第 十六 章 · CHAPTER XVI. OF WHAT HAPPENED TO THE INGENIOUS GENTLEMAN IN THE INN WHICH HE TOOK TO

. CHAPTER XVI. OF WHAT HAPPENED TO THE INGENIOUS GENTLEMAN IN THE INN WHICH HE TOOK TO

CHAPTER XVI.

OF WHAT HAPPENED TO THE INGENIOUS GENTLEMAN IN THE INN WHICH HE TOOK TO

BE A CASTLE

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The innkeeper, seeing Don Quixote slung across the ass, asked Sancho

what was amiss with him. Sancho answered that it was nothing, only that

he had fallen down from a rock and had his ribs a little bruised. The

innkeeper had a wife whose disposition was not such as those of her

calling commonly have, for she was by nature kind-hearted and felt for

the sufferings of her neighbours, so she at once set about tending Don

Quixote, and made her young daughter, a very comely girl, help her in

taking care of her guest. There was besides in the inn, as servant, an

Asturian lass with a broad face, flat poll, and snub nose, blind of one

eye and not very sound in the other. The elegance of her shape, to be

sure, made up for all her defects; she did not measure seven palms from

head to foot, and her shoulders, which overweighted her somewhat, made

her contemplate the ground more than she liked. This graceful lass,

then, helped the young girl, and the two made up a very bad bed for Don

Quixote in a garret that showed evident signs of having formerly served

for many years as a straw-loft, in which there was also quartered a

carrier whose bed was placed a little beyond our Don Quixote’s, and,

though only made of the pack-saddles and cloths of his mules, had much

the advantage of it, as Don Quixote’s consisted simply of four rough

boards on two not very even trestles, a mattress, that for thinness

might have passed for a quilt, full of pellets which, were they not

seen through the rents to be wool, would to the touch have seemed

pebbles in hardness, two sheets made of buckler leather, and a coverlet

the threads of which anyone that chose might have counted without

missing one in the reckoning.

On this accursed bed Don Quixote stretched himself, and the hostess and

her daughter soon covered him with plasters from top to toe, while

Maritornes—for that was the name of the Asturian—held the light for

them, and while plastering him, the hostess, observing how full of

wheals Don Quixote was in some places, remarked that this had more the

look of blows than of a fall.

It was not blows, Sancho said, but that the rock had many points and

projections, and that each of them had left its mark. “Pray, señora,”

he added, “manage to save some tow, as there will be no want of someone

to use it, for my loins too are rather sore.”

“Then you must have fallen too,” said the hostess.

“I did not fall,” said Sancho Panza, “but from the shock I got at

seeing my master fall, my body aches so that I feel as if I had had a

thousand thwacks.”

“That may well be,” said the young girl, “for it has many a time

happened to me to dream that I was falling down from a tower and never

coming to the ground, and when I awoke from the dream to find myself as

weak and shaken as if I had really fallen.”

“There is the point, señora,” replied Sancho Panza, “that I without

dreaming at all, but being more awake than I am now, find myself with

scarcely less wheals than my master, Don Quixote.”

“How is the gentleman called?” asked Maritornes the Asturian.

“Don Quixote of La Mancha,” answered Sancho Panza, “and he is a

knight-adventurer, and one of the best and stoutest that have been seen

in the world this long time past.”

“What is a knight-adventurer?” said the lass.

“Are you so new in the world as not to know?” answered Sancho Panza.

“Well, then, you must know, sister, that a knight-adventurer is a thing

that in two words is seen drubbed and emperor, that is to-day the most

miserable and needy being in the world, and to-morrow will have two or

three crowns of kingdoms to give his squire.”

“Then how is it,” said the hostess, “that belonging to so good a master

as this, you have not, to judge by appearances, even so much as a

county?”

“It is too soon yet,” answered Sancho, “for we have only been a month

going in quest of adventures, and so far we have met with nothing that

can be called one, for it will happen that when one thing is looked for

another thing is found; however, if my master Don Quixote gets well of

this wound, or fall, and I am left none the worse of it, I would not

change my hopes for the best title in Spain.”

To all this conversation Don Quixote was listening very attentively,

and sitting up in bed as well as he could, and taking the hostess by

the hand he said to her, “Believe me, fair lady, you may call yourself

fortunate in having in this castle of yours sheltered my person, which

is such that if I do not myself praise it, it is because of what is

commonly said, that self-praise debaseth; but my squire will inform you

who I am. I only tell you that I shall preserve for ever inscribed on

my memory the service you have rendered me in order to tender you my

gratitude while life shall last me; and would to Heaven love held me

not so enthralled and subject to its laws and to the eyes of that fair

ingrate whom I name between my teeth, but that those of this lovely

damsel might be the masters of my liberty.”

The hostess, her daughter, and the worthy Maritornes listened in

bewilderment to the words of the knight-errant; for they understood

about as much of them as if he had been talking Greek, though they

could perceive they were all meant for expressions of good-will and

blandishments; and not being accustomed to this kind of language, they

stared at him and wondered to themselves, for he seemed to them a man

of a different sort from those they were used to, and thanking him in

pothouse phrase for his civility they left him, while the Asturian gave

her attention to Sancho, who needed it no less than his master.

The carrier had made an arrangement with her for recreation that night,

and she had given him her word that when the guests were quiet and the

family asleep she would come in search of him and meet his wishes

unreservedly. And it is said of this good lass that she never made

promises of the kind without fulfilling them, even though she made them

in a forest and without any witness present, for she plumed herself

greatly on being a lady and held it no disgrace to be in such an

employment as servant in an inn, because, she said, misfortunes and

ill-luck had brought her to that position. The hard, narrow, wretched,

rickety bed of Don Quixote stood first in the middle of this star-lit

stable, and close beside it Sancho made his, which merely consisted of

a rush mat and a blanket that looked as if it was of threadbare canvas

rather than of wool. Next to these two beds was that of the carrier,

made up, as has been said, of the pack-saddles and all the trappings of

the two best mules he had, though there were twelve of them, sleek,

plump, and in prime condition, for he was one of the rich carriers of

Arévalo, according to the author of this history, who particularly

mentions this carrier because he knew him very well, and they even say

was in some degree a relation of his; besides which Cid Hamete

Benengeli was a historian of great research and accuracy in all things,

as is very evident since he would not pass over in silence those that

have been already mentioned, however trifling and insignificant they

might be, an example that might be followed by those grave historians

who relate transactions so curtly and briefly that we hardly get a

taste of them, all the substance of the work being left in the inkstand

from carelessness, perverseness, or ignorance. A thousand blessings on

the author of “Tablante de Ricamonte” and that of the other book in

which the deeds of the Conde Tomillas are recounted; with what

minuteness they describe everything!

To proceed, then: after having paid a visit to his team and given them

their second feed, the carrier stretched himself on his pack-saddles

and lay waiting for his conscientious Maritornes. Sancho was by this

time plastered and had lain down, and though he strove to sleep the

pain of his ribs would not let him, while Don Quixote with the pain of

his had his eyes as wide open as a hare’s.

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The inn was all in silence, and in the whole of it there was no light

except that given by a lantern that hung burning in the middle of the

gateway. This strange stillness, and the thoughts, always present to

our knight’s mind, of the incidents described at every turn in the

books that were the cause of his misfortune, conjured up to his

imagination as extraordinary a delusion as can well be conceived, which

was that he fancied himself to have reached a famous castle (for, as

has been said, all the inns he lodged in were castles to his eyes), and

that the daughter of the innkeeper was daughter of the lord of the

castle, and that she, won by his high-bred bearing, had fallen in love

with him, and had promised to come to his bed for a while that night

without the knowledge of her parents; and holding all this fantasy that

he had constructed as solid fact, he began to feel uneasy and to

consider the perilous risk which his virtue was about to encounter, and

he resolved in his heart to commit no treason to his lady Dulcinea del

Toboso, even though the queen Guinevere herself and the dame Quintañona

should present themselves before him.

While he was taken up with these vagaries, then, the time and the

hour—an unlucky one for him—arrived for the Asturian to come, who in

her smock, with bare feet and her hair gathered into a fustian coif,

with noiseless and cautious steps entered the chamber where the three

were quartered, in quest of the carrier; but scarcely had she gained

the door when Don Quixote perceived her, and sitting up in his bed in

spite of his plasters and the pain of his ribs, he stretched out his

arms to receive his beauteous damsel. The Asturian, who went all

doubled up and in silence with her hands before her feeling for her

lover, encountered the arms of Don Quixote, who grasped her tightly by

the wrist, and drawing her towards him, while she dared not utter a

word, made her sit down on the bed. He then felt her smock, and

although it was of sackcloth it appeared to him to be of the finest and

softest silk: on her wrists she wore some glass beads, but to him they

had the sheen of precious Orient pearls: her hair, which in some

measure resembled a horse’s mane, he rated as threads of the brightest

gold of Araby, whose refulgence dimmed the sun himself: her breath,

which no doubt smelt of yesterday’s stale salad, seemed to him to

diffuse a sweet aromatic fragrance from her mouth; and, in short, he

drew her portrait in his imagination with the same features and in the

same style as that which he had seen in his books of the other

princesses who, smitten by love, came with all the adornments that are

here set down, to see the sorely wounded knight; and so great was the

poor gentleman’s blindness that neither touch, nor smell, nor anything

else about the good lass that would have made any but a carrier vomit,

were enough to undeceive him; on the contrary, he was persuaded he had

the goddess of beauty in his arms, and holding her firmly in his grasp

he went on to say in low, tender voice:

“Would that I found myself, lovely and exalted lady, in a position to

repay such a favour as that which you, by the sight of your great

beauty, have granted me; but fortune, which is never weary of

persecuting the good, has chosen to place me upon this bed, where I lie

so bruised and broken that though my inclination would gladly comply

with yours it is impossible; besides, to this impossibility another yet

greater is to be added, which is the faith that I have pledged to the

peerless Dulcinea del Toboso, sole lady of my most secret thoughts; and

were it not that this stood in the way I should not be so insensible a

knight as to miss the happy opportunity which your great goodness has

offered me.”

Maritornes was fretting and sweating at finding herself held so fast by

Don Quixote, and not understanding or heeding the words he addressed to

her, she strove without speaking to free herself. The worthy carrier,

whose unholy thoughts kept him awake, was aware of his doxy the moment

she entered the door, and was listening attentively to all Don Quixote

said; and jealous that the Asturian should have broken her word with

him for another, drew nearer to Don Quixote’s bed and stood still to

see what would come of this talk which he could not understand; but

when he perceived the wench struggling to get free and Don Quixote

striving to hold her, not relishing the joke he raised his arm and

delivered such a terrible cuff on the lank jaws of the amorous knight

that he bathed all his mouth in blood, and not content with this he

mounted on his ribs and with his feet tramped all over them at a pace

rather smarter than a trot. The bed which was somewhat crazy and not

very firm on its feet, unable to support the additional weight of the

carrier, came to the ground, and at the mighty crash of this the

innkeeper awoke and at once concluded that it must be some brawl of

Maritornes’, because after calling loudly to her he got no answer. With

this suspicion he got up, and lighting a lamp hastened to the quarter

where he had heard the disturbance. The wench, seeing that her master

was coming and knowing that his temper was terrible, frightened and

panic-stricken made for the bed of Sancho Panza, who still slept, and

crouching upon it made a ball of herself.

The innkeeper came in exclaiming, “Where art thou, strumpet? Of course

this is some of thy work.” At this Sancho awoke, and feeling this mass

almost on top of him fancied he had the nightmare and began to

distribute fisticuffs all round, of which a certain share fell upon

Maritornes, who, irritated by the pain and flinging modesty aside, paid

back so many in return to Sancho that she woke him up in spite of

himself. He then, finding himself so handled, by whom he knew not,

raising himself up as well as he could, grappled with Maritornes, and

he and she between them began the bitterest and drollest scrimmage in

the world. The carrier, however, perceiving by the light of the

innkeeper candle how it fared with his ladylove, quitting Don Quixote,

ran to bring her the help she needed; and the innkeeper did the same

but with a different intention, for his was to chastise the lass, as he

believed that beyond a doubt she alone was the cause of all the

harmony. And so, as the saying is, cat to rat, rat to rope, rope to

stick, the carrier pounded Sancho, Sancho the lass, she him, and the

innkeeper her, and all worked away so briskly that they did not give

themselves a moment’s rest; and the best of it was that the innkeeper’s

lamp went out, and as they were left in the dark they all laid on one

upon the other in a mass so unmercifully that there was not a sound

spot left where a hand could light.

It so happened that there was lodging that night in the inn a

caudrillero of what they call the Old Holy Brotherhood of Toledo, who,

also hearing the extraordinary noise of the conflict, seized his staff

and the tin case with his warrants, and made his way in the dark into

the room crying: “Hold! in the name of the Jurisdiction! Hold! in the

name of the Holy Brotherhood!”

The first that he came upon was the pummelled Don Quixote, who lay

stretched senseless on his back upon his broken-down bed, and, his hand

falling on the beard as he felt about, he continued to cry, “Help for

the Jurisdiction!” but perceiving that he whom he had laid hold of did

not move or stir, he concluded that he was dead and that those in the

room were his murderers, and with this suspicion he raised his voice

still higher, calling out, “Shut the inn gate; see that no one goes

out; they have killed a man here!” This cry startled them all, and each

dropped the contest at the point at which the voice reached him. The

innkeeper retreated to his room, the carrier to his pack-saddles, the

lass to her crib; the unlucky Don Quixote and Sancho alone were unable

to move from where they were. The cuadrillero on this let go Don

Quixote’s beard, and went out to look for a light to search for and

apprehend the culprits; but not finding one, as the innkeeper had

purposely extinguished the lantern on retreating to his room, he was

compelled to have recourse to the hearth, where after much time and

trouble he lit another lamp.

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