Don Quixote [Trans. by Edith Grossman] (145 page)

“By my soul!” said a peasant who had listened to Sancho’s decision. “This gentleman has spoken like a saint and given a verdict like a canon! But I’ll bet the fat man won’t want to lose an ounce of his flesh, let alone six
arrobas
of it.”

“The best thing would be if they don’t run,” responded another, “because then the thin man won’t be worn out carrying that weight, and the fat man won’t have to lose any; let half the wager be in wine, and let’s take these gentlemen to the tavern that has the good wine, and let it be on me…and wear a cape when it rains.”

“Señores,” responded Don Quixote, “I thank you, but I cannot stop
even for a moment; melancholy thoughts and events make me seem discourteous and oblige me to travel quickly.”

And so, spurring Rocinante, he rode forward, leaving them all amazed at having seen and observed both his strange figure and the intelligence of his servant, for that is what they judged Sancho to be. And another of the peasants said:

“If the servant is this intelligent, what must the master be like! I’ll bet if they went to study in Salamanca, in the wink of an eye they’d be magistrates; everything’s deceit except studying and more studying, and having favor and good luck; when a man least expects it, he finds himself with a staff in his hand or a mitre on his head.”

Master and servant spent that night in the middle of a field, in the open air; the next day, as they continued their journey, they saw a man walking toward them, with saddlebags around his neck and a pike or javelin in his hand, looking exactly like a courier on foot; as he approached Don Quixote, he quickened his pace until he was almost running, and he came up to him and embraced his right thigh, which was as high as he could reach, and said with displays of great joy:

“Oh, Señor Don Quixote of La Mancha, what happiness will fill the heart of my lord the duke when he knows that your grace is returning to his castle, for he is still there with my lady the duchess!”

“I do not recognize you, friend,” responded Don Quixote, “and I shall not know who you are if you do not tell me.”

“I, Señor Don Quixote,” responded the courier, “am Tosilos, the footman of my lord the duke who refused to fight with your grace over marrying the daughter of Doña Rodríguez.”

“God save me!” said Don Quixote. “Is it possible that you are the one whom the enchanters, my enemies, transformed into the footman you mention in order to cheat me of the honor of that combat?”

“Be quiet, Señor,” replied the letter carrier. “There was no enchantment at all, and no change in anybody’s face: I entered the field as much Tosilos the footman as I was when I left it. I wanted to marry without fighting, because I liked the girl’s looks, but things turned out just the opposite of my intention, because as soon as your grace left our castle, my lord the duke had me lashed a hundred times for going against the orders he had given me before I went into combat, and the upshot is that the girl is a nun, and Doña Rodríguez has gone back to Castilla, and I’m going now to Barcelona to bring a packet of letters to the viceroy that my master has sent him. If your grace would like a drink that’s pure,
though warm, I have a gourd filled with good wine, and a few slices of Tronchón cheese that will call upon and wake your thirst if it happens to be sleeping.”

“I’ll see this bet,” said Sancho, “and stake it all on courtesy, and let good Tosilos pour in spite of and despite all the enchanters in the Indies.”

“Well, well,” said Don Quixote, “you are, Sancho, the greatest glutton in the world, and the most ignorant man on earth, for you cannot be persuaded that this courier is enchanted and this Tosilos a counterfeit. Stay with him, and drink your fill, and I shall go ahead slowly and wait for you until you come.”

The footman laughed, uncovered his gourd, and took his cheese and a small loaf of bread out of a saddlebag, and he and Sancho sat on the green grass and in companionable peace quickly dispatched and finished the contents of the saddlebags with so much spirit that they licked the packet of letters simply because it smelled of cheese. Tosilos said to Sancho:

“There’s no doubt that your master, Sancho my friend, must be a madman.”

“What do you mean, ‘must be’?” responded Sancho. “He doesn’t owe anybody anything;
³
he pays for everything, and more, when madness is the coin. I see it clearly, and I tell him so clearly, but what good does it do? Especially now, when he’s really hopeless because he was defeated by the Knight of the White Moon.”

