Don Quixote [Trans. by Edith Grossman] (64 page)

Don Quixote had reached this point in his piteous lament when the innkeeper’s daughter began to attract his attention by saying, “Psst, psst,” and calling to him:

“Señor, please come here, if your grace doesn’t mind.”

Don Quixote heard her voice, turned his head, and saw by the light of the moon, which was then at its brightest, that he was being called from the loft opening that to him seemed a window with grillework of gold, as befits luxurious castles, which is what he imagined the inn to be; then, in an instant, it seemed to him in his mad imagination that once again, as she had in the past, the beauteous damsel, daughter to the chatelaine of that castle, had been overcome by love for him and was soliciting his favors; with this thought in mind, and not wishing to seem discourteous and ungrateful, he pulled on Rocinante’s reins and rode to the opening, and when he saw the two young women, he said:

“I am sorely grieved, beauteous lady, that thou hast turned thy amorous thoughts to a place where there is no possibility that they will be returned as thy great worth and nobility deserve; for this thou should’st not blame a wretched knight errant whom love preventeth from giving his heart to any but the one who, when his eyes first saweth her, became the absolute mistress of his soul. Forgive me, good lady, and
withdraw to thy chamber, and revealest thou no more of thy desires to me so that I may not appear even more ungrateful; if, in the love thou hast for me, thou findest aught else in me that is not love itself but can make thee content, asketh it of me, for I swear to thee by that sweet and absent enemy of mine that I shall grant it without delay, e’en if thou asketh a lock of the hair of Medusa, which is nought but vipers, or the rays of the sun enclosed in a vial.”

“My señora has no need of anything like that, Señor Knight,” said Maritornes.

“Then what, O discreet duenna, doth thy señora need?” responded Don Quixote.

“Just one of your beautiful hands,” said Maritornes, “so that with it she can ease the great desire that has brought her to this opening at such great risk to her honor, for if my señor, her father, heard her, the least thing he would slice off would be her ear.”

“I should like to see him try!” responded Don Quixote. “But surely he will be careful not to do so, unless he wisheth to meet the most calamitous end that any father hath ever met in this world, for laying hands on the delicate appendages of his enamored daughter.”

Maritornes, certain that Don Quixote would surely give her the hand she had requested, had decided on what to do, and she climbed down from the opening, went to the stable, took the halter of Sancho Panza’s donkey, and hurried back to the opening just as Don Quixote was standing on Rocinante’s saddle in order to reach the barred window where he imagined the heartbroken damsel to be; and as he gave her his hand, he said:

“Señora, takest thou this hand, or rather, this scourge of all evildoers in the world; takest thou this hand, I say, untouched by the hand of any woman, not e’en the hand of she who hath entire possession of this my body. I do not give it to thee so that thou mayest kiss it, but so that thou mayest gaze upon the composition of its sinews, the consistency of its muscles, the width and capacity of its veins, and from this conjecture the might of the arm to which such a hand belongeth.”

“Now we’ll see,” said Maritornes.

And after making a slip knot in the halter, she put it around his wrist and climbed down from the opening, then tied the other end of the halter very firmly to the lock on the loft door. Don Quixote, who felt the rough cord around his wrist, said:

“It seemeth to me that thy grace is filing my hand instead of fondling it; treateth it not so harshly, for it is not to blame for the injury my desire
hath done thee, nor is it fitting that thou should’st seek vengeance for thy entire displeasure on so small a part of my body. Thou should’st remember, too, that one who loveth sweetly doth not punish severely.”

But no one was listening to these words of Don Quixote, because as soon as Maritornes attached the halter to his wrist, she and the innkeeper’s daughter went away, convulsed with laughter, and left him so securely tied that it was impossible for him to free himself.

As we have said, he was standing on Rocinante, his entire arm inside the opening and his wrist tied to the lock on the door, extremely uneasy and fearful that if Rocinante moved to one side or the other, he would be left hanging by his arm, and so he did not dare move at all, although considering Rocinante’s patience and passivity, one could reasonably expect him to stand for a century without moving.

In short, when Don Quixote discovered that he was bound and the ladies had vanished, he began to imagine that all this was the result of enchantment, as it had been the last time when in that very castle an enchanted Moor of a muledriver had given him a severe beating; to himself he cursed his lack of intelligence and good sense, for after having been hurt so badly in that castle, he had dared enter it a second time, despite the common knowledge among knights errant that when they have embarked on an adventure and have not succeeded, it is a sign that the adventure is meant not for them but for others, and so they have no need to attempt it a second time. Even so, he pulled his arm to see if he could free himself, but he was so securely tied that all his efforts were in vain. It is certainly true that he pulled rather tentatively so that Rocinante would not move, and though he longed to sit down in the saddle, all he could do was remain standing or pull his hand off.

He wished for the sword of Amadís, against which all enchantments were powerless; then he cursed his fate; then he exaggerated how much the world would feel his absence during the time he was under enchantment, and he had no doubt at all that he was enchanted; then he thought again of his beloved Dulcinea of Toboso; then he called for his good squire, Sancho Panza, who, buried in sleep and stretched out on his donkey’s saddle, had no thought at that moment even for the mother who bore him; then he called on the sages Lirgandeo and Alquife to help him; then he summoned his good friend Urganda the Wise to come to his aid; finally, morning found him so desperate and perplexed that he was bellowing like a bull, for he had no hope that day would cure his plight because he deemed it eternal, since he was enchanted. This belief
was strengthened even further when he saw that Rocinante had hardly moved at all, and he thought that he and his horse would remain in this state, not eating or drinking or sleeping, until the evil influence of the stars had passed or another, wiser enchanter had disenchanted him.

But he was greatly deceived, because just as dawn was breaking, four men on horseback came riding up to the inn, and they were handsomely dressed and well-equipped, with flintlocks resting on their saddlebows. They pounded on the door of the inn, which was still locked, and when this was seen by Don Quixote, who was still guarding the castle from his position at the opening to the loft, he called out to them in a loud and arrogant voice, saying:

“Knights, or squires, or whoever you may be: you have no reason to call at the gates of this castle, for it is more than clear that at this hour those inside are asleep, or are not in the habit of opening their strongholds until the sun is high in the sky. Withdraw, and wait until the day grows bright, and then we shall see if it is proper for them to open to you.”

“What the devil kind of stronghold or castle is this,” said one, “that we should be obliged to follow such ceremonies? If you’re the innkeeper, tell them to open for us; we’re travelers and want only to feed our mounts and then move on, because we’re in a hurry.”

“Does it seem to you, Señores, that I have the appearance of an innkeeper?” responded Don Quixote.

“I don’t know what kind of appearance you have,” responded another, “but I do know that you talk like a fool when you call this inn a castle.”

“It is a castle,” replied Don Quixote, “and one of the best in this entire province; there are those inside who have held a scepter in their hands and worn a crown on their heads.”

“It would be better the other way round,” said the traveler, “with a scepter on their heads and a crown in their hands. It may be that what you mean to say is that there’s a company of actors inside, and they often have those crowns and scepters you’ve mentioned, because I don’t believe that people worthy of crowns and scepters would lodge in an inn as small and silent as this one.”

“You know little of the world,” replied Don Quixote, “for you know nothing of the events that occur in knight errantry.”

The questioning traveler’s companions grew weary of the conversation he was having with Don Quixote, and they began to pound on the door again with great fury, so loudly that the innkeeper awoke, as did
everyone else in the inn, and got up to ask who was at the door. Just then, one of the horses of the four men pounding at the door happened to smell Rocinante, who, melancholy and sad and with drooping ears, stood unmoving as he held his tightly drawn master; and since, after all, he was flesh and blood, though he seemed to be made of wood, he could not help a certain display of feeling as he, in turn, smelled the horse who had come to exchange caresses; as soon as he had moved slightly, Don Quixote’s feet, which were close together, slipped from the saddle, and he would have landed on the ground if he had not been hanging by his arm; this caused him so much pain that he believed his hand was being cut off at the wrist or that his arm was being pulled out of its socket; he was left dangling so close to the ground that the tips of his toes brushed the earth, and this made matters even worse, because, since he could feel how close he was to planting his feet firmly on the ground, he struggled all he could to stretch even farther and touch down, just as those subjected to the torture of the strappado, whose feet touch, almost touch, the ground, increase their own torment by attempting to extend themselves to the fullest, deceived in the hope that with just a little more stretching they will reach the ground.

CHAPTER XLIV

Don Quixote cried out so loudly, in fact, that the terrified innkeeper suddenly threw open the doors of the inn to see who was shouting, and those outside did the same. Maritornes, who had been awakened by those same shouts, guessed what they might be and went to the loft, and without anyone seeing her she untied the halter that held up Don Quixote; he immediately fell to the ground in full view of the innkeeper and the travelers, who went up to him and asked what was wrong and why he was shouting. He, not saying a word in reply, removed the cord from around his wrist, stood up, mounted Rocinante, grasped his shield, couched his lance, and, after riding some distance into the fields, returned at a canter, saying:

“Should any sayeth that I have been rightfully enchanted, and if the Señora Princess Micomicona giveth me leave, I shall prove the lie and challenge and charge him in single combat.”

The newcomers were astonished at Don Quixote’s words, but the innkeeper did away with their astonishment when he told them that this was Don Quixote and there was no need to pay attention to him because he was out of his mind.

They asked the innkeeper if a youth of about fifteen, dressed as a muledriver’s boy, had come to the inn, and they described his features, which were the same as those of Doña Clara’s lover. The innkeeper responded that with so many people in the inn, he had not noticed the boy about whom they were asking. But when one of them saw the carriage in which the judge had arrived, he said:

“He must be here, no doubt about it, because this is the carriage we were told he was following; one of us should stay at the door while the others go in and look for him, and it might be a good idea if one of us rode around the inn so he doesn’t get away over the corral walls.”

“That’s what we’ll do,” responded one of the travelers.

And two of them went inside, one stayed at the door, and another rode around the inn; the innkeeper saw all of this and could not imagine why they were taking so many precautions, although he certainly knew they were looking for the boy they had described to him.

By now day had dawned, and because of this, as well as the noise that Don Quixote had made, everyone was awake and out of bed, especially Doña Clara and Dorotea, who had slept very badly that night, one filled with excitement at having her lover so close by, the other with a desire to see him. Don Quixote, who saw that none of the four travelers paid attention to him or responded to his demand, raged and fumed with indignation and fury, and if he had discovered in his laws of chivalry that a knight errant could legitimately take up and embark upon another adventure, having given his word and pledge not to do so until he had completed the one he had promised to undertake, he would have attacked all of them and forced them to respond whether they wished to or not; but since he did not think it correct to begin a new adventure until he had restored Micomicona to her kingdom, he had no choice but to remain silent, saying nothing and waiting to see the outcome of the travelers’ efforts; one of them found the lad they were seeking as he slept beside a muledriver’s boy, little thinking that anyone was looking for him, let alone that anyone would find him, and seizing the boy by the arm, the man said:

“No doubt, Señor Don Luis, these clothes complement your rank, and this bed in which I find you corresponds to the luxury in which your mother reared you.”

The boy tried to rub the sleep out of his eyes and looked for a long moment at the man holding him before he realized that he was one of his father’s servants, and this so startled him that he could not say a word for some time, and the servant continued to speak, saying:

“Now, Señor Don Luis, you have no choice but to be patient and return home, unless you wish to see your father and my master in the next world, which is all that can be expected, considering the grief your absence has caused him.”

“But how did my father know,” said Don Luis, “that I was on this road and wearing these clothes?”