Don Quixote [Trans. by Edith Grossman] (28 page)

As they were riding along, Sancho said to his master:

“Señor, does your grace wish to give me leave to talk a little? After you gave me that harsh order of silence, more than a few things have been spoiling in my stomach, and one that I have now on the tip of my tongue I wouldn’t want to go to waste.”

“Say it,” Don Quixote said, “and be brief, for no speech is pleasing if it is long.”

“What I have to say, Señor,” responded Sancho, “is that for the past few days I’ve been thinking how little gain or profit there is in looking for the adventures that your grace looks for in these deserted places and crossroads, because even when you conquer and conclude the most dangerous, there’s nobody to see them or know about them, and so they remain in perpetual silence, which isn’t your grace’s intention or what they deserve. And so it seems to me it would be better, unless your grace thinks otherwise, if we went to serve some emperor or other great prince who’s involved in some war, and in his service your grace could demonstrate the valor of your person, your great strength, and even greater understanding; and when the lord we serve sees this, he’ll have to reward us, each according to his merits, and there’s sure to be somebody there who’ll put into writing your grace’s great deeds so they can be remembered forever. About mine I don’t say anything, for they won’t go beyond squirely limits, though I can say that if it’s customary in chivalry to write about the deeds of squires, I don’t think mine will be forgotten.”

“You speak sensibly, Sancho,” responded Don Quixote, “but before one reaches that point, it is necessary to wander the world as a kind of test, seeking adventures, so that by concluding some of them, the knight acquires a reputation and fame, and when he goes to the court of some great monarch he is known by his deeds, and as soon as the boys see him ride through the gate of the city, they all follow and surround him, shouting and saying: ‘Here is the Knight of the Sun,’ or of the Serpent, or of some other device under which he accomplished great feats. ‘Here is,’ they will say, ‘the one who conquered in singular combat the gigantic Brocabruno the Mighty; the one who freed the Great Mameluke of Persia from the long enchantment he suffered for almost nine hundred years.’

In this manner, news of his deeds passes from person to person, and then, to the cheers of the boys and the rest of the populace, the king of the land will appear at the windows of his royal palace, and as soon as he sees the knight, knowing him by his armor or the device on his shield, he perforce will say: ‘Hark, look lively! Go forth, my knights, all who are in my court, to greet the flower of chivalry who now comes riding!’ At this command all will go forth, and the king will come halfway down the stairs, and embrace the knight warmly, and bid him welcome, kissing him on the face, and then he will lead him by the hand to the chamber of my lady the queen, where the knight will find her with the princess, their daughter, who is, beyond any doubt, one of the most beauteous and perfect damsels that one could find anywhere in the known regions of the earth. After this she will very chastely turn her eyes to the knight, and he will turn his eyes to hers, and each will seem to the other more divine than human, and without knowing how or why, they will be captured and caught in the intricate nets of love, with great affliction in their hearts because they do not know how they will speak and reveal to one another their yearnings and desires.

Then he will no doubt be taken to a sumptuously appointed room in the palace, where, having removed his armor, they will bring him a rich scarlet cloak and drape it around him; and if he looked comely in armor, he looks just as comely and even more so in his quilted doublet. When night falls, he will have supper with the king, queen, and princess, and he will never take his eyes off the maiden, his looks hidden from the rest, and she will do the same with the same sagacity because, as I have said, she is a very discreet damsel. The tables will be cleared and then suddenly, through the door of the chamber, an ugly dwarf will enter, followed by a beauteous duenna between two giants, who tells of a certain
adventure devised by an extremely ancient wise man, and whosoever brings it to a conclusion will be deemed the greatest knight in the world. Then the king will command all those present to attempt it, and none will end or finish it except the knight who is his guest, which will add greatly to his fame and make the princess extremely happy, and she will think of herself as exceedingly well-rewarded and compensated for having placed her affections so high. And the fortunate part is that this king, or prince, or whatever he is, is waging a fierce war with another as powerful as he, and the knight who is his guest asks him (after spending a few days in his court) for permission to serve him in that war. The king will give it willingly, and the knight will courteously kiss his hands in gratitude for the boon he has granted him.

And that night he will take his leave of his lady the princess through the grillework at the window of the bedchamber where she sleeps, which overlooks a garden, and through this grillework he has already spoken to her many times, their go-between and confidante being a lady-in-waiting greatly trusted by the princess. He will sigh, she will swoon, the lady-in-waiting will bring water, sorely troubled because morning is coming and, for the sake of her lady’s honor, she does not wish them to be discovered. Finally the princess will regain consciousness and pass her white hands through the grillework to the knight, who will kiss them over and over again and bathe them in his tears. The two of them will agree on the manner in which they will keep each other informed of their fortunes and misfortunes, and the princess will beg him to tarry as little as possible; he will promise, making many vows; he will kiss her hands one more time and say goodbye with so much emotion that his life will almost come to an end. Then he goes to his room, throws himself on the bed, cannot sleep because of the pain of their parting, arises very early in the morning, and goes to take his leave of the king, the queen, and the princess; they tell him, when he has bade farewell to the first two, that her highness the princess is indisposed and cannot receive visitors; the knight thinks it is because of her sorrow at his leaving, his heart is wounded, and it is all he can do not to show clear signs of his suffering. The lady-in-waiting, their confidante, is present, and she will take note of everything and recount it all to her lady, who receives her in tears and tells her that one of her greatest griefs is not knowing who her knight is, or if he is of royal lineage; the lady-in-waiting assures her that the degree of courtesy, gallantry, and valor displayed by her knight can exist only in a
royal and illustrious person; the suffering princess consoles herself with this; she attempts to find consolation so as not to appear in a bad light before her parents, and after two days she appears in public.

The knight has already gone; he does battle in the war, conquers the king’s enemy, takes many cities, emerges victorious from many combats, returns to court, sees his lady in the customary place, and they agree that he will ask her father for her hand in marriage in return for his services. The king does not wish to grant his request because he does not know who the knight is, but despite this, either because he abducts her or by some other means, the princess becomes his wife, and her father comes to consider this his great good fortune because he learns that this knight is the son of a valiant king, ruler of some kingdom I am not certain of because I do not believe it is on the map. The father dies, the princess inherits the kingdom, the knight, in a word, becomes king, and this is where his granting favors to his squire and to all those who helped him rise to so high an estate, comes in: he marries his squire to one of the princess’s ladies-in-waiting, the one, no doubt, who acted as mediator in his love affair, and who is the daughter of a very prominent duke.”
⁸

“That’s what I want, honestly,” said Sancho, “and that’s what I’m counting on, and everything will happen exactly to the letter because now your grace calls yourself
The Knight of the Sorrowful Face.”

“Do not doubt it, Sancho,” replied Don Quixote. “For in the same manner and by the same means as I have recounted, knights errant rise and have risen to be kings and emperors. All we need do now is to see which king of Christians or heathens is waging a war and has a beautiful daughter; but there will be time to think about this, for, as I have told you, first one must win fame elsewhere before arriving at court. There is also something else: in the event we find a king at war who has a beautiful daughter, and I have won incredible fame throughout the universe, I do not know how it can be discovered that I am of royal lineage, or, at least, a second cousin to the emperor; the king will not wish to give me his daughter’s hand in marriage unless he is very certain of this first, no matter how meritorious my famous deeds; as a consequence, for this reason, I fear I shall lose what my arm so justly deserves. It is certainly true that I am a gentleman of known lineage, with proprietary rights to an ancestral home, and entitlement to a payment of five hundred
sueldos,
⁹
and it well might be that the wise man who writes my history can elucidate my parentage and ancestry in such a way that I shall find myself to be a descendant, five or six times removed, of a king. Because I want you to know, Sancho, that there are two kinds of lineage in the world: some who trace and derive their ancestry from princes and monarchs, which time has gradually undone, and in the end they finish in a point, like a pyramid turned upside down; others have their origin in lowborn people, and they rise by degrees until they become great lords. Which means that the difference between them is that some were and no longer are, and others are what they once were not; I might be one of these, and it might turn out that I had a great and famous beginning, which ought to satisfy the king, my future father-in-law; if it does not, the princess will love me so much despite her father that he, knowing full well that I am the son of a water-carrier, will accept me as her lord and husband; if he does not, this is where abducting her and taking her wherever I choose comes in, for either time or death will put an end to her parents’ anger.”

“And that’s where something else comes in, too,” said Sancho, “because some wicked people say: ‘Don’t ask as a favor what you can take by force,’ though what fits even better is: ‘Escaping punishment is worth more than the pleading of good men.’ I say this because if my lord the king, your grace’s father-in-law, does not agree to giving you my lady the princess, there’s nothing else to do, like your grace says, but abduct her and hide her away. But the trouble with that is that until you make peace and calmly enjoy the kingdom, the poor squire may be starving for favors. Unless the go-between lady-in-waiting, who will be his wife, escapes with the princess, and he suffers misfortunes with her until heaven wills otherwise, because it well may be, I think, that his master will give her to him as his legitimate wife.”

“No one can deny him that,” said Don Quixote.

“Well, since that’s the case,” responded Sancho, “the best thing is to commend ourselves to God and let fate take us wherever it chooses.”

“May God grant,” replied Don Quixote, “what I desire and what you, Sancho, need, and let him be base who thinks himself base.”

“God’s will be done,” said Sancho, “for I am an Old Christian, and that alone is enough for me to be a count.”

“More than enough,” said Don Quixote, “and even if you were not, it would not change anything, because when I am king I can certainly grant you nobility without your buying it or serving me in any way. Because when you are made a count, you will find that you are a gentleman,
too, and no matter what people say, they will have to call you lord, even if they do not wish to.”

“And by my faith, I’ll know how to carry off that tittle!” said Sancho.

“You mean
title,
not
tittle,
” said his master.

“Whatever it is,” responded Sancho Panza. “I say that I’ll know very well how to manage it, because, by my faith, once I was the beadle of a brotherhood, and the beadle’s outfit looked so good on me that everybody said I looked like I could be the steward of the brotherhood. Well, what will happen when I put a duke’s cape on my back, or dress in gold and pearls, like a foreign count? I think they’ll be coming to see me for a hundred leagues around.”

“You will look fine,” said Don Quixote, “but it will be necessary for you to shave your beard often; yours is so heavy, tangled, and unkempt that unless you shave with a razor at least every other day, people will see what you are from as far away as you can shoot a flintlock.”

“That’s easy,” said Sancho. “All I have to do is hire a barber and keep him in my house. And if I need to, I can have him follow along behind me, like a grandee’s groom.”

“But, how do you know,” asked Don Quixote, “that grandees have their grooms follow them?”

“I’ll tell you,” responded Sancho. “Years ago I spent a month not far from court, and there I saw a very small gentleman walking, and people said he was a grandee, and a man rode behind him no matter how many turns he made, and he looked like he was his tail. I asked why the man didn’t catch up but always came behind him. They told me he was the groom, and it was the custom of grandees to have their grooms follow behind. And since then I’ve know it so well that I’ve never forgotten it.”

“I say that you are correct,” said Don Quixote, “and in the same way you can have your barber follow behind you, for not all customs came into use or were invented at the same time, and you may be the first count to have his barber follow behind him, for you need greater confidence in the man who shaves you than in the one who saddles your horse.”

“Just leave the barber to me,” said Sancho, “and your grace can take care of becoming a king and making me a count.”

“That is what I shall do,” responded Don Quixote.

And looking up, he saw what will be recounted in the next chapter.