Don Quixote [Trans. by Edith Grossman] (41 page)

This was my desire when I came here, I do not know how many months ago; I found a drover who took me on as a servant in a place deep in the sierra, and I have worked as a shepherd’s helper all this time, trying always to be out in the fields in order to hide this hair that now, so unexpectedly, has been revealed. But all my effort and care was and has been to no avail, for my master learned that I was not a man, and the same wicked desire was born in him as in my servant; since fortune does not always give remedies along with difficulties, I found no precipice or ravine where I could push the master and save myself, as I had with the servant, and so I thought it less difficult to leave him and take refuge again in these deso
late places than to test my strength or my reasoning with him. Therefore, as I said, I took to the wilds again to find the place where, without impediment, I could, with sighs and tears, beg heaven to take pity on my misfortune, and favor me with the ability either to leave that misfortune behind or to lose my life in the wilderness, and to let the memory be erased of this unfortunate woman, who, through no fault of her own, has become the subject of talk and gossip in her own and other lands.”

CHAPTER XXIX

“This is, Señores, the true history of my tragedy: now deem and judge if the sighs you heard, the words you listened to, and the tears that flowed from my eyes had sufficient reason to appear in even greater abundance; having considered the nature of my misfortune, you will see that consolation would be useless since the remedy is impossible. All I ask of you (this is something you can and should do very easily) is that you advise me where I can spend my life without being overwhelmed by the fear and terror I have of being discovered by those who are searching for me; although I know the great love my parents have for me guarantees that I shall be welcomed by them, I am filled with so much shame when I think that I must appear before them in a state different from the one they had counted upon that it seems better to exile myself forever from their sight rather than see their faces and think that they are looking at mine when it is far removed from the chastity they had a right to expect of me.”

She fell silent after she said this, and her face flushed with a color that clearly showed the grief and shame in her soul. The souls of those who had listened to her felt as much compassion as astonishment at her misfortune, and although the priest immediately wanted to console and advise her, Cardenio stepped forward first, saying:

“So then, Señora, you are the beautiful Dorotea, the only child of the wealthy Clenardo?”

Dorotea was surprised to hear her father’s name and to see the wretched condition of the man who named him, for the rags Cardenio wore have already been mentioned, and therefore she said to him:

“And who are you, friend, that you know my father’s name? If I am not mistaken, in recounting the story of my misfortune, I have not spoken his name.”

“I am, Señora,” responded Cardenio, “that luckless man who, as you have told us, Luscinda declared to be her husband. I am the unfortunate Cardenio, and the wicked purpose of the man who has brought you to the condition in which you find yourself has driven me to the one in which you see me now: ragged, naked, bereft of all human consolation, and, what is worse, bereft of reason, except when it pleases heaven to grant it to me for some brief time. I, Dorotea, am the one who witnessed the wrongs committed by Don Fernando, the one who waited until Luscinda spoke the words that made her his wife. I am the one who did not have the courage to see the consequences of her swoon or the outcome of the letter found in her bosom, because my soul could not bear to see so many misfortunes together; and so I abandoned the house, and my forbearance, and gave a letter to the man who was my host, asking him to deliver it into Luscinda’s hands, and came to this solitary place where I intended to end my life, which from that moment on I despised as if it were my mortal enemy. But fate has not wished to take it from me, being satisfied with taking my reason, perhaps wanting to preserve me for the good fortune I have had in finding you; for if what you have recounted is true, as I believe it is, it well might be that heaven has in store a more favorable conclusion to our calamities than we can imagine. Since Luscinda cannot marry Don Fernando because she is mine, and Don Fernando cannot marry her because he is yours, and she has openly declared this, we can reasonably hope that heaven will restore to each of us what is ours, for it is still intact, not given away or destroyed. And since we have this consolation, not born of remote hopes, or founded on wild imaginings, I beg you, Señora, to come to another decision in your honorable thoughts, as I intend to do in mine, and prepare to expect better fortune; I give you my vow as a gentleman and a Christian not to abandon you until I see that you are Don Fernando’s, and if reason cannot persuade him to recognize his duty to you, then I shall use the prerogative I have as a gentleman to legitimately challenge him and right the wrong he has done you; and I shall not think of the offenses committed
against me, vengeance for which I leave to heaven so that here on earth I may attend to those committed against you.”

Dorotea was overwhelmed when she heard Cardenio’s words, and because she did not know how to express her thanks for so noble an offer, she attempted to kiss his feet, but Cardenio would not permit it, and the licentiate responded for himself and the barber and approved Cardenio’s fine speech and in particular asked, advised, and urged them to accompany him to his village, where they could obtain the things they lacked, and decide how to find Don Fernando, or return Dorotea to her parents, or do whatever they thought most appropriate. Cardenio and Dorotea thanked him and accepted his offer of help. The barber, who had reacted to everything with amazement and silence, also made a courteous speech and offered, with no less enthusiasm than the priest, to serve them in any way he could.

He also recounted briefly the reason that had brought them there, the strangeness of Don Quixote’s madness, and how they were waiting for his squire, who had gone to find him. Cardenio recalled, as if it had been a dream, his altercation with Don Quixote, and he told the others about it but could not tell them the reason for the dispute.

Then they heard shouting and recognized Sancho Panza’s voice, for when he did not find them in the place where he had left them, he began to call their names. They came out to meet him, and when they asked about Don Quixote, he said he had found him naked except for his shirt, thin, yellow, famished, and sighing for his lady Dulcinea; although he had told his master that she had ordered him to leave that place and go to Toboso, where she was waiting for him, Don Quixote had responded that he was resolved not to come before her beauteousness until such time as he had performed such feats as would render him deserving of her grace. And Sancho said that if this went on much longer, Don Quixote ran the risk of not becoming an emperor, as he was obliged to do, or even an archbishop, which was the least he could be. For this reason, they should think about what had to be done to get him out of there.

The licentiate responded that he should not worry, for they would take his master away from there even if he did not wish to go. Then he told Cardenio and Dorotea what they had planned as a remedy for Don Quixote or, at least, as a way to take him home. To which Dorotea replied that she could play the afflicted damsel better than the barber, and, what is more, she had with her the clothes to play the part naturally, and they could trust her to know how to do everything necessary to carry their intention forward, as she had read many books of chivalry and
knew very well the style used by damsels in distress when they begged boons of knights errant.

“Well, nothing else is necessary,” said the priest, “than to put the plan into effect immediately; Fortune no doubt favors us since she has begun so unexpectedly to open the door to your remedy, my friends, and has provided us with what we needed.”

Then Dorotea took from her pillow slip a dress made of a certain fine woolen cloth and a mantilla made of another attractive green fabric, and from a small box she took a necklace and other jewels, and with these she adorned herself and in a moment resembled a rich, great lady. All of this, and more, she said she had removed from her house in the event she needed them, and until now she had not had the opportunity to make use of them. Her extreme grace, charm, and comeliness delighted everyone and confirmed that Don Fernando was a man of limited understanding for having cast aside so much beauty.

But most astonished of all was Sancho Panza, for it seemed to him—and it was true—that never in all his days had he seen so beautiful a creature; and so he asked the priest very eagerly to tell him who the beautiful lady was and what she was doing in this remote place.

“This beautiful lady, brother Sancho,” responded the priest, “is, and it is no small thing, the heir by direct male line of the great kingdom of Micomicón, and she has come looking for your master to beg of him a boon, which is that he right a wrong or correct an injustice done to her by an evil giant; and because of the fame your master has throughout the known world as a brave and virtuous knight, this princess has come all the way from Guinea to find him.”

“A lucky search and a lucky finding,” Sancho Panza said, “especially if my master is fortunate enough to undo that injustice and right that wrong by killing that whoreson of a giant your grace has mentioned; for he surely will kill him if he finds him, unless he’s a phantom, because my master has no power at all against phantoms. But one thing I want to beg of your grace, among others, Señor Licentiate, so that my master doesn’t take it into his head to be an archbishop, which is what I’m afraid of, is that your grace advise him to marry this princess right away, and then he won’t be able to receive archbishopal orders, and he’ll come easily into his empire, and I’ll finally get the thing I desire; I’ve thought about it carefully, and as far as I can tell, it does me no good at all if my master becomes an archbishop because I’m useless for the Church since I’m married, and for me to try now to get a dispensation so that I could have an
income from the Church, having, as I do, a wife and children, well, there’d be no end to it. And so, Señor, the thing now is for my master to marry this lady right away, and since I don’t know her title, I’m not calling her by name.”

“Her name,” responded the priest, “is the Princess Micomicona; since her kingdom is called Micomicón, of course that is her name.”

“No doubt about it,” responded Sancho. “I’ve seen lots of people take the name and lineage of the place where they were born, calling themselves Pedro de Alcalá, Juan de Ubeda, or Diego de Valladolid, and they must have the same custom there in Guinea, so queens take the names of their kingdoms.”

“That must be the case,” said the priest, “and as for your master marrying, I’ll do everything in my power to bring that about.”

This made Sancho happy, and the priest was astounded, both by his simplicity and by how his imagination was filled with his master’s nonsensical ideas, for Sancho believed beyond the shadow of a doubt that Don Quixote would become an emperor.

By now Dorotea had mounted the priest’s mule and the barber had attached the oxtail beard to his face, and they told Sancho to lead them to Don Quixote and warned him not to say that he had recognized the licentiate or the barber, because the whole matter of his master becoming emperor depended on their not being recognized; the priest and Cardenio, however, did not want to accompany them, Cardenio because he did not wish to remind Don Quixote of their dispute and the priest because his presence was no longer needed. And so they allowed the others go ahead while they followed slowly on foot. The priest did not fail to remind Dorotea of what she had to do, to which she replied that there was no need to worry; everything would be done to the letter, exactly as demanded and depicted by the books of chivalry.

They had ridden approximately three-quarters of a league when they caught sight of Don Quixote among some crags, dressed now, but not wearing his armor, and as soon as Dorotea saw him and was informed by Sancho that this was Don Quixote, she applied the whip to her palfrey,
²
followed by the well-bearded barber. And when they reached him, the squire leaped off the mule and took Dorotea in his arms, and she, dismounting very gracefully, went to kneel before Don Quixote; and al-
though he struggled to lift her up, she, still kneeling, spoke to him in this manner:

“I shall not rise up from this place, O valiant and brave knight, until thy goodness and courtesy grant me a boon, which will redound to the honor and renown of thy person and to the benefit of the most disconsolate and aggrieved damsel e’er seen by the sun. And if it be true that the valor of thy mighty arm correspondeth to the accounts of thy immortal fame, thou needs must favor this unfortunate maiden who hath come from such distant lands, following thy famous name and searching for thee to remedy her afflictions.”

“I shall not utter a word, beauteous lady,” responded Don Quixote, “nor shall I hearken to thy concerns until thou hast raised thyself from the ground.”

“I shall not raise myself, my lord,” responded the damsel in distress, “if thy courtesy doth not first grant me the boon I beg of thee.”

“I grant and bestow it upon thee,” responded Don Quixote, “as long as it doth not harm nor diminish my king, my country, and she who holds the key to my heart and liberty.”

“It shall neither harm nor diminish those whom thou sayest, good my lord,” responded the mournful maiden.

As they were speaking, Sancho Panza approached and said very quietly into his master’s ear:

“Señor, your grace can easily grant the boon she asks, it’s nothing, just killing a giant, and the lady who asks it is her highness Princess Micomicona, queen of the great kingdom Micomicón in Ethiopia.”