Tosilos begged him to tell him what had happened, but Sancho responded that it was discourteous to allow his master to wait for him, and on another day, if they were to meet, there would be time for that. And having stood after he had shaken his tunic and brushed the crumbs from his beard, he walked behind the gray, said goodbye, left Tosilos, and overtook his master, who was waiting for him in the shade of a tree.

CHAPTER LXVII

If many thoughts had troubled Don Quixote before his fall, many more troubled him after he was toppled. As has been said, he was in the shade of the tree, and there, like flies swarming around honey, thoughts came to him and stung him: some had to do with the disenchantment of Dulcinea and others with the life he would have to live in his forced retirement. Then Sancho arrived and praised the liberality of the footman Tosilos.

“Is it possible,” said Don Quixote, “Oh, Sancho, that you still think he is the real footman? It seems you have forgotten that you saw Dulcinea changed and transformed into a peasant, and the Knight of the Mirrors into Bachelor Carrasco, the work, in both cases, of the enchanters who pursue me. But tell me now: did you ask the man you call Tosilos what God has done with Altisidora? Did she weep over my absence, or has she already placed in the hands of oblivion the amorous thoughts that so troubled her in my presence?”

“Mine were not the kind,” responded Sancho, “that would let me ask about nonsense. By God, Señor, is your grace interested now in asking about other people’s thoughts, especially amorous ones?”

“Look, Sancho,” said Don Quixote, “there is a great difference between the actions one takes because of love and those taken because of gratitude. A knight may well be unenamored, but strictly speaking, he can never be ungrateful. Altisidora, it seems, loved me dearly; she gave me the three nightcaps, which you know about, she wept at my departure, she cursed me, she reviled me, she complained, despite all modesty,
publicly; all of these were signs that she adored me, for the anger of lovers often ends in curses. I had no hopes to offer her or treasures to present to her, because all of mine I have given to Dulcinea, and the treasures of knights errant are, like those of goblins,
¹
apparent and false, and I can give her only the innocent memories I have of her; as for those I have of Dulcinea, you offend her with your slackness in administering the lashes and in punishing that flesh—may I see it devoured by wolves—which you would rather preserve for the worms than use for the relief of that poor lady.”

“Señor,” responded Sancho, “if you want to know the truth, I’m not convinced that lashing my backside has anything to do with disenchanting the enchanted, because it would be like saying, ‘If you have a headache, put some ointment on your knees.’ I’d swear, at least, that in all the histories about knight errantry that your grace has read, you’ve never seen a disenchantment by flogging; but, whether that’s true or not, I’ll give myself the lashes when I feel like it and it’s a convenient time for me to punish myself.”

“May it be God’s will,” responded Don Quixote, “and may the heavens grant you the grace to realize the obligation you have to help my lady, who is yours as well, since you are my servant.”

They were conversing as they continued on their way, until they reached the same place and spot where they had been trampled by the bulls. Don Quixote recognized it and said to Sancho:

“This is the meadow where we encountered the beautiful shepherdesses and gallant shepherds who wanted to restore and imitate pastoral Arcadia here, a thought as original as it is intelligent, and like them, if you think it is a good idea, I should like, O Sancho, for us to become shepherds, at least for the time I must be retired. I shall buy some sheep, and all the other things needed for the pastoral exercise, and my name will be
Shepherd Quixotiz
and yours
Shepherd Pancino,
and we shall roam the mountains, the woods, and the meadows, singing here, lamenting there, drinking the liquid crystal of the fountains, or the limpid streams, or the rushing rivers. With a copious hand the oaks will give us their sweetest fruit; the hard cork trees, their trunks as seats; the willows, their shade; the roses, their fragrance; the broad meadows, carpets of a thousand shades and colors; the clear, pure air, our breath; the moon and stars, our light in spite of night’s darkness; pleasure will give us our songs;
joy, our weeping; Apollo, our verses; love, our conceits; and with these we shall make ourselves eternal and famous, not only in the present but in times to come.”
²

“By God,” said Sancho, “that sort of life squares so well with me it even corners; besides, as soon as Bachelor Sansón Carrasco and the barber Master Nicolás see it, they’ll want to lead that life and become shepherds along with us; God willing, the priest will decide to join the fold, too, he’s so good-natured and fond of enjoying himself.”

