الفصل الفصل 24 · CHAPTER XXIV. IN WHICH IS CONTINUED THE ADVENTURE OF THE SIERRA MORENA

. CHAPTER XXIV. IN WHICH IS CONTINUED THE ADVENTURE OF THE SIERRA MORENA

CHAPTER XXIV.

IN WHICH IS CONTINUED THE ADVENTURE OF THE SIERRA MORENA

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The history relates that it was with the greatest attention Don Quixote

listened to the ragged knight of the Sierra, who began by saying:

“Of a surety, señor, whoever you are, for I know you not, I thank you

for the proofs of kindness and courtesy you have shown me, and would I

were in a condition to requite with something more than good-will that

which you have displayed towards me in the cordial reception you have

given me; but my fate does not afford me any other means of returning

kindnesses done me save the hearty desire to repay them.”

“Mine,” replied Don Quixote, “is to be of service to you, so much so

that I had resolved not to quit these mountains until I had found you,

and learned of you whether there is any kind of relief to be found for

that sorrow under which from the strangeness of your life you seem to

labour; and to search for you with all possible diligence, if search

had been necessary. And if your misfortune should prove to be one of

those that refuse admission to any sort of consolation, it was my

purpose to join you in lamenting and mourning over it, so far as I

could; for it is still some comfort in misfortune to find one who can

feel for it. And if my good intentions deserve to be acknowledged with

any kind of courtesy, I entreat you, señor, by that which I perceive

you possess in so high a degree, and likewise conjure you by whatever

you love or have loved best in life, to tell me who you are and the

cause that has brought you to live or die in these solitudes like a

brute beast, dwelling among them in a manner so foreign to your

condition as your garb and appearance show. And I swear,” added Don

Quixote, “by the order of knighthood which I have received, and by my

vocation of knight-errant, if you gratify me in this, to serve you with

all the zeal my calling demands of me, either in relieving your

misfortune if it admits of relief, or in joining you in lamenting it as

I promised to do.”

The Knight of the Thicket, hearing him of the Rueful Countenance talk

in this strain, did nothing but stare at him, and stare at him again,

and again survey him from head to foot; and when he had thoroughly

examined him, he said to him:

“If you have anything to give me to eat, for God’s sake give it me, and

after I have eaten I will do all you ask in acknowledgment of the

goodwill you have displayed towards me.”

Sancho from his sack, and the goatherd from his pouch, furnished the

Ragged One with the means of appeasing his hunger, and what they gave

him he ate like a half-witted being, so hastily that he took no time

between mouthfuls, gorging rather than swallowing; and while he ate

neither he nor they who observed him uttered a word. As soon as he had

done he made signs to them to follow him, which they did, and he led

them to a green plot which lay a little farther off round the corner of

a rock. On reaching it he stretched himself upon the grass, and the

others did the same, all keeping silence, until the Ragged One,

settling himself in his place, said:

“If it is your wish, sirs, that I should disclose in a few words the

surpassing extent of my misfortunes, you must promise not to break the

thread of my sad story with any question or other interruption, for the

instant you do so the tale I tell will come to an end.”

These words of the Ragged One reminded Don Quixote of the tale his

squire had told him, when he failed to keep count of the goats that had

crossed the river and the story remained unfinished; but to return to

the Ragged One, he went on to say:

“I give you this warning because I wish to pass briefly over the story

of my misfortunes, for recalling them to memory only serves to add

fresh ones, and the less you question me the sooner shall I make an end

of the recital, though I shall not omit to relate anything of

importance in order fully to satisfy your curiosity.”

Don Quixote gave the promise for himself and the others, and with this

assurance he began as follows:

“My name is Cardenio, my birthplace one of the best cities of this

Andalusia, my family noble, my parents rich, my misfortune so great

that my parents must have wept and my family grieved over it without

being able by their wealth to lighten it; for the gifts of fortune can

do little to relieve reverses sent by Heaven. In that same country

there was a heaven in which love had placed all the glory I could

desire; such was the beauty of Luscinda, a damsel as noble and as rich

as I, but of happier fortunes, and of less firmness than was due to so

worthy a passion as mine. This Luscinda I loved, worshipped, and adored

from my earliest and tenderest years, and she loved me in all the

innocence and sincerity of childhood. Our parents were aware of our

feelings, and were not sorry to perceive them, for they saw clearly

that as they ripened they must lead at last to a marriage between us, a

thing that seemed almost prearranged by the equality of our families

and wealth. We grew up, and with our growth grew the love between us,

so that the father of Luscinda felt bound for propriety’s sake to

refuse me admission to his house, in this perhaps imitating the parents

of that Thisbe so celebrated by the poets, and this refusal but added

love to love and flame to flame; for though they enforced silence upon

our tongues they could not impose it upon our pens, which can make

known the heart’s secrets to a loved one more freely than tongues; for

many a time the presence of the object of love shakes the firmest will

and strikes dumb the boldest tongue. Ah heavens! how many letters did I

write her, and how many dainty modest replies did I receive! how many

ditties and love-songs did I compose in which my heart declared and

made known its feelings, described its ardent longings, revelled in its

recollections and dallied with its desires! At length growing impatient

and feeling my heart languishing with longing to see her, I resolved to

put into execution and carry out what seemed to me the best mode of

winning my desired and merited reward, to ask her of her father for my

lawful wife, which I did. To this his answer was that he thanked me for

the disposition I showed to do honour to him and to regard myself as

honoured by the bestowal of his treasure; but that as my father was

alive it was his by right to make this demand, for if it were not in

accordance with his full will and pleasure, Luscinda was not to be

taken or given by stealth. I thanked him for his kindness, reflecting

that there was reason in what he said, and that my father would assent

to it as soon as I should tell him, and with that view I went the very

same instant to let him know what my desires were. When I entered the

room where he was I found him with an open letter in his hand, which,

before I could utter a word, he gave me, saying, ‘By this letter thou

wilt see, Cardenio, the disposition the Duke Ricardo has to serve

thee.’ This Duke Ricardo, as you, sirs, probably know already, is a

grandee of Spain who has his seat in the best part of this Andalusia. I

took and read the letter, which was couched in terms so flattering that

even I myself felt it would be wrong in my father not to comply with

the request the duke made in it, which was that he would send me

immediately to him, as he wished me to become the companion, not

servant, of his eldest son, and would take upon himself the charge of

placing me in a position corresponding to the esteem in which he held

me. On reading the letter my voice failed me, and still more when I

heard my father say, ‘Two days hence thou wilt depart, Cardenio, in

accordance with the duke’s wish, and give thanks to God who is opening

a road to thee by which thou mayest attain what I know thou dost

deserve; and to these words he added others of fatherly counsel. The

time for my departure arrived; I spoke one night to Luscinda, I told

her all that had occurred, as I did also to her father, entreating him

to allow some delay, and to defer the disposal of her hand until I

should see what the Duke Ricardo sought of me: he gave me the promise,

and she confirmed it with vows and swoonings unnumbered. Finally, I

presented myself to the duke, and was received and treated by him so

kindly that very soon envy began to do its work, the old servants

growing envious of me, and regarding the duke’s inclination to show me

favour as an injury to themselves. But the one to whom my arrival gave

the greatest pleasure was the duke’s second son, Fernando by name, a

gallant youth, of noble, generous, and amorous disposition, who very

soon made so intimate a friend of me that it was remarked by everybody;

for though the elder was attached to me, and showed me kindness, he did

not carry his affectionate treatment to the same length as Don

Fernando. It so happened, then, that as between friends no secret

remains unshared, and as the favour I enjoyed with Don Fernando had

grown into friendship, he made all his thoughts known to me, and in

particular a love affair which troubled his mind a little. He was

deeply in love with a peasant girl, a vassal of his father’s, the

daughter of wealthy parents, and herself so beautiful, modest,

discreet, and virtuous, that no one who knew her was able to decide in

which of these respects she was most highly gifted or most excelled.

