Don Quixote [Trans. by Edith Grossman] (61 page)

As we were rowing, Zoraida hid her head in my arms so as not to see her father, and I could hear her calling on Lela Marién to help us. We had gone some thirty nautical miles when dawn found us approximately three harquebus shots from shore, which we saw was uninhabited, with no one who could observe us; even so, we made a great effort to row farther out to sea, which by this time was somewhat calmer; when we had gone almost two leagues, the order was given that only every fourth man should row while the others had something to eat, for the ship was well-provisioned, but the oarsmen said that this was not the time to rest, and those who were not rowing could feed them, for they did not wish to drop oars for any reason whatsoever. This is what we did, but then a quarter wind began to blow, which obliged us to raise sails and stop rowing and head for Oran, since no other direction was possible. All of this was done very quickly, and under sail we traveled at more than eight knots, and our only fear was meeting a pirate ship. We gave our Moorish oarsmen food, and the renegade comforted them by saying they were not prisoners and would be set free at the first opportunity. He said the same thing to Zoraida’s father, who responded:

‘I might hope and believe nothing else of your liberality and good nature, O Christians! But do not think me so simple as to imagine that you will give me my freedom, for you never would have risked taking it from me only to return it so generously, especially since you know who I am and the profit you can earn by giving it back to me; if you wish to name a
price, here and now I offer you anything you wish for myself and this unfortunate daughter of mine, or if you prefer, for her alone, for she is the greatest and best part of my soul.’

When he said this, he began to weep so bitterly that he moved us all to compassion and forced Zoraida to look at him; when she saw him weep, she felt so much pity that she stood, moved away from me, and went to embrace her father; she put her face next to his, and the two of them began so piteous a weeping that many of us wept with them. But when her father saw her dressed in her finery and wearing so many jewels, he said to her in their language:

‘What is this, daughter? Last night, before this terrible misfortune occurred, I saw you wearing your ordinary house-clothes, and now, though you did not have time to put on these garments and did not receive any joyful news that had to be celebrated by dressing yourself so elegantly, I see you wearing the finest clothes I could give you when fortune was more favorable to us. Answer me, for this is even more disturbing and surprising to me than the calamity in which I find myself now.’

Everything that the Moor said to his daughter the renegade translated for us, but she did not utter a word in reply. When her father saw at one side of the ship the small chest where she kept her jewels, which he knew very well he had left in Algiers and had not brought to his country estate, he was even more distraught, and he asked her how that chest had fallen into our hands and what it contained. To which the renegade replied, not waiting for Zoraida’s answer:

‘Do not bother, Señor, to ask your daughter, Zoraida, so many questions, because with one answer I can satisfy them all; I want you to know that she is a Christian and has been the file for our chains and the key to our prison; she is here voluntarily and, I imagine, is as happy to be here as one who comes out of darkness into light, out of death into life, out of suffering into glory.’

‘Is what he says true, daughter?’ said the Moor.

‘It is,’ responded Zoraida.

‘Then,’ replied the old man, ‘you really are a Christian and have placed your father in the hands of his enemies?’

To which Zoraida responded:

‘It is true that I am a Christian, but not that I brought you this difficulty, for my desire never was to leave you or to do you harm, but only to do good for myself.’

‘And what good have you done for yourself, daughter?’

‘That,’ she replied, ‘you must ask Lela Marién; she will be able to answer you better than I can.’

As soon as the Moor heard this, he threw himself, with incredible speed, headfirst into the ocean, and he surely would have drowned if the long, heavy clothes he wore had not kept him above water for a while. Zoraida cried that we should rescue him; we all came to his aid, seizing him by his long robe and pulling him out, half-drowned and unconscious, which caused Zoraida so much sorrow that she began to weep over him with heartfelt and mournful tears, as if he were already dead. We turned him facedown, he coughed up a good deal of water, and in two hours he regained consciousness; during that time the wind changed and drove us back toward shore, and we had to use our oars again to keep from running aground, but it was our good fortune to reach a cove beside a small promontory or cape that the Moors call the
Cava Rumía,
which in our language means the ‘Wicked Christian Woman’; it is a tradition among the Moors that this is the place where the Cava who caused the loss of Spain lies buried,
⁵
because
cava
in their language means ‘wicked woman,’ and
rumía
means ‘Christian’; they still take it as an evil omen when a ship is forced to anchor there, because otherwise they would never do so, but for us it was not the shelter of a wicked woman but a safe haven and refuge, for the sea had become very rough. We posted sentries on shore, and not laying down our oars, we ate the food that the renegade had provisioned, and prayed with all our hearts to God and Our Lady that they help and favor us and allow us to bring to a happy conclusion what had begun so auspiciously. At Zoraida’s heartfelt request, the order was given for her father and the other Moors, all of whom were bound, to be put ashore, because she did not have the courage and was too tenderhearted to see her father bound and her countrymen prisoners. We promised her that we would when we departed, for there would be no danger to us if we left them in that uninhabited place. Our prayers were not in vain; heaven heard them, and a favorable wind began to blow and the sea grew calm, inviting us to rejoice and resume our voyage. When we saw this we untied the Moors, and one by one we put them ashore, which astounded them, but when it was time for Zoraida’s father, who by now was fully conscious, to disembark, he said:

‘Christians, why do you think this perverse female wants you to give
me my freedom? Do you think it is because she feels compassion for me? No, of course not, she has done this because my presence will be a hindrance to her when she decides to put her evil desires into effect: do not think she has been moved to change her religion because she believes yours is superior to ours, but only because she knows that in your country there is more lewd behavior than in ours.’

And turning to Zoraida, while I and another Christian held his arms in the event he attempted something rash, he said to her:

‘Oh, shameless maiden, misguided girl! Where are you going, blindly and thoughtlessly, in the power of these dogs, our natural enemies? Cursed be the hour I begot you, and cursed be the comfort and luxury in which I reared you!’

But seeing that he did not appear likely to finish any time soon, I hurried to put him ashore, and from there he continued to shout his curses and laments, praying to Mohammed to ask Allah to destroy us, to confound and exterminate us; when we had set sail and could no longer hear his words, we could see his actions: he pulled at his beard and tore out his hair and threw himself on the ground, and once, when he called as loud as he could, we heard him cry:

‘Come back, my beloved daughter, come ashore, I forgive everything! Give those men the money, it is already theirs, and come and console your grieving father, who will die on this desolate strand if you leave him!’

Zoraida heard all of this, and she grieved and wept at everything and could only respond:

‘Pray to Allah, dear father, that Lela Marién, who is the reason I am a Christian, may console you in your sorrow. Allah knows I could not help doing what I did, and these Christians owe me nothing for my decision, for even if I had chosen not to go with them and to remain in my own house, it would have been impossible for me to do so, given the burning desire in my soul to do this deed that seems as virtuous to me, my beloved father, as it appears wicked to you.’

She said this when her father could not hear her and we could no longer see him; I comforted Zoraida, and we concentrated on our journey, which the wind so favored that we were certain we would be on the coast of Spain by dawn the next day. But since the good rarely, if ever, comes to us pure and simple, but is usually accompanied or followed by some disquieting, disturbing evil, it was our bad fortune, or perhaps the result of the curses the Moor had hurled at his daughter, for a father’s
curses, no matter who he may be, are always to be feared—in any case, when we were out on the open sea, and almost three hours of the night had gone by, and we were running under full sail and had shipped our oars because the brisk wind meant we did not need them, in the bright moonlight we saw a square-rigged ship very close to us; with all her sails unfurled and heading slightly into the wind, she crossed in front of us, so closely that we were obliged to shorten our sails in order not to ram her, and they had to turn hard on the wheel to give us room to pass. They had gathered on the deck of their vessel to ask us who we were, and where we were going, and where we had come from, but since they asked their questions in French, our renegade said:

‘No one should answer them, for they are surely French pirates, and they plunder everything they come across.’

Because of his warning, no one said a word, and when we had moved a little ahead of them, and they were leeward of us, without warning they fired two cannon, apparently loaded with chain shot, for the first cut our mast in two, and it and the sail fell into the sea, and a moment later the second was fired, hitting us amidships so that the entire side of the vessel was blown open, though it suffered no other damage; but we found ourselves sinking, and we all began to shout, calling for help and imploring those on the other ship to rescue us before we drowned. Then they shortened their sails and lowered a skiff, or small boat, into the water, and twelve Frenchmen got in, well-armed with harquebuses and holding flaming torches, and pulled alongside us; seeing how few of us there were and that our ship was sinking, they rescued us, saying that this had happened because of our discourtesy in not answering them. Our renegade picked up the chest of Zoraida’s treasure and threw it into the sea without anyone noticing what he was doing.

In short, when we were all on board the French ship, and they had learned everything they wanted to know about us, as if they were our mortal enemies they stole everything we had and stripped Zoraida even of the anklets she wore on her feet. But I was not as perturbed by Zoraida’s distress as I was by my own fear that after they had taken her rich and precious jewels they would take her most valuable jewel, the one she prized most highly. But the desires of those people do not go beyond money, for which their lust is never satisfied, and on this occasion it was so inflamed that they would have taken even our captives’ attire if it had been of any use to them. Some were of the opinion that they should throw us all overboard, wrapped in a sail, because they intended to trade
at certain Spanish ports, claiming to be Bretons, and if they took us with them, they would be punished when their theft of our goods was discovered. But their captain, the man who had robbed my dear Zoraida, said that he was satisfied with the booty he already had and did not wish to go to any Spanish port but only to pass through the Straits of Gibraltar at night, or any way he could, and return to La Rochelle, which was the place he had sailed from; and so they agreed to give us the skiff, and whatever we needed for the short journey that still lay before us, which is what they did the following day when we were within sight of the coast of Spain; at that sight all our sorrows and hardships were forgotten, as if they had never existed, so great is the joy one feels at regaining lost freedom.

It must have been midday when they put us in the boat, giving us two barrels of water and some hardtack, and as the beautiful Zoraida was getting into the skiff, the captain, moved by some sort of mercy, gave her forty gold
escudos
and would not allow his men to take the very clothing she is wearing now. We climbed into the boat and thanked them for their kindness, displaying more gratitude than ill humor; they sailed away, heading for the Straits, and we, with no star other than the land we saw before us, began rowing so quickly that, as the sun began to set, we were so close to shore that we were certain we could touch land before nightfall; but since there was no moon, and the sky looked black, and we did not know precisely where we were, it did not seem safe to rush straight for the coast, as many of us wanted to do, saying that we should go ashore even if there were rocks and we landed in an uninhabited spot, for if we did, we would allay the reasonable fear that we might encounter the ships of pirates out of Teuán, who leave Barbary in the dark, reach the coast of Spain at dawn, make their raids, and return to sleep in their own houses at night; after long discussion we finally decided to approach the coast slowly, and if the sea was calm enough, to put ashore wherever we could. This is what we did, and it must have been just before midnight when we reached the foot of a very high hill set back far enough from the sea so that we had room to land. We ran the boat onto the sand, climbed out onto land, kissed the ground, and with tears of sheer joy gave thanks to the Lord our God for His incomparable goodness to us. We took the provisions out of the skiff, pulled it onto land, then climbed a good way up the hill, for we still were not certain and could not really believe that we were standing on Christian soil.

Day broke more slowly, I thought, than we wished. We climbed to
the top of the hill to see if we could discover a village or some shepherds’ huts, but though we looked in every direction, we saw no village, person, path, or road. Even so, we resolved to continue inland, for we were bound to meet someone soon who would tell us where we were. What most troubled me was seeing Zoraida walking on that harsh terrain, and though I carried her on my shoulders for a time, she was more wearied by my weariness than rested by the rest I gave her; she would not allow me to take up that burden again, and with a good deal of patience and many displays of joy, and with me leading her by the hand, we must have walked a little less than a quarter of a league when the sound of a small bell reached our ears, a clear sign that a flock was nearby; all of us looked around for it, and at the foot of a cork tree we saw a young shepherd taking his ease and idly whittling a stick with his knife. We called to him, and he looked up and then quickly scrambled to his feet, for, as we learned later, the first people he saw were the renegade and Zoraida, and since they were wearing Moorish clothing, he thought that all of Barbary was attacking, and running with extraordinary speed toward the woods that lay ahead of us, he began to shout at the top of his voice, calling: