Bab Bab 61 · CHAPTER IX. WHEREIN IS RELATED WHAT WILL BE SEEN THERE

. CHAPTER IX. WHEREIN IS RELATED WHAT WILL BE SEEN THERE

CHAPTER IX.

WHEREIN IS RELATED WHAT WILL BE SEEN THERE

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’Twas at the very midnight hour—more or less—when Don Quixote and

Sancho quitted the wood and entered El Toboso. The town was in deep

silence, for all the inhabitants were asleep, and stretched on the

broad of their backs, as the saying is. The night was darkish, though

Sancho would have been glad had it been quite dark, so as to find in

the darkness an excuse for his blundering. All over the place nothing

was to be heard except the barking of dogs, which deafened the ears of

Don Quixote and troubled the heart of Sancho. Now and then an ass

brayed, pigs grunted, cats mewed, and the various noises they made

seemed louder in the silence of the night; all which the enamoured

knight took to be of evil omen; nevertheless he said to Sancho,

“Sancho, my son, lead on to the palace of Dulcinea, it may be that we

shall find her awake.”

“Body of the sun! what palace am I to lead to,” said Sancho, “when what

I saw her highness in was only a very little house?”

“Most likely she had then withdrawn into some small apartment of her

palace,” said Don Quixote, “to amuse herself with damsels, as great

ladies and princesses are accustomed to do.”

“Señor,” said Sancho, “if your worship will have it in spite of me that

the house of my lady Dulcinea is a palace, is this an hour, think you,

to find the door open; and will it be right for us to go knocking till

they hear us and open the door; making a disturbance and confusion all

through the household? Are we going, do you fancy, to the house of our

wenches, like gallants who come and knock and go in at any hour,

however late it may be?”

“Let us first of all find out the palace for certain,” replied Don

Quixote, “and then I will tell thee, Sancho, what we had best do; but

look, Sancho, for either I see badly, or that dark mass that one sees

from here should be Dulcinea’s palace.”

“Then let your worship lead the way,” said Sancho, “perhaps it may be

so; though I see it with my eyes and touch it with my hands, I’ll

believe it as much as I believe it is daylight now.”

Don Quixote took the lead, and having gone a matter of two hundred

paces he came upon the mass that produced the shade, and found it was a

great tower, and then he perceived that the building in question was no

palace, but the chief church of the town, and said he, “It’s the church

we have lit upon, Sancho.”

“So I see,” said Sancho, “and God grant we may not light upon our

graves; it is no good sign to find oneself wandering in a graveyard at

this time of night; and that, after my telling your worship, if I don’t

mistake, that the house of this lady will be in an alley without an

outlet.”

“The curse of God on thee for a blockhead!” said Don Quixote; “where

hast thou ever heard of castles and royal palaces being built in alleys

without an outlet?”

“Señor,” replied Sancho, “every country has a way of its own; perhaps

here in El Toboso it is the way to build palaces and grand buildings in

alleys; so I entreat your worship to let me search about among these

streets or alleys before me, and perhaps, in some corner or other, I

may stumble on this palace—and I wish I saw the dogs eating it for

leading us such a dance.”

“Speak respectfully of what belongs to my lady, Sancho,” said Don

Quixote; “let us keep the feast in peace, and not throw the rope after

the bucket.”

“I’ll hold my tongue,” said Sancho, “but how am I to take it patiently

when your worship wants me, with only once seeing the house of our

mistress, to know always, and find it in the middle of the night, when

your worship can’t find it, who must have seen it thousands of times?”

“Thou wilt drive me to desperation, Sancho,” said Don Quixote. “Look

here, heretic, have I not told thee a thousand times that I have never

once in my life seen the peerless Dulcinea or crossed the threshold of

her palace, and that I am enamoured solely by hearsay and by the great

reputation she bears for beauty and discretion?”

“I hear it now,” returned Sancho; “and I may tell you that if you have

not seen her, no more have I.”

“That cannot be,” said Don Quixote, “for, at any rate, thou saidst, on

bringing back the answer to the letter I sent by thee, that thou sawest

her sifting wheat.”

“Don’t mind that, señor,” said Sancho; “I must tell you that my seeing

her and the answer I brought you back were by hearsay too, for I can no

more tell who the lady Dulcinea is than I can hit the sky.”

“Sancho, Sancho,” said Don Quixote, “there are times for jests and

times when jests are out of place; if I tell thee that I have neither

seen nor spoken to the lady of my heart, it is no reason why thou

shouldst say thou hast not spoken to her or seen her, when the contrary

is the case, as thou well knowest.”

While the two were engaged in this conversation, they perceived someone

with a pair of mules approaching the spot where they stood, and from

the noise the plough made, as it dragged along the ground, they guessed

him to be some labourer who had got up before daybreak to go to his

work, and so it proved to be. He came along singing the ballad that

says-

Ill did ye fare, ye men of France,

In Roncesvalles chase—

“May I die, Sancho,” said Don Quixote, when he heard him, “if any good

will come to us to-night! Dost thou not hear what that clown is

singing?”

“I do,” said Sancho, “but what has Roncesvalles chase to do with what

we have in hand? He might just as well be singing the ballad of

Calainos, for any good or ill that can come to us in our business.”

By this time the labourer had come up, and Don Quixote asked him, “Can

you tell me, worthy friend, and God speed you, whereabouts here is the

palace of the peerless princess Doña Dulcinea del Toboso?”

“Señor,” replied the lad, “I am a stranger, and I have been only a few

days in the town, doing farm work for a rich farmer. In that house

opposite there live the curate of the village and the sacristan, and

both or either of them will be able to give your worship some account

of this lady princess, for they have a list of all the people of El

Toboso; though it is my belief there is not a princess living in the

whole of it; many ladies there are, of quality, and in her own house

each of them may be a princess.”

“Well, then, she I am inquiring for will be one of these, my friend,”

said Don Quixote.

“May be so,” replied the lad; “God be with you, for here comes the

daylight;” and without waiting for any more of his questions, he

whipped on his mules.

Sancho, seeing his master downcast and somewhat dissatisfied, said to

him, “Señor, daylight will be here before long, and it will not do for

us to let the sun find us in the street; it will be better for us to

quit the city, and for your worship to hide in some forest in the

neighbourhood, and I will come back in the daytime, and I won’t leave a

nook or corner of the whole village that I won’t search for the house,

castle, or palace, of my lady, and it will be hard luck for me if I

don’t find it; and as soon as I have found it I will speak to her

grace, and tell her where and how your worship is waiting for her to

arrange some plan for you to see her without any damage to her honour

and reputation.”

“Sancho,” said Don Quixote, “thou hast delivered a thousand sentences

condensed in the compass of a few words; I thank thee for the advice

thou hast given me, and take it most gladly. Come, my son, let us go

look for some place where I may hide, while thou dost return, as thou

sayest, to seek, and speak with my lady, from whose discretion and

courtesy I look for favours more than miraculous.”

Sancho was in a fever to get his master out of the town, lest he should

discover the falsehood of the reply he had brought to him in the Sierra

Morena on behalf of Dulcinea; so he hastened their departure, which

they took at once, and two miles out of the village they found a forest

or thicket wherein Don Quixote ensconced himself, while Sancho returned

to the city to speak to Dulcinea, in which embassy things befell him

which demand fresh attention and a new chapter.

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