The attractions of the fair peasant raised the passion of Don Fernando

to such a point that, in order to gain his object and overcome her

virtuous resolutions, he determined to pledge his word to her to become

her husband, for to attempt it in any other way was to attempt an

impossibility. Bound to him as I was by friendship, I strove by the

best arguments and the most forcible examples I could think of to

restrain and dissuade him from such a course; but perceiving I produced

no effect I resolved to make the Duke Ricardo, his father, acquainted

with the matter; but Don Fernando, being sharp-witted and shrewd,

foresaw and apprehended this, perceiving that by my duty as a good

servant I was bound not to keep concealed a thing so much opposed to

the honour of my lord the duke; and so, to mislead and deceive me, he

told me he could find no better way of effacing from his mind the

beauty that so enslaved him than by absenting himself for some months,

and that he wished the absence to be effected by our going, both of us,

to my father’s house under the pretence, which he would make to the

duke, of going to see and buy some fine horses that there were in my

city, which produces the best in the world. When I heard him say so,

even if his resolution had not been so good a one I should have hailed

it as one of the happiest that could be imagined, prompted by my

affection, seeing what a favourable chance and opportunity it offered

me of returning to see my Luscinda. With this thought and wish I

commended his idea and encouraged his design, advising him to put it

into execution as quickly as possible, as, in truth, absence produced

its effect in spite of the most deeply rooted feelings. But, as

afterwards appeared, when he said this to me he had already enjoyed the

peasant girl under the title of husband, and was waiting for an

opportunity of making it known with safety to himself, being in dread

of what his father the duke would do when he came to know of his folly.

It happened, then, that as with young men love is for the most part

nothing more than appetite, which, as its final object is enjoyment,

comes to an end on obtaining it, and that which seemed to be love takes

to flight, as it cannot pass the limit fixed by nature, which fixes no

limit to true love—what I mean is that after Don Fernando had enjoyed

this peasant girl his passion subsided and his eagerness cooled, and if

at first he feigned a wish to absent himself in order to cure his love,

he was now in reality anxious to go to avoid keeping his promise.

“The duke gave him permission, and ordered me to accompany him; we

arrived at my city, and my father gave him the reception due to his

rank; I saw Luscinda without delay, and, though it had not been dead or

deadened, my love gathered fresh life. To my sorrow I told the story of

it to Don Fernando, for I thought that in virtue of the great

friendship he bore me I was bound to conceal nothing from him. I

extolled her beauty, her gaiety, her wit, so warmly, that my praises

excited in him a desire to see a damsel adorned by such attractions. To

my misfortune I yielded to it, showing her to him one night by the

light of a taper at a window where we used to talk to one another. As

she appeared to him in her dressing-gown, she drove all the beauties he

had seen until then out of his recollection; speech failed him, his

head turned, he was spell-bound, and in the end love-smitten, as you

will see in the course of the story of my misfortune; and to inflame

still further his passion, which he hid from me and revealed to Heaven

alone, it so happened that one day he found a note of hers entreating

me to demand her of her father in marriage, so delicate, so modest, and

so tender, that on reading it he told me that in Luscinda alone were

combined all the charms of beauty and understanding that were

distributed among all the other women in the world. It is true, and I

own it now, that though I knew what good cause Don Fernando had to

praise Luscinda, it gave me uneasiness to hear these praises from his

mouth, and I began to fear, and with reason to feel distrust of him,

for there was no moment when he was not ready to talk of Luscinda, and

he would start the subject himself even though he dragged it in

unseasonably, a circumstance that aroused in me a certain amount of

jealousy; not that I feared any change in the constancy or faith of

Luscinda; but still my fate led me to forebode what she assured me

against. Don Fernando contrived always to read the letters I sent to

Luscinda and her answers to me, under the pretence that he enjoyed the

wit and sense of both. It so happened, then, that Luscinda having

begged of me a book of chivalry to read, one that she was very fond of,

Amadis of Gaul—”

Don Quixote no sooner heard a book of chivalry mentioned, than he said:

“Had your worship told me at the beginning of your story that the Lady

Luscinda was fond of books of chivalry, no other laudation would have

been requisite to impress upon me the superiority of her understanding,

for it could not have been of the excellence you describe had a taste

for such delightful reading been wanting; so, as far as I am concerned,

you need waste no more words in describing her beauty, worth, and

intelligence; for, on merely hearing what her taste was, I declare her

to be the most beautiful and the most intelligent woman in the world;

and I wish your worship had, along with Amadis of Gaul, sent her the

worthy Don Rugel of Greece, for I know the Lady Luscinda would greatly

relish Daraida and Garaya, and the shrewd sayings of the shepherd

Darinel, and the admirable verses of his bucolics, sung and delivered

by him with such sprightliness, wit, and ease; but a time may come when

this omission can be remedied, and to rectify it nothing more is needed

than for your worship to be so good as to come with me to my village,

for there I can give you more than three hundred books which are the

delight of my soul and the entertainment of my life;—though it occurs

to me that I have not got one of them now, thanks to the spite of

wicked and envious enchanters;—but pardon me for having broken the

promise we made not to interrupt your discourse; for when I hear

chivalry or knights-errant mentioned, I can no more help talking about

them than the rays of the sun can help giving heat, or those of the

moon moisture; pardon me, therefore, and proceed, for that is more to

the purpose now.”

While Don Quixote was saying this, Cardenio allowed his head to fall

upon his breast, and seemed plunged in deep thought; and though twice

Don Quixote bade him go on with his story, he neither looked up nor

uttered a word in reply; but after some time he raised his head and

said, “I cannot get rid of the idea, nor will anyone in the world

remove it, or make me think otherwise—and he would be a blockhead who

would hold or believe anything else than that that arrant knave Master

Elisabad made free with Queen Madasima.”

“That is not true, by all that’s good,” said Don Quixote in high wrath,

turning upon him angrily, as his way was; “and it is a very great

slander, or rather villainy. Queen Madasima was a very illustrious

lady, and it is not to be supposed that so exalted a princess would

have made free with a quack; and whoever maintains the contrary lies

like a great scoundrel, and I will give him to know it, on foot or on

horseback, armed or unarmed, by night or by day, or as he likes best.”

Cardenio was looking at him steadily, and his mad fit having now come

upon him, he had no disposition to go on with his story, nor would Don

Quixote have listened to it, so much had what he had heard about

Madasima disgusted him. Strange to say, he stood up for her as if she

were in earnest his veritable born lady; to such a pass had his unholy

books brought him. Cardenio, then, being, as I said, now mad, when he

heard himself given the lie, and called a scoundrel and other insulting

names, not relishing the jest, snatched up a stone that he found near

him, and with it delivered such a blow on Don Quixote’s breast that he

laid him on his back. Sancho Panza, seeing his master treated in this

fashion, attacked the madman with his closed fist; but the Ragged One

received him in such a way that with a blow of his fist he stretched

him at his feet, and then mounting upon him crushed his ribs to his own

satisfaction; the goatherd, who came to the rescue, shared the same

fate; and having beaten and pummelled them all he left them and quietly

withdrew to his hiding-place on the mountain. Sancho rose, and with the

rage he felt at finding himself so belaboured without deserving it, ran

to take vengeance on the goatherd, accusing him of not giving them

warning that this man was at times taken with a mad fit, for if they

had known it they would have been on their guard to protect themselves.

The goatherd replied that he had said so, and that if he had not heard

him, that was no fault of his. Sancho retorted, and the goatherd

rejoined, and the altercation ended in their seizing each other by the

beard, and exchanging such fisticuffs that if Don Quixote had not made

peace between them, they would have knocked one another to pieces.

“Leave me alone, Sir Knight of the Rueful Countenance,” said Sancho,

grappling with the goatherd, “for of this fellow, who is a clown like

myself, and no dubbed knight, I can safely take satisfaction for the

affront he has offered me, fighting with him hand to hand like an

honest man.”

“That is true,” said Don Quixote, “but I know that he is not to blame

for what has happened.”

With this he pacified them, and again asked the goatherd if it would be

possible to find Cardenio, as he felt the greatest anxiety to know the

end of his story. The goatherd told him, as he had told him before,

that there was no knowing of a certainty where his lair was; but that

if he wandered about much in that neighbourhood he could not fail to

fall in with him either in or out of his senses.

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