Chapter XXXI. Of the delightful conversations that passed between Don Quixote and Sancho Panza, his squire, with other events
“None of that displeases me; go on,” said Don Quixote. “You arrived, and what was that queen of beauty doing? I’ll wager you found her stringing pearls, or embroidering some device in gold purl for this captive knight of hers.”
“I didn’t find her doing anything,” answered Sancho, “but winnowing two bushels of wheat in a yard of her house.”
“Then you may take it,” said Don Quixote, “that the grains of that wheat were grains of pearl, once her hands had touched them. And did you look, my friend, at the wheat? Was it fine white wheat, or spring wheat?”
“It was nothing but plain red wheat,” answered Sancho.
“Then I assure you,” said Don Quixote, “that, sifted by her hands, it made bread of the finest white flour, beyond any doubt. But go on: when you gave her my letter, did she kiss it? Did she lay it upon her head? Did she perform some ceremony worthy of such a letter, or what did she do?”
“When I was going to give it to her,” answered Sancho, “she was in the full swing of shaking a good lot of wheat she had in the sieve, and she said to me: ‘Put that letter down on that sack there, friend, for I can’t read it until I’ve finished sifting everything here.’”
“A sensible lady!” said Don Quixote. “That must have been so that she could read it at leisure and take her delight in it. Go on, Sancho: and, while she was busy at her task, what discourse did she hold with you? What did she ask you about me? And you, what did you answer her? Come, tell me everything; do not leave the least little thing behind in the inkwell.”
“She didn’t ask me anything,” said Sancho, “but I told her how your grace, in her service, was doing penance, naked from the waist up, shut away in these mountains like a wild man, with the ground for a bed, not eating bread off a tablecloth or combing your beard, weeping and cursing your fortune.”
“In saying that I cursed my fortune you said ill,” said Don Quixote, “for, on the contrary, I bless it and shall bless it every day of my life, for having made me worthy to deserve to love so high a lady as Dulcinea del Toboso.”
“So high she is,” answered Sancho, “that on my faith she stands a good hand taller than I do.”
“Why, Sancho, how is that?” said Don Quixote. “Have you measured yourself against her?” “I measured myself this way,” answered Sancho: “going up to help her put a sack of wheat on a donkey, we came so close together that I could tell she topped me by more than a good long span.”
“Well, and is it not true,” replied Don Quixote, “that she accompanies that tallness and adorns it with a thousand million graces of the soul! But there is one thing, Sancho, you will not deny me: when you came close to her, did you not smell a Sabaean scent, an aromatic fragrance, and a certain something sweet that I cannot manage to put a name to? I mean, a breath or waft as though you were in the shop of some exquisite glover?”
“What I can tell you,” said Sancho, “is that I smelled a faint smell, somewhat on the mannish side; and it must have been that, with all that hard work, she was sweaty and a bit sticky.”
“That would not be it,” answered Don Quixote, “but rather that you must have had a head cold, or must have smelled yourself; for I know well what that rose among thorns smells of, that lily of the field, that liquid amber.”
“It may all be,” answered Sancho, “for that same smell often comes off me that I thought then was coming off her grace the lady Dulcinea; but there’s nothing to wonder at in that, for one devil looks like another.”
“Very well,” Don Quixote went on, “so now she has finished cleaning her wheat and sending it to the mill. What did she do when she read the letter?”
“The letter,” said Sancho, “she didn’t read, because she said she couldn’t read or write; instead she tore it up and made little pieces of it, saying she didn’t want to give it to anyone to read, so that her secrets wouldn’t be known in the village, and that what I had said to her by word of mouth of the love your grace bears her and the extraordinary penance you were doing on her account was enough. And, finally, she told me to tell your grace that she kissed your hands, and that she stayed there with more desire to see you than to write to you; and that, therefore, she begged and commanded you, on sight of these presents, to come out of those thickets and stop doing foolish things, and to set off at once, right away, on the road to El Toboso, unless something else of more importance should come up, because she had a great desire to see your grace. She laughed a lot when I told her how your grace was called the Knight of the Sorry Figure. I asked her whether the Biscayan from that business back then had gone there; she told me yes, and that he was a very decent man. I asked her about the galley slaves too, but she told me she hadn’t seen any of them so far.”
“So far all goes well,” said Don Quixote. “But tell me: what jewel was it she gave you, at your leave-taking, for the news of me you brought her? For it is a long-used and ancient custom among knights-errant and ladies to give the squires, damsels, or dwarfs who bring them news, of their ladies to the knights and of their errant knights to the ladies, some rich jewel as a reward for good tidings, in thanks for their message.”
“That may well be so, and I take it for a good custom; but that must have been in times gone by, for nowadays the custom must be just to give a piece of bread and cheese, since that’s what my lady Dulcinea gave me, over the top of a yard wall, when I took my leave of her; and, to be exact about it, the cheese was sheep’s cheese.”
“She is liberal in the extreme,” said Don Quixote, “and if she did not give you a jewel of gold, no doubt it must have been because she did not have one at hand there to give you; but sleeves are a good gift even after Easter: I shall see her, and everything will be set right. Do you know what I marvel at, Sancho? That it seems to me you went and came back through the air, for you have taken little more than three days to go and come from here to El Toboso, and it is more than thirty leagues from here to there; from which I gather that the sage necromancer who looks after my affairs and is my friend (for of necessity there is one, and there must be one, on pain of my not being a proper knight-errant); I say that this same sage must have helped you on your way without your feeling it; for there are sages of this sort who pick up a knight-errant asleep in his bed, and, though he never knows how or by what means, he wakes the next day more than a thousand leagues from where he lay down at nightfall. And were it not for this, knights-errant could not come to one another’s aid in their perils, as they do at every turn. For it happens that one of them is fighting in the mountains of Armenia with some endriago, or with some fierce monster, or with another knight, where he is getting the worst of the battle and is now at the point of death, and when you least expect it, there appears over there, on top of a cloud or upon a chariot of fire, another knight, a friend of his, who a little before was in England, and he takes his part and delivers him from death, and that night he finds himself back at his lodging, dining very much to his liking; and there are usually two or three thousand leagues from the one place to the other. And all this is done by the skill and wisdom of these sage enchanters who have the care of these valiant knights. So, Sancho, my friend, I find it no hard thing to believe that in so short a time you have gone and come from this place to El Toboso, since, as I have said, some friendly sage must have whisked you along through the air without your feeling it.”
“That must be it,” said Sancho, “because, on my faith, Rocinante went along like a Gypsy’s donkey with quicksilver in his ears.”
“And how could he not have quicksilver in him!” said Don Quixote. “Yes, and a legion of devils besides, for they are folk who travel, and make anything they please travel, without ever tiring. But, setting this aside, what do you think I ought to do now about my lady’s command that I go to see her? For, although I see that I am bound to fulfill her command, I also see myself prevented by the boon I have promised the princess who travels with us, and the law of chivalry compels me to keep my word before I please myself. On the one hand, the desire to see my lady harries and wearies me; on the other, my pledged faith and the glory I am to win in this enterprise urge me and call me on. But what I mean to do is to travel fast and soon reach the place where this giant is, and, once there, I shall cut off his head and put the princess peaceably in possession of her estate, and at once I shall turn back to see the light that illumines my senses, to whom I shall make such excuses that she will come to approve of my delay, for she will see that it all redounds to the increase of her glory and fame, since all that I have won, win, and shall win by arms in this life comes to me wholly from the favor she grants me and from my being hers.”
“Oh,” said Sancho, “how cracked your grace is in the pate! Then tell me, sir: does your grace mean to make this journey for nothing, and to let slip and lose so rich and noble a match as this one, where they give you a kingdom for a dowry, which, in all truth, I’ve heard say is more than twenty thousand leagues around, and is most abundant in all the things needed for the support of human life, and is bigger than Portugal and Castile put together? Be quiet, for the love of God, and be ashamed of what you’ve said, and take my advice, and forgive me, and marry right away in the first place that has a priest; and if not, there’s our licentiate here, who’ll do it beautifully. And mind you, I’m old enough now to give advice, and this advice I’m giving you fits you as if cast in a mold, and a bird in the hand is worth more than a vulture on the wing, because he who has the good and chooses the bad may get as angry as he likes, he’ll get no revenge for it.”
“Look here, Sancho,” answered Don Quixote, “if the advice you give me to marry is so that I may be king at once, as soon as I have killed the giant, and have the means to do you favors and give you what was promised, I would have you know that I can fulfill your wish very easily without marrying, for, before I go into the battle, I shall make it a condition, as something over and above, that if I come out of it the victor, even if I do not marry, they must give me a part of the kingdom, so that I may give it to whomever I please; and, once they give it to me, to whom do you suppose I would give it but to you?”
“That’s clear enough,” answered Sancho, “but mind, your grace, that you choose it near the sea, so that, if I’m not happy living there, I can ship off my Black vassals and do with them what I’ve already said. And your grace shouldn’t bother for now about going to see my lady Dulcinea, but go and kill the giant, and let’s finish this business; for by God it strikes me it’s going to bring great honor and great profit.”
“I tell you, Sancho,” said Don Quixote, “that you are right, and that I shall have to take your advice as to going with the princess before going to see Dulcinea. And I warn you to say nothing to anyone, not even to those who are traveling with us, of what we have discussed and talked over here; for, since Dulcinea is so modest that she does not wish her thoughts to be known, it would not be well for me, or anyone on my behalf, to reveal them.”
“Well, if that’s so,” said Sancho, “how is it that your grace makes everyone you conquer by your arm go and present himself before my lady Dulcinea, when this is as good as signing your name that you love her and are her lover? And since those who go must go down on bended knee in her presence and say they come from your grace to pay her homage, how can the thoughts of the two of you be kept hidden?” “Oh, what a fool you are, and what a simpleton!” said Don Quixote. “Do you not see, Sancho, that all this redounds to her greater exaltation? For you must know that in this our fashion of chivalry it is a great honor for a lady to have many knights-errant who serve her, without their thoughts reaching any further than serving her, for no other reason than that she is who she is, and without their hoping for any other reward for their many good desires than that she be content to accept them as her knights.”
“That’s the kind of love,” said Sancho, “I’ve heard preached that we’re to love our Lord with, for himself alone, without our being moved by hope of glory or fear of punishment. Though I’d rather love and serve him for what he could do for me.” “The devil take you for a peasant,” said Don Quixote, “and what sensible things you say at times! One would think you had studied.”
“Well, on my faith, I can’t even read,” answered Sancho.
At this point Master Nicolás called out to them to wait a little, for they wanted to stop and drink at a small spring that was there. Don Quixote halted, to Sancho’s no small pleasure, for he was tired by now of telling so many lies and was afraid his master might catch him out in his words; because, although he knew that Dulcinea was a farm girl from El Toboso, he had never seen her in his whole life. Meanwhile Cardenio had put on the clothes Dorotea had been wearing when they found her, which, though they were not very good, were a great improvement on the ones he was leaving off. They dismounted beside the spring, and with what the priest had provided himself with at the inn they satisfied, though only a little, the great hunger they all had.
While they were at this, a boy who was on the road happened to pass by there, and, stopping to look very attentively at those who were at the spring, after a little while he rushed at Don Quixote, and, throwing his arms around his legs, began to weep in earnest, saying:
“Oh, my lord! Doesn’t your grace know me? Look at me well, for I’m that lad Andrés your grace took down from the oak tree where I was tied.” Don Quixote recognized him, and, taking him by the hand, turned to those who were there and said:
“So that your graces may see how important it is to have knights-errant in the world, to right the wrongs and grievances done in it by the insolent and wicked men who live in it, know, your graces, that some days ago, as I was passing through a wood, I heard cries and most pitiful voices, as of a person afflicted and in distress; I went at once, led by my duty, toward the place from which the doleful voices seemed to come, and I found tied to an oak this boy who now stands before you (at which I rejoice with all my soul, for he will be a witness who will not let me lie in anything); I say that he was tied to the oak, naked from the waist up, and a peasant, who I later learned was his master, was laying his flesh open with lashes from a mare’s reins; and, as soon as I saw him, I asked him the reason for so atrocious a flogging; the lout answered that he was whipping him because he was his servant, and that certain lapses of his came more from the thief than from the simpleton; at which this child said: ‘Sir, he’s only whipping me because I ask him for my wages.’ The master replied with I know not what harangues and excuses, which, though heard by me, were not accepted. In short, I had him untied, and I took an oath from the peasant that he would take him with him and pay him one real on top of another, and perfumed into the bargain. Is not all this true, Andrés, my son? Did you not mark with what authority I commanded it of him, and with what humility he promised to do all that I enjoined, notified, and willed? Answer; do not be flustered or hesitate in anything: tell these gentlemen what happened, so that it may be seen and considered how profitable it is, as I say, to have knights-errant on the roads.”
“Everything your grace has said is very true,” answered the boy, “but the business ended up just the opposite of what your grace imagines.”
“How, the opposite?” replied Don Quixote. “Then the peasant did not pay you?” “Not only did he not pay me,” answered the boy, “but, as soon as your grace was out of the wood and we were left alone, he tied me again to the same oak and gave me so many fresh lashes that I was left like a flayed Saint Bartholomew; and, with every lash he gave me, he made some joke or jibe making fun of your grace, so that, if I hadn’t been feeling so much pain, I’d have laughed at what he said. In fact, he left me in such a state that I’ve been in a hospital till now, getting cured of the harm the wicked peasant did me then. And your grace is to blame for all of it, because if you had gone on your way and not come where you weren’t called, or meddled in other people’s business, my master would have been satisfied with giving me one or two dozen lashes, and then he would have let me go and paid me all he owed me. But since your grace insulted him so out of all reason and called him so many vile names, his anger flared up, and, since he couldn’t take his revenge on your grace, when he saw himself alone he let the whole storm break over me, so that it seems to me I’ll never be a man again as long as I live.” “The harm lay,” said Don Quixote, “in my going away from there; for I ought not to have gone until I had seen you paid, since I should have known full well, from long experience, that there is no peasant who keeps the word he has given if he sees it does not suit him to keep it. But you remember, Andrés, that I swore that if he did not pay you I would go looking for him, and that I would find him, even if he hid himself in the belly of the whale.”
“That’s the truth,” said Andrés, “but it did no good at all.”
“Now you shall see whether it does any good,” said Don Quixote.
And, saying this, he got up in great haste and ordered Sancho to bridle Rocinante, who was grazing while they ate.
Dorotea asked him what it was he meant to do. He answered that he meant to go and look for the peasant and punish him for such wicked conduct, and to see Andrés paid down to the last maravedí, in spite and despite of every peasant there might be in the world. To which she answered that he should bear in mind that, under the boon he had promised, he could not involve himself in any enterprise until he had finished hers; and that, since he knew this better than anyone else, he should calm his heart until his return from her kingdom.
“That is true,” answered Don Quixote, “and Andrés must have patience until my return, as you, my lady, say; for I swear and promise him again, anew, not to rest until I have seen him avenged and paid.”
“I don’t believe in those oaths,” said Andrés. “I’d rather have something now to get me to Seville than all the revenges in the world: give me something to eat and take with me, if you have it there, and God be with your grace and all knights-errant; and may their errantry turn out as well for themselves as it has for me.”
Sancho took a piece of bread and another of cheese out of his store, and, giving them to the lad, said to him:
“Here, brother Andrés, for a share of your misfortune falls to all of us.” “Why, what share falls to you?” asked Andrés.
“This share of cheese and bread I’m giving you,” answered Sancho, “for God knows whether I’ll miss it or not; because I’d have you know, friend, that we squires of knights-errant are subject to a great deal of hunger and bad luck, and even to other things that are better felt than told.”
Andrés took hold of his bread and cheese, and, seeing that no one was giving him anything else, he bowed his head and took the road in his hands, as the saying goes. It is true that, as he was leaving, he said to Don Quixote:
“For the love of God, sir knight-errant, should you run into me another time, even if you see them cutting me to pieces, don’t come to my rescue or help me, but leave me with my misfortune; for it will never be so great that the one that will come to me from your grace’s help won’t be greater, and may God curse your grace, and every knight-errant that was ever born into the world.”
Don Quixote was about to get up to punish him, but the boy started running in such a way that no one dared go after him. Don Quixote was left thoroughly mortified by Andrés’s tale, and the others had to take great care not to laugh, so as not to mortify him altogether.