Don Quixote [Trans. by Edith Grossman] (89 page)

“That custom, Señor Squire,” responded Sancho, “may be accepted and allowed by the ruffians and fighting men you’ve mentioned, but for the squires of knights errant it doesn’t apply at all. At least, I haven’t heard my master mention that custom, and he knows all the rules of knight errantry by heart. No matter how much I’d like it to be true that there’s a specific rule that squires have to fight when their masters fight, still, I wouldn’t obey it, and I’d pay whatever fine they make peaceable squires pay, and I bet it wouldn’t be more than two pounds of wax,
⁵
and
I’d be happy to pay those pounds, because I know they’ll cost me less than the bandages I’ll need to heal my head: I already count it as split and broken in two. And there’s something else: it’s impossible for me to fight because I don’t have a sword, and I’ve never worn one in my whole life.”

“I know a good remedy for that,” said the Squire of the Wood. “I have two burlap sacks here, and they’re both the same size; you’ll take one and I’ll take the other, and we’ll hit each other with the sacks, and our weapons will be equal.”

“Well then, let’s do it that way,” responded Sancho, “because that kind of fight will dust us off more than it’ll hurt us.”

“No, it won’t be like that,” replied the other man, “because we have to put half a dozen nice smooth stones, all of them the same weight, inside the sacks so they don’t blow away, and then we can hit each other and not do any harm or damage.”

“I swear by my father,” responded Sancho, “just think of all the sable pelts or tufts of carded cotton you’ll have to put in the sacks so our skulls don’t get crushed and our bones ground to dust! But even if you fill them with silk cocoons, let me tell you, Señor, I won’t fight; let our masters fight, and welcome to it, and let us drink and live, for time is bound to take our lives, and we don’t have to go around looking for reasons to end our lives before their time and season, when they’re ripe and ready to fall.”

“Even so,” replied the Squire of the Wood, “we have to fight for at least half an hour.”

“Oh no,” responded Sancho, “I’m not discourteous and ungrateful enough to have a quarrel, even a little one, with a man after eating and drinking with him; especially if there’s no anger and no insult, who the devil could start a fight just like that?”

“For that,” said the Squire of the Wood, “I have just the remedy: before we begin the fight, I’ll just come up to your grace and give you three or four slaps in the face that will knock you down, and that’ll be enough to wake up your anger even if it’s sleeping like a baby.”

“Well, I know another move just as good to match that,” responded Sancho. “I’ll just pick up a stick, and before your grace comes over to wake up my anger, with a few whacks I’ll put yours into a sleep that’ll last into the next world, where they know I’m not a man to let anybody lay hands on my face. Let each man look out for himself, though the best thing would be to let everybody’s anger stay asleep; nobody knows an-
other man’s heart, and many who come for wool go home clipped and shorn, and God blessed peace and cursed fights, because if a cat that’s hunted and locked up and treated badly turns into a lion, then since I’m a man, God knows what I could turn into, and so from now on I’m letting your grace know, Señor Squire, that all the harm and damage that result from our quarrel will be on your head.”

“That’s all right,” replied the Squire of the Wood. “God’s day will dawn and we’ll be fine.”

By this time a thousand different kinds of brightly colored birds began to warble in the trees, and with their varied and joyous songs they seemed to welcome and greet the new dawn, who, through the doors and balconies of the Orient, was revealing the beauty of her face and shaking from her hair an infinite number of liquid pearls whose gentle liquor bathed the plants that seemed, in turn, to send forth buds and rain down tiny white seed pearls; the willows dripped their sweet-tasting manna, the fountains laughed, the streams murmured, the woods rejoiced, and the meadows flourished with her arrival. But as soon as the light of day made it possible to see and distinguish one thing from another, the first thing that appeared before Sancho Panza’s eyes was the nose of the Squire of the Wood, which was so big it almost cast a shadow over the rest of his body. In fact, it is recounted that his nose was outlandishly large, hooked in the middle, covered with warts, and of a purplish color like an eggplant; it came down the width of two fingers past his mouth, and its size, color, warts, and curvature made his face so hideous that when Sancho saw him his feet and hands began to tremble, like a child having seizures, and he decided in his heart to let himself be slapped two hundred times before he would allow his anger to awaken and then fight with that monster.

