Don Quixote [Trans. by Edith Grossman] (49 page)

Anselmo said no more; but what he had said was enough to leave Lotario disconcerted and confused, and taking it almost as a point of honor that he had been discovered in a lie, he swore to Anselmo that from then on he would dedicate himself to satisfying him and not lying to him, as he would see if he were curious enough to spy on him again; Anselmo would not even have to make that effort, however, because Lotario intended to put so much effort into satisfying him that it would eliminate all his suspicions. Anselmo believed him, and in order to give Lotario a more secure and less alarming opportunity, he decided to leave his house for a week and visit a friend who lived in a village not far from the city; Anselmo arranged with this friend to send for him very urgently so that Camila would think there was a reason for his departure.

Oh, Anselmo, how unfortunate and ill-advised! What are you doing? What are you plotting? What are you arranging? Consider that you are acting against yourself, plotting your own dishonor and arranging your own ruination. Camila is a virtuous wife; you possess her in peace and tranquility; no one assails your joy; her thoughts do not go beyond the walls of her house; you are her heaven on earth, the goal of her desires, the fulfillment of her delight, the means by which she measures her will, adjusting it in all things to yours and to that of heaven. If, then, the mine of her honor, beauty, virtue, and modesty gives you, with no effort on your part, all the riches it has, and all that you could wish for, why do you want to dig into the earth and look for more veins of new and unseen treasure, putting yourself in danger of having it all collapse since, after all, it stands on the weak foundations of her frail nature? Remember that if a man seeks the impossible, the possible may justly be denied him; a poet said it better when he wrote:

The next day Anselmo left for the village, having told Camila that during the time he was away, Lotario would come to watch over the house and to eat with her, and that she should be sure to treat him as she would himself. Camila, an intelligent and honorable woman, was distressed by her husband’s orders and said he ought to be aware that when he was absent, it was not right for anyone to occupy his seat at the table, and if he was doing this because he had no confidence in her ability to manage his house, he should test her this time and learn through his own experience that she was capable of taking on even greater responsibilities. Anselmo replied that this was his pleasure, and her duty was merely to bow her head and obey. Camila said she would, although it was against her will.

Anselmo left, and on the following day Lotario came to the house, where he was received by Camila with an affectionate and virtuous welcome; she never put herself in a position where Lotario would see her alone; she was always accompanied by her servants, both male and female, especially a maid named Leonela, whom she loved dearly because they had grown up together in the house of Camila’s parents, and when she married she brought Leonela with her to Anselmo’s house. For the first three days Lotario said nothing to her, although he could have when the table was cleared and the servants left to eat their meal—by Camila’s orders, a hasty one. Leonela had also been instructed to eat before Camila did and to never leave her side, but the maid, who had her mind on other affairs more to her liking and needed that time and opportunity to tend to her own pleasures, did not always obey her mistress in this; instead, she left them alone, as if that had been her instructions. But Camila’s virtuous presence, the gravity of her countenance, and the modesty of her person were so great that they curbed Lotario’s tongue.

But the benefit derived from Camila’s many virtues imposing silence on Lotario in fact did harm to them both, because if his tongue was silent, his mind was active and had the opportunity to contemplate, one by one, all the exceptional qualities of virtue and beauty in Camila, which were enough to make a marble statue fall in love, let alone a human heart.

Lotario looked at her when he should have been speaking to her; he thought how worthy she was of being loved, and this thought gradually began an assault on the high regard he had for Anselmo; a thousand times over he wanted to leave the city and go to a place where Anselmo would never see him, and where Lotario would never see Camila, but the pleasure he found in looking at her had already become an impediment to his doing so. He contended and struggled with himself to resist and reject the joy he felt when he looked at her. When he was alone he blamed himself for his folly; he called himself a bad friend, even a bad Christian; he reasoned with himself, making comparisons between himself and Anselmo, and he always concluded by saying that Anselmo’s madness and trust had been greater than his own scant fidelity, and if this excused him before God as it did before men for what he intended to do, he would not fear punishment for his crime.

In short, the beauty and virtue of Camila, together with the opportunity that her ignorant husband had placed in his hands, overthrew Lotario’s loyalty, and without considering anything but what his longing moved him to do, after three days of Anselmo’s absence, days when he was in a constant struggle to resist his desires, Lotario began to compliment Camila with so much passion and such amorous words that Camila was stunned, and all she could do was stand and go to her bedroom without saying a word to him. But not even this brusque behavior could weaken Lotario’s hope, for hope is always born at the same time as love; instead, he held Camila in even higher esteem. Having seen in Lotario what she never imagined she would see, Camila did not know what to do, but thinking it would not be safe or proper to give him an opportunity to speak to her again, she resolved that very night to send a servant with a letter for Anselmo, which she did, and in it she wrote these words:

CHAPTER XXXIV

Anselmo received this letter and understood that Lotario had begun his suit and that Camila must have reacted just as he wished; extraordinarily happy at the news, he responded by sending a message to Camila, telling her not to leave his house under any circumstances because he would return very shortly. Camila was astonished by Anselmo’s reply, which left her more perplexed than she had been earlier: she did not dare either to remain in her house or to go to the house of her parents; if she remained, her virtue would be at risk, and if she left, she would be disobeying her husband.

In short, she made a choice, and chose badly, for she resolved to remain, determined not to flee Lotario’s presence and give the servants reason to gossip; she regretted having written what she wrote to her husband, fearful he would think that Lotario had seen some boldness in her that moved him to treat her with less than proper decorum. But, confident of her virtue, she put her trust in God and in her own innocence and planned to resist with silence everything that Lotario said to her,
not informing her husband in order to spare him disputes or difficulties. She even tried to think of a way to excuse Lotario to Anselmo when he asked her the reason for writing that letter. With these thoughts, more honorable than accurate or beneficial, she spent another day listening to Lotario, who was so persistent and persuasive that Camila’s resolve began to waver, and it was all her virtue could do to attend to her eyes and keep them from showing any sign of the amorous compassion awakened in her bosom by Lotario’s tears and words. Lotario noted all of this, and it all set him ablaze.

Finally, it seemed to him that it was necessary, in the time and circumstance allowed by Anselmo’s absence, to tighten the siege around the fortress, and so he launched an attack on her conceit with praises of her beauty, because there is nothing more likely to defeat and bring down the haughty towers of beautiful women’s vanity than that same vanity, set in words of adulation. In effect, with utmost diligence, he undermined the rock face of her integrity with such effective tools that even if Camila had been made entirely of bronze, she would have fallen. Lotario wept, pleaded, offered, adored, persisted, and deceived with so much emotion and so many signs of sincerity that he brought down Camila’s chastity and won the victory he had least expected and most desired.

Camila surrendered; Camila surrendered, but is that any wonder if the friendship of Lotario could not remain standing? A clear example demonstrating that the only way to defeat the amorous passion is to flee it, that no one should attempt to struggle against so powerful an enemy because divine forces are needed to vanquish its human ones. Only Leonela knew of her mistress’s frailty, because the two unfaithful friends and new lovers could not hide it from her. Lotario did not want to tell Camila of Anselmo’s scheme, or that Anselmo had provided him with the opportunity to come so far: he did not want her to have a low opinion of his love, or to think he had courted her thoughtlessly and by chance rather than intentionally.

A few days later, Anselmo returned to his house and did not notice what was missing, the thing he had treated most contemptuously and valued most highly. He went to see Lotario immediately and found him at home; the two men embraced, and one asked for the news that would give him either life or death.

“The news I can give you, Anselmo my friend,” said Lotario, “is that you have a wife worthy of being the model and paragon of all virtuous
women. The words I said to her were carried away by the wind; my offers were scorned, my gifts were refused, and a few feigned tears of mine were mocked beyond measure. In short, just as Camila is the sum total of all beauty, she is the treasure house where chastity dwells and discretion and modesty reside, along with all the virtues that make an honorable woman praiseworthy and fortunate. Here is your money, friend; take it back, for I never had need of it; Camila’s integrity does not yield to things as low as presents or promises. Be content, Anselmo, and do not attempt more tests; since you have passed through the sea of difficulties and suspicions that one often can have about women, and you have kept your feet dry, do not attempt to return to the deep waters of new dangers, or test, with another pilot, the virtue and strength of the ship that heaven has provided to carry you across the seas of this world; realize instead that you are in a safe harbor; drop the anchors of reason and stay in port until you are asked to pay the debt that no human, no matter how noble, can avoid paying.”

Anselmo was made very happy by Lotario’s words, and he believed them as if they had been spoken by an oracle. Even so, he asked his friend not to abandon the undertaking, if only for the sake of curiosity and amusement, and even if he no longer brought to it the same zeal and urgency as before; he only wanted Lotario to write some verses in praise of Camila, calling her Clori, and Anselmo would tell her that Lotario was in love with a lady to whom he had given this name so that he could celebrate her with the decorum her modesty required. And if Lotario did not wish to take the trouble of writing the verses, Anselmo would do it.

“That will not be necessary,” said Lotario, “for the Muses are not so antagonistic to me that they do not visit me a few times a year. Tell Camila what you said about my fictitious love, and I shall compose the verses, and if they are not as good as the subject deserves, at least they will be the best I can write.”

The reckless man and his traitorous friend agreed to this, and when Anselmo returned to his house, he asked what, to Camila’s great surprise, he had not asked before, which was that she tell him the reason she had written him the letter. Camila responded that it had seemed Lotario was looking at her somewhat more boldly than when Anselmo was at home, but she had been mistaken and believed it had been her imagination, because now Lotario avoided seeing her and being alone with her. Anselmo said she could be sure of that, because he knew that Lotario was in love with a noble maiden in the city, whom he celebrated
under the name of Clori; even if he were not, there was no reason to doubt Lotario’s truthfulness or his great friendship for the two of them. If Lotario had not warned Camila that his love for Clori was all pretense, and that he had told Anselmo about it so that he could spend some time writing praises of Camila herself, she undoubtedly would have been caught in the desperate net of jealousy, but she had been forewarned, and this unexpected piece of news did not trouble her.

The next day, when the three of them were sitting at the table after their meal, Anselmo asked Lotario to recite one of the pieces he had composed for his beloved Clori; since Camila did not know her, he surely could say whatever he wished.

“Even if she did know her,” responded Lotario, “I would not hide anything, because when a lover praises his lady’s beauty and censures her cruelty, he in no way brings dishonor to her good name; but, be that as it may, I can say that yesterday I composed a sonnet to the ingratitude of Clori, and it says: