บทที่ บทที่ 80 · CHAPTER XXVIII. OF MATTERS THAT BENENGELI SAYS HE WHO READS THEM WILL KNOW, IF HE READS

. CHAPTER XXVIII. OF MATTERS THAT BENENGELI SAYS HE WHO READS THEM WILL KNOW, IF HE READS

CHAPTER XXVIII.

OF MATTERS THAT BENENGELI SAYS HE WHO READS THEM WILL KNOW, IF HE READS

THEM WITH ATTENTION

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When the brave man flees, treachery is manifest and it is for wise men

to reserve themselves for better occasions. This proved to be the case

with Don Quixote, who, giving way before the fury of the townsfolk and

the hostile intentions of the angry troop, took to flight and, without

a thought of Sancho or the danger in which he was leaving him,

retreated to such a distance as he thought made him safe. Sancho, lying

across his ass, followed him, as has been said, and at length came up,

having by this time recovered his senses, and on joining him let

himself drop off Dapple at Rocinante’s feet, sore, bruised, and

belaboured. Don Quixote dismounted to examine his wounds, but finding

him whole from head to foot, he said to him, angrily enough, “In an

evil hour didst thou take to braying, Sancho! Where hast thou learned

that it is well done to mention the rope in the house of the man that

has been hanged? To the music of brays what harmonies couldst thou

expect to get but cudgels? Give thanks to God, Sancho, that they signed

the cross on thee just now with a stick, and did not mark thee _per

signum crucis_ with a cutlass.”

“I’m not equal to answering,” said Sancho, “for I feel as if I was

speaking through my shoulders; let us mount and get away from this;

I’ll keep from braying, but not from saying that knights-errant fly and

leave their good squires to be pounded like privet, or made meal of at

the hands of their enemies.”

“He does not fly who retires,” returned Don Quixote; “for I would have

thee know, Sancho, that the valour which is not based upon a foundation

of prudence is called rashness, and the exploits of the rash man are to

be attributed rather to good fortune than to courage; and so I own that

I retired, but not that I fled; and therein I have followed the example

of many valiant men who have reserved themselves for better times; the

histories are full of instances of this, but as it would not be any

good to thee or pleasure to me, I will not recount them to thee now.”

Sancho was by this time mounted with the help of Don Quixote, who then

himself mounted Rocinante, and at a leisurely pace they proceeded to

take shelter in a grove which was in sight about a quarter of a league

off. Every now and then Sancho gave vent to deep sighs and dismal

groans, and on Don Quixote asking him what caused such acute suffering,

he replied that, from the end of his back-bone up to the nape of his

neck, he was so sore that it nearly drove him out of his senses.

“The cause of that soreness,” said Don Quixote, “will be, no doubt,

that the staff wherewith they smote thee being a very long one, it

caught thee all down the back, where all the parts that are sore are

situated, and had it reached any further thou wouldst be sorer still.”

“By God,” said Sancho, “your worship has relieved me of a great doubt,

and cleared up the point for me in elegant style! Body o’ me! is the

cause of my soreness such a mystery that there’s any need to tell me I

am sore everywhere the staff hit me? If it was my ankles that pained me

there might be something in going divining why they did, but it is not

much to divine that I’m sore where they thrashed me. By my faith,

master mine, the ills of others hang by a hair; every day I am

discovering more and more how little I have to hope for from keeping

company with your worship; for if this time you have allowed me to be

drubbed, the next time, or a hundred times more, we’ll have the

blanketings of the other day over again, and all the other pranks

which, if they have fallen on my shoulders now, will be thrown in my

teeth by-and-by. I would do a great deal better (if I was not an

ignorant brute that will never do any good all my life), I would do a

great deal better, I say, to go home to my wife and children and

support them and bring them up on what God may please to give me,

instead of following your worship along roads that lead nowhere and

paths that are none at all, with little to drink and less to eat. And

then when it comes to sleeping! Measure out seven feet on the earth,

brother squire, and if that’s not enough for you, take as many more,

for you may have it all your own way and stretch yourself to your

heart’s content. Oh that I could see burnt and turned to ashes the

first man that meddled with knight-errantry or at any rate the first

who chose to be squire to such fools as all the knights-errant of past

times must have been! Of those of the present day I say nothing,

because, as your worship is one of them, I respect them, and because I

know your worship knows a point more than the devil in all you say and

think.”

“I would lay a good wager with you, Sancho,” said Don Quixote, “that

now that you are talking on without anyone to stop you, you don’t feel

a pain in your whole body. Talk away, my son, say whatever comes into

your head or mouth, for so long as you feel no pain, the irritation

your impertinences give me will be a pleasure to me; and if you are so

anxious to go home to your wife and children, God forbid that I should

prevent you; you have money of mine; see how long it is since we left

our village this third time, and how much you can and ought to earn

every month, and pay yourself out of your own hand.”

