Don Quixote [Trans. by Edith Grossman] (132 page)

In short, it was just and reasonable for us to be chastised with the punishment of exile: lenient and mild, according to some, but for us it was the most terrible one we could have received. No matter where we are we weep for Spain, for, after all, we were born here and it is our native country; nowhere do we find the haven our misfortune longs for, and in Barbary and all the places in Africa where we hoped to be received, welcomed, and taken in, that is where they most offend and mistreat us. We did not know our good fortune until we lost it, and the greatest desire in almost all of us is to return to Spain; most of those, and there are many of them, who know the language as well as I do, abandon their wives and children and return, so great is the love they have for Spain; and now I know and feel the truth of the saying that it is sweet to love one’s country.

As I was saying, I left our village, went to France, and though they made us welcome there, I wanted to see everything. I traveled to Italy,
and came to Germany, and there it seemed to me I could live in greater freedom because the inhabitants don’t worry about subtleties: each man lives as he chooses, because in most places there is freedom of conscience. I took a house in a village near Augsburg; I joined these pilgrims, for many travel to Spain every year to visit the shrines, which they think of as their Indies: as sure profit and certain gain. They travel through most of the country, and they leave every town well-fed and well-drunk, as they say, and with at least a
real
in money, and at the end of the trip they have more than a hundred
escudos
left over, which they change into gold coins and hide in the hollows of their staffs, or under the patches on their cloaks, or wherever else they can, and they take them out of this kingdom and into their own countries in spite of the guards at the posts and ports where there are inspections.

Now, Sancho, my intention is to take out the treasure I buried here, and since it’s outside the village, I’ll be able to do it without danger, and then I’ll write to my daughter and wife, or leave from Valencia and go to Algiers, where I know they are, and find a way to take them to a French port, and from there to Germany, where we’ll wait for whatever God has in store for us; in short, Sancho, I know for a fact that my daughter, Ricota, and my wife, Francisca Ricota, are true Catholic Christians, and though I’m less of one, I’m still more Christian than Moor, and I always pray that God will open the eyes of my understanding and let me know how I must serve Him. What amazes me is not knowing why my wife and daughter went to Barbary instead of France, where they could have lived as Christians.”

To which Sancho responded:

“Look, Ricote, that probably wasn’t their decision, because Juan Tiopieyo, your wife’s brother, left with them, and since he’s probably a shrewd Moor, he took them to the place he thought best, and I can tell you something else, too: I think it’s useless for you to look for what you buried, because we heard that the pearls and gold coins your brother-in-law and your wife were carrying were taken at inspection.”

“That might be, Sancho,” replied Ricote, “but I know they didn’t touch what I hid away: I didn’t tell them where it was because I feared some calamity; and so, Sancho, if you want to come with me and help me to dig it up and hide it, I’ll give you two hundred
escudos,
and with that you can meet all your needs, for you know that I know you have a good many of them.”

“I’d do it,” responded Sancho, “but I’m not a greedy man, because just
this morning I left a post where I could have had gold walls in my house and been eating off silver plates in six months’ time; and for this reason, and because I think it would be treason against my king if I helped his enemies, I wouldn’t go with you even if you gave me four hundred
escudos
in cash right here and now instead of promising me two hundred later.”

“And what post is it that you’ve left, Sancho?” asked Ricote.

“I’ve left the governorship of an ínsula,” responded Sancho, “one so good that, by my faith, you’d have a hard time finding another like it.”

“And where is this ínsula?” asked Ricote.

“Where?” responded Sancho. “Two leagues from here, and it’s called Ínsula Barataria.”

“That’s amazing, Sancho,” said Ricote. “Ínsulas are in the ocean; there are no ínsulas on terra firma.”

“What do you mean?” replied Sancho. “I tell you, Ricote my friend, I left there this morning, and yesterday I was there governing to my heart’s content, like an archer;
⁸
but even so, I left it because the post of governor seems like a dangerous one to me.”

“What did you get from your governorship?” asked Ricote.

“I got,” responded Sancho, “the lesson that I’m not good for governing unless it’s a herd of livestock, and that the riches you can gain in governorships come at the cost of your rest and your sleep and even your food, because on ínsulas the governors have to eat very little, especially if they have doctors who are looking out for their health.”

“I don’t understand you, Sancho,” said Ricote, “but it seems to me that everything you’re saying is nonsense; who would give you ínsulas to govern? Was there a lack of men in the world more competent than you to be governors? Really, Sancho, come to your senses and decide if you want to come with me, as I said, and help me take out the treasure I hid; the truth is there’s so much it can be called a treasure, and I’ll give you enough to live on, as I said.”

“I already told you, Ricote,” replied Sancho, “that I don’t want to; be satisfied that I won’t betray you, and go on your way in peace, and let me continue on mine: I know that well-gotten gains can be lost, and ill-gotten ones can be lost, too, along with their owner.”

“I don’t want to insist, Sancho,” said Ricote, “but tell me: did you
happen to be in our village when my wife, my daughter, and my brother-in-law left?”

“Yes, I was,” responded Sancho, “and I can tell you that your daughter looked so beautiful when she left that everybody in the village came out to see her, and they all said she was the fairest creature in the world. She was crying and embracing all her friends and companions, and all those who came out to see her, and asking them all to commend her to God and Our Lady, His Mother, and she did this with so much feeling it made me cry, though I’m not usually much of a weeper. By my faith, there were many who wanted to hide her and take her from those she was leaving with, but fear of defying the orders of the king stopped them. The one who seemed most affected was Don Pedro Gregorio, that rich young man who’s going to inherit his father’s estate, you know who I mean, they say he loved her very much, and after she left he’s never been seen in our village again, and we all think he went after them to abduct her, but so far we haven’t heard anything.”

“I always suspected,” said Ricote, “that he was wooing my daughter, but I trusted in the principles of my Ricota, and knowing he loved her never troubled me, because you must have heard, Sancho, that Moriscas rarely if ever become involved with Old Christians, and my daughter, who, I believe, cared more for being a better Christian than for being in love, would not pay attention to that young gentleman’s entreaties.”

“May it be God’s will,” replied Sancho, “because that would not be good for either one of them. And now let me leave here, Ricote my friend; tonight I want to reach the place where my master, Don Quixote, is.”

“God go with you, Sancho my friend; my companions are beginning to stir, and it’s time for us to leave, too.”

Then the two of them embraced, and Sancho mounted his donkey, and Ricote grasped his staff, and they went their separate ways.

CHAPTER LV

Sancho’s having stopped with Ricote did not permit him to reach the duke’s castle that day, for although he had come to within half a league of it, night, which was somewhat dark and gloomy, overtook him; as it was summer, this did not trouble him very much, and so he moved off the road, intending to wait for morning, and it was his bad luck and misfortune that as he was looking for a spot where he would be comfortable, he and the gray fell into a deep and very dark pit that lay between some very old buildings, and as he fell he commended himself to God with all his heart, thinking he would not stop falling until he reached the depths of the abyss. But this was not the case, because after a little more than three
estados
the donkey hit bottom, and Sancho found himself on top of him, not having received any kind of wound or injury.

He felt his body and took a deep breath to see if he was whole or had been punctured anywhere; and seeing that he was safe and sound and in perfect health, he could not give enough thanks to Our Lord God for the mercy He had shown him, for he no doubt thought he had broken into a thousand pieces. He also felt the walls of the pit with his hands to see if it would be possible to climb out without anyone’s help, but he found that all of them were smooth, without any kind of foothold, which greatly distressed Sancho, especially when he heard the donkey moaning woefully and grievously, and no wonder, for he was not lamenting capriciously; in truth, he was not in very good condition.

“Oh,” said Sancho then, “what unexpected things can happen to those who live in this miserable world! Who could have said that the person who only yesterday sat on the governor’s throne on an ínsula, giv
ing orders to his servants and vassals, today would find himself buried in a pit with no one to comfort him, and no servant or vassal to come and help him? Here my donkey and I will starve to death, if we don’t die first, he because he’s bruised and broken, and me because I’m full of grief. At least I won’t be as lucky as my master, Don Quixote of La Mancha, when he went down and descended into the cave of the enchanted Montesinos, where he found somebody who treated him better than they do in his own house, because it seems he found the table laid and the bed made. There he saw beautiful and peaceable visions, and here, it seems, I’ll see frogs and snakes. Woe is me, just look where my madness and fantasy have brought me! They’ll take my bones out of here, smooth, white, and scraped bare, and those of my good donkey with them, and maybe that, at least, will let them know who we are if they’ve heard that Sancho Panza was never parted from his donkey, or his donkey from Sancho Panza. I’ll say it again: how wretched we are, for our bad luck hasn’t allowed us to die in our own land, with our own people, so that even if there wasn’t a remedy for our misfortune, there’d be no lack of people to grieve over it, and to close our eyes at the final hour of our passing! Oh, my companion and friend, how badly I’ve paid you for your good service! Forgive me, and ask Fortune, in the best way you know how, to take us out of this terrible trouble, and I promise to crown your head with laurel so you’ll look exactly like a poet laureate, and to give you double rations.”

Sancho lamented in this fashion, and his donkey listened without saying a single word in response: such was the distress and anguish in which the poor creature found himself. Finally, after an entire night spent in wretched complaints and lamentations, day broke, and in its clear, bright light Sancho saw that it was utterly impossible to get out of the pit without help, and he began to lament and cry out, to see if anyone heard him, but all his shouts were cries in the wilderness, because there was no one to hear him anywhere in the vicinity, and then he began to think of himself as dead.

The gray was lying on his back, and Sancho Panza moved him around until he had him on his feet, though he could barely stand; he took a piece of bread out of the saddlebags, which had experienced the same unfortunate fall, and gave it to his donkey, who thought it did not taste bad, and Sancho said to him, as if he could understand:

“Griefs are better with bread.”

And then Sancho discovered that on one side of the pit there was a
hole big enough for a person to fit into if he stooped and bent over. Sancho Panza went over to it, crouched down, went in, and saw that on the other side it was spacious and long, and he could see this because through what could be called the roof a ray of sunlight came in and illuminated everything. He also saw that the space widened and lengthened into another large concavity; when he saw this he returned to the donkey and with a stone began to dig the earth away from the hole; in a short while he made it large enough for the donkey to pass through, which he did; and taking him by the halter, Sancho began to walk through the cave to see if he could find another way out. At times he walked in darkness, and at times without light, but at no time without fear.

“May Almighty God save me!” he murmured to himself. “What for me is a misadventure would seem like an adventure to my master, Don Quixote. He’d think these caverns and dungeons were gardens in flower and the palaces of Galiana,
¹
and would expect to come out of this dark, narrow place into a flowering meadow; but I’m so unlucky, so in need of advice, and so lacking in courage, that at each step I think another pit deeper than the first one is suddenly going to open beneath my feet and swallow me up. Evil is welcome if it comes alone.”

In this manner, and with these thoughts, it seemed to him he must have walked more than half a league when he saw a dim illumination that he thought was daylight, shining in somewhere and indicating an opening at the end of what seemed to him like the road to the next world.

Here Cide Hamete Benengeli leaves him and returns to Don Quixote, who, with joy and happiness, waited for the appointed time of the battle that he was to fight with the thief of the honor of Doña Rodríguez’s daughter, for he intended to right the wrong and correct the outrage so wickedly committed against her.

It so happened that he rode out one morning to practice and rehearse what he was to do during the combat he would soon be engaged in, and after spurring Rocinante into a charge or short gallop, the horse’s feet came so close to a cave that if he had not pulled hard on the reins, it would have been impossible not to fall in. In short, Don Quixote
stopped Rocinante and did not fall, and coming a little closer, and without dismounting, he peered into that deep hole, and as he was looking in he heard someone shouting inside; he listened carefully and could understand and ascertain what was being said: