第 七十五 章 · CHAPTER XXIII. OF THE WONDERFUL THINGS THE INCOMPARABLE DON QUIXOTE SAID HE SAW IN THE

. CHAPTER XXIII. OF THE WONDERFUL THINGS THE INCOMPARABLE DON QUIXOTE SAID HE SAW IN THE

CHAPTER XXIII.

OF THE WONDERFUL THINGS THE INCOMPARABLE DON QUIXOTE SAID HE SAW IN THE

PROFOUND CAVE OF MONTESINOS, THE IMPOSSIBILITY AND MAGNITUDE OF WHICH

CAUSE THIS ADVENTURE TO BE DEEMED APOCRYPHAL

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It was about four in the afternoon when the sun, veiled in clouds, with

subdued light and tempered beams, enabled Don Quixote to relate,

without heat or inconvenience, what he had seen in the cave of

Montesinos to his two illustrious hearers, and he began as follows:

“A matter of some twelve or fourteen times a man’s height down in this

pit, on the right-hand side, there is a recess or space, roomy enough

to contain a large cart with its mules. A little light reaches it

through some chinks or crevices, communicating with it and open to the

surface of the earth. This recess or space I perceived when I was

already growing weary and disgusted at finding myself hanging suspended

by the rope, travelling downwards into that dark region without any

certainty or knowledge of where I was going, so I resolved to enter it

and rest myself for a while. I called out, telling you not to let out

more rope until I bade you, but you cannot have heard me. I then

gathered in the rope you were sending me, and making a coil or pile of

it I seated myself upon it, ruminating and considering what I was to do

to lower myself to the bottom, having no one to hold me up; and as I

was thus deep in thought and perplexity, suddenly and without

provocation a profound sleep fell upon me, and when I least expected

it, I know not how, I awoke and found myself in the midst of the most

beautiful, delightful meadow that nature could produce or the most

lively human imagination conceive. I opened my eyes, I rubbed them, and

found I was not asleep but thoroughly awake. Nevertheless, I felt my

head and breast to satisfy myself whether it was I myself who was there

or some empty delusive phantom; but touch, feeling, the collected

thoughts that passed through my mind, all convinced me that I was the

same then and there that I am this moment. Next there presented itself

to my sight a stately royal palace or castle, with walls that seemed

built of clear transparent crystal; and through two great doors that

opened wide therein, I saw coming forth and advancing towards me a

venerable old man, clad in a long gown of mulberry-coloured serge that

trailed upon the ground. On his shoulders and breast he had a green

satin collegiate hood, and covering his head a black Milanese bonnet,

and his snow-white beard fell below his girdle. He carried no arms

whatever, nothing but a rosary of beads bigger than fair-sized

filberts, each tenth bead being like a moderate ostrich egg; his

bearing, his gait, his dignity and imposing presence held me spellbound

and wondering. He approached me, and the first thing he did was to

embrace me closely, and then he said to me, ‘For a long time now, O

valiant knight Don Quixote of La Mancha, we who are here enchanted in

these solitudes have been hoping to see thee, that thou mayest make

known to the world what is shut up and concealed in this deep cave,

called the cave of Montesinos, which thou hast entered, an achievement

reserved for thy invincible heart and stupendous courage alone to

attempt. Come with me, illustrious sir, and I will show thee the

marvels hidden within this transparent castle, whereof I am the alcaide

and perpetual warden; for I am Montesinos himself, from whom the cave

takes its name.’

“The instant he told me he was Montesinos, I asked him if the story

they told in the world above here was true, that he had taken out the

heart of his great friend Durandarte from his breast with a little

dagger, and carried it to the lady Belerma, as his friend when at the

point of death had commanded him. He said in reply that they spoke the

truth in every respect except as to the dagger, for it was not a

dagger, nor little, but a burnished poniard sharper than an awl.”

“That poniard must have been made by Ramon de Hoces the Sevillian,”

said Sancho.

“I do not know,” said Don Quixote; “it could not have been by that

poniard maker, however, because Ramon de Hoces was a man of yesterday,

and the affair of Roncesvalles, where this mishap occurred, was long

ago; but the question is of no great importance, nor does it affect or

make any alteration in the truth or substance of the story.”

“That is true,” said the cousin; “continue, Señor Don Quixote, for I am

listening to you with the greatest pleasure in the world.”

“And with no less do I tell the tale,” said Don Quixote; “and so, to

proceed—the venerable Montesinos led me into the palace of crystal,

where, in a lower chamber, strangely cool and entirely of alabaster,

was an elaborately wrought marble tomb, upon which I beheld, stretched

at full length, a knight, not of bronze, or marble, or jasper, as are

seen on other tombs, but of actual flesh and bone. His right hand

(which seemed to me somewhat hairy and sinewy, a sign of great strength

in its owner) lay on the side of his heart; but before I could put any

question to Montesinos, he, seeing me gazing at the tomb in amazement,

said to me, ‘This is my friend Durandarte, flower and mirror of the

true lovers and valiant knights of his time. He is held enchanted here,

as I myself and many others are, by that French enchanter Merlin, who,

they say, was the devil’s son; but my belief is, not that he was the

devil’s son, but that he knew, as the saying is, a point more than the

devil. How or why he enchanted us, no one knows, but time will tell,

and I suspect that time is not far off. What I marvel at is, that I

know it to be as sure as that it is now day, that Durandarte ended his

life in my arms, and that, after his death, I took out his heart with

my own hands; and indeed it must have weighed more than two pounds,

for, according to naturalists, he who has a large heart is more largely

endowed with valour than he who has a small one. Then, as this is the

case, and as the knight did really die, how comes it that he now moans

and sighs from time to time, as if he were still alive?’

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“As he said this, the wretched Durandarte cried out in a loud voice:

O cousin Montesinos!

’Twas my last request of thee,

When my soul hath left the body,

And that lying dead I be,

With thy poniard or thy dagger

Cut the heart from out my breast,

And bear it to Belerma.

This was my last request.”

“On hearing which, the venerable Montesinos fell on his knees before

the unhappy knight, and with tearful eyes exclaimed, ‘Long since, Señor

Durandarte, my beloved cousin, long since have I done what you bade me

on that sad day when I lost you; I took out your heart as well as I

could, not leaving an atom of it in your breast, I wiped it with a lace

handkerchief, and I took the road to France with it, having first laid

you in the bosom of the earth with tears enough to wash and cleanse my

hands of the blood that covered them after wandering among your bowels;

and more by token, O cousin of my soul, at the first village I came to

after leaving Roncesvalles, I sprinkled a little salt upon your heart

to keep it sweet, and bring it, if not fresh, at least pickled, into

the presence of the lady Belerma, whom, together with you, myself,

Guadiana your squire, the duenna Ruidera and her seven daughters and

two nieces, and many more of your friends and acquaintances, the sage

Merlin has been keeping enchanted here these many years; and although

more than five hundred have gone by, not one of us has died; Ruidera

and her daughters and nieces alone are missing, and these, because of

the tears they shed, Merlin, out of the compassion he seems to have

felt for them, changed into so many lakes, which to this day in the

world of the living, and in the province of La Mancha, are called the

Lakes of Ruidera. The seven daughters belong to the kings of Spain and

the two nieces to the knights of a very holy order called the Order of

St. John. Guadiana your squire, likewise bewailing your fate, was

changed into a river of his own name, but when he came to the surface

and beheld the sun of another heaven, so great was his grief at finding

he was leaving you, that he plunged into the bowels of the earth;