“When I worked for Tom Carrasco, the father of the bachelor Samson

Carrasco that your worship knows,” replied Sancho, “I used to earn two

ducats a month besides my food; I can’t tell what I can earn with your

worship, though I know a knight-errant’s squire has harder times of it

than he who works for a farmer; for after all, we who work for farmers,

however much we toil all day, at the worst, at night, we have our olla

supper and sleep in a bed, which I have not slept in since I have been

in your worship’s service, if it wasn’t the short time we were in Don

Diego de Miranda’s house, and the feast I had with the skimmings I took

off Camacho’s pots, and what I ate, drank, and slept in Basilio’s

house; all the rest of the time I have been sleeping on the hard ground

under the open sky, exposed to what they call the inclemencies of

heaven, keeping life in me with scraps of cheese and crusts of bread,

and drinking water either from the brooks or from the springs we come

to on these by-paths we travel.”

“I own, Sancho,” said Don Quixote, “that all thou sayest is true; how

much, thinkest thou, ought I to give thee over and above what Tom

Carrasco gave thee?”

“I think,” said Sancho, “that if your worship was to add on two reals a

month I’d consider myself well paid; that is, as far as the wages of my

labour go; but to make up to me for your worship’s pledge and promise

to me to give me the government of an island, it would be fair to add

six reals more, making thirty in all.”

“Very good,” said Don Quixote; “it is twenty-five days since we left

our village, so reckon up, Sancho, according to the wages you have made

out for yourself, and see how much I owe you in proportion, and pay

yourself, as I said before, out of your own hand.”

“O body o’ me!” said Sancho, “but your worship is very much out in that

reckoning; for when it comes to the promise of the island we must count

from the day your worship promised it to me to this present hour we are

at now.”

“Well, how long is it, Sancho, since I promised it to you?” said Don

Quixote.

“If I remember rightly,” said Sancho, “it must be over twenty years,

three days more or less.”

Don Quixote gave himself a great slap on the forehead and began to

laugh heartily, and said he, “Why, I have not been wandering, either in

the Sierra Morena or in the whole course of our sallies, but barely two

months, and thou sayest, Sancho, that it is twenty years since I

promised thee the island. I believe now thou wouldst have all the money

thou hast of mine go in thy wages. If so, and if that be thy pleasure,

I give it to thee now, once and for all, and much good may it do thee,

for so long as I see myself rid of such a good-for-nothing squire I’ll

be glad to be left a pauper without a rap. But tell me, thou perverter

of the squirely rules of knight-errantry, where hast thou ever seen or

read that any knight-errant’s squire made terms with his lord, ‘you

must give me so much a month for serving you’? Plunge, scoundrel,

rogue, monster—for such I take thee to be—plunge, I say, into the _mare

magnum_ of their histories; and if thou shalt find that any squire ever

said or thought what thou hast said now, I will let thee nail it on my

forehead, and give me, over and above, four sound slaps in the face.

Turn the rein, or the halter, of thy Dapple, and begone home; for one

single step further thou shalt not make in my company. O bread

thanklessly received! O promises ill-bestowed! O man more beast than

human being! Now, when I was about to raise thee to such a position,

that, in spite of thy wife, they would call thee ‘my lord,’ thou art

leaving me? Thou art going now when I had a firm and fixed intention of

making thee lord of the best island in the world? Well, as thou thyself

hast said before now, honey is not for the mouth of the ass. Ass thou

art, ass thou wilt be, and ass thou wilt end when the course of thy

life is run; for I know it will come to its close before thou dost

perceive or discern that thou art a beast.”

Sancho regarded Don Quixote earnestly while he was giving him this

rating, and was so touched by remorse that the tears came to his eyes,

and in a piteous and broken voice he said to him, “Master mine, I

confess that, to be a complete ass, all I want is a tail; if your

worship will only fix one on to me, I’ll look on it as rightly placed,

and I’ll serve you as an ass all the remaining days of my life. Forgive

me and have pity on my folly, and remember I know but little, and, if I

talk much, it’s more from infirmity than malice; but he who sins and

mends commends himself to God.”

“I should have been surprised, Sancho,” said Don Quixote, “if thou

hadst not introduced some bit of a proverb into thy speech. Well, well,

I forgive thee, provided thou dost mend and not show thyself in future

so fond of thine own interest, but try to be of good cheer and take

heart, and encourage thyself to look forward to the fulfillment of my

promises, which, by being delayed, does not become impossible.”

Sancho said he would do so, and keep up his heart as best he could.

They then entered the grove, and Don Quixote settled himself at the

foot of an elm, and Sancho at that of a beech, for trees of this kind

and others like them always have feet but no hands. Sancho passed the

night in pain, for with the evening dews the blow of the staff made

itself felt all the more. Don Quixote passed it in his never-failing

meditations; but, for all that, they had some winks of sleep, and with

the appearance of daylight they pursued their journey in quest of the

banks of the famous Ebro, where that befell them which will be told in

the following chapter.

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