บทที่ บทที่ 54 · CHAPTER II. WHICH TREATS OF THE NOTABLE ALTERCATION WHICH SANCHO PANZA HAD WITH DON

. CHAPTER II. WHICH TREATS OF THE NOTABLE ALTERCATION WHICH SANCHO PANZA HAD WITH DON

CHAPTER II.

WHICH TREATS OF THE NOTABLE ALTERCATION WHICH SANCHO PANZA HAD WITH DON

QUIXOTE’S NIECE, AND HOUSEKEEPER, TOGETHER WITH OTHER DROLL MATTERS

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The history relates that the outcry Don Quixote, the curate, and the

barber heard came from the niece and the housekeeper exclaiming to

Sancho, who was striving to force his way in to see Don Quixote while

they held the door against him, “What does the vagabond want in this

house? Be off to your own, brother, for it is you, and no one else,

that delude my master, and lead him astray, and take him tramping about

the country.”

To which Sancho replied, “Devil’s own housekeeper! it is I who am

deluded, and led astray, and taken tramping about the country, and not

thy master! He has carried me all over the world, and you are mightily

mistaken. He enticed me away from home by a trick, promising me an

island, which I am still waiting for.”

“May evil islands choke thee, thou detestable Sancho,” said the niece;

“What are islands? Is it something to eat, glutton and gormandiser that

thou art?”

“It is not something to eat,” replied Sancho, “but something to govern

and rule, and better than four cities or four judgeships at court.”

“For all that,” said the housekeeper, “you don’t enter here, you bag of

mischief and sack of knavery; go govern your house and dig your

seed-patch, and give over looking for islands or shylands.”

The curate and the barber listened with great amusement to the words of

the three; but Don Quixote, uneasy lest Sancho should blab and blurt

out a whole heap of mischievous stupidities, and touch upon points that

might not be altogether to his credit, called to him and made the other

two hold their tongues and let him come in. Sancho entered, and the

curate and the barber took their leave of Don Quixote, of whose

recovery they despaired when they saw how wedded he was to his crazy

ideas, and how saturated with the nonsense of his unlucky chivalry; and

said the curate to the barber, “You will see, gossip, that when we are

least thinking of it, our gentleman will be off once more for another

flight.”

“I have no doubt of it,” returned the barber; “but I do not wonder so

much at the madness of the knight as at the simplicity of the squire,

who has such a firm belief in all that about the island, that I suppose

all the exposures that could be imagined would not get it out of his

head.”

“God help them,” said the curate; “and let us be on the look-out to see

what comes of all these absurdities of the knight and squire, for it

seems as if they had both been cast in the same mould, and the madness

of the master without the simplicity of the man would not be worth a

farthing.”

“That is true,” said the barber, “and I should like very much to know

what the pair are talking about at this moment.”

“I promise you,” said the curate, “the niece or the housekeeper will

tell us by-and-by, for they are not the ones to forget to listen.”

Meanwhile Don Quixote shut himself up in his room with Sancho, and when

they were alone he said to him, “It grieves me greatly, Sancho, that

thou shouldst have said, and sayest, that I took thee out of thy

cottage, when thou knowest I did not remain in my house. We sallied

forth together, we took the road together, we wandered abroad together;

we have had the same fortune and the same luck; if they blanketed thee

once, they belaboured me a hundred times, and that is the only

advantage I have of thee.”

“That was only reasonable,” replied Sancho, “for, by what your worship

says, misfortunes belong more properly to knights-errant than to their

squires.”

“Thou art mistaken, Sancho,” said Don Quixote, “according to the maxim

_quando caput dolet_, etc.”

“I don’t understand any language but my own,” said Sancho.

“I mean to say,” said Don Quixote, “that when the head suffers all the

members suffer; and so, being thy lord and master, I am thy head, and

thou a part of me as thou art my servant; and therefore any evil that

affects or shall affect me should give thee pain, and what affects thee

give pain to me.”

“It should be so,” said Sancho; “but when I was blanketed as a member,

my head was on the other side of the wall, looking on while I was

flying through the air, and did not feel any pain whatever; and if the

members are obliged to feel the suffering of the head, it should be

obliged to feel their sufferings.”

“Dost thou mean to say now, Sancho,” said Don Quixote, “that I did not

feel when they were blanketing thee? If thou dost, thou must not say so

or think so, for I felt more pain then in spirit than thou didst in

body. But let us put that aside for the present, for we shall have

opportunities enough for considering and settling the point; tell me,

Sancho my friend, what do they say about me in the village here? What

do the common people think of me? What do the hidalgos? What do the

caballeros? What do they say of my valour; of my achievements; of my

courtesy? How do they treat the task I have undertaken in reviving and

restoring to the world the now forgotten order of chivalry? In short,

Sancho, I would have thee tell me all that has come to thine ears on

this subject; and thou art to tell me, without adding anything to the

good or taking away anything from the bad; for it is the duty of loyal

vassals to tell the truth to their lords just as it is and in its

proper shape, not allowing flattery to add to it or any idle deference

to lessen it. And I would have thee know, Sancho, that if the naked

truth, undisguised by flattery, came to the ears of princes, times

would be different, and other ages would be reckoned iron ages more

than ours, which I hold to be the golden of these latter days. Profit

by this advice, Sancho, and report to me clearly and faithfully the

truth of what thou knowest touching what I have demanded of thee.”

“That I will do with all my heart, master,” replied Sancho, “provided

your worship will not be vexed at what I say, as you wish me to say it

out in all its nakedness, without putting any more clothes on it than

it came to my knowledge in.”

“I will not be vexed at all,” returned Don Quixote; “thou mayest speak

freely, Sancho, and without any beating about the bush.”

“Well then,” said he, “first of all, I have to tell you that the common

people consider your worship a mighty great madman, and me no less a

fool. The hidalgos say that, not keeping within the bounds of your

quality of gentleman, you have assumed the ‘Don,’ and made a knight of

yourself at a jump, with four vine-stocks and a couple of acres of

land, and never a shirt to your back. The caballeros say they do not

want to have hidalgos setting up in opposition to them, particularly

squire hidalgos who polish their own shoes and darn their black

stockings with green silk.”

“That,” said Don Quixote, “does not apply to me, for I always go well

dressed and never patched; ragged I may be, but ragged more from the

wear and tear of arms than of time.”

“As to your worship’s valour, courtesy, accomplishments, and task,

there is a variety of opinions. Some say, ‘mad but droll;’ others,

‘valiant but unlucky;’ others, ‘courteous but meddling,’ and then they

go into such a number of things that they don’t leave a whole bone

either in your worship or in myself.”

“Recollect, Sancho,” said Don Quixote, “that wherever virtue exists in

an eminent degree it is persecuted. Few or none of the famous men that

have lived escaped being calumniated by malice. Julius Cæsar, the

boldest, wisest, and bravest of captains, was charged with being

ambitious, and not particularly cleanly in his dress, or pure in his

morals. Of Alexander, whose deeds won him the name of Great, they say

that he was somewhat of a drunkard. Of Hercules, him of the many

labours, it is said that he was lewd and luxurious. Of Don Galaor, the

brother of Amadis of Gaul, it was whispered that he was

over-quarrelsome, and of his brother that he was lachrymose. So that, O

Sancho, amongst all these calumnies against good men, mine may be let

pass, since they are no more than thou hast said.”

“That’s just where it is, body of my father!”

“Is there more, then?” asked Don Quixote.

“There’s the tail to be skinned yet,” said Sancho; “all so far is cakes

and fancy bread; but if your worship wants to know all about the

calumnies they bring against you, I will fetch you one this instant who

can tell you the whole of them without missing an atom; for last night

the son of Bartholomew Carrasco, who has been studying at Salamanca,

came home after having been made a bachelor, and when I went to welcome

him, he told me that your worship’s history is already abroad in books,

with the title of THE INGENIOUS GENTLEMAN DON QUIXOTE OF LA MANCHA; and

he says they mention me in it by my own name of Sancho Panza, and the

lady Dulcinea del Toboso too, and divers things that happened to us

when we were alone; so that I crossed myself in my wonder how the

historian who wrote them down could have known them.”

“I promise thee, Sancho,” said Don Quixote, “the author of our history

will be some sage enchanter; for to such nothing that they choose to

write about is hidden.”

“What!” said Sancho, “a sage and an enchanter! Why, the bachelor Samson

Carrasco (that is the name of him I spoke of) says the author of the

history is called Cide Hamete Berengena.”

“That is a Moorish name,” said Don Quixote.

“May be so,” replied Sancho; “for I have heard say that the Moors are

mostly great lovers of berengenas.”

“Thou must have mistaken the surname of this ‘Cide’—which means in

Arabic ‘Lord’—Sancho,” observed Don Quixote.

“Very likely,” replied Sancho, “but if your worship wishes me to fetch

the bachelor I will go for him in a twinkling.”

“Thou wilt do me a great pleasure, my friend,” said Don Quixote, “for

what thou hast told me has amazed me, and I shall not eat a morsel that

will agree with me until I have heard all about it.”

“Then I am off for him,” said Sancho; and leaving his master he went in

quest of the bachelor, with whom he returned in a short time, and, all

three together, they had a very droll colloquy.

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