Don Quixote [Trans. by Edith Grossman] (38 page)

I reached my destination and gave the letters to Don Fernando’s brother; I was well-received but not well-dismissed, because much to my displeasure he told me to wait for a week, in a place where his father, the duke, would not see me, because Don Fernando had asked that he send back with me a certain sum of money without his father’s knowledge; all of this was an invention of the false Don Fernando, for his brother had enough money to allow me to leave without delay. This was an order and command that I was inclined to disobey because it seemed impossible to endure so many days away from Luscinda, especially since I had left her filled with the sadness I have recounted to you; yet I obeyed, like a good servant, even though I saw that it would be at the cost of my well-being. But four days after my arrival a man came looking for me with a letter, which he gave to me, and by the address I knew it was from Luscinda because the writing was hers. I opened it, fearful and apprehensive, believing that something very important had moved her to write to me when I was far away, for when I was near she did so very rarely.

I asked the man, before I read it, who had given it to him and how long the journey had taken; he said that he happened to be walking down a street in the city at noon, and a very beautiful lady called to him from a window, her eyes filled with tears, and said to him very urgently: ‘Brother, if you are a Christian, as you seem to be, for the love of God I beg you to take this letter as quickly as you can to the place and person written here in the address, for both of them are well-known, and by doing this you will do a great service to Our Lord; and so that you can derive some advantage from this, take what is in this handkerchief.’

And then the man said: ‘she threw down from the window a knotted handkerchief that contained a hundred
reales
and this gold ring, and the letter that I’ve given to you. And, without waiting for my reply, she left the window, though first she saw me take the letter and the handkerchief, and signal to her that I would do as she had asked. And so, seeing myself so well-paid for any difficulty I might have in bringing it to you, and knowing by the address that you were the person for whom it intended, because, Señor, I know very well who you are, and being obliged as well by the tears of that beautiful lady, I decided not to trust anyone else and came myself to
hand it to you, and I have been traveling for the sixteen hours since it was given to me, and as you know, the distance is eighteen leagues.’ While the grateful and novel courier was saying this to me, I hung on his every word, my legs trembling so much I could barely stand. And then I opened the letter and saw that it contained these words:

These, in short, were the words the letter contained, which made me set out immediately, not waiting for any other reply or any other money, for I realized very clearly then that it was the purchase not of horses but of his own pleasure that had moved Don Fernando to send me to his brother. The anger I felt toward Don Fernando, together with my fear of losing the treasure I had earned with so many years of service and devotion, gave me wings, for almost as if I had flown, by the next day I reached my city at precisely the right time to go and speak with Luscinda. I entered in secret, having left my mule at the house of the good man who had brought me the letter, and as luck would have it, I was fortunate enough to find Luscinda at the grating that had been witness to our love. Luscinda knew me immediately, and I knew her, but not as she should have known me, and I her. But who in the world can boast that he has penetrated and understood the confused thought and mutable condition of a woman? No one, certainly.

I tell you, then, that as soon as Luscinda saw me, she said: ‘Cardenio, I am dressed for the wedding; the traitorous Don Fernando and my avaricious father are waiting for me in the drawing room, along with other witnesses who will see my death rather than my marriage. Do not be perturbed, dear friend, but try to be present at this sacrifice, which, since it could not be prevented by my words, my hidden dagger, which could
deter even more determined forces, will put an end to my life and a beginning to your knowledge of the love I have had and still have for you.’

I responded urgently and in great agitation, fearful I would not have enough time to answer her: ‘May your deeds, Señora, confirm the truth of your words; if you carry a dagger as proof of your sincerity, I am carrying a sword with which to defend you or kill myself, if our luck is unfavorable.’ I do not believe she could hear everything I said because I heard them calling to her with some urgency, for the bridegroom was waiting.

With this the night of my sorrow closed over me and the sun of my joy set; I was left with no light in my eyes and no power of reason in my understanding. I could not find the way into her house, I could not even move, but considering how important my presence was to whatever might occur, I did the best I could to rouse myself, and I walked into her house; since I knew all its entrances and exits very well, and especially because of the secret tumult that reigned there, no one saw me; unseen, I was able to hide in the alcove of a window in the drawing room, concealed by two tapestries hanging next to each other, and looking between them; unseen, I could see everything that happened in the drawing room. How can I tell you now about the pounding of my heart as I stood there, or the thoughts that occurred to me, or the deliberations I made? For there were so many and were of such a nature that they cannot and should not be told. It is enough for you to know that the bridegroom entered the drawing room unadorned, wearing the ordinary clothes he usually wore. As best man he had one of Luscinda’s first cousins, and in the entire drawing room there was no outsider but only the servants of the house.

A short while later, Luscinda emerged from an antechamber, accompanied by her mother and two of her lady’s maids, and she was dressed and adorned as handsomely as her rank and beauty deserved, the very perfection of courtly elegance and charm. My uncertainty and confusion did not permit me to observe and notice the particulars of what she was wearing; I could see only the colors, which were scarlet and white, and the brilliance of the gems and jewels on her headdress and all over her costume, all of it surpassed by the singular beauty of her lovely blond tresses, which, in comparison to the precious stones, and the light from the four flambeaux in the drawing room, offered greater brilliance to the eye. O memory, mortal enemy of my repose! What is the good of picturing for me now the incomparable beauty of my adored enemy? Would it not be better, cruel memory, if you recalled and pictured for me what she
did then, so that I, moved by so manifest a wrong, can attempt, if not to avenge it, at least to lose my own life?

Do not be vexed, Señores, at hearing these digressions of mine, for my grief is not the kind that can or should be recounted succinctly and in passing, for each of its circumstances seems to me worthy of a long discourse.”

To which the priest responded that not only were they not vexed at listening to him, they were pleased by the details he recounted, for they were of the sort that should not be passed over in silence and deserved the same attention as the principal part of the story.

“Well, then,” Cardenio continued, “when we were all in the drawing room, the parish priest came in and took both of them by the hand in order to do what the ceremony requires, and when he said: ‘Do you, Señora Luscinda, take Señor Don Fernando, here present, to be your lawful wedded husband, as decreed by Holy Mother Church?’ I extended my head and neck between the two tapestries, and with attentive ears and my soul in distress I listened for Luscinda’s response, expecting her reply to be either a sentence of death or the affirmation of my life. Oh, if only I had dared to come out then and shout: ‘Ah, Luscinda, Luscinda! Think what you are doing; consider what you owe me; remember that you are mine and cannot belong to another! Realize that your saying yes and the end of my life are all one! Ah, you traitor, Don Fernando, thief of my glory, death of my life! What do you want? What are you seeking? Consider that as a Christian you cannot attain the object of your desires because Luscinda is my wife and I am her husband.’

Ah, madman that I am! Now that I am absent and far from danger, I say I should have done what I did not do! Now that I have allowed the theft of my most precious jewel, I curse the thief upon whom I could have wreaked my vengeance if I would have had as much courage for that as I do for my laments! In short, I was a coward and a fool then, and it is no surprise that I am dying now ashamed, repentant, and mad.

The priest was waiting for Luscinda’s reply, and she took a long time to give it, and when I thought she would take out the dagger to prove her sincerity, or would loosen her tongue to utter a truth or reproach that would redound to my benefit, I heard her say in a weak, faint voice: ‘Yes, I do,’ and Don Fernando said the same, and gave her the ring, and they were joined in an indissoluble bond. The groom moved to embrace his bride, and she, placing her hand over her heart, fainted into her mother’s arms.

All that remains now is to tell you the state I was in when I saw, in
the sound of her
yes,
the mockery of my hopes, the falsity of Luscinda’s words and promises, and the impossibility of ever retrieving the treasure I had lost at that instant. I was left with nothing, abandoned, it seemed to me, by all of heaven, the enemy of the earth that sustained me; air denied me breath for my sighs, water denied its humor for my eyes; only fire grew stronger so that my entire being burned with rage and jealousy. Everyone became agitated at Luscinda’s swoon, and when her mother loosened her bodice to give her air, a sealed letter was discovered, which Don Fernando immediately took and began to read in the light of one of the flambeaux; when he finished reading it, he sat on a chair and rested his cheek in his hand, like a man lost in thought, and took no part in the remedies administered to his wife to help her recover.

Seeing the agitation of everyone in the house, I dared come out, regardless of whether anyone saw me or not, resolved that if I were seen, I would do something so rash that everyone would understand the righteous determination in my heart to punish the false Don Fernando and even the fickle, swooning traitor; but my fate, which must be saving me for even greater ills, if there can possibly be any, decreed that I would have a surfeit at that moment of the reason I have been lacking ever since; and so, not wishing to take revenge on my greatest enemies, which, since I was so far from their minds, would have been an easy thing to do, I decided to turn my hand and inflict on myself the punishment they deserved, perhaps with even greater severity than if I had killed them then and there, for if death is sudden, the punishment is soon over, but death that is extended by torture goes on killing but does not end life.

In short, I departed that house and went to the one where I had left my mule; I had it saddled, and without saying goodbye to anyone I mounted and left the city, not daring, like a second Lot, to look back; when I found myself alone in the countryside, and the darkness of the night covered me and its silence invited my lamentations, with no misgiving or fear that I would be heard or recognized, I freed my voice and liberated my tongue and hurled curses at Luscinda and Don Fernando as if that would avenge the wrong they had done me. I called her cruel, ungrateful, false, thankless, and above all, greedy, for my enemy’s wealth had closed the eyes of her love, taking it from me and giving it to one with whom fortune had been more generous and munificent; in the midst of this rush of curses and vituperations, I excused her, saying it was no surprise that a young girl, cloistered in the house of her parents, accustomed and trained to always obey them, would have wanted to ac-
cede to their wishes, since they were giving her as a husband a nobleman who was so distinguished, so wealthy, and so gallant that if she refused, it might be thought that she had no judgment, or that her desire lay elsewhere, something that would do grave harm to her good name and reputation. Then I said the opposite: if she had said I was her husband, they would have seen that in choosing me she had not made so bad a choice that they could not forgive her; before Don Fernando presented himself to them, they could not, if they kept their desires within reason, have wished for a better man than I to be their daughter’s husband, and she, before placing herself in the critical position of being compelled to give her hand, could very well have said that I had already pledged her mine, and in that case I would have come forth and agreed to any tale she might have invented. In short, I decided that too little love, too little judgment, too much ambition, and too much desire for wealth had made her forget the words with which she had deceived, encouraged, and sustained me in my firm hopes and virtuous desires.

With these arguments and this disquiet I traveled the rest of the night, and at dawn I came upon a way into these mountains, where I rode for another three days, with no direction or goal of any kind, until I reached some meadows, though I do not know on which side of the mountains they may be, and there I asked some drovers where I could find the harshest terrain in the sierra. They told me it lay in this direction. I traveled here, intending to end my life, and as I was entering these desolate places my mule collapsed, dead of exhaustion and hunger or, what I believe is more likely, to free itself of the useless burden it was carrying. I was left on foot, humbled by nature, broken by hunger, not having, and not planning to look for, anyone to help me. I do not know how long I lay there on the ground, but then I woke, and was not hungry, and there were goatherds with me who undoubtedly were the ones who helped me in my need, because they told me how they had found me, and how I was saying so many foolish things and raving so much that I clearly had lost my reason; from that time on I have felt that I am not always in my right mind, and my reason is so damaged and weak that I do a thousand mad acts, tearing my clothes, shouting in these desolate places, cursing my fate, and repeating in vain the beloved name of my enemy, having no other purpose or intention than to shout my life to an end; when I come back to myself, I am so tired and bruised I can barely move. My most common abode is in the hollow of a cork tree, large enough to shelter this miserable body. The drovers and goatherds who wander these mountains, moved by charity, sustain me, placing food along the
paths and around the rocky crags where they know I may pass by and find it; and so, although I may be out of my mind at the time, the demands of nature allow me to recognize sustenance and awaken in me the desire to want it and the will to take it. When I am rational, they tell me that at other times I go out onto the paths and take food by force, though they willingly give it to me, from the shepherds who carry it up from the village to the sheepfolds.