Don Quixote [Trans. by Edith Grossman] (35 page)

“I have already told you many times before now, Sancho,” said Don Quixote, “that you talk far too much, and although your wits are dull, your tongue often is sharp; however, so that you may see how foolish you are and how discerning I am, I wish to tell you a brief story. Once there was a widow who was beautiful, free, rich, and above all, easy in her ways, and she fell in love with a lay brother, a sturdy, good-looking boy; his superior learned of this, and one day he said to the good widow, in fraternal reprimand: ‘I am amazed, Señora, and with reason, that a woman as distinguished, as beautiful, and as rich as your grace has fallen in love with a man as crude, as base, and as stupid as he, when there are in this house so many masters, so many scholars, so many theologians, among whom your grace could make a selection as if you were choosing pears, saying, I want this one but not the other.’ But she responded with a good deal of wit and verve: ‘Your grace, Señor, is very much mistaken, and you are thinking in an old-fashioned way if you think I have chosen badly, no matter how stupid
he may seem to you; because considering the reason I love and want him, he knows as much philosophy as Aristotle, and even more.’ In the same way, Sancho, because of my love for Dulcinea of Toboso, she is worth as much as the highest princess on earth. And yes, not every poet who praises a lady, calling her by another name, really has one. Do you think the Amaryllises, Phyllises, Sylvias, Dianas, Galateas, Alidas, and all the rest that fill books, ballads, barbershops, and theaters are really ladies of flesh and blood who belong to those who celebrate them? No, of course not, for most are imagined in order to provide a subject for their verses, and so that people will think of them as lovers and as men who have the capacity to be lovers. And therefore it is enough for me to think and believe that my good Aldonza Lorenzo is beautiful and virtuous; as for her lineage, it matters little, for no one is going to investigate it in order to give her a robe of office, and I can think she is the highest princess in the world. Because you should know, Sancho, if you do not know already, that two things inspire love more than any other; they are great beauty and a good name, and these two things reach their consummation in Dulcinea, for in beauty, no one is her equal, and as for a good name, few can approach her. And to conclude, I imagine that everything I say is true, no more and no less, and I depict her in my imagination as I wish her to be in beauty and in distinction, and Helen cannot approach her, Lucretia cannot match her, nor can any of the other famous women of past ages, Greek, barbarian, or Latin. Let each man say what he chooses; if because of this I am criticized by the ignorant, I shall not be chastised by the learned.”

“I say that your grace is correct in everything,” responded Sancho, “and that I am an ass. But I don’t know why my mouth says ass, when you shouldn’t mention rope in the hanged man’s house. But let’s have the letter, and I’ll say goodbye and be on my way.”

Don Quixote took out the notebook, moved off to one side, and very calmly began to write the letter, and when he had finished, he called Sancho and said he wanted to read it to him so that Sancho could commit it to memory in the event he lost it along the way, for his own misfortune was such that it was reasonable to fear the worst. To which Sancho responded:

“Your grace should write it two or three times in the book, and give it to me, and I’ll take good care of it, because it’s foolish to think I’ll commit it to memory; mine is so bad I often forget my own name. But even
so, your grace should read it to me, and I’ll be very happy to hear it, for it must be perfect.”

“Listen, then, for this is what it says,” said Don Quixote:

“By my father’s life,” said Sancho when he heard the letter, “that’s the highest thing I’ve ever heard. Confound it, but how your grace says everything anyone could want, and how well
The Knight of the Sorrowful Face
fits into the closing! I’m telling the truth when I say your grace is the devil himself, and there’s nothing your grace doesn’t know.”

“Everything is necessary,” responded Don Quixote, “for the profession I follow.”

“Well, then,” said Sancho, “your grace just has to make a note on the other page about the three donkeys, and sign it very clearly so that when they see it they’ll know the signature.”

“It will be my pleasure,” said Don Quixote.

And when he had written it, he read it to Sancho, and it said:

“That’s fine,” said Sancho. “Now your grace should sign it.”

“It is not necessary to sign it,” said Don Quixote. “All I need do is add my mark and flourish, which is the same as a signature and enough for three donkeys, and even for three hundred.”

“I trust in your grace,” responded Sancho. “Let me go and saddle Rocinante, and let your grace get ready to give me your blessing, for I plan to leave right away without seeing the crazy things your grace is going to do, though I’ll say I saw you do more than anyone could wish.”

“At least, Sancho, I want, because it is necessary, I say I want you to see me naked and performing one or two dozen mad acts, which will take me less than half an hour, because if you have seen them with your own eyes, you can safely swear to any others you might wish to add, and I assure you that you will not recount as many as I intend to perform.”

“For the love of God, Señor, don’t let me see your grace naked, for that will make me feel so bad I won’t be able to stop crying, and my head’s in such a state after the crying I did last night over my gray that I’m in no mood for any more tears; if it’s your grace’s wish that I see some crazy actions, do them fully dressed, and let them be brief and to the point. Especially because none of this is necessary for me, and like I said before, I want to shorten the time it takes me to get back here with the news your grace desires and deserves. Otherwise, let the lady Dulcinea get ready, and if she doesn’t answer the way she should, I make a solemn vow to God that I’ll get a good answer out of her stomach if I have to kick her and slap her. Because how can anybody stand for a knight errant as famous as your grace to go crazy, without rhyme or reason, for the sake of a…? And don’t let her make me say it, because by God I’ll tear everything apart and never look back. And I’m the one who can do it! She doesn’t know me! By my faith, if she knew me she’d think twice!”

“Well, Sancho,” said Don Quixote, “it seems you are no saner than I.”

“I’m not as crazy,” responded Sancho, “I just have a more choleric nature. But, leaving that aside, what will your grace eat until I get back? Will you go out to the road, like Cardenio, and take food from the shepherds?”

“Do not concern yourself with that,” responded Don Quixote, “be-
cause even if I had food, I would eat nothing but the plants and fruits that this meadow and these trees might offer me; for the elegance of my plan lies in not eating and in suffering other comparable hardships. Goodbye, then.”

“But, does your grace know what I’m afraid of? That I won’t be able to find this place again, it’s so out of the way.”

“Take careful note of the landmarks, and I shall try not to leave the vicinity,” said Don Quixote, “and I shall even be sure to climb up to the highest peaks to watch for your return. Better yet, so that you will not make a mistake and lose your way, you should cut some of the broom that grows in such abundance here, and place the stalks at intervals along the way until you reach level ground, and they will serve as markers and signs, as did the thread of Perseus
¹⁰
in the labyrinth, so that you can find me when you return.”

“I’ll do that,” responded Sancho Panza.

And after cutting some stalks of broom, he asked for his master’s blessing, and, not without many tears on both their parts, he took his leave. He mounted Rocinante, whom Don Quixote commended to his care, saying he should attend to him as to his own person, and he set out for the plain, scattering stalks of broom at intervals, as his master had advised. And so he left, although Don Quixote was still urging him to watch at least two mad acts. But he had not gone a hundred paces when he turned and said:

“Señor, your grace is right: so that I can swear with a clear conscience that I saw you do crazy things, it would be a good idea for me to see at least one, even though I’ve already seen a pretty big one in your grace’s staying here.”

“Did I not tell you so?” said Don Quixote. “Wait, Sancho, and I shall do them before you can say a Credo.”

And hastily he pulled off his breeches and was left wearing only his skin and shirttails, and then, without further ado, he kicked his heels twice, turned two cartwheels with his head down and his feet in the air, and revealed certain things; Sancho, in order not to see them again, pulled on Rocinante’s reins and turned him around, satisfied and convinced that he could swear his master had lost his mind. And so we shall let him go on his way until his return, which did not take long.

CHAPTER XXVI

Returning to the account of what the Knight of the Sorrowful Face did after he found himself alone, the history relates that when Don Quixote, with his upper parts clothed and his bottom parts naked, finished his leaps and turns and saw that Sancho, not wishing to see more mad acts, had departed, he climbed to the top of a high crag, and there he pondered what he had so often pondered without ever reaching a decision, which was whether it would be better and more appropriate for him to imitate Roland in his excessive madness or Amadís in his melancholy, and talking to himself, he said:

“If Roland was as good and valiant a knight as everyone says, why should anyone be surprised? After all, he was enchanted, and no one could kill him except by placing a pin in the bottom of his foot, and he always wore shoes with seven metal soles, although such stratagems did him little good against Bernardo del Carpio, who understood them, and crushed him in his arms at Roncesvalles. But, his valor aside, we come to the matter of his losing his mind, and it is certain that he lost it because of the signs to which fortune led him and the news the shepherd gave him that Angelica had taken more than two siestas with Medoro, a little curly-haired Moor who was Agramante’s page; and if he understood this to be true, and his lady had committed so great a wrong against him, he did not do much by going mad; but I, how can I imitate him in his madness if I do not imitate him in its cause? Because I shall go so far as to swear that my Dulcinea of Toboso has not in all her days seen a single Moor just as he is, in his own clothing, and that she is today as she was on the day she was born; and it would be a grievous affront if I, imagining
anything else about her, were to go mad with the type of madness that afflicted Roland in his fury. On the other hand, I see that Amadís of Gaul, without losing his mind and without performing mad acts, achieved as much fame as a lover as anyone else; because what he did, according to his history, was simply that finding himself scorned by his lady Oriana, who had ordered him not to appear in her presence until she so willed it, he withdrew to the Peña Pobre, in the company of a hermit, and there he had his fill of weeping and commending himself to God, until heaven hearkened to his pleas in the midst of his greatest travail and need. And if that is true, as it most certainly is, why should I now go to the trouble of tearing off all my clothes or causing grief to these trees, which have never done me any harm whatsoever? Nor do I have reason to muddy the clear waters of these streams, where I may drink whenever I wish. Long live the memory of Amadís, and let him be imitated in every way possible by Don Quixote of La Mancha, about whom it will be said, as it was said of the other, that if he did not achieve great things, he died in the effort to perform them, and if I am not scorned and disdained by Dulcinea of Toboso, it is enough, as I have said, to be absent from her. Well, then, to work: let the actions of Amadís come to mind and show me where I must begin to imitate them. I already know that for the most part he prayed and commended himself to God, but what shall I use for a rosary, since I do not have one?”

Then he thought of what he could do, and he tore a long strip from his shirttails and tied eleven knots in it, one larger than the rest, and this served as his rosary during the time he was there, when he said a million Ave Marías.
¹
He was greatly troubled at not finding a hermit nearby who would hear his confession and console him, and so he spent his time walking through the meadow, writing and scratching on the tree trunks and in the fine sand many verses, all of them suited to his sorrow and some of them praising Dulcinea. But the only ones that were found complete, and that could be read after they were discovered, were these: