Kabanata Kabanata 25 · CHAPTER XXV. WHICH TREATS OF THE STRANGE THINGS THAT HAPPENED TO THE STOUT KNIGHT OF

. CHAPTER XXV. WHICH TREATS OF THE STRANGE THINGS THAT HAPPENED TO THE STOUT KNIGHT OF

CHAPTER XXV.

WHICH TREATS OF THE STRANGE THINGS THAT HAPPENED TO THE STOUT KNIGHT OF

LA MANCHA IN THE SIERRA MORENA, AND OF HIS IMITATION OF THE PENANCE OF

BELTENEBROS

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Don Quixote took leave of the goatherd, and once more mounting

Rocinante bade Sancho follow him, which he having no ass, did very

discontentedly. They proceeded slowly, making their way into the most

rugged part of the mountain, Sancho all the while dying to have a talk

with his master, and longing for him to begin, so that there should be

no breach of the injunction laid upon him; but unable to keep silence

so long he said to him:

“Señor Don Quixote, give me your worship’s blessing and dismissal, for

I’d like to go home at once to my wife and children with whom I can at

any rate talk and converse as much as I like; for to want me to go

through these solitudes day and night and not speak to you when I have

a mind is burying me alive. If luck would have it that animals spoke as

they did in the days of Guisopete, it would not be so bad, because I

could talk to Rocinante about whatever came into my head, and so put up

with my ill-fortune; but it is a hard case, and not to be borne with

patience, to go seeking adventures all one’s life and get nothing but

kicks and blanketings, brickbats and punches, and with all this to have

to sew up one’s mouth without daring to say what is in one’s heart,

just as if one were dumb.”

“I understand thee, Sancho,” replied Don Quixote; “thou art dying to

have the interdict I placed upon thy tongue removed; consider it

removed, and say what thou wilt while we are wandering in these

mountains.”

“So be it,” said Sancho; “let me speak now, for God knows what will

happen by-and-by; and to take advantage of the permit at once, I ask,

what made your worship stand up so for that Queen Majimasa, or whatever

her name is, or what did it matter whether that abbot was a friend of

hers or not? for if your worship had let that pass—and you were not a

judge in the matter—it is my belief the madman would have gone on with

his story, and the blow of the stone, and the kicks, and more than half

a dozen cuffs would have been escaped.”

“In faith, Sancho,” answered Don Quixote, “if thou knewest as I do what

an honourable and illustrious lady Queen Madasima was, I know thou

wouldst say I had great patience that I did not break in pieces the

mouth that uttered such blasphemies, for a very great blasphemy it is

to say or imagine that a queen has made free with a surgeon. The truth

of the story is that that Master Elisabad whom the madman mentioned was

a man of great prudence and sound judgment, and served as governor and

physician to the queen, but to suppose that she was his mistress is

nonsense deserving very severe punishment; and as a proof that Cardenio

did not know what he was saying, remember when he said it he was out of

his wits.”

“That is what I say,” said Sancho; “there was no occasion for minding

the words of a madman; for if good luck had not helped your worship,

and he had sent that stone at your head instead of at your breast, a

fine way we should have been in for standing up for my lady yonder, God

confound her! And then, would not Cardenio have gone free as a madman?”

“Against men in their senses or against madmen,” said Don Quixote,

“every knight-errant is bound to stand up for the honour of women,

whoever they may be, much more for queens of such high degree and

dignity as Queen Madasima, for whom I have a particular regard on

account of her amiable qualities; for, besides being extremely

beautiful, she was very wise, and very patient under her misfortunes,

of which she had many; and the counsel and society of the Master

Elisabad were a great help and support to her in enduring her

afflictions with wisdom and resignation; hence the ignorant and

ill-disposed vulgar took occasion to say and think that she was his

mistress; and they lie, I say it once more, and will lie two hundred

times more, all who think and say so.”

“I neither say nor think so,” said Sancho; “let them look to it; with

their bread let them eat it; they have rendered account to God whether

they misbehaved or not; I come from my vineyard, I know nothing; I am

not fond of prying into other men’s lives; he who buys and lies feels

it in his purse; moreover, naked was I born, naked I find myself, I

neither lose nor gain; but if they did, what is that to me? many think

there are flitches where there are no hooks; but who can put gates to

the open plain? moreover they said of God—”

“God bless me,” said Don Quixote, “what a set of absurdities thou art

stringing together! What has what we are talking about got to do with

the proverbs thou art threading one after the other? for God’s sake

hold thy tongue, Sancho, and henceforward keep to prodding thy ass and

don’t meddle in what does not concern thee; and understand with all thy

five senses that everything I have done, am doing, or shall do, is well

founded on reason and in conformity with the rules of chivalry, for I

understand them better than all the world that profess them.”

“Señor,” replied Sancho, “is it a good rule of chivalry that we should

go astray through these mountains without path or road, looking for a

madman who when he is found will perhaps take a fancy to finish what he

began, not his story, but your worship’s head and my ribs, and end by

breaking them altogether for us?”

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“Peace, I say again, Sancho,” said Don Quixote, “for let me tell thee

it is not so much the desire of finding that madman that leads me into

these regions as that which I have of performing among them an

achievement wherewith I shall win eternal name and fame throughout the

known world; and it shall be such that I shall thereby set the seal on

all that can make a knight-errant perfect and famous.”

“And is it very perilous, this achievement?”

“No,” replied he of the Rueful Countenance; “though it may be in the

dice that we may throw deuce-ace instead of sixes; but all will depend

on thy diligence.”

“On my diligence!” said Sancho.

“Yes,” said Don Quixote, “for if thou dost return soon from the place

where I mean to send thee, my penance will be soon over, and my glory

will soon begin. But as it is not right to keep thee any longer in

suspense, waiting to see what comes of my words, I would have thee

know, Sancho, that the famous Amadis of Gaul was one of the most

perfect knights-errant—I am wrong to say he was one; he stood alone,

the first, the only one, the lord of all that were in the world in his

time. A fig for Don Belianis, and for all who say he equalled him in

any respect, for, my oath upon it, they are deceiving themselves! I

say, too, that when a painter desires to become famous in his art he

endeavours to copy the originals of the rarest painters that he knows;

and the same rule holds good for all the most important crafts and

callings that serve to adorn a state; thus must he who would be

esteemed prudent and patient imitate Ulysses, in whose person and

labours Homer presents to us a lively picture of prudence and patience;

as Virgil, too, shows us in the person of Æneas the virtue of a pious

son and the sagacity of a brave and skilful captain; not representing

or describing them as they were, but as they ought to be, so as to

leave the example of their virtues to posterity. In the same way Amadis

was the polestar, day-star, sun of valiant and devoted knights, whom

all we who fight under the banner of love and chivalry are bound to

imitate. This, then, being so, I consider, friend Sancho, that the

knight-errant who shall imitate him most closely will come nearest to

reaching the perfection of chivalry. Now one of the instances in which

this knight most conspicuously showed his prudence, worth, valour,

endurance, fortitude, and love, was when he withdrew, rejected by the

Lady Oriana, to do penance upon the Peña Pobre, changing his name into

that of Beltenebros, a name assuredly significant and appropriate to

the life which he had voluntarily adopted. So, as it is easier for me

to imitate him in this than in cleaving giants asunder, cutting off

serpents’ heads, slaying dragons, routing armies, destroying fleets,

and breaking enchantments, and as this place is so well suited for a

similar purpose, I must not allow the opportunity to escape which now

so conveniently offers me its forelock.”

“What is it in reality,” said Sancho, “that your worship means to do in

such an out-of-the-way place as this?”

“Have I not told thee,” answered Don Quixote, “that I mean to imitate

Amadis here, playing the victim of despair, the madman, the maniac, so

as at the same time to imitate the valiant Don Roland, when at the

fountain he had evidence of the fair Angelica having disgraced herself

with Medoro and through grief thereat went mad, and plucked up trees,

troubled the waters of the clear springs, slew shepherds, destroyed

flocks, burned down huts, levelled houses, dragged mares after him, and

perpetrated a hundred thousand other outrages worthy of everlasting

renown and record? And though I have no intention of imitating Roland,

or Orlando, or Rotolando (for he went by all these names), step by step

in all the mad things he did, said, and thought, I will make a rough

copy to the best of my power of all that seems to me most essential;

but perhaps I shall content myself with the simple imitation of Amadis,

who without giving way to any mischievous madness but merely to tears

and sorrow, gained as much fame as the most famous.”

“It seems to me,” said Sancho, “that the knights who behaved in this

way had provocation and cause for those follies and penances; but what

cause has your worship for going mad? What lady has rejected you, or

what evidence have you found to prove that the lady Dulcinea del Toboso

has been trifling with Moor or Christian?”

“There is the point,” replied Don Quixote, “and that is the beauty of

this business of mine; no thanks to a knight-errant for going mad when

he has cause; the thing is to turn crazy without any provocation, and

let my lady know, if I do this in the dry, what I would do in the

moist; moreover I have abundant cause in the long separation I have

endured from my lady till death, Dulcinea del Toboso; for as thou didst

hear that shepherd Ambrosio say the other day, in absence all ills are

felt and feared; and so, friend Sancho, waste no time in advising me

against so rare, so happy, and so unheard-of an imitation; mad I am,

and mad I must be until thou returnest with the answer to a letter that

I mean to send by thee to my lady Dulcinea; and if it be such as my

constancy deserves, my insanity and penance will come to an end; and if

it be to the opposite effect, I shall become mad in earnest, and, being

so, I shall suffer no more; thus in whatever way she may answer I shall

escape from the struggle and affliction in which thou wilt leave me,

enjoying in my senses the boon thou bearest me, or as a madman not

feeling the evil thou bringest me. But tell me, Sancho, hast thou got

Mambrino’s helmet safe? for I saw thee take it up from the ground when

that ungrateful wretch tried to break it in pieces but could not, by

which the fineness of its temper may be seen.”

To which Sancho made answer, “By the living God, Sir Knight of the

Rueful Countenance, I cannot endure or bear with patience some of the

things that your worship says; and from them I begin to suspect that

all you tell me about chivalry, and winning kingdoms and empires, and

giving islands, and bestowing other rewards and dignities after the

custom of knights-errant, must be all made up of wind and lies, and all

pigments or figments, or whatever we may call them; for what would

anyone think that heard your worship calling a barber’s basin

Mambrino’s helmet without ever seeing the mistake all this time, but

that one who says and maintains such things must have his brains

addled? I have the basin in my sack all dinted, and I am taking it home

to have it mended, to trim my beard in it, if, by God’s grace, I am

allowed to see my wife and children some day or other.”

“Look here, Sancho,” said Don Quixote, “by him thou didst swear by just

now I swear thou hast the most limited understanding that any squire in

the world has or ever had. Is it possible that all this time thou hast

been going about with me thou hast never found out that all things

belonging to knights-errant seem to be illusions and nonsense and

ravings, and to go always by contraries? And not because it really is

so, but because there is always a swarm of enchanters in attendance

upon us that change and alter everything with us, and turn things as

they please, and according as they are disposed to aid or destroy us;

thus what seems to thee a barber’s basin seems to me Mambrino’s helmet,

and to another it will seem something else; and rare foresight it was

in the sage who is on my side to make what is really and truly

Mambrino’s helmet seem a basin to everybody, for, being held in such

estimation as it is, all the world would pursue me to rob me of it; but

when they see it is only a barber’s basin they do not take the trouble

to obtain it; as was plainly shown by him who tried to break it, and

left it on the ground without taking it, for, by my faith, had he known

it he would never have left it behind. Keep it safe, my friend, for

just now I have no need of it; indeed, I shall have to take off all

this armour and remain as naked as I was born, if I have a mind to

follow Roland rather than Amadis in my penance.”

Thus talking they reached the foot of a high mountain which stood like

an isolated peak among the others that surrounded it. Past its base

there flowed a gentle brook, all around it spread a meadow so green and

luxuriant that it was a delight to the eyes to look upon it, and forest

trees in abundance, and shrubs and flowers, added to the charms of the

spot. Upon this place the Knight of the Rueful Countenance fixed his

choice for the performance of his penance, and as he beheld it

exclaimed in a loud voice as though he were out of his senses:

“This is the place, oh, ye heavens, that I select and choose for

bewailing the misfortune in which ye yourselves have plunged me: this

is the spot where the overflowings of mine eyes shall swell the waters

of yon little brook, and my deep and endless sighs shall stir

unceasingly the leaves of these mountain trees, in testimony and token

of the pain my persecuted heart is suffering. Oh, ye rural deities,

whoever ye be that haunt this lone spot, give ear to the complaint of a

wretched lover whom long absence and brooding jealousy have driven to

bewail his fate among these wilds and complain of the hard heart of

that fair and ungrateful one, the end and limit of all human beauty!

Oh, ye wood nymphs and dryads, that dwell in the thickets of the

forest, so may the nimble wanton satyrs by whom ye are vainly wooed

never disturb your sweet repose, help me to lament my hard fate or at

least weary not at listening to it! Oh, Dulcinea del Toboso, day of my

night, glory of my pain, guide of my path, star of my fortune, so may

Heaven grant thee in full all thou seekest of it, bethink thee of the

place and condition to which absence from thee has brought me, and make

that return in kindness that is due to my fidelity! Oh, lonely trees,

that from this day forward shall bear me company in my solitude, give

me some sign by the gentle movement of your boughs that my presence is

not distasteful to you! Oh, thou, my squire, pleasant companion in my

prosperous and adverse fortunes, fix well in thy memory what thou shalt

see me do here, so that thou mayest relate and report it to the sole

cause of all,” and so saying he dismounted from Rocinante, and in an

instant relieved him of saddle and bridle, and giving him a slap on the

croup, said, “He gives thee freedom who is bereft of it himself, oh

steed as excellent in deed as thou art unfortunate in thy lot; begone

where thou wilt, for thou bearest written on thy forehead that neither

Astolfo’s hippogriff, nor the famed Frontino that cost Bradamante so

dear, could equal thee in speed.”

Seeing this Sancho said, “Good luck to him who has saved us the trouble

of stripping the pack-saddle off Dapple! By my faith he would not have

gone without a slap on the croup and something said in his praise;

though if he were here I would not let anyone strip him, for there

would be no occasion, as he had nothing of the lover or victim of

despair about him, inasmuch as his master, which I was while it was

God’s pleasure, was nothing of the sort; and indeed, Sir Knight of the

Rueful Countenance, if my departure and your worship’s madness are to

come off in earnest, it will be as well to saddle Rocinante again in

order that he may supply the want of Dapple, because it will save me

time in going and returning: for if I go on foot I don’t know when I

shall get there or when I shall get back, as I am, in truth, a bad

walker.”

“I declare, Sancho,” returned Don Quixote, “it shall be as thou wilt,

for thy plan does not seem to me a bad one, and three days hence thou

wilt depart, for I wish thee to observe in the meantime what I do and

say for her sake, that thou mayest be able to tell it.”

“But what more have I to see besides what I have seen?” said Sancho.

“Much thou knowest about it!” said Don Quixote. “I have now got to tear

up my garments, to scatter about my armour, knock my head against these

rocks, and more of the same sort of thing, which thou must witness.”

“For the love of God,” said Sancho, “be careful, your worship, how you

give yourself those knocks on the head, for you may come across such a

rock, and in such a way, that the very first may put an end to the

whole contrivance of this penance; and I should think, if indeed knocks

on the head seem necessary to you, and this business cannot be done

without them, you might be content—as the whole thing is feigned, and

counterfeit, and in joke—you might be content, I say, with giving them

to yourself in the water, or against something soft, like cotton; and

leave it all to me; for I’ll tell my lady that your worship knocked

your head against a point of rock harder than a diamond.”

“I thank thee for thy good intentions, friend Sancho,” answered Don

Quixote, “but I would have thee know that all these things I am doing

are not in joke, but very much in earnest, for anything else would be a

transgression of the ordinances of chivalry, which forbid us to tell

any lie whatever under the penalties due to apostasy; and to do one

thing instead of another is just the same as lying; so my knocks on the

head must be real, solid, and valid, without anything sophisticated or

fanciful about them, and it will be needful to leave me some lint to

dress my wounds, since fortune has compelled us to do without the

balsam we lost.”

“It was worse losing the ass,” replied Sancho, “for with him lint and

all were lost; but I beg of your worship not to remind me again of that

accursed liquor, for my soul, not to say my stomach, turns at hearing

the very name of it; and I beg of you, too, to reckon as past the three

days you allowed me for seeing the mad things you do, for I take them

as seen already and pronounced upon, and I will tell wonderful stories

to my lady; so write the letter and send me off at once, for I long to

return and take your worship out of this purgatory where I am leaving

you.”

“Purgatory dost thou call it, Sancho?” said Don Quixote, “rather call

it hell, or even worse if there be anything worse.”

“For one who is in hell,” said Sancho, “_nulla est retentio_, as I have

heard say.”

“I do not understand what _retentio_ means,” said Don Quixote.

“_Retentio_,” answered Sancho, “means that whoever is in hell never

comes nor can come out of it, which will be the opposite case with your

worship or my legs will be idle, that is if I have spurs to enliven

Rocinante: let me once get to El Toboso and into the presence of my

lady Dulcinea, and I will tell her such things of the follies and

madnesses (for it is all one) that your worship has done and is still

doing, that I will manage to make her softer than a glove though I find

her harder than a cork tree; and with her sweet and honeyed answer I

will come back through the air like a witch, and take your worship out

of this purgatory that seems to be hell but is not, as there is hope of

getting out of it; which, as I have said, those in hell have not, and I

believe your worship will not say anything to the contrary.”

“That is true,” said he of the Rueful Countenance, “but how shall we

manage to write the letter?”

“And the ass-colt order too,” added Sancho.

“All shall be included,” said Don Quixote; “and as there is no paper,

it would be well done to write it on the leaves of trees, as the

ancients did, or on tablets of wax; though that would be as hard to

find just now as paper. But it has just occurred to me how it may be

conveniently and even more than conveniently written, and that is in

the notebook that belonged to Cardenio, and thou wilt take care to have

it copied on paper, in a good hand, at the first village thou comest to

where there is a schoolmaster, or if not, any sacristan will copy it;

but see thou give it not to any notary to copy, for they write a law

hand that Satan could not make out.”

“But what is to be done about the signature?” said Sancho.

“The letters of Amadis were never signed,” said Don Quixote.

“That is all very well,” said Sancho, “but the order must needs be

signed, and if it is copied they will say the signature is false, and I

shall be left without ass-colts.”

“The order shall go signed in the same book,” said Don Quixote, “and on

seeing it my niece will make no difficulty about obeying it; as to the

loveletter thou canst put by way of signature, ‘_Yours till death, the

Knight of the Rueful Countenance._’ And it will be no great matter if

it is in some other person’s hand, for as well as I recollect Dulcinea

can neither read nor write, nor in the whole course of her life has she

seen handwriting or letter of mine, for my love and hers have been

always platonic, not going beyond a modest look, and even that so

seldom that I can safely swear I have not seen her four times in all

these twelve years I have been loving her more than the light of these

eyes that the earth will one day devour; and perhaps even of those four

times she has not once perceived that I was looking at her: such is the

retirement and seclusion in which her father Lorenzo Corchuelo and her

mother Aldonza Nogales have brought her up.”

“So, so!” said Sancho; “Lorenzo Corchuelo’s daughter is the lady

Dulcinea del Toboso, otherwise called Aldonza Lorenzo?”

“She it is,” said Don Quixote, “and she it is that is worthy to be lady

of the whole universe.”

“I know her well,” said Sancho, “and let me tell you she can fling a

crowbar as well as the lustiest lad in all the town. Giver of all good!

but she is a brave lass, and a right and stout one, and fit to be

helpmate to any knight-errant that is or is to be, who may make her his

lady: the whoreson wench, what sting she has and what a voice! I can

tell you one day she posted herself on the top of the belfry of the

village to call some labourers of theirs that were in a ploughed field

of her father’s, and though they were better than half a league off

they heard her as well as if they were at the foot of the tower; and

the best of her is that she is not a bit prudish, for she has plenty of

affability, and jokes with everybody, and has a grin and a jest for

everything. So, Sir Knight of the Rueful Countenance, I say you not

only may and ought to do mad freaks for her sake, but you have a good

right to give way to despair and hang yourself; and no one who knows of

it but will say you did well, though the devil should take you; and I

wish I were on my road already, simply to see her, for it is many a day

since I saw her, and she must be altered by this time, for going about

the fields always, and the sun and the air spoil women’s looks greatly.

But I must own the truth to your worship, Señor Don Quixote; until now

I have been under a great mistake, for I believed truly and honestly

that the lady Dulcinea must be some princess your worship was in love

with, or some person great enough to deserve the rich presents you have

sent her, such as the Biscayan and the galley slaves, and many more no

doubt, for your worship must have won many victories in the time when I

was not yet your squire. But all things considered, what good can it do

the lady Aldonza Lorenzo, I mean the lady Dulcinea del Toboso, to have

the vanquished your worship sends or will send coming to her and going

down on their knees before her? Because maybe when they came she’d be

hackling flax or threshing on the threshing floor, and they’d be

ashamed to see her, and she’d laugh, or resent the present.”

“I have before now told thee many times, Sancho,” said Don Quixote,

“that thou art a mighty great chatterer, and that with a blunt wit thou

art always striving at sharpness; but to show thee what a fool thou art

and how rational I am, I would have thee listen to a short story. Thou

must know that a certain widow, fair, young, independent, and rich, and

above all free and easy, fell in love with a sturdy strapping young

lay-brother; his superior came to know of it, and one day said to the

worthy widow by way of brotherly remonstrance, ‘I am surprised, señora,

and not without good reason, that a woman of such high standing, so

fair, and so rich as you are, should have fallen in love with such a

mean, low, stupid fellow as So-and-so, when in this house there are so

many masters, graduates, and divinity students from among whom you

might choose as if they were a lot of pears, saying, ‘This one I’ll

take, that I won’t take;’ but she replied to him with great

sprightliness and candour, ‘My dear sir, you are very much mistaken,

and your ideas are very old-fashioned, if you think that I have made a

bad choice in So-and-so, fool as he seems; because for all I want with

him he knows as much and more philosophy than Aristotle.’ In the same

way, Sancho, for all I want with Dulcinea del Toboso she is just as

good as the most exalted princess on earth. It is not to be supposed

that all those poets who sang the praises of ladies under the fancy

names they give them, had any such mistresses. Thinkest thou that the

Amarillises, the Phillises, the Sylvias, the Dianas, the Galateas, the

Fílidas, and all the rest of them, that the books, the ballads, the

barber’s shops, the theatres are full of, were really and truly ladies

of flesh and blood, and mistresses of those that glorify and have

glorified them? Nothing of the kind; they only invent them for the most

part to furnish a subject for their verses, and that they may pass for

lovers, or for men valiant enough to be so; and so it suffices me to

think and believe that the good Aldonza Lorenzo is fair and virtuous;

and as to her pedigree it is very little matter, for no one will

examine into it for the purpose of conferring any order upon her, and

I, for my part, reckon her the most exalted princess in the world. For

thou shouldst know, Sancho, if thou dost not know, that two things

alone beyond all others are incentives to love, and these are great

beauty and a good name, and these two things are to be found in

Dulcinea in the highest degree, for in beauty no one equals her and in

good name few approach her; and to put the whole thing in a nutshell, I

persuade myself that all I say is as I say, neither more nor less, and

I picture her in my imagination as I would have her to be, as well in

beauty as in condition; Helen approaches her not nor does Lucretia come

up to her, nor any other of the famous women of times past, Greek,

Barbarian, or Latin; and let each say what he will, for if in this I am

taken to task by the ignorant, I shall not be censured by the

critical.”

“I say that your worship is entirely right,” said Sancho, “and that I

am an ass. But I know not how the name of ass came into my mouth, for a

rope is not to be mentioned in the house of him who has been hanged;

but now for the letter, and then, God be with you, I am off.”

Don Quixote took out the notebook, and, retiring to one side, very

deliberately began to write the letter, and when he had finished it he

called to Sancho, saying he wished to read it to him, so that he might

commit it to memory, in case of losing it on the road; for with evil

fortune like his anything might be apprehended. To which Sancho

replied, “Write it two or three times there in the book and give it to

me, and I will carry it very carefully, because to expect me to keep it

in my memory is all nonsense, for I have such a bad one that I often

forget my own name; but for all that repeat it to me, as I shall like

to hear it, for surely it will run as if it was in print.”

“Listen,” said Don Quixote, “this is what it says:

_“Don Quixote’s Letter to Dulcinea del Toboso_

“Sovereign and exalted Lady,—The pierced by the point of absence, the

wounded to the heart’s core, sends thee, sweetest Dulcinea del Toboso,

the health that he himself enjoys not. If thy beauty despises me, if

thy worth is not for me, if thy scorn is my affliction, though I be

sufficiently long-suffering, hardly shall I endure this anxiety, which,

besides being oppressive, is protracted. My good squire Sancho will

relate to thee in full, fair ingrate, dear enemy, the condition to

which I am reduced on thy account: if it be thy pleasure to give me

relief, I am thine; if not, do as may be pleasing to thee; for by

ending my life I shall satisfy thy cruelty and my desire.

“Thine till death,

“The Knight of the Rueful Countenance.”

“By the life of my father,” said Sancho, when he heard the letter, “it

is the loftiest thing I ever heard. Body of me! how your worship says

everything as you like in it! And how well you fit in ‘The Knight of

the Rueful Countenance’ into the signature. I declare your worship is

indeed the very devil, and there is nothing you don’t know.”

“Everything is needed for the calling I follow,” said Don Quixote.

“Now then,” said Sancho, “let your worship put the order for the three

ass-colts on the other side, and sign it very plainly, that they may

recognise it at first sight.”

“With all my heart,” said Don Quixote, and as he had written it he read

it to this effect:

“Mistress Niece,—By this first of ass-colts please pay to Sancho Panza,

my squire, three of the five I left at home in your charge: said three

ass-colts to be paid and delivered for the same number received here in

hand, which upon this and upon his receipt shall be duly paid. Done in

the heart of the Sierra Morena, the twenty-seventh of August of this

present year.”

“That will do,” said Sancho; “now let your worship sign it.”

“There is no need to sign it,” said Don Quixote, “but merely to put my

flourish, which is the same as a signature, and enough for three asses,

or even three hundred.”

“I can trust your worship,” returned Sancho; “let me go and saddle

Rocinante, and be ready to give me your blessing, for I mean to go at

once without seeing the fooleries your worship is going to do; I’ll say

I saw you do so many that she will not want any more.”

“At any rate, Sancho,” said Don Quixote, “I should like—and there is

reason for it—I should like thee, I say, to see me stripped to the skin

and performing a dozen or two of insanities, which I can get done in

less than half an hour; for having seen them with thine own eyes, thou

canst then safely swear to the rest that thou wouldst add; and I

promise thee thou wilt not tell of as many as I mean to perform.”

“For the love of God, master mine,” said Sancho, “let me not see your

worship stripped, for it will sorely grieve me, and I shall not be able

to keep from tears, and my head aches so with all I shed last night for

Dapple, that I am not fit to begin any fresh weeping; but if it is your

worship’s pleasure that I should see some insanities, do them in your

clothes, short ones, and such as come readiest to hand; for I myself

want nothing of the sort, and, as I have said, it will be a saving of

time for my return, which will be with the news your worship desires

and deserves. If not, let the lady Dulcinea look to it; if she does not

answer reasonably, I swear as solemnly as I can that I will fetch a

fair answer out of her stomach with kicks and cuffs; for why should it

be borne that a knight-errant as famous as your worship should go mad

without rhyme or reason for a—? Her ladyship had best not drive me to

say it, for by God I will speak out and let off everything cheap, even

if it doesn’t sell: I am pretty good at that! she little knows me;

faith, if she knew me she’d be in awe of me.”

“In faith, Sancho,” said Don Quixote, “to all appearance thou art no

sounder in thy wits than I.”

“I am not so mad,” answered Sancho, “but I am more peppery; but apart

from all this, what has your worship to eat until I come back? Will you

sally out on the road like Cardenio to force it from the shepherds?”

“Let not that anxiety trouble thee,” replied Don Quixote, “for even if

I had it I should not eat anything but the herbs and the fruits which

this meadow and these trees may yield me; the beauty of this business

of mine lies in not eating, and in performing other mortifications.”

“Do you know what I am afraid of?” said Sancho upon this; “that I shall

not be able to find my way back to this spot where I am leaving you, it

is such an out-of-the-way place.”

“Observe the landmarks well,” said Don Quixote, “for I will try not to

go far from this neighbourhood, and I will even take care to mount the

highest of these rocks to see if I can discover thee returning;

however, not to miss me and lose thyself, the best plan will be to cut

some branches of the broom that is so abundant about here, and as thou

goest to lay them at intervals until thou hast come out upon the plain;

these will serve thee, after the fashion of the clue in the labyrinth

of Theseus, as marks and signs for finding me on thy return.”

“So I will,” said Sancho Panza, and having cut some, he asked his

master’s blessing, and not without many tears on both sides, took his

leave of him, and mounting Rocinante, of whom Don Quixote charged him

earnestly to have as much care as of his own person, he set out for the

plain, strewing at intervals the branches of broom as his master had

recommended him; and so he went his way, though Don Quixote still

entreated him to see him do were it only a couple of mad acts. He had

not gone a hundred paces, however, when he returned and said:

“I must say, señor, your worship said quite right, that in order to be

able to swear without a weight on my conscience that I had seen you do

mad things, it would be well for me to see if it were only one; though

in your worship’s remaining here I have seen a very great one.”

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“Did I not tell thee so?” said Don Quixote. “Wait, Sancho, and I will

do them in the saying of a credo,” and pulling off his breeches in all

haste he stripped himself to his skin and his shirt, and then, without

more ado, he cut a couple of gambados in the air, and a couple of

somersaults, heels over head, making such a display that, not to see it

a second time, Sancho wheeled Rocinante round, and felt easy, and

satisfied in his mind that he could swear he had left his master mad;

and so we will leave him to follow his road until his return, which was

a quick one.

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