Don Quixote [Trans. by Edith Grossman] (51 page)

“Oh Leonela, my friend! Before I carry out my plan, which I do not want you to know about in the event you attempt to prevent it, would it not be better for you to take Anselmo’s dagger, the one I asked you to bring, and with it pierce this ignoble bosom of mine? But no, do not; it would not be reasonable for me to bear responsibility for another’s crime. First I want to know what the bold and immoral eyes of Lotario saw in me that gave him the audacity to reveal a desire as wicked as the one he has revealed to me, one that shows disdain for his friend and dishonors me. Go, Leonela, to that window and call him; undoubtedly he is in the street, waiting to put his evil intention into effect. But first I shall carry out mine, as cruel as it is honorable.”

“Oh, Señora!” responded the clever and forewarned Leonela. “What
is it that you want to do with this dagger? Do you by chance wish to take your own life, or that of Lotario? Either action will discredit your name and reputation. It is better for you to hide the offense; do not give that wicked man the opportunity to enter this house and find us alone. Think, Señora: we are women, and weak, and he is a man, and determined; since he comes with his wicked intention, blind with passion, perhaps before you can put your plan into effect, he’ll do the thing that would be worse than taking your life. Confound Señor Anselmo for allowing that insolent knave to do so much evil in his house! And if, Señora, you kill him, as I think you intend to do, what will we do with him when he’s dead?”

“What will we do, my friend?” responded Camila. “We will leave him for Anselmo to bury, for he will rightly consider it a restful task to put his own infamy under the ground. Call Lotario, once and for all; the more I delay taking my legitimate revenge for the offense, the more I seem to offend the loyalty I owe my husband.”

Anselmo listened to all of this, and each word Camila said changed his thoughts, but when he realized that she had determined to kill Lotario, he wanted to come out and show himself and prevent her from doing that; he was held back, however, by his desire to see the outcome of so gallant and virtuous a resolve, although he intended to come out in time to stop it.

Just then Camila fell into a deep swoon, and laying her down on a bed that was in the chamber, Leonela began to cry very bitterly, saying:

“Oh, woe is me if I am so unfortunate and she dies here in my arms: the flower of the world’s modesty, the crown of virtuous women, the exemplar of all chastity…!”

She said other things similar to these, and no one who heard her would not have taken her for the most aggrieved and loyal maid in the world and her mistress for a second persecuted Penelope. Camila soon recovered from her swoon, and when she did, she said:

“Why do you not go, Leonela, and call the most loyal friend ever seen by the sun or hidden by night? Go, run, hurry, make haste; do not allow delay to cool the flames of rage that I feel or the righteous vengeance I hope for to dwindle into mere threats and curses.”

“I am going now to call him, Señora,” said Leonela, “but first you must give me the dagger, so that while I am gone you do not do something that will leave all those who love you weeping for the rest of our lives.”

“You may go, Leonela my friend, certain that I shall not,” responded
Camila, “because although in your opinion it is rash and foolish of me to defend my honor, I shall not go as far as that Lucretia who, they say, killed herself even though she had done no wrong, and without first killing the one responsible for her misfortune. I shall die, if I must; but I have to take my revenge and exact satisfaction from the man who has brought me to this place to weep over the insolence of his actions, for which I am blameless.”

Leonela had to be asked many more times before she went out to call Lotario, but finally she left, and while she was gone, Camila said, as if talking to herself:

“Lord save me! Would it not have been better to reject Lotario, as I have so many times before, rather than give him reason to think, as I have done now, that I am immodest and unchaste, even for this short time that I must wait until I make him aware of his error? No doubt it would have been better, but then I would not be avenged, nor my husband’s honor satisfied if, with clean hands, he could walk away so easily from the situation to which his wicked thoughts have brought him. Let the traitor pay with his life for what his lascivious desire attempted to do; let the world know, if it ever does come to light, that Camila not only remained faithful to her husband, but took revenge on the one who dared offend him. Even so, I believe it would have been better to tell Anselmo, but I tried in the letter I wrote to him when he was in the village, and I think his not coming to remedy the harm I pointed out to him must have been because he is so good and trusting, he would not or could not believe that the bosom of so firm a friend could harbor any thoughts detrimental to his honor; not even I believed it afterward, not for many days, and I never would have believed it if his insolence had not grown so great, and if his open offers of gifts and exaggerated promises and constant tears had not made it clear to me. But why do I even think about this now? Does a gallant resolve have need of more counsel? Of course not. Away traitors, come revenge! Let the deceiver enter, let him come, let him arrive, let him die and be finished with, let whatever happens happen! I was pure when I came into possession of the man heaven gave me for my own; I shall be pure when I leave it behind, even if I am bathed in my own chaste blood and the impure blood of the falsest friend that friendship has ever known.”

And saying this, she paced the room with the dagger unsheathed, making such disordered and extravagant movements and gestures that she appeared to have lost her mind and seemed not a fragile woman but a desperate ruffian.

Anselmo watched it all, concealed behind the tapestries where he had hidden; he was astonished by everything, and it seemed to him that what he had seen and heard was enough to allay the greatest suspicions, and he would have liked to forego the proofs that would come with Lotario’s arrival, fearing some dreadful mishap. He was about to show himself and come out of hiding to embrace and reassure his wife, but he stopped when he saw Leonela return, leading Lotario by the hand, and as soon as Camila saw him she drew a line on the floor with the dagger and said:

“Lotario, listen to what I am saying: if by some chance you dare to cross this line, or even approach it, at the very moment I see what you are attempting, I shall plunge the dagger I am holding into my breast. And before you say a word in response, I want you to listen to a few more of mine, and then you can say whatever you wish. First, I want you to tell me, Lotario, if you know my husband Anselmo, and what opinion you have of him; second, I also want to know if you know me. Answer me this, and do not be confused or think too much about how you will reply, for my questions are not difficult.”

Lotario was not so simpleminded that he had not realized what Camila intended from the moment she told him to have Anselmo hide, and he responded so cleverly and so appropriately to her intention that the two of them made the lie appear to be the absolute truth, and so he replied to Camila in this fashion:

“I did not think, O beautiful Camila, that you called me in order to ask me things so far from the intention with which I come here. If you are doing this in order to delay granting me the promised favor, you should have done so from a greater distance, for the nearer we are to the object of our desire, the greater our hope of possessing it; but, so that you cannot say I do not answer your questions, I will say that I know your husband, Anselmo, and he and I have known each other since we were children; I do not want to say what you know all too well about our friendship, so that I do not bear witness to the offense that love, which is a powerful excuse for even greater crimes, forces me to commit against him. I know you and hold you in the same high esteem that he does; otherwise, I would not, for any lesser prize, violate what I owe my own person and the holy laws of true friendship, infringed and broken by me on account of an enemy as powerful as love.”

“If you confess to that,” responded Camila, “mortal enemy of all that justly deserves to be loved, how do you dare appear before the one
who, as you know, is the mirror that reflects him? If you looked in it carefully, you would see how little justification you have for offending him. But oh, woe is me, now I realize what has made you disregard what you owe to yourself: it must have been negligence on my part; I do not wish to call it immodesty, since it did not follow from a deliberate decision but from the sort of careless act that women often commit inadvertently when they think they have no reason to be cautious. Otherwise tell me, O traitor, when did I ever respond to your entreaties with a word or gesture that could have awakened in you even the shadow of a hope of satisfying your base desires? When were your amorous words not rejected and reproached with severity and harshness? When were your many promises and gifts ever believed or accepted? But since it seems to me that no one can persevere in his amorous intention for very long if he is not sustained by some hope, I shall blame myself for your impertinence, for no doubt some negligence on my part has sustained your desire for so long, and therefore I shall impose the punishment and penalty on myself that your crime deserves. And so that you may see that if I am cruel with myself, I could be no less cruel with you, I wanted to bring you here to be a witness to the sacrifice I intend to make to the insulted honor of my honorable husband; you offended him with all possible deliberation, as I offended him by my carelessness in giving you the opportunity, if in fact I gave you one, that would favor and condone your wicked intentions. I say again: the suspicion I have that some carelessness of mine engendered those monstrous thoughts in you troubles me greatly; it is what I desire to punish with my own hands, for if another punished me, perhaps my crime would be made public; but before I do that, I want to kill as I die, and take with me the one who will finally satisfy my desire for the vengeance I hope for, and that I shall have when I see, in the next world, the penalty imposed by a disinterested justice that does not bend before the one who has brought me to such desperate straits.”

And having said this, with incredible strength and speed she attacked Lotario with the unsheathed dagger, showing such clear intentions of wanting to plunge it into his bosom that he was not certain if her displays were false or true, for he had to use his skill and strength to keep Camila from stabbing him. She was acting out that strange deception and lie so vividly that in order to give it the appearance of truth, she tried to color it with her own blood; seeing that she could not reach Lotario, or pretending that she could not, she said:

“Fate does not wish to satisfy completely my righteous desire, but it will not be strong enough to keep me from satisfying it in part, at least.”

And struggling to free from Lotario’s grasp the hand that held the dagger, she finally succeeded, aimed the point at a part of her body that she could wound, but not deeply, and plunged it in above her left armpit, near the shoulder; then she dropped to the floor as if she had fallen into a faint.

Leonela and Lotario were dumbfounded, astonished at what had just happened and still doubting its reality although Camila lay on the floor, bathed in blood. Lotario, horrified and breathless, rushed over to her to pull out the dagger, and when he saw how small the wound was, he stopped being afraid and once again marveled at the great sagacity, prudence, and intelligence of the beautiful Camila; in order to comply with his obligations, he began a long, melancholy lamentation over Camila’s body, as if she were dead, and he cursed not only himself but the man who had placed her in that situation. And since he knew that his friend Anselmo was listening, he said things that would move anyone to pity him much more than Camila, even if he did think she was dead.

Leonela took her in her arms and laid her on the bed, pleading with Lotario to go and find someone who would heal Camila in secret; she also asked his advice and opinion regarding what they would tell Anselmo about her mistress’s wound in the event he came home before she was healed. He replied that they should say whatever they wanted, for he was not the one to give any useful advice; he would say only that she should try to stop the bleeding because he was going where no one would see him again. Displaying great grief and emotion, he left the house, and when he found himself alone, in a place where no one could see him, he could not stop crossing himself as he marveled at Camila’s stratagem and Leonela’s clever responses. He considered how certain Anselmo would be that his wife was a second Portia, and he wished he could meet with him so they could both celebrate the most hidden truth and concealed lie that anyone could ever imagine.

Leonela staunched her mistress’s blood, which was no more than what was necessary to make the lie believable, and washing the wound with a little wine, she bandaged it the best she could, and as she treated her she said words that would have been enough, even if nothing had been said before, to persuade Anselmo that he had in Camila the very image and example of virtue.

Added to Leonela’s words were those of Camila, who called herself a
craven coward for not having the courage, when she needed it most, to take her own life, which she despised. She asked her maid if she should tell her dear husband about what had happened; Leonela advised her not to, because that would oblige him to take his revenge on Lotario, which would be very dangerous, and it was the duty of a good wife not to give her husband reasons for disputes but to save him from as many as possible.

Camila responded that her advice seemed very good, and she would follow it, but in any case they ought to decide what they would tell Anselmo about the reason for the wound, which he would be bound to see; to which Leonela replied that she did not know how to lie, even as a joke.

“Well, my friend,” replied Camila, “then what shall I do if I would not dare create or sustain a lie even if my life depended on it? If we cannot find our way out of this, it would be better to tell him the unadorned truth rather than have him discover us in a falsehood.”