Don Quixote looked at his opponent and found that his sallet was already lowered, so he could not see his face, but he noticed that his rival was a husky man, though not very tall. Over his armor he wore a kind of long jacket or coat, the cloth apparently made of finest gold, and on it were scattered many small moons of gleaming mirrors, making him look extraordinarily splendid and elegant; waving above his helmet were a large number of green, yellow, and white plumes; his lance, leaning against a tree, was extremely large and thick and plated with more than a span’s length of iron.

Don Quixote looked at everything and noted everything and judged from what he had seen and noted that the aforementioned knight must
be exceptionally strong, but for that reason he was not, like Sancho Panza, afraid; rather, with gallant courage, he said to the Knight of the Mirrors:

“If, Señor Knight, your great desire to fight does not consume your courtesy, I ask you for courtesy’s sake to raise your visor a little so that I may see if the elegance of your face corresponds to that of your accoutrements.”

“Regardless of whether you emerge from this undertaking as the vanquished or the victor, Señor Knight,” responded the Knight of the Mirrors, “you will have more than enough time and opportunity to see me; and if I do not satisfy your desire now, it is because I think I would give notable offense to the beauteous Casildea of Vandalia if I were to delay the length of time it would take me to raise my visor without first obliging you to confess what you already know I desire.”

“Well, as we mount our horses,” said Don Quixote, “you can certainly tell me if I am the same Don Quixote you claim to have defeated.”

“To that we respond,” said the Knight of the Mirrors, “that you resemble the knight I vanquished as much as one egg resembles another; but since you say that enchanters pursue him, I do not dare to state whether you are the aforesaid or not.”

“That is enough,” responded Don Quixote, “for me to believe you were deceived; however, in order to free you entirely from error, let us mount our steeds; in less time than it would take you to raise your visor, if God, my lady, and my arm come to my aid, I shall see your face, and you will see that I am not the vanquished Don Quixote you think I am.”

And with this they cut short their words and mounted their horses, and Don Quixote turned the reins of Rocinante in order to take a position in the field so that he could gallop back and meet his adversary, and the Knight of the Mirrors did the same. But Don Quixote had not gone twenty paces when he heard the Knight of the Mirrors call, and both of them moved off course, and the Knight of the Mirrors said:

“Remember, Señor Knight, that the condition of our combat is that the one vanquished, as I have said before, is subject to the will of the victor.”

“I know that,” responded Don Quixote, “so long as the things the vanquished is commanded and ordered to perform do not go beyond the limits imposed by chivalry.”

“That is understood,” responded the Knight of the Mirrors.

At this moment Don Quixote caught a glimpse of the squire’s strange
nose, and he was no less astounded to see it than Sancho; in fact, he judged him to be some monster or a new kind of man never before seen in the world. Sancho, who saw his master riding off so that he could charge, did not wish to remain alone with the big-nosed man, fearing that a single slap by that nose to his own would be the end of their fight, and he would be knocked to the ground by the blow, or by fright, and so he followed after his master, holding on to a strap hanging from Rocinante’s saddle, and when it seemed to him that it was time to return, he said:

“I beg your grace, Señor, that before you turn to charge you help me climb this cork tree, where I’ll be able to see better than on the ground the brave encounter your grace is going to have with that knight.”

“What I think, Sancho,” said Don Quixote, “is that you want to climb up into the stands so you can watch the bullfight in safety.”

“To tell the truth,” responded Sancho, “the outsize nose of that squire has me so scared and frightened that I don’t dare stay anywhere near him.”

“It is so large,” said Don Quixote, “that if I were not who I am, I would be terrified, too, and so come, I shall help you climb the tree.”

While Don Quixote stopped to help Sancho into the cork tree, the Knight of the Mirrors took as much of the field as he thought necessary, and believing that Don Quixote had done the same, and not waiting for the sound of a trumpet or any other warning, he turned the reins of his horse—who was no faster or better looking than Rocinante—and at his full gallop, which was a medium trot, he rode to encounter his enemy, but seeing him occupied with Sancho’s climb, he checked the reins and stopped in the middle of the charge, for which the horse was extremely grateful, since he could no longer move. Don Quixote, who thought his enemy was already bearing down on him, swiftly dug his spurs into Rocinante’s skinny flanks and goaded him so mercilessly that, the history tells us, this was the only time he was known to have galloped, because on all other occasions he always ran at a pronounced trot, and with this unprecedented fury Rocinante reached the place where the Knight of the Mirrors was digging his spurs all the way into his horse without being able to move him the length of a finger from the spot where he had called a halt to his charge.

At this fortunate time and juncture, Don Quixote found his adversary held back by his horse and hindered by his lance, which he failed to, or did not have a chance to, rest in its socket. Don Quixote, who cared nothing at all for these obstacles, without any risk and with absolutely
no danger, charged the Knight of the Mirrors with so much force that almost without intending to he knocked him to the ground, back over the haunches of the horse, causing him so great a fall that without moving feet or hands, he gave every sign of being dead.

As soon as Sancho saw him fall, he slid down from the cork tree and ran as fast as he could to his master, who, dismounting Rocinante, approached the Knight of the Mirrors and, unlacing his helmet to see if he was dead and, if he were alive, to give him some air…saw…Who can say what he saw without causing amazement, wonder, and fear in his listeners? He saw, says the history, the very face, the very figure, the very appearance, the very physiognomy, the very image, the personification itself of Bachelor Sansón Carrasco, and as soon as he saw him he shouted:

“Come quickly, Sancho, and look at what you will not believe! Hurry, my friend, and see what magic can do, what wizards and enchanters can do!”

Sancho came running, and when he saw the face of Bachelor Carrasco, he began to cross himself a thousand times and to make the sign of the cross a thousand more. During all this time the fallen knight gave no signs of being alive, and Sancho said to Don Quixote:

“It’s my opinion, Señor, that to be on the safe side your grace should kneel down and run your sword into the mouth of this man who seems to be Bachelor Sansón Carrasco, and maybe you’ll kill one of those enemy enchanters inside him.”

“That is not bad advice,” said Don Quixote, “because the fewer your enemies, the better.”

And as he drew his sword to carry out the advice and counsel of Sancho, the Squire of the Mirrors, now without the nose that had made him so hideous, came up to him and shouted:

“Your grace, Señor Don Quixote, think about what you are doing; that man lying at your feet is your friend Bachelor Sansón Carrasco, and I am his squire.”

And Sancho, seeing him free of his earlier ugliness, said:

“What happened to your nose?”

To which he responded:

“I have it here, in my pocket.”

And then he put his hand into his right pocket and pulled out a nose made of pasteboard and varnish, a mask, in the shape that has already been described. And Sancho looked at him more and more closely and said in a loud, surprised voice:

“Mother of God! Can this be Tomé Cecial, my neighbor and compadre?”

“Of course it is,” responded the denosed squire. “I’m Tomé Cecial, Sancho Panza, my friend and compadre, and I’ll tell you later about the secrets and lies and tricks that brought me here; in the meantime, ask and beg your master not to touch, mistreat, wound, or kill the Knight of the Mirrors who is lying at his feet, because beyond any doubt he’s the bold but badly advised Bachelor Sansón Carrasco, our neighbor.”

At this point the Knight of the Mirrors regained consciousness; Don Quixote, seeing this, held the naked tip of his sword over his face and said:

“Knight, thou art dead if thou dost not confess that the peerless Dulcinea of Toboso is more beauteous than thy Casildea of Vandalia; what is more, if thou wisheth to survive this contest and defeat, thou needs must promise to go to the city of Toboso and appear before her on my behalf, so that she may do with thee whatever she willeth; and if she givest thee leave to go, thou must come back and find me, and the trail of my great deeds will serve thee as a guide that will bring thee to me, and thou must tell me all that transpired with her; these conditions, as we agreed before our combat, do not go beyond the bounds of knight errantry.”

“I confess,” said the fallen knight, “that the torn and dirty shoe of Señora Dulcinea of Toboso is worth more than the unkempt but clean beard of Casildea, and I promise to go and return from her presence to yours, and to give you a complete and detailed account of whatever you ask.”