however, as he cannot help following his natural course, he from time

to time comes forth and shows himself to the sun and the world. The

lakes aforesaid send him their waters, and with these, and others that

come to him, he makes a grand and imposing entrance into Portugal; but

for all that, go where he may, he shows his melancholy and sadness, and

takes no pride in breeding dainty choice fish, only coarse and

tasteless sorts, very different from those of the golden Tagus. All

this that I tell you now, O cousin mine, I have told you many times

before, and as you make no answer, I fear that either you believe me

not, or do not hear me, whereat I feel God knows what grief. I have now

news to give you, which, if it serves not to alleviate your sufferings,

will not in any wise increase them. Know that you have here before you

(open your eyes and you will see) that great knight of whom the sage

Merlin has prophesied such great things; that Don Quixote of La Mancha

I mean, who has again, and to better purpose than in past times,

revived in these days knight-errantry, long since forgotten, and by

whose intervention and aid it may be we shall be disenchanted; for

great deeds are reserved for great men.’

“‘And if that may not be,’ said the wretched Durandarte in a low and

feeble voice, ‘if that may not be, then, my cousin, I say “patience and

shuffle;”’ and turning over on his side, he relapsed into his former

silence without uttering another word.

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“And now there was heard a great outcry and lamentation, accompanied by

deep sighs and bitter sobs. I looked round, and through the crystal

wall I saw passing through another chamber a procession of two lines of

fair damsels all clad in mourning, and with white turbans of Turkish

fashion on their heads. Behind, in the rear of these, there came a

lady, for so from her dignity she seemed to be, also clad in black,

with a white veil so long and ample that it swept the ground. Her

turban was twice as large as the largest of any of the others; her

eyebrows met, her nose was rather flat, her mouth was large but with

ruddy lips, and her teeth, of which at times she allowed a glimpse,

were seen to be sparse and ill-set, though as white as peeled almonds.

She carried in her hands a fine cloth, and in it, as well as I could

make out, a heart that had been mummied, so parched and dried was it.

Montesinos told me that all those forming the procession were the

attendants of Durandarte and Belerma, who were enchanted there with

their master and mistress, and that the last, she who carried the heart

in the cloth, was the lady Belerma, who, with her damsels, four days in

the week went in procession singing, or rather weeping, dirges over the

body and miserable heart of his cousin; and that if she appeared to me

somewhat ill-favoured or not so beautiful as fame reported her, it was

because of the bad nights and worse days that she passed in that

enchantment, as I could see by the great dark circles round her eyes,

and her sickly complexion; ‘her sallowness, and the rings round her

eyes,’ said he, ‘are not caused by the periodical ailment usual with

women, for it is many months and even years since she has had any, but

by the grief her own heart suffers because of that which she holds in

her hand perpetually, and which recalls and brings back to her memory

the sad fate of her lost lover; were it not for this, hardly would the

great Dulcinea del Toboso, so celebrated in all these parts, and even

in the world, come up to her for beauty, grace, and gaiety.’

“‘Hold hard!’ said I at this, ‘tell your story as you ought, Señor Don

Montesinos, for you know very well that all comparisons are odious, and

there is no occasion to compare one person with another; the peerless

Dulcinea del Toboso is what she is, and the lady Doña Belerma is what

_she_ is and has been, and that’s enough.’ To which he made answer,

‘Forgive me, Señor Don Quixote; I own I was wrong and spoke unadvisedly

in saying that the lady Dulcinea could scarcely come up to the lady

Belerma; for it were enough for me to have learned, by what means I

know not, that you are her knight, to make me bite my tongue out before

I compared her to anything save heaven itself.’ After this apology

which the great Montesinos made me, my heart recovered itself from the

shock I had received in hearing my lady compared with Belerma.”

“Still I wonder,” said Sancho, “that your worship did not get upon the

old fellow and bruise every bone of him with kicks, and pluck his beard

until you didn’t leave a hair in it.”

“Nay, Sancho, my friend,” said Don Quixote, “it would not have been

right in me to do that, for we are all bound to pay respect to the

aged, even though they be not knights, but especially to those who are,

and who are enchanted; I only know I gave him as good as he brought in

the many other questions and answers we exchanged.”

