Chapter XX. Of the never-seen, never-heard-of adventure that was brought to an end with less danger than any famous knight in the world ever ended one, as the valiant Don Quixote of La Mancha ended it

“It can’t be otherwise, sir, but that this grass is a sign that somewhere close by there must be a spring or a brook that keeps it watered; and so it would be a good thing for us to go on a little farther, for we’ll soon come on a place where we can ease this terrible thirst that’s wearing us out, which beyond a doubt is worse to bear than hunger.”

The advice seemed good to Don Quixote, and, he leading Rocinante by the rein and Sancho his ass by the halter, after he had loaded onto him the leftovers from the supper, they began to make their way up the meadow by feel, for the darkness of the night did not let them see a thing; but they had not gone two hundred paces when a great noise of water reached their ears, as of water plunging down from some great and lofty crags. The noise cheered them greatly, and, stopping to listen for which side it came from, they suddenly heard another din that watered down their joy at the water, especially Sancho’s, for he was by nature fearful and faint of heart. I say that they heard blows struck in measure, with a certain clanking of irons and chains, which, joined to the furious roar of the water, would have put dread into any heart that was not Don Quixote’s. The night, as has been said, was dark, and they happened to have come in among some tall trees whose leaves, stirred by the gentle wind, made a soft and fearful sound; so that the solitude, the place, the darkness, the noise of the water with the whispering of the leaves, all of it caused horror and dread, and all the more when they saw that the blows did not stop, nor did the wind sleep, nor did the morning come; and on top of all this was their not knowing where they were. But Don Quixote, with his dauntless heart for company, leaped onto Rocinante, and, slipping his buckler onto his arm, he brought his long lance across his body and said: “Sancho, my friend, you must know that I was born, by the will of heaven, in this our age of iron to revive in it the age of gold, or the golden age, as it is commonly called. I am he for whom are reserved the perils, the great exploits, the valiant deeds. I am, I say again, he who is to revive the Knights of the Round Table, the Twelve Peers of France, and the Nine Worthies, and he who is to cast into oblivion the Platirs, the Tablantes, Olivantes, and Tirantes, the Phoebuses and the Belianíses, with the whole troop of the famous knights-errant of times past, by performing in this age in which I find myself such great and wondrous feats and deeds of arms as shall darken the brightest that ever they wrought. You mark well, faithful and loyal squire, the gloom of this night, its strange silence, the dull and confused roar of these trees, the fearful noise of that water we came in search of, which seems to plunge and hurl itself down from the high Mountains of the Moon, and that ceaseless pounding which wounds and pains our ears; all of which things, taken together and each one by itself, are enough to strike fear, dread, and terror into the breast of Mars himself, how much more into one who is not used to such happenings and adventures. Well, all this that I paint for you is a spur and a wakening to my courage, which already makes my heart burst in my breast with the desire it has to undertake this adventure, however hard it may show itself. And so tighten Rocinante’s girths a little, and God be with you, and wait for me here three days and no more; and if in that time I do not return, you may go back to our village, and from there, as a favor and a kindness to me, you will go to El Toboso, where you will tell my incomparable lady Dulcinea that her captive knight died attempting things that might make him worthy to be called hers.”

When Sancho heard his master’s words, he began to weep with the greatest tenderness in the world and to say to him:

“Sir, I don’t know why your grace wants to take on this so fearful adventure: it’s night now, nobody sees us here, we can easily turn off the road and get out of the way of danger, even if we don’t drink for three days; and, since there’s nobody to see us, there’ll be still less anybody to brand us cowards; besides, I’ve heard the priest of our village, whom your grace knows well, preach that he who goes looking for danger perishes in it; so it isn’t right to tempt God by taking on so outrageous a deed, where there’s no getting out except by a miracle; and the ones heaven has worked for your grace already are enough, in saving you from being tossed in a blanket, the way I was, and in bringing you out the winner, free and sound, from among all those enemies who were keeping the dead man company. And, if all this doesn’t move or soften that hard heart, let it be moved by thinking and believing that your grace will hardly have gone away from here before I, out of fear, give up my soul to whoever wants to take it. I left my home and my wife and children to come and serve your grace, thinking to be the better for it and not the worse; but, as greed bursts the sack, it has torn my hopes for me, for just when they were liveliest of getting that black, ill-starred isle your grace has promised me so many times, I see that, in payment and exchange for it, you want to leave me now in a place so far from human company. For the one God’s sake, my master, let not such a foul wrong be done me; and if your grace won’t give up taking on this deed altogether, put it off at least till morning, for, by what the science I learned when I was a shepherd shows me, there can’t be three hours from now till dawn, because the mouth of the Horn, the little stars of the Bear, is right over our heads, and midnight is in the line of the left arm.”

“How can you see, Sancho,” said Don Quixote, “where that line falls, or where that mouth or that nape is that you talk of, when the night is so dark that not a single star shows in the whole sky?”

“That’s so,” said Sancho, “but fear has many eyes and sees things under the ground, let alone up in the sky; though, by good reasoning, it can very well be understood that there’s not much from here to daylight.”

“Be it as long as it may,” answered Don Quixote, “for it shall not be said of me, now or at any time, that tears and pleas turned me from doing what I owed to the custom of knighthood; and so I beg you, Sancho, to be quiet; for God, who has put it into my heart to undertake now this so unseen and so fearful adventure, will take care to watch over my safety and to console your sadness. What you must do is tighten Rocinante’s girths well and stay here, for I shall be back soon, alive or dead.”

Sancho, then, seeing his master’s final resolve and how little his tears, counsels, and pleas availed with him, decided to make use of his own cunning and make him wait until daylight, if he could; and so, while he was tightening the horse’s girths, neatly and without being noticed, he tied both of Rocinante’s hind feet together with his ass’s halter, so that when Don Quixote tried to set out he could not, because the horse could only move by hops. Sancho Panza, seeing how well his trick had worked, said:

“There you are, sir: heaven, moved by my tears and prayers, has ordained that Rocinante can’t move; and if you want to persist, and spur, and beat him, it’ll be to anger fortune and kick, as they say, against the goad.”

At this Don Quixote was beside himself, and the more he put his legs to the horse, the less he could move him; and, without realizing that he was tied, he thought it best to calm himself and wait, either for dawn to come or for Rocinante to stir, believing beyond a doubt that this came from some other cause than Sancho’s cunning; and so he said to him:

“Since it is so, Sancho, that Rocinante cannot move, I am content to wait until the dawn smiles, though I weep for as long as she is in coming.” “There’s no need to weep,” answered Sancho, “for I’ll entertain your grace by telling stories from now till daylight, unless your grace would like to get down and take a little sleep on the green grass, as knights-errant do, so you’ll be fresher when the day comes and the moment to take on this so unexampled adventure that awaits you.”

“What do you mean by dismounting, or by sleeping?” said Don Quixote. “Am I, by any chance, one of those knights who take their rest in the midst of dangers? Sleep yourself, for you were born to sleep, or do what you will, for I shall do whatever I see best fits with my purpose.”

“Don’t be angry, your grace, sir,” answered Sancho, “I didn’t mean it that way.”

And, coming close to him, he put one hand on the front saddlebow and the other on the back, so that he stood hugging his master’s left thigh, without daring to stir a finger’s breadth from him: such was the fear he had of the blows, which still went on sounding in turn. Don Quixote told him to tell some story to entertain him, as he had promised, to which Sancho said that he would, if the dread of what he was hearing would let him.

“But, for all that, I’ll make an effort to tell a story that, if I manage to tell it right and nobody stops me, is the best of stories; and pay attention, your grace, for I’m beginning now. Once upon a time there was what there was, and may the good that comes be for all, and the bad for whoever goes looking for it… And take note, your grace, sir, that the beginning the ancients gave their fables wasn’t just any old thing, for it was a saying of Cato Zonzorino, the Roman, which goes: ‘And the bad for whoever goes looking for it,’ which comes in here like a ring on your finger, so that your grace will stay quiet and not go looking for the bad anywhere, but we’ll go back by another road, since nobody is forcing us to keep to this one, where so many fears jump out at us.”

“Go on with your story, Sancho,” said Don Quixote, “and leave the road we are to take to me.”

“I say, then,” Sancho went on, “that in a village of Estremadura there was a goat-shepherd (I mean that he kept goats), which shepherd or goat-shepherd, as I say, of my story, went by the name of Lope Ruiz; and this Lope Ruiz was sweet on a shepherdess by the name of Torralba, which shepherdess by the name of Torralba was the daughter of a rich cattleman, and this rich cattleman…” “If you tell your story that way, Sancho,” said Don Quixote, “saying everything twice over, you will not finish in two days; tell it straight through and tell it like a man of sense, or else say nothing.”

“The way I tell it,” answered Sancho, “is the way all fables are told in my part of the country, and I don’t know how to tell it any other way, and it isn’t right for your grace to ask me to make up new customs.”

“Tell it as you like,” answered Don Quixote, “for, since fate will have it that I cannot help listening to you, go on.”

“So, my master of my soul,” Sancho went on, “as I’ve said already, this shepherd was in love with Torralba the shepherdess, who was a plump girl, standoffish, and a bit on the mannish side, because she had a bit of a mustache; I can almost see her now.”

“Then you knew her?” said Don Quixote.

“I didn’t know her,” answered Sancho, “but the one who told me this story told me it was so certain and true that I could very well, when I told it to anybody else, swear and affirm that I had seen it all. So, as days came and days went, the devil, who never sleeps and who muddles everything, worked things so that the love the shepherd had for the shepherdess turned into a grudge and ill will; and the cause was, according to wicked tongues, a certain quantity of little jealousies she gave him, such that they went past the line and into forbidden ground; and the shepherd came to loathe her so much from then on that, so as not to see her, he made up his mind to leave that part of the country and go where his eyes would never see her again. Torralba, finding herself scorned by Lope, at once began to love him, more than she had ever loved him before.”

“That is the natural condition of women,” said Don Quixote: “to scorn those who love them and love those who loathe them. Go on, Sancho.” “It happened,” said Sancho, “that the shepherd put his resolve into action, and, driving his goats before him, he set off across the plains of Estremadura to cross over into the kingdoms of Portugal. Torralba, who got wind of it, went after him, and followed him from far off, on foot and barefoot, a pilgrim’s staff in her hand and saddlebags hung round her neck, in which she carried, so the story goes, a broken bit of looking glass and a broken bit of comb, and I don’t know what little jar of face paint; but, carry what she might, for I don’t want to go into finding that out now, I’ll only say that they say the shepherd came with his flock to cross the river Guadiana, and at that season it was swollen and almost over its banks, and at the spot where he came to it there was neither ferry nor boat, nor anybody to take him or his flock across to the other side, which troubled him greatly, because he saw that Torralba was already coming very close and would give him a great deal of grief with her pleas and tears; but he went on looking about so long that he saw a fisherman who had a boat beside him, so small that only one person and one goat could fit in it; and, for all that, he spoke to him and arranged with him to take himself and the three hundred goats he had with him across. The fisherman got into the boat, and took one goat across; he came back, and took another across; he came back again, and again took another across. Your grace must keep track of how many goats the fisherman takes over, because if a single one slips out of your memory, the story will be over and it won’t be possible to tell another word of it. I go on, then, and say that the landing place on the other side was full of mud and slippery, and the fisherman took a long time going and coming. For all that, he came back for another goat, and another, and another…”

“Take it that he has carried them all across,” said Don Quixote. “Do not go on coming and going that way, or you will not finish carrying them across in a year.”

“How many have gone across so far?” said Sancho.

“How the devil should I know?” answered Don Quixote.

