Don Quixote [Trans. by Edith Grossman] (139 page)

Just then, one or some of the squires who had been posted as sentinels along the roads to watch the travelers and to inform their leader about everything that happened, came up to Roque and said:

“Señor, not far from here there’s a large group of people traveling along the Barcelona road.”

To which Roque responded:

“Could you see if they’re the kind who come looking for us, or the kind we go looking for?”

“They’re the kind we go looking for,” responded the squire.

“Then all of you go,” replied Roque, “and bring them here to me, and don’t let a single one escape.”

They did as he said, and Don Quixote, Sancho, and Roque were left alone, waiting to see what the squires would bring back; and while they were waiting, Roque said to Don Quixote:

“Our manner of life must seem unprecedented to Señor Don Quixote: singular adventures, singular events, and all of them dangerous; I don’t wonder that it seems this way to you, because really, I confess there is no mode of life more unsettling and surprising than ours. Certain
desires for revenge brought me to it, and they have the power to trouble the most serene heart; by nature I am compassionate and well-intentioned, but, as I have said, my wish to take revenge for an injury that was done to me threw all my good inclinations to the ground, and I continue in this state in spite of and despite my understanding; as one abyss calls to another abyss, and one sin to another sin, vengeance has linked with vengeance so that I bear responsibility not only for mine but for those of others, but it is God’s will that although I find myself in the midst of a labyrinth of my own confusions, I do not lose the hope of coming out of it and into a safe harbor.”

Don Quixote was amazed to hear Roque speak so well and so reasonably, because he had thought that among those whose profession it was to rob, kill, and steal, there could be no one who was well-spoken, and he responded:

“Señor Roque, the beginning of health lies in knowing the disease, and in the patient’s willingness to take the medicines the doctor prescribes; your grace is ill, you know your ailment, and heaven, or I should say God, who is our physician, will treat you with the medicines that will cure you, and which tend to cure gradually, not suddenly and miraculously; furthermore, intelligent sinners are closer to reforming than simpleminded ones, and since your grace has demonstrated prudence in your speech, you need only be brave and wait for the illness of your conscience to be healed; if your grace wishes to save time and put yourself without difficulty on the road to salvation, come with me, and I shall teach you how to be a knight errant, a profession in which one undergoes so many trials and misfortunes that, if deemed to be penance, they would bring you to heaven in the wink of an eye.”

Roque laughed at the advice of Don Quixote and then, changing the subject, recounted the tragic story of Claudia Jerónima, which caused Sancho great sorrow, for he had liked the girl’s beauty, confidence, and spirit.

Then the squires arrived with their prey, bringing with them two gentlemen on horseback, and two pilgrims on foot, and a carriage of women with six servants who accompanied them, mounted and on foot, and two muledrivers who were with the gentlemen. The squires kept them surrounded, and both the vanquished and the victors maintained a deep silence, waiting for the great Roque Guinart to speak, and he asked the gentlemen who they were and where they were going and how much money they were carrying. One of them responded:

“Señor, we are two captains of the Spanish infantry: our companies are in Naples and we are going to embark on four galleys that, we are told, are in Barcelona under orders to sail to Sicily; we are carrying two or three hundred
escudos,
which, in our opinion, makes us rich and content, for the ordinary poverty of soldiers does not allow greater treasure.”

Roque asked the pilgrims the same questions he had asked the captains; they responded that they were going to embark for Rome and that between the two of them they might have some sixty
reales.
He also wanted to know who was riding in the carriage, and where they were going, and how much money they were carrying, and one of the men on horseback said:

“My lady Doña Guiomar de Quiñones, the wife of the chief magistrate of the vicariate of Naples, with her little daughter, a maid, and a duenna, are riding in the carriage; we are six servants who are accompanying her, and the money amounts to six hundred
escudos.”

“That means,” said Roque Guinart, “that we have here nine hundred
escudos
and sixty
reales;
my soldiers number about sixty; see how much is owed to each of them, because I don’t count very well.”

When they heard this, the robbers raised their voices, shouting:

“Long live Roque Guinart in spite of the
lladres
¹¹
who are trying to ruin him!”

The captains showed their grief, the magistrate’s wife grew sad, and the pilgrims were not at all happy at the confiscation of their goods. Roque kept them in suspense for a while, but he did not want their sorrow to continue, for by now it could be seen a harquebus’s shot away, and turning to the captains, he said:

“Señores, would your graces please be so kind as to lend me sixty
escudos,
and the lady eighty, to keep this squadron of mine happy, for the abbot eats if the tithes are paid, and then you can go on your way free and unimpeded, and with a safe conduct that I’ll give you, and if you happen to meet other squadrons of mine in the vicinity, no harm will be done to you, for it is not my intention to injure soldiers or women, especially those who are highborn.”

Infinite and well-spoken words were used by the captains to thank Roque for his courtesy and liberality, for that is what they considered his leaving them their money. Señora Doña Guiomar de Quiñones wanted
to leap out of her carriage to kiss the feet and hands of the great Roque, but he would not consent on any account; instead, he begged her pardon for the injury he had done to her, forced on him by the strict obligations of his evil profession. The chief magistrate’s wife ordered one of her servants to immediately give him the eighty
escudos
that were her share, and the captains had already taken their sixty out of the purse. The pilgrims were about to offer all of their paltry wealth, but Roque told them to be still, and turning to his men, he said:

“Of these
escudos,
two go to each man, and that leaves twenty; ten should go to these pilgrims, and the other ten to this good squire so that he can speak well of this adventure.”

His men brought him the writing materials that he always carried with him, and Roque wrote out a safe conduct addressed to the chiefs of his squadrons, and then he said goodbye to the travelers and let them go, and they were astonished at his nobility, his gallant disposition, and unusual behavior, thinking of him more as an Alexander the Great than as a well-known thief. One of his squires said in his Gascon and Catalan language:

“This captain of ours is more of a
frade
¹²
than a bandit: if he wants to be generous from now on, let it be with his goods, not ours.”

The unfortunate man did not speak quietly enough, and Roque heard him, drew his sword, and split his head almost in two, saying:

“This is how I punish insolent men who talk too much.”

Everyone was terrified, and no one dared say a word: that was the obedience they showed him.

Roque moved to one side and wrote a letter to a friend of his in Barcelona, informing him that the famous Don Quixote of La Mancha, the knight errant about whom so many things had been said, was with him, and telling his friend that the knight was the most amusing and best-informed man in the world, and that in four days’ time, which was the feast of St. John the Baptist,
¹³
he would present himself along the shore of the city, armed with all his armor and weapons, mounted on his horse, Rocinante, with his squire, Sancho, riding a donkey; Roque asked his friend to inform his friends the Niarros so that they could derive
pleasure from this, but he wished to deprive his enemies the Cadells
¹⁴
of this amusement; it was impossible, however, because the madness and intelligence of Don Quixote, and the wit of his squire, Sancho Panza, could not help but give pleasure to everyone. He dispatched the letter with one of his squires, who changed his bandit’s clothes for those of a peasant, and entered Barcelona, and delivered it to the person to whom it was addressed.

CHAPTER LXI

Don Quixote spent three days and three nights with Roque, and if it had been three hundred years, there would have been no lack of things to observe and marvel at in the way he lived: they awoke here and ate there; at times they fled, not knowing from whom, and at other times they waited, not knowing for whom. They slept on their feet, interrupting their slumber and moving from one place to another. It was always a matter of posting spies, listening to scouts, blowing on the locks of their harquebuses, although they had few of those since everyone used flintlocks. Roque spent the nights away from his men, in locations and places they did not know, because the many edicts issued by the viceroy of Barcelona
¹
against his life made him uneasy and apprehensive, and he did not dare trust anyone, fearing his own men might kill him or turn him in to the authorities: a life, certainly, that was disquieting and troublesome.

Finally, using abandoned roads, shortcuts, and hidden paths, Roque, Don Quixote, Sancho, and another six squires set out for Barcelona. They reached the shore on the night of St. John’s Eve, and Roque embraced Don Quixote and Sancho, presented the squire with the ten
escu
dos
he had promised but had not yet given him, and took his leave, with a thousand services offered on both sides.

Roque returned to the countryside, and Don Quixote remained mounted on his horse, waiting for daybreak, and it was not long before the pale face of dawn began to appear along the balconies of the east, bringing joy to the grass and flowers rather than to the ear, for at that very moment ears were made joyous by the sound of many flageolets and timbrels, the jingling of bells, the “make way, make way, stand aside, stand aside!” of runners who, apparently, were coming from the city. Dawn made way for the sun, whose face, larger than a shield, gradually rose from below the horizon.

Don Quixote and Sancho turned their eyes in all directions; they saw the ocean, which they had not seen before: it seemed broad and vast to them, much larger than the Lakes of Ruidera that they had seen in La Mancha; they saw the galleys near the shore, and when the canopies were raised, their pennants and streamers were revealed, fluttering in the wind and kissing and sweeping the water; from the galleys came the sound of bugles, trumpets, and flageolets, and the breeze carried the sweetly martial tones near and far. The ships began to move, performing a mock skirmish on the quiet waters, and, corresponding in almost the same fashion, an infinite number of knights on beautiful horses and in splendid livery rode out from the city. The soldiers on the galleys fired countless pieces of artillery, to which those who were on the walls and in the forts of the city responded, and the heavy artillery shook the air with a fearsome clamor and was answered by the midship cannon on the galleys. The joyful sea, the jocund land, the transparent air, perhaps clouded only by the smoke from the artillery, seemed to create and engender a sudden delight in all the people.

Sancho could not imagine how those shapes moving on the ocean could have so many feet. And then, the knights in livery, with shouts,
lelelíes,
and cries, came galloping up to a stupefied and astounded Don Quixote, and one of them, who had been advised by Roque, called in a loud voice to Don Quixote:

“May the model, beacon, light, and polestar of all knight errantry be welcome to our city, world without end. Welcome, I say, to the valorous Don Quixote of La Mancha: not the false, the fictitious, the apocryphal one we have seen recently in false histories, but the true, the legitimate, the faithful one described for us by Cide Hamete Benengeli, the flower of all historians.”

Don Quixote did not say a word, and the knights did not wait for him to respond, but wheeling and turning with all their entourage behind them, they began to move in caracoles around Don Quixote, who turned to Sancho and said:

“These men know us very well: I would wager that they have read our history, and even the one recently published by the Aragonese.”

The knight who had spoken to Don Quixote returned, saying:

“Your grace, Señor Don Quixote, come with us, for we are all your servants and great friends of Roque Guinart’s.”

To which Don Quixote responded:

“If courtesy engenders courtesy, yours, Señor Knight, is the daughter or close relative of the great Roque’s. Take me wherever you wish, for I shall have no will but yours, above all if you desire to employ mine in your service.”

The knight responded with words no less courtly, and the others encircled Don Quixote, and to the sound of flageolets and timbrels they rode with him to the city, and as they entered it, there were the Evil One, who ordains all wickedness, and boys, who are more evil than the Evil One; two of them who were particularly mischievous and impudent made their way through all the people, and one lifted the gray’s tail and the other lifted Rocinante’s, and there they placed and inserted branches of furze
²
in each one. The poor animals felt these new spurs, and when they pressed down their tails, they increased their discomfort to such an extent that they reared and bucked a thousand times and threw their riders to the ground. Don Quixote, enraged and affronted, hurried to remove the plumage from the tail of his nag, and Sancho did the same for his gray. Those who were escorting Don Quixote wanted to punish the insolence of the boys, but it was not possible because they hid among the thousand others who were following them.