“I cannot understand, Señor Don Quixote,” remarked the cousin here,

“how it is that your worship, in such a short space of time as you have

been below there, could have seen so many things, and said and answered

so much.”

“How long is it since I went down?” asked Don Quixote.

“Little better than an hour,” replied Sancho.

“That cannot be,” returned Don Quixote, “because night overtook me

while I was there, and day came, and it was night again and day again

three times; so that, by my reckoning, I have been three days in those

remote regions beyond our ken.”

“My master must be right,” replied Sancho; “for as everything that has

happened to him is by enchantment, maybe what seems to us an hour would

seem three days and nights there.”

“That’s it,” said Don Quixote.

“And did your worship eat anything all that time, señor?” asked the

cousin.

“I never touched a morsel,” answered Don Quixote, “nor did I feel

hunger, or think of it.”

“And do the enchanted eat?” said the cousin.

“They neither eat,” said Don Quixote; “nor are they subject to the

greater excrements, though it is thought that their nails, beards, and

hair grow.”

“And do the enchanted sleep, now, señor?” asked Sancho.

“Certainly not,” replied Don Quixote; “at least, during those three

days I was with them not one of them closed an eye, nor did I either.”

“The proverb, ‘Tell me what company thou keepest and I’ll tell thee

what thou art,’ is to the point here,” said Sancho; “your worship keeps

company with enchanted people that are always fasting and watching;

what wonder is it, then, that you neither eat nor sleep while you are

with them? But forgive me, señor, if I say that of all this you have

told us now, may God take me—I was just going to say the devil—if I

believe a single particle.”

“What!” said the cousin, “has Señor Don Quixote, then, been lying? Why,

even if he wished it he has not had time to imagine and put together

such a host of lies.”

“I don’t believe my master lies,” said Sancho.

“If not, what dost thou believe?” asked Don Quixote.

“I believe,” replied Sancho, “that this Merlin, or those enchanters who

enchanted the whole crew your worship says you saw and discoursed with

down there, stuffed your imagination or your mind with all this

rigmarole you have been treating us to, and all that is still to come.”

“All that might be, Sancho,” replied Don Quixote; “but it is not so,

for everything that I have told you I saw with my own eyes, and touched

with my own hands. But what will you say when I tell you now how, among

the countless other marvellous things Montesinos showed me (of which at

leisure and at the proper time I will give thee an account in the

course of our journey, for they would not be all in place here), he

showed me three country girls who went skipping and capering like goats

over the pleasant fields there, and the instant I beheld them I knew

one to be the peerless Dulcinea del Toboso, and the other two those

same country girls that were with her and that we spoke to on the road

from El Toboso! I asked Montesinos if he knew them, and he told me he

did not, but he thought they must be some enchanted ladies of

distinction, for it was only a few days before that they had made their

appearance in those meadows; but I was not to be surprised at that,

because there were a great many other ladies there of times past and

present, enchanted in various strange shapes, and among them he had

recognised Queen Guinevere and her dame Quintañona, she who poured out

the wine for Lancelot when he came from Britain.”

When Sancho Panza heard his master say this he was ready to take leave

of his senses, or die with laughter; for, as he knew the real truth

about the pretended enchantment of Dulcinea, in which he himself had

been the enchanter and concocter of all the evidence, he made up his

mind at last that, beyond all doubt, his master was out of his wits and

stark mad, so he said to him, “It was an evil hour, a worse season, and

a sorrowful day, when your worship, dear master mine, went down to the

other world, and an unlucky moment when you met with Señor Montesinos,

who has sent you back to us like this. You were well enough here above

in your full senses, such as God had given you, delivering maxims and

giving advice at every turn, and not as you are now, talking the

greatest nonsense that can be imagined.”

“As I know thee, Sancho,” said Don Quixote, “I heed not thy words.”

“Nor I your worship’s,” said Sancho, “whether you beat me or kill me

for those I have spoken, and will speak if you don’t correct and mend

your own. But tell me, while we are still at peace, how or by what did

you recognise the lady our mistress; and if you spoke to her, what did

you say, and what did she answer?”

“I recognised her,” said Don Quixote, “by her wearing the same garments

she wore when thou didst point her out to me. I spoke to her, but she

did not utter a word in reply; on the contrary, she turned her back on

me and took to flight, at such a pace that crossbow bolt could not have

overtaken her. I wished to follow her, and would have done so had not

Montesinos recommended me not to take the trouble as it would be

useless, particularly as the time was drawing near when it would be

necessary for me to quit the cavern. He told me, moreover, that in

course of time he would let me know how he and Belerma, and Durandarte,

and all who were there, were to be disenchanted. But of all I saw and

observed down there, what gave me most pain was, that while Montesinos

was speaking to me, one of the two companions of the hapless Dulcinea

approached me on one without my having seen her coming, and with tears

in her eyes said to me, in a low, agitated voice, ‘My lady Dulcinea del

Toboso kisses your worship’s hands, and entreats you to do her the

favour of letting her know how you are; and, being in great need, she

also entreats your worship as earnestly as she can to be so good as to

lend her half a dozen reals, or as much as you may have about you, on

this new dimity petticoat that I have here; and she promises to repay

them very speedily.’ I was amazed and taken aback by such a message,

and turning to Señor Montesinos I asked him, ‘Is it possible, Señor

Montesinos, that persons of distinction under enchantment can be in

need?’ To which he replied, ‘Believe me, Señor Don Quixote, that which

is called need is to be met with everywhere, and penetrates all

quarters and reaches everyone, and does not spare even the enchanted;

and as the lady Dulcinea del Toboso sends to beg those six reals, and

the pledge is to all appearance a good one, there is nothing for it but

to give them to her, for no doubt she must be in some great strait.’ ‘I

will take no pledge of her,’ I replied, ‘nor yet can I give her what

she asks, for all I have is four reals; which I gave (they were those

which thou, Sancho, gavest me the other day to bestow in alms upon the

poor I met along the road), and I said, ‘Tell your mistress, my dear,

that I am grieved to the heart because of her distresses, and wish I

was a Fucar to remedy them, and that I would have her know that I

cannot be, and ought not be, in health while deprived of the happiness

of seeing her and enjoying her discreet conversation, and that I

implore her as earnestly as I can, to allow herself to be seen and

addressed by this her captive servant and forlorn knight. Tell her,

too, that when she least expects it she will hear it announced that I

have made an oath and vow after the fashion of that which the Marquis

of Mantua made to avenge his nephew Baldwin, when he found him at the

point of death in the heart of the mountains, which was, not to eat

bread off a tablecloth, and other trifling matters which he added,

until he had avenged him; and I will make the same to take no rest, and

to roam the seven regions of the earth more thoroughly than the Infante

Don Pedro of Portugal ever roamed them, until I have disenchanted her.’

‘All that and more, you owe my lady,’ the damsel’s answer to me, and

taking the four reals, instead of making me a curtsey she cut a caper,

springing two full yards into the air.”

“O blessed God!” exclaimed Sancho aloud at this, “is it possible that

such things can be in the world, and that enchanters and enchantments

can have such power in it as to have changed my master’s right senses

into a craze so full of absurdity! O señor, señor, for God’s sake,

consider yourself, have a care for your honour, and give no credit to

this silly stuff that has left you scant and short of wits.”

“Thou talkest in this way because thou lovest me, Sancho,” said Don

Quixote; “and not being experienced in the things of the world,

everything that has some difficulty about it seems to thee impossible;

but time will pass, as I said before, and I will tell thee some of the

things I saw down there which will make thee believe what I have

related now, the truth of which admits of neither reply nor question.”

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