left in the memorandum book in the Sierra Morena, how did he dare to
invent the answer and all that about finding her sifting wheat, the whole
story being a deception and falsehood, and so much to the prejudice of
the peerless Dulcinea's good name, a thing that is not at all becoming
the character and fidelity of a good squire?"
At these words, Sancho, without uttering one in reply, got up from his
chair, and with noiseless steps, with his body bent and his finger on his
lips, went all round the room lifting up the hangings; and this done, he
came back to his seat and said, "Now, senora, that I have seen that there
is no one except the bystanders listening to us on the sly, I will answer
what you have asked me, and all you may ask me, without fear or dread.
And the first thing I have got to say is, that for my own part I hold my
master Don Quixote to be stark mad, though sometimes he says things that,
to my mind, and indeed everybody's that listens to him, are so wise, and
run in such a straight furrow, that Satan himself could not have said
them better; but for all that, really, and beyond all question, it's my
firm belief he is cracked. Well, then, as this is clear to my mind, I can
venture to make him believe things that have neither head nor tail, like
that affair of the answer to the letter, and that other of six or eight
days ago, which is not yet in history, that is to say, the affair of the
enchantment of my lady Dulcinea; for I made him believe she is enchanted,
though there's no more truth in it than over the hills of Ubeda."
The duchess begged him to tell her about the enchantment or deception, so
Sancho told the whole story exactly as it had happened, and his hearers
were not a little amused by it; and then resuming, the duchess said, "In
consequence of what worthy Sancho has told me, a doubt starts up in my
mind, and there comes a kind of whisper to my ear that says, 'If Don
Quixote be mad, crazy, and cracked, and Sancho Panza his squire knows it,
and, notwithstanding, serves and follows him, and goes trusting to his
empty promises, there can be no doubt he must be still madder and sillier
than his master; and that being so, it will be cast in your teeth, senora
duchess, if you give the said Sancho an island to govern; for how will he
who does not know how to govern himself know how to govern others?'"
"By God, senora," said Sancho, "but that doubt comes timely; but your
grace may say it out, and speak plainly, or as you like; for I know what
you say is true, and if I were wise I should have left my master long
ago; but this was my fate, this was my bad luck; I can't help it, I must
follow him; we're from the same village, I've eaten his bread, I'm fond
of him, I'm grateful, he gave me his ass-colts, and above all I'm
faithful; so it's quite impossible for anything to separate us, except
the pickaxe and shovel. And if your highness does not like to give me the
government you promised, God made me without it, and maybe your not
giving it to me will be all the better for my conscience, for fool as I
am I know the proverb 'to her hurt the ant got wings,' and it may be that
Sancho the squire will get to heaven sooner than Sancho the governor.
'They make as good bread here as in France,' and 'by night all cats are
grey,' and 'a hard case enough his, who hasn't broken his fast at two in
the afternoon,' and 'there's no stomach a hand's breadth bigger than
another,' and the same can be filled 'with straw or hay,' as the saying
is, and 'the little birds of the field have God for their purveyor and
caterer,' and 'four yards of Cuenca frieze keep one warmer than four of
Segovia broad-cloth,' and 'when we quit this world and are put
underground the prince travels by as narrow a path as the journeyman,'
and 'the Pope's body does not take up more feet of earth than the
sacristan's,' for all that the one is higher than the other; for when we
go to our graves we all pack ourselves up and make ourselves small, or
rather they pack us up and make us small in spite of us, and then--good
night to us. And I say once more, if your ladyship does not like to give
me the island because I'm a fool, like a wise man I will take care to
give myself no trouble about it; I have heard say that 'behind the cross
there's the devil,' and that 'all that glitters is not gold,' and that
from among the oxen, and the ploughs, and the yokes, Wamba the husbandman
was taken to be made King of Spain, and from among brocades, and
pleasures, and riches, Roderick was taken to be devoured by adders, if
the verses of the old ballads don't lie."
"To be sure they don't lie!" exclaimed Dona Rodriguez, the duenna, who
was one of the listeners. "Why, there's a ballad that says they put King
Rodrigo alive into a tomb full of toads, and adders, and lizards, and
that two days afterwards the king, in a plaintive, feeble voice, cried
out from within the tomb--
They gnaw me now, they gnaw me now,
There where I most did sin.
And according to that the gentleman has good reason to say he would
rather be a labouring man than a king, if vermin are to eat him."
The duchess could not help laughing at the simplicity of her duenna, or
wondering at the language and proverbs of Sancho, to whom she said,
"Worthy Sancho knows very well that when once a knight has made a promise
he strives to keep it, though it should cost him his life. My lord and
husband the duke, though not one of the errant sort, is none the less a
knight for that reason, and will keep his word about the promised island,
in spite of the envy and malice of the world. Let Sancho he of good
cheer; for when he least expects it he will find himself seated on the
throne of his island and seat of dignity, and will take possession of his
government that he may discard it for another of three-bordered brocade.
The charge I give him is to be careful how he governs his vassals,
bearing in mind that they are all loyal and well-born."
"As to governing them well," said Sancho, "there's no need of charging me
to do that, for I'm kind-hearted by nature, and full of compassion for
the poor; there's no stealing the loaf from him who kneads and bakes;'
and by my faith it won't do to throw false dice with me; I am an old dog,
and I know all about 'tus, tus;' I can be wide-awake if need be, and I
don't let clouds come before my eyes, for I know where the shoe pinches
me; I say so, because with me the good will have support and protection,
and the bad neither footing nor access. And it seems to me that, in
governments, to make a beginning is everything; and maybe, after having
been governor a fortnight, I'll take kindly to the work and know more
about it than the field labour I have been brought up to."
"You are right, Sancho," said the duchess, "for no one is born ready
taught, and the bishops are made out of men and not out of stones. But to
return to the subject we were discussing just now, the enchantment of the
lady Dulcinea, I look upon it as certain, and something more than
evident, that Sancho's idea of practising a deception upon his master,
making him believe that the peasant girl was Dulcinea and that if he did
not recognise her it must be because she was enchanted, was all a device
of one of the enchanters that persecute Don Quixote. For in truth and
earnest, I know from good authority that the coarse country wench who
jumped up on the ass was and is Dulcinea del Toboso, and that worthy
Sancho, though he fancies himself the deceiver, is the one that is
deceived; and that there is no more reason to doubt the truth of this,
than of anything else we never saw. Senor Sancho Panza must know that we
too have enchanters here that are well disposed to us, and tell us what
goes on in the world, plainly and distinctly, without subterfuge or
deception; and believe me, Sancho, that agile country lass was and is
Dulcinea del Toboso, who is as much enchanted as the mother that bore
her; and when we least expect it, we shall see her in her own proper
form, and then Sancho will be disabused of the error he is under at
present."
"All that's very possible," said Sancho Panza; "and now I'm willing to
believe what my master says about what he saw in the cave of Montesinos,
where he says he saw the lady Dulcinea del Toboso in the very same dress
and apparel that I said I had seen her in when I enchanted her all to
please myself. It must be all exactly the other way, as your ladyship
says; because it is impossible to suppose that out of my poor wit such a
cunning trick could be concocted in a moment, nor do I think my master is
so mad that by my weak and feeble persuasion he could be made to believe
a thing so out of all reason. But, senora, your excellence must not
therefore think me ill-disposed, for a dolt like me is not bound to see
into the thoughts and plots of those vile enchanters. I invented all that
to escape my master's scolding, and not with any intention of hurting
him; and if it has turned out differently, there is a God in heaven who
judges our hearts."
"That is true," said the duchess; "but tell me, Sancho, what is this you
say about the cave of Montesinos, for I should like to know."
Sancho upon this related to her, word for word, what has been said
already touching that adventure, and having heard it the duchess said,
"From this occurrence it may be inferred that, as the great Don Quixote
says he saw there the same country wench Sancho saw on the way from El
Toboso, it is, no doubt, Dulcinea, and that there are some very active
and exceedingly busy enchanters about."
"So I say," said Sancho, "and if my lady Dulcinea is enchanted, so much
the worse for her, and I'm not going to pick a quarrel with my master's
enemies, who seem to be many and spiteful. The truth is that the one I
saw was a country wench, and I set her down to be a country wench; and if
that was Dulcinea it must not be laid at my door, nor should I be called
to answer for it or take the consequences. But they must go nagging at me
at every step--'Sancho said it, Sancho did it, Sancho here, Sancho
there,' as if Sancho was nobody at all, and not that same Sancho Panza
that's now going all over the world in books, so Samson Carrasco told me,
and he's at any rate one that's a bachelor of Salamanca; and people of
that sort can't lie, except when the whim seizes them or they have some
very good reason for it. So there's no occasion for anybody to quarrel
with me; and then I have a good character, and, as I have heard my master
say, 'a good name is better than great riches;' let them only stick me
into this government and they'll see wonders, for one who has been a good
squire will be a good governor."
"All worthy Sancho's observations," said the duchess, "are Catonian
sentences, or at any rate out of the very heart of Michael Verino
himself, who florentibus occidit annis. In fact, to speak in his own
style, 'under a bad cloak there's often a good drinker.'"
"Indeed, senora," said Sancho, "I never yet drank out of wickedness; from
thirst I have very likely, for I have nothing of the hypocrite in me; I
drink when I'm inclined, or, if I'm not inclined, when they offer it to
me, so as not to look either strait-laced or ill-bred; for when a friend
drinks one's health what heart can be so hard as not to return it? But if
I put on my shoes I don't dirty them; besides, squires to knights-errant
mostly drink water, for they are always wandering among woods, forests
and meadows, mountains and crags, without a drop of wine to be had if
they gave their eyes for it."
"So I believe," said the duchess; "and now let Sancho go and take his
sleep, and we will talk by-and-by at greater length, and settle how he
may soon go and stick himself into the government, as he says."
Sancho once more kissed the duchess's hand, and entreated her to let good
care be taken of his Dapple, for he was the light of his eyes.
"What is Dapple?" said the duchess.
"My ass," said Sancho, "which, not to mention him by that name, I'm
accustomed to call Dapple; I begged this lady duenna here to take care of
him when I came into the castle, and she got as angry as if I had said
she was ugly or old, though it ought to be more natural and proper for
duennas to feed asses than to ornament chambers. God bless me! what a
spite a gentleman of my village had against these ladies!"
"He must have been some clown," said Dona Rodriguez the duenna; "for if
he had been a gentleman and well-born he would have exalted them higher
than the horns of the moon."
"That will do," said the duchess; "no more of this; hush, Dona Rodriguez,
and let Senor Panza rest easy and leave the treatment of Dapple in my
charge, for as he is a treasure of Sancho's, I'll put him on the apple of
my eye."
"It will be enough for him to be in the stable," said Sancho, "for
neither he nor I are worthy to rest a moment in the apple of your
highness's eye, and I'd as soon stab myself as consent to it; for though
my master says that in civilities it is better to lose by a card too many
than a card too few, when it comes to civilities to asses we must mind
what we are about and keep within due bounds."
"Take him to your government, Sancho," said the duchess, "and there you
will be able to make as much of him as you like, and even release him
from work and pension him off."
"Don't think, senora duchess, that you have said anything absurd," said
Sancho; "I have seen more than two asses go to governments, and for me to
take mine with me would be nothing new."
Sancho's words made the duchess laugh again and gave her fresh amusement,
and dismissing him to sleep she went away to tell the duke the
conversation she had had with him, and between them they plotted and
arranged to play a joke upon Don Quixote that was to be a rare one and
entirely in knight-errantry style, and in that same style they practised
several upon him, so much in keeping and so clever that they form the
best adventures this great history contains.
CHAPTER XXXIV.
WHICH RELATES HOW THEY LEARNED THE WAY IN WHICH THEY WERE TO DISENCHANT
THE PEERLESS DULCINEA DEL TOBOSO, WHICH IS ONE OF THE RAREST ADVENTURES
IN THIS BOOK
Great was the pleasure the duke and duchess took in the conversation of
Don Quixote and Sancho Panza; and, more bent than ever upon the plan they
had of practising some jokes upon them that should have the look and
appearance of adventures, they took as their basis of action what Don
Quixote had already told them about the cave of Montesinos, in order to
play him a famous one. But what the duchess marvelled at above all was
that Sancho's simplicity could be so great as to make him believe as
absolute truth that Dulcinea had been enchanted, when it was he himself
who had been the enchanter and trickster in the business. Having,
therefore, instructed their servants in everything they were to do, six
days afterwards they took him out to hunt, with as great a retinue of
huntsmen and beaters as a crowned king.
They presented Don Quixote with a hunting suit, and Sancho with another
of the finest green cloth; but Don Quixote declined to put his on, saying
that he must soon return to the hard pursuit of arms, and could not carry
wardrobes or stores with him. Sancho, however, took what they gave him,
meaning to sell it the first opportunity.
The appointed day having arrived, Don Quixote armed himself, and Sancho
arrayed himself, and mounted on his Dapple (for he would not give him up
though they offered him a horse), he placed himself in the midst of the
troop of huntsmen. The duchess came out splendidly attired, and Don
Quixote, in pure courtesy and politeness, held the rein of her palfrey,
though the duke wanted not to allow him; and at last they reached a wood
that lay between two high mountains, where, after occupying various
posts, ambushes, and paths, and distributing the party in different
positions, the hunt began with great noise, shouting, and hallooing, so
that, between the baying of the hounds and the blowing of the horns, they
could not hear one another. The duchess dismounted, and with a sharp
boar-spear in her hand posted herself where she knew the wild boars were
in the habit of passing. The duke and Don Quixote likewise dismounted and
placed themselves one at each side of her. Sancho took up a position in
the rear of all without dismounting from Dapple, whom he dared not desert
lest some mischief should befall him. Scarcely had they taken their stand
in a line with several of their servants, when they saw a huge boar,
closely pressed by the hounds and followed by the huntsmen, making
towards them, grinding his teeth and tusks, and scattering foam from his
mouth. As soon as he saw him Don Quixote, bracing his shield on his arm,
and drawing his sword, advanced to meet him; the duke with boar-spear did
the same; but the duchess would have gone in front of them all had not
the duke prevented her. Sancho alone, deserting Dapple at the sight of
the mighty beast, took to his heels as hard as he could and strove in
vain to mount a tall oak. As he was clinging to a branch, however,
half-way up in his struggle to reach the top, the bough, such was his
ill-luck and hard fate, gave way, and caught in his fall by a broken limb
of the oak, he hung suspended in the air unable to reach the ground.
Finding himself in this position, and that the green coat was beginning
to tear, and reflecting that if the fierce animal came that way he might
be able to get at him, he began to utter such cries, and call for help so
earnestly, that all who heard him and did not see him felt sure he must
be in the teeth of some wild beast. In the end the tusked boar fell
pierced by the blades of the many spears they held in front of him; and
Don Quixote, turning round at the cries of Sancho, for he knew by them
that it was he, saw him hanging from the oak head downwards, with Dapple,
who did not forsake him in his distress, close beside him; and Cide
Hamete observes that he seldom saw Sancho Panza without seeing Dapple, or
Dapple without seeing Sancho Panza; such was their attachment and loyalty
one to the other. Don Quixote went over and unhooked Sancho, who, as soon
as he found himself on the ground, looked at the rent in his huntingcoat
and was grieved to the heart, for he thought he had got a patrimonial
estate in that suit.
Meanwhile they had slung the mighty boar across the back of a mule, and
having covered it with sprigs of rosemary and branches of myrtle, they
bore it away as the spoils of victory to some large field-tents which had
been pitched in the middle of the wood, where they found the tables laid
and dinner served, in such grand and sumptuous style that it was easy to
see the rank and magnificence of those who had provided it. Sancho, as he
showed the rents in his torn suit to the duchess, observed, "If we had
been hunting hares, or after small birds, my coat would have been safe
from being in the plight it's in; I don't know what pleasure one can find
in lying in wait for an animal that may take your life with his tusk if
he gets at you. I recollect having heard an old ballad sung that says,