บทที่ บทที่ 32 · CHAPTER XXXII. WHICH TREATS OF WHAT BEFELL DON QUIXOTE’S PARTY AT THE INN

. CHAPTER XXXII. WHICH TREATS OF WHAT BEFELL DON QUIXOTE’S PARTY AT THE INN

CHAPTER XXXII.

WHICH TREATS OF WHAT BEFELL DON QUIXOTE’S PARTY AT THE INN

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Their dainty repast being finished, they saddled at once, and without

any adventure worth mentioning they reached next day the inn, the

object of Sancho Panza’s fear and dread; but though he would have

rather not entered it, there was no help for it. The landlady, the

landlord, their daughter, and Maritornes, when they saw Don Quixote and

Sancho coming, went out to welcome them with signs of hearty

satisfaction, which Don Quixote received with dignity and gravity, and

bade them make up a better bed for him than the last time: to which the

landlady replied that if he paid better than he did the last time she

would give him one fit for a prince. Don Quixote said he would, so they

made up a tolerable one for him in the same garret as before; and he

lay down at once, being sorely shaken and in want of sleep.

No sooner was the door shut upon him than the landlady made at the

barber, and seizing him by the beard, said:

“By my faith you are not going to make a beard of my tail any longer;

you must give me back my tail, for it is a shame the way that thing of

my husband’s goes tossing about on the floor; I mean the comb that I

used to stick in my good tail.”

But for all she tugged at it the barber would not give it up until the

licentiate told him to let her have it, as there was now no further

occasion for that stratagem, because he might declare himself and

appear in his own character, and tell Don Quixote that he had fled to

this inn when those thieves the galley slaves robbed him; and should he

ask for the princess’s squire, they could tell him that she had sent

him on before her to give notice to the people of her kingdom that she

was coming, and bringing with her the deliverer of them all. On this

the barber cheerfully restored the tail to the landlady, and at the

same time they returned all the accessories they had borrowed to effect

Don Quixote’s deliverance. All the people of the inn were struck with

astonishment at the beauty of Dorothea, and even at the comely figure

of the shepherd Cardenio. The curate made them get ready such fare as

there was in the inn, and the landlord, in hope of better payment,

served them up a tolerably good dinner. All this time Don Quixote was

asleep, and they thought it best not to waken him, as sleeping would

now do him more good than eating.

While at dinner, the company consisting of the landlord, his wife,

their daughter, Maritornes, and all the travellers, they discussed the

strange craze of Don Quixote and the manner in which he had been found;

and the landlady told them what had taken place between him and the

carrier; and then, looking round to see if Sancho was there, when she

saw he was not, she gave them the whole story of his blanketing, which

they received with no little amusement. But on the curate observing

that it was the books of chivalry which Don Quixote had read that had

turned his brain, the landlord said:

“I cannot understand how that can be, for in truth to my mind there is

no better reading in the world, and I have here two or three of them,

with other writings that are the very life, not only of myself but of

plenty more; for when it is harvest-time, the reapers flock here on

holidays, and there is always one among them who can read and who takes

up one of these books, and we gather round him, thirty or more of us,

and stay listening to him with a delight that makes our grey hairs grow

young again. At least I can say for myself that when I hear of what

furious and terrible blows the knights deliver, I am seized with the

longing to do the same, and I would like to be hearing about them night

and day.”

“And I just as much,” said the landlady, “because I never have a quiet

moment in my house except when you are listening to someone reading;

for then you are so taken up that for the time being you forget to

scold.”

“That is true,” said Maritornes; “and, faith, I relish hearing these

things greatly too, for they are very pretty; especially when they

describe some lady or another in the arms of her knight under the

orange trees, and the duenna who is keeping watch for them half dead

with envy and fright; all this I say is as good as honey.”

“And you, what do you think, young lady?” said the curate turning to

the landlord’s daughter.

“I don’t know indeed, señor,” said she; “I listen too, and to tell the

truth, though I do not understand it, I like hearing it; but it is not

the blows that my father likes that I like, but the laments the knights

utter when they are separated from their ladies; and indeed they

sometimes make me weep with the pity I feel for them.”

“Then you would console them if it was for you they wept, young lady?”

said Dorothea.

“I don’t know what I should do,” said the girl; “I only know that there

are some of those ladies so cruel that they call their knights tigers

and lions and a thousand other foul names: and Jesus! I don’t know what

sort of folk they can be, so unfeeling and heartless, that rather than

bestow a glance upon a worthy man they leave him to die or go mad. I

don’t know what is the good of such prudery; if it is for honour’s

sake, why not marry them? That’s all they want.”

“Hush, child,” said the landlady; “it seems to me thou knowest a great

deal about these things, and it is not fit for girls to know or talk so

much.”

“As the gentleman asked me, I could not help answering him,” said the

girl.

“Well then,” said the curate, “bring me these books, señor landlord,

for I should like to see them.”

“With all my heart,” said he, and going into his own room he brought

out an old valise secured with a little chain, on opening which the

curate found in it three large books and some manuscripts written in a

very good hand. The first that he opened he found to be “Don Cirongilio

of Thrace,” and the second “Don Felixmarte of Hircania,” and the other

the “History of the Great Captain Gonzalo Hernandez de Cordova, with

the Life of Diego García de Paredes.”

When the curate read the two first titles he looked over at the barber

and said, “We want my friend’s housekeeper and niece here now.”

“Nay,” said the barber, “I can do just as well to carry them to the

yard or to the hearth, and there is a very good fire there.”

“What! your worship would burn my books!” said the landlord.

“Only these two,” said the curate, “Don Cirongilio, and Felixmarte.”

“Are my books, then, heretics or phlegmatics that you want to burn

them?” said the landlord.

“Schismatics you mean, friend,” said the barber, “not phlegmatics.”

“That’s it,” said the landlord; “but if you want to burn any, let it be

that about the Great Captain and that Diego García; for I would rather

have a child of mine burnt than either of the others.”

“Brother,” said the curate, “those two books are made up of lies, and

are full of folly and nonsense; but this of the Great Captain is a true

history, and contains the deeds of Gonzalo Hernandez of Cordova, who by

his many and great achievements earned the title all over the world of

the Great Captain, a famous and illustrious name, and deserved by him

alone; and this Diego García de Paredes was a distinguished knight of

the city of Trujillo in Estremadura, a most gallant soldier, and of

such bodily strength that with one finger he stopped a mill-wheel in

full motion; and posted with a two-handed sword at the foot of a bridge

he kept the whole of an immense army from passing over it, and achieved

such other exploits that if, instead of his relating them himself with

the modesty of a knight and of one writing his own history, some free

and unbiased writer had recorded them, they would have thrown into the

shade all the deeds of the Hectors, Achilleses, and Rolands.”

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“Tell that to my father,” said the landlord. “There’s a thing to be

astonished at! Stopping a mill-wheel! By God your worship should read

what I have read of Felixmarte of Hircania, how with one single

backstroke he cleft five giants asunder through the middle as if they

had been made of bean-pods like the little friars the children make;

and another time he attacked a very great and powerful army, in which

there were more than a million six hundred thousand soldiers, all armed

from head to foot, and he routed them all as if they had been flocks of

sheep.”

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“And then, what do you say to the good Cirongilio of Thrace, that was

so stout and bold; as may be seen in the book, where it is related that

as he was sailing along a river there came up out of the midst of the

water against him a fiery serpent, and he, as soon as he saw it, flung

himself upon it and got astride of its scaly shoulders, and squeezed

its throat with both hands with such force that the serpent, finding he

was throttling it, had nothing for it but to let itself sink to the

bottom of the river, carrying with it the knight who would not let go

his hold; and when they got down there he found himself among palaces

and gardens so pretty that it was a wonder to see; and then the serpent

changed itself into an old ancient man, who told him such things as

were never heard. Hold your peace, señor; for if you were to hear this

you would go mad with delight. A couple of figs for your Great Captain

and your Diego García!”

Hearing this Dorothea said in a whisper to Cardenio, “Our landlord is

almost fit to play a second part to Don Quixote.”

“I think so,” said Cardenio, “for, as he shows, he accepts it as a

certainty that everything those books relate took place exactly as it

is written down; and the barefooted friars themselves would not

persuade him to the contrary.”

“But consider, brother,” said the curate once more, “there never was

any Felixmarte of Hircania in the world, nor any Cirongilio of Thrace,

or any of the other knights of the same sort, that the books of

chivalry talk of; the whole thing is the fabrication and invention of

idle wits, devised by them for the purpose you describe of beguiling

the time, as your reapers do when they read; for I swear to you in all

seriousness there never were any such knights in the world, and no such

exploits or nonsense ever happened anywhere.”

“Try that bone on another dog,” said the landlord; “as if I did not

know how many make five, and where my shoe pinches me; don’t think to

feed me with pap, for by God I am no fool. It is a good joke for your

worship to try and persuade me that everything these good books say is

nonsense and lies, and they printed by the license of the Lords of the

Royal Council, as if they were people who would allow such a lot of

lies to be printed all together, and so many battles and enchantments

that they take away one’s senses.”

“I have told you, friend,” said the curate, “that this is done to

divert our idle thoughts; and as in well-ordered states games of chess,

fives, and billiards are allowed for the diversion of those who do not

care, or are not obliged, or are unable to work, so books of this kind

are allowed to be printed, on the supposition that, what indeed is the

truth, there can be nobody so ignorant as to take any of them for true

stories; and if it were permitted me now, and the present company

desired it, I could say something about the qualities books of chivalry

should possess to be good ones, that would be to the advantage and even

to the taste of some; but I hope the time will come when I can

communicate my ideas to someone who may be able to mend matters; and in

the meantime, señor landlord, believe what I have said, and take your

books, and make up your mind about their truth or falsehood, and much

good may they do you; and God grant you may not fall lame of the same

foot your guest Don Quixote halts on.”

“No fear of that,” returned the landlord; “I shall not be so mad as to

make a knight-errant of myself; for I see well enough that things are

not now as they used to be in those days, when they say those famous

knights roamed about the world.”

Sancho had made his appearance in the middle of this conversation, and

he was very much troubled and cast down by what he heard said about

knights-errant being now no longer in vogue, and all books of chivalry

being folly and lies; and he resolved in his heart to wait and see what

came of this journey of his master’s, and if it did not turn out as

happily as his master expected, he determined to leave him and go back

to his wife and children and his ordinary labour.

The landlord was carrying away the valise and the books, but the curate

said to him, “Wait; I want to see what those papers are that are

written in such a good hand.” The landlord taking them out handed them

to him to read, and he perceived they were a work of about eight sheets

of manuscript, with, in large letters at the beginning, the title of

“Novel of the Ill-advised Curiosity.” The curate read three or four

lines to himself, and said, “I must say the title of this novel does

not seem to me a bad one, and I feel an inclination to read it all.” To

which the landlord replied, “Then your reverence will do well to read

it, for I can tell you that some guests who have read it here have been

much pleased with it, and have begged it of me very earnestly; but I

would not give it, meaning to return it to the person who forgot the

valise, books, and papers here, for maybe he will return here some time

or other; and though I know I shall miss the books, faith I mean to

return them; for though I am an innkeeper, still I am a Christian.”

“You are very right, friend,” said the curate; “but for all that, if

the novel pleases me you must let me copy it.”

“With all my heart,” replied the host.

While they were talking Cardenio had taken up the novel and begun to

read it, and forming the same opinion of it as the curate, he begged

him to read it so that they might all hear it.

“I would read it,” said the curate, “if the time would not be better

spent in sleeping.”

“It will be rest enough for me,” said Dorothea, “to while away the time

by listening to some tale, for my spirits are not yet tranquil enough

to let me sleep when it would be seasonable.”

“Well then, in that case,” said the curate, “I will read it, if it were

only out of curiosity; perhaps it may contain something pleasant.”

Master Nicholas added his entreaties to the same effect, and Sancho

too; seeing which, and considering that he would give pleasure to all,

and receive it himself, the curate said, “Well then, attend to me

everyone, for the novel begins thus.”

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