Chapter XXXII. Of the reply Don Quixote gave to his censurer, with other grave and amusing events
Don Quixote, then, on his feet now and shaking all over like a man poisoned with quicksilver, said in a hurried and agitated voice:
“The place where I am, and the presence before which I find myself, and the respect I always had and have for the estate your grace professes, hold and bind the hands of my just anger; and so, as much for what I have said as because everyone knows that the weapons of gownsmen are the same as a woman’s, which is to say the tongue, I shall enter with mine into equal battle with your grace, from whom one ought to have expected good counsel rather than vile abuse. Holy and well-meant reproof calls for other circumstances and asks for other occasions: at the very least, to have rebuked me in public and so harshly has gone past all the bounds of proper reproof, for reproof sits better on gentleness than on harshness, and it is not right, without any knowledge of the sin being rebuked, to call the sinner, without more ado, a simpleton and a fool. Or else let your grace tell me: for which of the follies you have seen in me do you condemn and revile me, and bid me go home to see to the running of my house and of my wife and my children, without knowing whether I have any? Is there nothing more to it than barging helter-skelter into other people’s houses to govern their owners, and, after being brought up, some of them, in the narrowness of some boarding school, without having seen more of the world than can be held in a district of twenty or thirty leagues, thrusting oneself in headlong to lay down laws for chivalry and to pass judgment on knights-errant? Is it, perhaps, an idle pursuit, or time ill spent, that is spent in roaming the world, seeking not its comforts but the hardships by which the good climb to the seat of immortality? If knights, if the magnificent, the generous, the high-born took me for a fool, I would hold it an irreparable affront; but that scholars who never entered or trod the paths of chivalry should take me for a dolt, I do not care an ardite: a knight I am, and a knight I shall die, if it please the Most High. Some go by the broad field of proud ambition; others by that of base and servile flattery; others by that of deceitful hypocrisy, and some by that of true religion; but I, led by my star, go by the narrow path of knight-errantry, for the exercise of which I scorn wealth, but not honor. I have redressed grievances, righted wrongs, punished insolence, vanquished giants, and trampled monsters; I am in love, for no other reason than that knights-errant must needs be so; and, being so, I am not one of the vicious lovers but of the chaste Platonic ones. My intentions I always direct toward good ends, which are to do good to all and harm to none; whether he who understands this, he who practices this, he who deals in this deserves to be called a fool, let your greatnesses say, most excellent duke and duchess.”
“Well said, by God!” said Sancho. “Your grace, sir and master of mine, need say no more in your own defense, for there’s no more to say, nor more to think, nor more to stand by in the world. And besides, since this gentleman denies, as he has denied, that there have ever been knights-errant in the world, or are now, what wonder if he doesn’t know any of the things he’s said?”
“Are you, perhaps, brother,” said the churchman, “that Sancho Panza they speak of, to whom your master has promised an isle?”
“I am,” answered Sancho, “and I’m one who deserves it as well as anybody else; I’m one of the ‘keep company with the good and you’ll be one of them,’ and I’m one of those ‘not who you’re born with, but who you graze with,’ and of the ‘lean against a good tree and good shade will cover you.’ I’ve leaned against a good master, and it’s many months now that I’ve been going about in his company, and I’m to be another like him, God willing; and long life to him and long life to me: for he won’t lack empires to rule, nor I isles to govern.”
“No, indeed, Sancho my friend,” said the duke at this point, “for I, in the name of Señor Don Quixote, give you the government of one I happen to have spare, and of no small quality.”
“Down on your knees, Sancho,” said Don Quixote, “and kiss His Excellency’s feet for the favor he has done you.”
Sancho did so; and the churchman, seeing this, got up from the table in a thoroughly bad temper, saying:
“By the habit I wear, I am ready to say that Your Excellency is as much a dolt as these sinners. Look whether they are not bound to be mad, when the sane canonize their madness! Let Your Excellency stay with them; for as long as they are in this house, I shall stay in mine, and spare myself from rebuking what I cannot remedy.”
And, without saying more or eating more, he left, and the entreaties of the duke and duchess were not enough to stop him; though the duke did not say much to him, hindered by the laughter his ill-timed anger had stirred in him. He finished laughing and said to Don Quixote:
“Your grace, Señor Knight of the Lions, has answered for yourself so loftily that nothing remains for you to settle over this, which, though it looks like an offense, is in no way one; for, just as women give no offense, neither do churchmen, as your grace knows better than I.”
“That is so,” answered Don Quixote, “and the reason is that he who cannot be offended cannot offend anyone. Women, children, and churchmen, since they cannot defend themselves even when they are wronged, cannot be affronted; for between an offense and an affront there is this difference, as Your Excellency knows better: an affront comes from one who is able to give it, and gives it, and stands by it; an offense can come from any quarter without affronting. Take an example: a man is standing off his guard in the street, ten armed men come up and set about him with cudgels; he puts his hand to his sword and does his duty, but the great number of his adversaries stands against him and will not let him carry out his purpose, which is to avenge himself; such a man is left offended, but not affronted. And another example will confirm the same thing: a man has his back turned, another comes up and cudgels him, and, having done so, runs off and does not wait, and the first follows him and does not catch him; this one who took the blows took an offense, but not an affront, because an affront has to be stood by. If the one who cudgeled him, though he did it on the sly, had put his hand to his sword and stood his ground, facing his enemy, the beaten man would be left offended and affronted together: offended, because they struck him treacherously; affronted, because the one who struck him stood by what he had done, not turning his back but standing firm where he was. And so, by the laws of the accursed duel, I may be offended, but not affronted; for children do not feel it, nor do women, nor can they flee, nor have they any reason to stand and wait, and the same holds for those ordained in holy religion, because these three kinds of people lack weapons of offense and defense; and so, though they are naturally bound to defend themselves, they are not bound to offend anyone. And, though I said a moment ago that I might be offended, I now say that I am not, in any way, for he who cannot receive an affront can still less give one; for which reasons I neither ought to resent, nor do I resent, the words that good man has said to me; I only wish he had waited a little, so that I could make him understand the error he is in, in thinking and saying that there have not been, and are not, knights-errant in the world; for if Amadís, or one of the countless knights of his line, had heard any such thing, I know it would not have gone well for his worship.”
“That I’ll swear to,” said Sancho. “They’d have given him a slash that opened him from top to bottom like a pomegranate, or like a very ripe melon. A fine lot they were for putting up with that kind of tickling! By my faith, I take it for certain that if Reinaldos of Montalbán had heard those words from the little man, he’d have given him such a gag in the mouth that he wouldn’t have spoken for three years. No, let him tangle with them and see how he’d get out of their hands!”
The duchess was dying of laughter as she heard Sancho talk, and in her own mind she held him to be more amusing and more mad than his master; and there were many at that time who were of the same mind. At last Don Quixote calmed down, and the meal came to an end, and, as the cloth was being drawn, four damsels came in, one with a silver basin, and another with a ewer, likewise of silver, and another with two very white and very rich towels on her shoulder, and the fourth with her arms bare to the elbow, and in her white hands—for no doubt they were white—a round ball of Neapolitan soap. The one with the basin came up, and with a pretty grace and a free manner fitted the basin under Don Quixote’s chin; and he, without a word, amazed at such a ceremony, believing that in that country it must be the usage to wash beards in place of hands, stretched his own out as far as he could, and at that very moment the ewer began to rain, and the damsel with the soap worked up his beard in great haste, raising flakes of snow, for the lather was no less white, not only over his beard but over the whole face and over the eyes of the obedient knight, so much so that they forced him to shut them.
The duke and the duchess, who knew nothing of all this, were waiting to see where so extraordinary a washing would end. The barber damsel, once she had him buried a hand’s breadth in lather, pretended the water had run out and told the one with the ewer to go for more, for Señor Don Quixote would wait. She did so, and Don Quixote was left with the strangest figure, and the fittest to make people laugh, that could be imagined.
All who were present, and there were many, were looking at him, and as they saw him with half a yard of neck, more than moderately swarthy, his eyes closed and his beard all soap, it was a marvel, and a fine piece of discretion, that they could hide their laughter; the damsels of the jest kept their eyes lowered, not daring to look at their master and mistress; and in the lord and lady anger and laughter were jostling inside them, and they did not know which to give way to: whether to punish the girls’ boldness, or to reward them for the pleasure they were getting from seeing Don Quixote in that state.
At last the damsel with the ewer came, and they finished washing Don Quixote, and then the one who carried the towels wiped and dried him very unhurriedly; and, all four together making him a great and deep bow and curtsy, they were about to go; but the duke, so that Don Quixote would not see through the jest, called the damsel with the basin, saying to her:
“Come and wash me, and take care that the water does not run out on you.”
The girl, sharp and quick, came up and put the basin to the duke as she had to Don Quixote, and, making haste, they washed and soaped him very well, and, leaving him dry and clean, they curtsied and went away. It was learned afterward that the duke had sworn that if they did not wash him as they had Don Quixote, he would punish their forwardness, which they had sensibly made good by soaping him too.
Sancho was watching the ceremonies of that washing closely, and he said to himself:
“God help me! Could it be that here in this country they wash the squires’ beards too, the same as the knights’? Because, by God and by my soul, I need it badly, and if they shaved me with a razor, I’d count it an even greater kindness.”
“What are you saying to yourself, Sancho?” asked the duchess.
“I’m saying, my lady,” he answered, “that in the courts of other princes I’ve always heard tell that when the cloth is drawn they give water for the hands, but not lye for the beards; and that that’s why it’s good to live long, so as to see much; though they also say that he who lives a long life must go through much ill, though going through a washing like this is more of a pleasure than a hardship.”
“Do not fret, Sancho my friend,” said the duchess, “for I shall have my damsels wash you, and even put you in the laundry tub if need be.”
“I’ll be content with the beard,” answered Sancho, “for now at least, for as time goes on, God has said what will be.”
“Mark, steward,” said the duchess, “what the good Sancho asks for, and carry out his wishes to the letter.”
The steward answered that Señor Sancho would be served in everything, and with that he went off to eat and took Sancho with him, the duke and duchess and Don Quixote remaining at table, talking of many different things, but all of them touching on the profession of arms and of knight-errantry.
The duchess begged Don Quixote, since he seemed to have a happy memory, to sketch and describe for her the beauty and features of the lady Dulcinea del Toboso; for, from what fame proclaimed of her loveliness, she understood that she must be the most beautiful creature on the globe, and even in all La Mancha. Don Quixote sighed on hearing what the duchess asked of him, and said:
“If I could take out my heart and set it before your greatness’s eyes, here, on this table and on a plate, I would spare my tongue the labor of telling what can scarcely be thought, for Your Excellency would see her wholly portrayed in it; but why should I set about sketching and describing now, point by point and part by part, the beauty of the peerless Dulcinea, it being a burden worthy of other shoulders than mine, an enterprise that should occupy the brushes of Parrhasius, of Timanthes, and of Apelles, and the chisels of Lysippus, to paint and engrave her on panels, in marble, and in bronze, and Ciceronian and Demosthenine rhetoric to praise her?”
“What does Demosthenine mean, Señor Don Quixote,” asked the duchess, “for it is a word I have not heard in all the days of my life?”
“Demosthenine rhetoric,” answered Don Quixote, “is the same as saying the rhetoric of Demosthenes, as Ciceronian is that of Cicero, who were the two greatest rhetoricians in the world.”
“So it is,” said the duke, “and you were rather in the dark to ask such a question. But, for all that, Señor Don Quixote would give us great pleasure if he would paint her for us; for surely, even if it is only in outline and rough sketch, she will come out such that the most beautiful women will envy her.”
“I would certainly do so,” answered Don Quixote, “had she not been wiped from my mind by the misfortune that befell her a short while ago, which is such that I am more fit to weep for her than to describe her; for your greatnesses must know that, going some days ago to kiss her hands and to receive her blessing, approval, and leave for this third sally, I found another than the one I was seeking: I found her under enchantment, turned from a princess into a peasant girl, from beautiful to ugly, from an angel to a devil, from fragrant to pestilent, from well-spoken to rustic, from sedate to skipping, from light to darkness, and, finally, from Dulcinea del Toboso into a peasant wench from Sayago.”
“God save us!” cried the duke at this, in a loud voice. “Who has it been that has done the world such harm? Who has taken from it the beauty that gladdened it, the grace that delighted it, and the modesty that did it credit?”
“Who?” answered Don Quixote. “Who can it be but some malignant enchanter of the many envious ones who persecute me? This accursed race, born into the world to darken and annihilate the exploits of the good, and to bring to light and raise up the deeds of the wicked. Persecuted I have been by enchanters, enchanters persecute me, and enchanters will persecute me until they have sunk me and my lofty chivalries into the deep abyss of oblivion; and they harm and wound me in the very part where they see I feel it most, for to take his lady from a knight-errant is to take from him the eyes he sees with, and the sun that gives him light, and the food that sustains him. Many other times I have said it, and now I say it again: that a knight-errant with no lady is a tree without leaves, a building with no foundation, a shadow with no body to cast it.”
“There is no more to be said,” said the duchess; “but if, for all that, we are to give credit to the history of Señor Don Quixote that came out into the light of the world a few days ago, to the general applause of the public, it may be gathered from it, if I remember rightly, that your grace has never seen the lady Dulcinea, and that this same lady does not exist in the world, but is a fanciful lady whom your grace begot and gave birth to in your own mind, and painted with all the graces and perfections you pleased.”
“There is much to be said on that,” answered Don Quixote. “God knows whether there is a Dulcinea in the world or not, or whether she is fanciful or not fanciful; and these are not among the things whose verification must be carried to the end. I neither begot nor gave birth to my lady, though I contemplate her as befits a lady who contains in herself the qualities that can make her famous in every part of the world, such as: beautiful, without blemish; dignified, without pride; loving, with modesty; grateful, because courteous; courteous, because well-bred; and, finally, high in lineage, because beauty shines and shows itself on good blood with more degrees of perfection than in beautiful women of humble birth.”
“That is so,” said the duke, “but Señor Don Quixote must give me leave to say what I am compelled to say by the history of his exploits that I have read, from which it is to be inferred that, granting that there is a Dulcinea, in El Toboso or outside it, and that she is beautiful in the supreme degree in which your grace paints her for us, in the matter of high lineage she does not run neck and neck with the Orianas, the Alastrajareas, the Madásimas, or others of that stamp, of whom the histories are full, as your grace well knows.”
“To that I can say,” answered Don Quixote, “that Dulcinea is the daughter of her own deeds, and that virtues improve the blood, and that a humble man of virtue is to be esteemed and valued more than a vicious man of high rank; all the more so since Dulcinea has a shred in her that may bring her to be a queen with crown and scepter; for the merit of a beautiful and virtuous woman extends to working greater miracles, and, though not formally, she holds virtually locked within her greater fortunes.”
“I say, Señor Don Quixote,” said the duchess, “that in everything your grace says you go with feet of lead and, as the saying goes, with the sounding line in your hand; and that from now on I shall believe, and make everyone in my house believe, and even the duke my lord if need be, that there is a Dulcinea in El Toboso, and that she is alive today, and beautiful, and nobly born, and deserving that such a knight as Señor Don Quixote should serve her; which is the most I can or know how to say in her praise. But I cannot help forming one scruple, and having some little touch of a grudge against Sancho Panza: the scruple is that the said history says that this same Sancho Panza found this same lady Dulcinea, when he brought her a letter on your grace’s behalf, winnowing a sack of wheat, and, as a further particular, it says it was red wheat: a thing that makes me doubt the loftiness of her lineage.”
To which Don Quixote answered:
“My lady, your greatness must know that all or most of the things that happen to me go beyond the ordinary bounds of those that befall other knights-errant, whether they are directed by the inscrutable will of the fates, or come directed by the malice of some envious enchanter; and, as it is a thing already established that all or most famous knights-errant have, one the gift of being unable to be enchanted, another of having flesh so impenetrable that he cannot be wounded, as was the famous Roldán, one of the Twelve Peers of France, of whom it is told that no wound could reach him save in the sole of his left foot, and that this had to be with the point of a thick pin and not with any other kind of weapon at all; and so, when Bernardo del Carpio killed him at Roncesvalles, seeing that steel could not wound him, he raised him off the ground in his arms and choked him, recalling then the death Hercules gave Anteón, that fierce giant who they said was the son of the Earth. I mean to infer from what I have said that it may be that I have some gift of this kind, not that of being unable to be wounded, for experience has many times shown me that I am of soft flesh and not at all impenetrable, nor that of being unable to be enchanted, for I have already seen myself shut up in a cage, where the whole world would not have been able to shut me if not by force of enchantments; but, since I got free of that one, I am willing to believe that there will be no other that can harm me; and so these enchanters, seeing that they cannot use their wicked arts on my person, take their revenge on the things I love most, and seek to take my life by ill-treating that of Dulcinea, by whom I live; and so I believe that, when my squire carried my message to her, they turned her into a peasant wench busy at so low a task as winnowing wheat; but I have already said that that wheat was neither red wheat nor wheat at all, but grains of Oriental pearls; and as proof of this truth I will tell your magnitudes how, coming through El Toboso a short while ago, I could never find Dulcinea’s palaces; and that, the next day, though Sancho, my squire, had seen her in her own form, which is the most beautiful on the globe, to me she seemed a coarse and ugly peasant girl, and not at all well-spoken, though she is the very wisdom of the world; and since I am not enchanted, nor can be, by any sound reasoning, she is the one enchanted, the one offended, and the one changed, transformed, and transmogrified, and in her my enemies have taken their revenge on me, and for her I shall live in perpetual tears until I see her in her pristine state. All this I have said so that no one will pay heed to what Sancho said about Dulcinea’s sifting or winnowing; for, since they changed her for me, it is no wonder they transformed her for him. Dulcinea is of good family and wellborn, and of the hidalgo lineages there are in El Toboso, which are many, ancient, and very good, it is certain that no small share falls to the peerless Dulcinea, through whom her village will be famous and renowned in the ages to come, as Troy has been for Helen, and Spain for La Cava, though with a better title and fame. On the other hand, I would have your ladyships understand that Sancho Panza is one of the most amusing squires that ever served a knight-errant; he has at times simplicities so sharp that wondering whether he is simple or sharp gives no small pleasure; he has bits of mischief that condemn him as a rogue, and lapses that confirm him as a fool; he doubts everything and believes everything; when I think he is about to plunge headlong over a cliff of foolishness, he comes out with sensible remarks that raise him to the skies. In short, I would not swap him for another squire if they gave me a city to boot; and so I am doubtful whether it would be wise to send him off to the government with which your greatness has favored him; though I do see in him a certain aptitude for this business of governing, so that, with his understanding trimmed a little, he would manage any government as well as the king does his excise taxes; and what is more, we know by much experience that neither much ability nor much learning is needed for a man to be a governor, since there are a hundred around who can scarcely read, and they govern like gerfalcons; the crux lies in their having good intentions and wishing to get everything right; for they will never lack people to advise them and guide them in what they are to do, like the governors who are gentlemen and not lawyers, who give judgment with an assessor. I would advise him to take no bribe and lose no right, and some other little things I have stored in my stomach, which will come out in due time, for Sancho’s benefit and the good of the isle he is to govern.”
The duke, the duchess, and Don Quixote had reached this point in their colloquy when they heard many voices and a great uproar of people in the palace; and suddenly Sancho came into the hall, all in a fright, with a lye-strainer for a bib, and behind him a crowd of lads, or, to put it better, kitchen scullions and other small fry, and one of them was carrying a little trough of water whose color and dirtiness showed it to be dishwater; the one with the trough was following and pursuing him, trying with all diligence to put it and fit it under his beard, and another scullion was making as if to wash it.
“What is this, brothers?” asked the duchess. “What is this? What do you want with this good man? What, do you not consider that he is governor-elect?”
To which the barber scullion answered:
“This gentleman won’t let himself be washed, as is the custom, and as the duke my lord had his washed, and the gentleman his master.”
“Yes, I will,” answered Sancho in a great temper, “only I’d want the towels cleaner, and the lye clearer, and the hands not so dirty; for there isn’t such a difference between me and my master that they should wash him with angel water and me with devil’s lye. The customs of countries and of princes’ palaces are good just so long as they don’t cause grief, but the washing custom they use here is worse than the flagellants’. My beard is clean, and I’ve no need of refreshments of that sort; and whoever comes near to wash me, or to touch a hair of my head, I mean, of my beard, speaking with due respect, I’ll give him such a punch that I’ll leave my fist set in his skull; for ceremonies and soapings of this sort look more like jokes than a welcome for guests.”
The duchess was dying of laughter, seeing Sancho’s anger and hearing his words; but it gave Don Quixote no great pleasure to see him so badly got up, with the mottled towel, and so surrounded by so many kitchen hangers-on; and so, making a deep bow to the duke and duchess, as if asking their leave to speak, he said to the rabble in a calm voice:
“Ho there, gentlemen knights! Let your graces leave the young man alone, and go back the way you came, or some other way if you have a fancy to, for my squire is as clean as anyone, and those little troughs are too tight for him, as tight as narrow-necked jugs. Take my advice and leave him, for neither he nor I know anything about the business of jests.”
Sancho took the words out of his mouth and went on, saying:
“No, just let them come and make fun of the stray, and I’ll stand it as surely as it’s night now! Bring a comb here, or whatever you like, and currycomb this beard of mine, and if you get anything out of it that offends against cleanliness, let them shear me crosswise.”
At this point, still laughing, the duchess said:
“Sancho Panza is right in everything he has said, and will be right in everything he says: he is clean and, as he says, has no need to wash; and if our custom does not please him, his soul in his palm; all the more so since you, ministers of cleanliness, have been far too remiss and careless, and I do not know whether to say impudent, in bringing to such a personage and to such a beard, instead of basins and ewers of pure gold and towels of German linen, little wooden troughs and tubs and sideboard dishcloths. But, in short, you are wicked and lowborn, and cannot help, miscreants that you are, showing the grudge you bear the squires of knights-errant.”
The roguish ministers, and even the steward, who had come with them, believed that the duchess was speaking in earnest; and so they took the lye-strainer off Sancho’s chest, and all of them, confused and almost shamefaced, went off and left him; and he, seeing himself out of what was, as he thought, supreme danger, went and knelt before the duchess and said:
“From great ladies great favors are looked for; this one your grace hath done me today cannot be repaid with less than wishing to see myself dubbed a knight-errant, so as to spend every day of my life serving so high a lady. A farmer I am, Sancho Panza is my name, married I am, children I have, and as a squire I serve: if with any of these things I can serve your greatness, I’ll be quicker to obey than your ladyship to command.”
“It is quite plain, Sancho,” answered the duchess, “that you have learned to be courteous in the school of courtesy itself; it is quite plain, I mean, that you were reared at the breast of Señor Don Quixote, who must be the cream of compliments and the flower of ceremonies, or ceremunies, as you say. Blessings on such a master and such a servant: the one as the lodestar of knight-errantry, and the other as the star of squirely fidelity. Rise, Sancho my friend, for I shall repay your courtesies by having the duke my lord grant you the promised favor of the government as soon as he can.”
With this the talk came to an end, and Don Quixote went to take his siesta, and the duchess asked Sancho, if he had no great wish to sleep, to come and pass the afternoon in a very cool room with her damsels and herself. Sancho answered that, though it was true he was in the habit of sleeping four or five hours in the summer siestas, to serve her goodness he would try with all his might not to sleep a single one that day, and would come obediently at her command, and off he went. The duke gave fresh orders that Don Quixote be treated as a knight-errant, without departing a jot from the style in which they tell the knights of old were treated.