“You have spoken very well,” said Don Quixote, “and Bachelor Sansón Carrasco, if he enters the pastoral fraternity, as he undoubtedly will, can call himself
Shepherd Sansonino,
or even
Shepherd Carrascón;
Barber Nicolás can be
Miculoso,
³
as old Boscán was called
Nemoroso;
⁴
I do not know what name we could give the priest, unless it is one derived from his profession, and we call him
Shepherd Curiambro.
⁵
As for the shepherdesses whose lovers we shall be, we can choose their names as if we were picking pears, and since my lady’s fits a shepherdess as well as a princess, there is no reason for me to try to find another that would be more suitable; you, Sancho, can call yours whatever you like.”

“I don’t plan,” responded Sancho, “to give her any name but
Teresona,
which will suit her plumpness
⁶
and the name she already has, which is Teresa; besides, I’ll celebrate her in my verses and reveal my chaste desires, for I don’t plan to go looking for trouble in other men’s houses. It won’t be good for the priest to have a shepherdess, because he ought to set a good example, but if the bachelor wants to have one, his soul is his own business.”

“God save me!” said Don Quixote. “What a life we shall lead, Sancho my friend! What flageolets will reach our ears, what Zamoran pipes, what timbrels, what tambourines, and what rebecs! Well, and what if in the midst of all this music albogues should resound! Then we would have all the pastoral instruments.”

“What are albogues?” asked Sancho. “I’ve never heard of them or seen them in my life.”

“Albogues,” responded Don Quixote, “are something like brass candlesticks, and when you hit one with the other along the empty or hollow side, it makes a sound that is not unpleasant, though it may not be very beautiful or harmonious, and it goes well with the rustic nature of pipes and timbrels; this word
albogues
is Moorish, as are all those in our Castilian tongue that begin with
al,
for example:
almohaza, almorzar, alhombra, alguacil, alhucema, almacén, alcancía,
⁷
and other similar words; our language has only three that are Moorish and end in the letter
i,
and they are
borceguí, zaquizamí,
and
maravedí.
⁸
Alhelí
and
alfaquí,
⁹
as much for their initial
al
as for the final
i,
are known to be Arabic. I have told you this in passing because it came to mind when I happened to mention albogues; one thing that will help us a great deal to achieve perfection in this endeavor is that I am something of a poet, as you know, and Bachelor Sansón Carrasco is even better. I say nothing about the priest, but I would wager that he has a touch of the poet, and Master Nicolás as well, I have no doubt about that, because all barbers, or most of them, are guitarists and rhymers. I shall complain of absence; you will praise yourself as a steadfast lover; Shepherd Carrascón will lament being scorned; the priest Curiambro, whatever he chooses; and so things will go so well that no one could ask for more.”

To which Sancho responded:

“I am, Señor, so unfortunate, that I fear the day will never come when I can join this exercise. Oh, how polished I’ll keep the spoons when I’m a shepherd. What soft bread, what cream, what garlands, what pastoral odds and ends that, if they don’t earn me fame as a wise man, can’t help but earn me fame as a clever one! Sanchica, my daughter, will bring food up to our flocks. But wait! She’s a good-looking girl, and there are shepherds more wicked than simple, and I wouldn’t want her to go for wool and come back shorn; love and unchaste desires are as likely in the countryside as in the cities, in shepherd’s huts as in royal palaces, and if you take away the cause, you take away the sin, and if your eyes don’t see, your heart doesn’t break, and a jump over the thicket is better than the prayers of good men.”

“No more proverbs, Sancho,” said Don Quixote, “for any one of those you have said is enough to explain your thoughts; I have often ad
vised you not to be so prodigal in your proverbs and to restrain yourself from saying them, but it seems that is like preaching in the desert, and ‘My mother punishes me, and I deceive her.’”