“There, that’s what I said: that you should keep good count. Well, by God, the story’s over, there’s no going on with it.”

“How can that be?” answered Don Quixote. “Is it so much of the essence of the story to know exactly how many goats have gone across that if one is missed from the count you cannot go on with the tale?”

“No, sir, not at all,” answered Sancho, “but, just as I asked your grace to tell me how many goats had gone across and you answered that you didn’t know, at that very moment everything I had left to say went out of my memory, and on my faith it was very good and very pleasing.”

“So,” said Don Quixote, “the story is finished now?”

“As finished as my mother,” said Sancho.

“I tell you truly,” answered Don Quixote, “that you have told one of the most novel fables, tales, or stories that anyone in the world could ever have thought of; and such a way of telling it, or of leaving off, will never be seen, nor has it ever been seen, in all one’s life, though I expected nothing else from your good sense; but I do not marvel at it, for perhaps these blows, which do not stop, must have your understanding in a muddle.”

“All that may be,” answered Sancho, “but I know that as for my story there’s no more to say: it ends right where the mistake begins in counting the goats that go across.”

“Let it end where it will, and welcome,” said Don Quixote, “and let us see whether Rocinante can move.”

He put his legs to him again, and the horse once more hopped and then stood still: so well was he tied.

At this point, it seems, whether it was the cold of the morning, which was now coming on, or that Sancho had eaten something laxative for supper, or that it was a thing of nature—which is what is most to be believed—the desire and the will came over him to do what no one else could do for him; but the fear that had got into his heart was so great that he did not dare move from his master by so much as the black of a fingernail. And to think of not doing what he had a mind to was not possible either; and so what he did, for the sake of peace, was to let go with his right hand, which he had on the back saddlebow, and with it, neatly and without any noise, he undid the slipknot that held up his breeches, without the help of any other, and when he took it off they dropped down at once and hung on him like fetters. After this he lifted his shirt as best he could and put both his buttocks, which were not very small, out into the air. This done—which he thought was the most he had to do to get out of that terrible fix and anguish—another, greater one came upon him, which was that it seemed to him he could not relieve himself without making a din and a noise, and he began to clench his teeth and hunch his shoulders, holding in his breath as much as he could; but, for all these efforts, he was so unlucky that in the end, in the very end, he came to make a little noise, quite different from the one that was frightening him so. Don Quixote heard it and said: “What sound is that, Sancho?”

“I don’t know, sir,” he answered. “It must be some new thing, for adventures and misadventures never begin small.”

He tried his luck again, and it went so well for him that, with no more noise or commotion than before, he found himself free of the load that had given him so much trouble. But since Don Quixote’s smelling was as keen as his hearing, and Sancho was so close and so stitched to him that the vapors rose up almost in a straight line, it could not be helped that some of them should reach his nose; and no sooner had they reached it than he went to its rescue, pinching it between two fingers; and in a somewhat nasal tone he said:

“It seems to me, Sancho, that you are very much afraid.”

“I am,” answered Sancho, “but what makes your grace notice it now more than ever?”

“That now more than ever you smell, and not of ambergris,” answered Don Quixote. “That may well be,” said Sancho, “but it isn’t my fault, it’s your grace’s, for bringing me at such hours and through these unaccustomed ways.” “Move off three or four paces, my friend,” said Don Quixote (all this without taking his fingers from his nose), “and from now on take more care with your person and with what you owe to mine; for all this conversation I have with you has bred this contempt.”

“I’ll wager,” replied Sancho, “that your grace thinks I’ve done something with my person that I shouldn’t have.”

“Stirring it only makes it worse, Sancho, my friend,” answered Don Quixote.

In these and other such colloquies master and man passed the night. But Sancho, seeing that morning was coming on apace, very warily untied Rocinante and tied up his breeches. When Rocinante found himself free, though he was not at all spirited by nature, it seems he felt it, and he began to paw the ground; for curvets—begging his pardon—he did not know how to make. Don Quixote, then, seeing that Rocinante was moving now, took it as a good sign, and believed it was a sign that he should undertake that fearful adventure.

By this time dawn had fully broken and things could be seen distinctly, and Don Quixote saw that he was among some tall trees, which were chestnuts, and they cast a very dark shade. He perceived too that the pounding did not stop, but he did not see what could be causing it; and so, without delaying any longer, he made Rocinante feel the spurs, and, taking leave of Sancho once again, he ordered him to wait for him there three days at the most, as he had told him once before; and if at the end of them he had not come back, he was to take it as certain that it had pleased God that his days should end in that perilous adventure. He went over again the message and embassy he was to carry on his behalf to his lady Dulcinea, and told him that as to payment for his services he need not worry, for he had made his will before he left his village, in which he would find himself recompensed for everything touching his wages, in proportion to the time he had served; but if God brought him out of that danger safe and sound and unscathed, he could take the promised isle as more than certain.

Sancho began to weep again, hearing again the piteous words of his good master, and resolved not to leave him until the last passage and end of that business.

From these tears and so honorable a resolve of Sancho Panza’s, the author of this history concludes that he must have been wellborn, and an Old Christian at the least. His feeling touched his master somewhat, but not so much that he showed any weakness; rather, hiding it as best he could, he began to ride toward the place from which the noise of the water and of the pounding seemed to him to come.

Sancho followed him on foot, leading by the halter, as was his custom, his donkey, the constant companion of his good and bad fortunes; and, after they had gone a good way among those chestnuts and shady trees, they came out on a little meadow that lay at the foot of some high cliffs, from which a very great rush of water came plunging down. At the foot of the cliffs stood some badly built houses, which looked more like the ruins of buildings than houses, and they noticed that from among them came the noise and din of that pounding, which still did not stop.

Rocinante took fright at the din of the water and the blows, and Don Quixote, calming him, went on drawing near the houses little by little, commending himself with all his heart to his lady, begging her to favor him in that fearful venture and enterprise, and along the way he commended himself to God as well, that He should not forget him. Sancho did not leave his side, stretching out his neck and his gaze as far as he could between Rocinante’s legs, to see if he could now see what kept him in such suspense and fear. They must have gone another hundred paces when, on turning a corner, there appeared, plain and open to view, the very cause, and no other could there be, of that horrisonous and, for them, dreadful noise that had kept them in such suspense and fear all night. And it was—if you will not take it ill and be vexed, O reader!—six hammers of a fulling mill, the kind that beat woolen cloth, which with their alternating strokes made all that din.

When Don Quixote saw what it was, he fell dumb and was struck stiff from head to foot. Sancho looked at him and saw that he had his head bowed on his chest, with every sign of being put to shame. Don Quixote also looked at Sancho, and saw that his cheeks were puffed out and his mouth full of laughter, with clear signs that he was about to burst with it, and his melancholy could not so prevail over him that, at the sight of Sancho, he could keep from laughing himself; and when Sancho saw that his master had begun, he let go in such a way that he had to press his sides with his fists so as not to burst with laughing. Four times he calmed down, and as many times he went back to his laughter with the same force as at first; at which Don Quixote was by now sending himself to the devil, and all the more when he heard him say, as if by way of mockery:

“‘You must know, O Sancho my friend, that I was born, by the will of heaven, in this our age of iron to revive in it the golden one, or the age of gold. I am he for whom are reserved the perils, the exploits great, the valiant deeds…’”

And on he went in this way, repeating all or most of the words Don Quixote had spoken the first time they heard the fearful blows.

Don Quixote, then, seeing that Sancho was making fun of him, was so mortified and angered that he raised his long lance and dealt him two blows, such that, if he had taken them on his head as he took them on his back, his master would have been free of paying him his wages, unless it were to his heirs. Sancho, seeing that his jests were turning out so badly in earnest, and fearing that his master might go further with them, said to him very humbly:

“Calm yourself, your grace, for, by God, I’m only joking.”

“Well, because you are joking, I am not,” answered Don Quixote. “Come here, my merry sir: do you think that, if these had been some other perilous adventure instead of fulling hammers, I would not have shown the courage that was needed to undertake it and carry it through? Am I obliged, by any chance, being, as I am, a knight, to know and distinguish sounds and tell which are fulling mills and which are not? Besides, it might be, as is the truth, that I have never seen them in my life, as you must have seen them, being the base peasant you are, bred and born among them. If not, you make these six hammers turn into six giants, and set them at my beard one by one or all together, and if I do not lay every one of them flat on his back, then make whatever sport of me you please.”

“No more of it, sir,” replied Sancho, “for I confess I’ve been a bit too merry. But tell me, your grace, now that we’re at peace (and may God bring you out of all the adventures that come your way as safe and sound as He has brought you out of this one), hasn’t it been a thing to laugh at, and isn’t it one to tell, the great fear we’ve had? At least the fear I had; for as for your grace, I know by now you don’t know it, nor know what fear or fright is.” “I do not deny,” answered Don Quixote, “that what has happened to us is a thing worth laughing at, but it is not worth telling; for not all people are so sensible that they know how to put things in their proper place.”

“At least,” answered Sancho, “your grace knew how to put your long lance in its proper place, aiming at my head and hitting me on the back, thanks to God and to the care I took to dodge to one side. But let it go, for it’ll all come out in the wash; for I’ve heard it said, ‘He loves you well who makes you cry’; and besides, great lords, after a harsh word to a servant, are in the habit of giving him a pair of hose right away; though I don’t know what they usually give him after giving him a beating, unless it is that knights-errant give isles, or kingdoms on the mainland, after beatings.”

“The dice might so fall,” said Don Quixote, “that all you say would come true; and forgive what is past, for you are sensible and know that first impulses are not in a man’s control; and be warned from now on of one thing, so that you hold back and restrain yourself from talking too much with me; for in all the books of chivalry I have read, which are numberless, I have never found that any squire talked as much with his master as you do with yours. And in truth I hold it a great fault, yours and mine: yours, in that you hold me in little esteem; mine, in that I do not make myself held in more. Why, Gandalín, squire to Amadís of Gaul, was made count of the Firm Isle; and we read of him that he always spoke to his master cap in hand, his head bowed and his body bent more turquesco (in the Turkish fashion). Then what shall we say of Gasabal, squire to Don Galaor, who was so silent that, to show us the excellence of his marvelous silence, his name is named only once in all that history, as great as it is true? From all I have said you must infer, Sancho, that it is needful to make a difference between master and man, between lord and servant, and between knight and squire. So from this day forward we must treat each other with more respect, without teasing, because, in whatever way I may grow angry with you, Master Squire, it is bound to go ill with the pitcher. The favors and benefits I have promised you will come in their time; and if they do not come, the wages at least shall not be lost, as I have told you already.”

“Everything your grace says is well,” said Sancho, “but I’d like to know, in case the time for favors doesn’t come and it’s necessary to fall back on the wages, how much a knight-errant’s squire earned in those days, and whether they were hired by the month or by the day, like bricklayers’ laborers.”

“I do not believe,” answered Don Quixote, “that such squires were ever on wages, but on favor. And if I have now named you a wage in the sealed will I left at my house, it was for what might happen; for I do not yet know how chivalry will fare in these so calamitous times of ours, and I would not have my soul suffer in the other world for small things. For I would have you know, Sancho, that in this world there is no state more perilous than that of adventurers.”

“That’s the truth,” said Sancho, “when nothing but the racket of some fulling-mill hammers could stir up and unsettle the heart of so valiant an errant adventurer as your grace. But you can be quite sure that from now on I won’t unseal my lips to make jokes about your grace’s affairs, unless it’s to honor you, as my master and natural lord.” “If you do so,” replied Don Quixote, “you shall live long upon the face of the earth; for, after our parents, our masters are to be respected as though they were our parents.”