Chapter XLIV. How Sancho Panza was taken to his government, and of the strange adventure that befell Don Quixote in the castle

They say that in the very original of this history one reads that when Cide Hamete got to writing this chapter, his interpreter did not render it as he had written it, which was a kind of grievance the Moor had against himself for having undertaken a history as dry and as narrow as this one of Don Quixote, since it seemed to him that he must always be talking about him and about Sancho, without daring to spread himself into other digressions and episodes of more weight and more entertainment; and he said that to keep the mind, the hand, and the pen forever bound to writing on a single subject and speaking through the mouths of few persons was an unbearable labor, whose fruit did not redound to its author’s credit, and that, to escape this drawback, he had made use in the first part of the device of some novels, such as The Ill-Advised Curiosity and The Captive Captain, which stand somewhat apart from the history, though the others told there are events that befell Don Quixote himself and could not be left unwritten. He also thought, as he says, that many readers, carried away by the attention that Don Quixote’s exploits demand, would not give it to the novels, and would pass over them either in haste or in annoyance, without noticing the grace and art they contain, which would have shown up plainly if they had come out into the light on their own, without leaning on Don Quixote’s madnesses or Sancho’s foolishness. And so in this second part he chose not to insert loose or tacked-on novels, but only some episodes that might seem like them, born of the very events that the truth offers; and even these sparingly, and with only the words needed to set them forth; and since he holds himself in and keeps within the narrow bounds of the narrative, though he has the skill, the sufficiency, and the understanding to treat of the whole universe, he asks that his labor not be scorned, and that he be given praise, not for what he writes, but for what he has refrained from writing.

And then the history goes on, saying that when Don Quixote finished his dinner, on the day he gave Sancho his counsels, that afternoon he gave them to him in writing, so that Sancho might find someone to read them to him; but scarcely had he given them to him when Sancho dropped them and they came into the duke’s hands, and he shared them with the duchess, and the two of them marveled afresh at Don Quixote’s madness and his wit; and so, carrying their jests forward, that afternoon they sent Sancho off with a large retinue to the place that was to be an isle for him.

It happened, then, that the man who had charge of him was a steward of the duke’s, very sensible and very droll—for there can be no drollery where there is no good sense—the same who had played the part of the Countess Trifaldi with the wit already related; and with this, and with being well schooled by his master and mistress in how he was to deal with Sancho, he carried off his plan wonderfully. I say, then, that it happened that as soon as Sancho saw this steward, the steward’s face seemed to him the very face of the Trifaldi, and, turning to his master, he said to him:

“Sir, either the devil is going to carry me off from right here where I stand, on the spot and just as I am, or your grace has got to admit to me that the face of this steward of the duke’s here is the very face of the Sorrowing One.”

Don Quixote looked closely at the steward, and, having looked at him, said to Sancho:

“There is no reason for the devil to carry you off, Sancho, either on the spot or just as you are, for I do not know what you mean; for the face of the Sorrowing One is the steward’s, but that does not make the steward the Sorrowing One; for if he were, it would imply a very great contradiction, and this is no time to make these inquiries, which would be to plunge into tangled labyrinths. Believe me, my friend, we must pray to our Lord in all earnest to deliver us both from wicked sorcerers and wicked enchanters.”

“It’s no joke, sir,” replied Sancho, “but a while ago I heard him talk, and it was just as if the Trifaldi’s voice was ringing in my ears. Well, all right, I’ll keep quiet, but from now on I won’t stop keeping a lookout, to see whether he gives away some other sign that confirms or undoes my suspicion.”

“So you must do, Sancho,” said Don Quixote, “and you will let me know everything you discover in this matter and everything that happens to you in your government.”

At last Sancho set out, accompanied by a great many people, dressed as a man of letters, and over it a very full gown of tawny watered camlet, with a hunting cap of the same, mounted on a mule and riding short-stirruped, and behind him, by the duke’s order, went the gray, in harness and asinine trappings of silk, brand new. Every now and then Sancho turned his head to look at his donkey, and he was so content in his company that he would not have changed places with the Emperor of Germany.

On taking his leave of the duke and duchess he kissed their hands, and received his master’s blessing, which Don Quixote gave him with tears, and Sancho took it with little pouting sobs.

Let good Sancho go, kind reader, in peace and in a good hour, and look forward to two fanegas of laughter, which you will get from learning how he conducted himself in his office; and meanwhile attend to what happened to his master that night; for if it does not make you laugh, at least you will part your lips in an ape’s grin, because Don Quixote’s doings must be celebrated either with wonder or with laughter.

It is told, then, that scarcely had Sancho departed when Don Quixote felt his loneliness; and if it had been possible for him to revoke Sancho’s commission and take the government away from him, he would have done it. The duchess saw his melancholy and asked him why he was sad; for if it was because of Sancho’s absence, there were squires, duennas, and damsels in her house who would serve him entirely to his heart’s content.

“It is true, my lady,” answered Don Quixote, “that I feel Sancho’s absence, but that is not the chief cause that makes me seem to be sad; and of the many offers Your Excellency makes me, I accept and choose only the goodwill with which they are made, and, for the rest, I beg Your Excellency to consent and allow that within my room I alone shall be the one who serves me.”

“Truly, Señor Don Quixote,” said the duchess, “it is not to be so: four of my damsels are to serve you, as lovely as flowers.”

“For me,” answered Don Quixote, “they will not be like flowers, but like thorns that prick my soul. They will no more come into my room, nor anything like them, than they will fly. If your greatness wishes to go on doing me favors I do not deserve, let me deal with myself on my own, and let me serve myself behind my own doors, so that I may set a wall between my desires and my chastity; and I do not wish to lose this custom for the sake of the liberality your highness would show me. And, in short, I will sooner sleep in my clothes than consent to anyone undressing me.”

“No more, no more, Señor Don Quixote,” replied the duchess. “For my part, I say I will give orders that not even a fly shall come into your room, let alone a damsel; I am not the person to spoil the decency of Señor Don Quixote, for from what has shone through to me, the one that stands out most among his many virtues is chastity. Let your grace undress and dress by yourself and in your own way, how and when you like, for there will be no one to stop you, since inside your room you will find the vessels needed by one who sleeps behind a shut door, so that no natural necessity will oblige you to open it. A thousand ages of life to the great Dulcinea del Toboso, and may her name be spread over the whole round of the earth, since she deserved to be loved by so valiant and so chaste a knight; and may the kindly heavens pour into the heart of Sancho Panza, our governor, a wish to finish his lashes soon, so that the world may once more enjoy the beauty of so great a lady.”

To which Don Quixote said:

“Your loftiness has spoken like the lady you are, for in the mouths of good ladies there must be none that is bad; and Dulcinea will be more fortunate and better known in the world for having been praised by your greatness than for all the praises the most eloquent on earth could give her.”

“Well, now, Señor Don Quixote,” replied the duchess, “suppertime is coming on, and the duke must be waiting: come, your grace, and let us have supper, and you will go to bed early, for the journey you made yesterday from Candaya was not so short that it will not have left you somewhat sore.”

“I feel none at all, my lady,” answered Don Quixote, “for I would dare swear to Your Excellency that never in my life have I ridden a steadier beast or one of better pace than Clavileño; and I cannot think what could have moved Malambruno to get rid of so swift and so gallant a mount and burn him up like that, for no reason at all.”

“As to that, one may imagine,” answered the duchess, “that, repenting of the harm he had done the Trifaldi and company, and other people, and of the wickedness he must have committed as a sorcerer and enchanter, he wanted to make an end of all the tools of his trade, and burned Clavileño as the chief of them and the one that kept him most unsettled, roaming from land to land; and with his burned ashes and with the trophy of the placard, the valor of the great Don Quixote of La Mancha remains eternal.”

Once again Don Quixote gave the duchess fresh thanks, and, after supper, he withdrew to his room alone, without consenting to let anyone come in with him to serve him, so afraid was he of meeting with occasions that might move or force him to lose the chaste decorum he kept for his lady Dulcinea, always holding in his imagination the virtue of Amadís, flower and mirror of knights-errant. He closed the door after him and undressed by the light of two wax candles, and as he pulled off his stockings—O misfortune unworthy of such a person!—there escaped from him, not sighs, nor anything else that might discredit the cleanliness of his refinement, but some two dozen stitches in one stocking, which was left looking like a lattice. The good gentleman was distressed beyond measure, and he would have given an ounce of silver to have a dram of green silk at hand; green, I say, because the stockings were green.

Here Benengeli exclaimed, and, writing, said, “O poverty, poverty! I do not know what reason moved that great poet of Córdoba to call you

“holy gift unthanked!

“I, though a Moor, know very well, from my dealings with Christians, that holiness lies in charity, humility, faith, obedience, and poverty; and yet, all the same, I say that a man must have much of God in him who comes to be content with being poor, unless it is that kind of poverty of which one of their greatest saints says, ‘Have all things as though you had them not’; and this they call poverty of spirit; but you, the second poverty, the one I am speaking of, why do you choose to dash yourself against hidalgos and the wellborn more than against other people? Why do you force them to daub the cracks in their shoes, and to have the buttons on their doublets some of silk, some of horsehair, and some of glass? Why must their collars, for the most part, always be ruffled like curly endive, and not set open on a mold?” And from this it may be seen how old is the use of starch and of open collars. And he went on: “Wretched the wellborn man who keeps feeding his honor on sips of broth, eating badly and behind closed doors, making a hypocrite of the toothpick he goes out into the street with after eating nothing that obliges him to clean his teeth! Wretched he, I say, whose honor is easily startled, and who thinks that from a league away people can spot the patch on his shoe, the sweat stain on his hat, the threadbare weave of his cape, and the hunger in his stomach!”

All this came back to Don Quixote with the running of his stitches, but he took comfort in seeing that Sancho had left him a pair of traveling boots, which he decided to put on the next day. At last he lay down, thoughtful and heavy-hearted, as much for the lack of Sancho as for the irreparable misfortune of his stockings, which he would have darned even with silk of another color, which is one of the greatest signs of want that an hidalgo can give in the course of his long-drawn-out penury. He put out the candles; it was hot and he could not sleep; he got up from the bed and opened a little the grated window that looked out over a beautiful garden, and, on opening it, he sensed and heard that there were people walking and talking in the garden. He listened closely. Those below raised their voices, so much that he could hear these words:

“Do not press me, O Emerencia, to sing, for you know that from the moment this stranger came into this castle and my eyes looked on him, I do not know how to sing, only how to weep; besides, my lady’s sleep is more light than heavy, and I would not have her find us here for all the treasure in the world. And granting that she slept and did not wake, my song would be in vain if this new Aeneas, who has come to my regions to leave me scorned, sleeps and does not wake to hear it.”

“Do not fret over that, Altisidora my friend,” came the answer, “for no doubt the duchess and everyone in that house are asleep, except the lord of your heart and the awakener of your soul, because just now I heard him opening the grated window of his room, and no doubt he must be awake; sing, my poor wounded one, softly and sweetly to the sound of your harp, and if the duchess hears us, we will put the blame on the heat.”

“That is not the point, O Emerencia,” answered Altisidora, “but rather that I would not want my song to lay bare my heart, and to be judged a flighty and wanton damsel by those who know nothing of the mighty forces of love. But come what may, for better a blush on the face than a stain on the heart.”

And at this he heard a harp being played very softly. Hearing it, Don Quixote was struck with amazement, because in that instant there came to his memory the countless adventures like this one, of windows, gratings, and gardens, music, gallantries, and swoonings, that he had read in those light-headed books of chivalry of his. Then he imagined that one of the duchess’s damsels was in love with him, and that modesty forced her to keep her desire secret; he feared she might conquer him, and resolved in his mind not to let himself be overcome; and, commending himself with all good heart and goodwill to his lady Dulcinea del Toboso, he determined to listen to the music; and, to let it be known that he was there, he gave a feigned sneeze, at which the damsels were not a little pleased, for they wished for nothing else but that Don Quixote should hear them. Once the harp had been run over and tuned, then, Altisidora began this ballad:

“O you who lie there in your bed
between your sheets of Holland linen,
sleeping with your legs stretched out
from the evening to the morning,
knight the bravest and most valiant
that La Mancha ever bred,
chaster and more richly blessed
than the finest gold of Araby!
Listen to a mournful damsel,
fully grown and ill-befallen,
who within the light of your two suns
feels her very soul is burning.
You go seeking your adventures,
and you find another’s sorrows;
you deal the wounds, and you deny
the remedy to heal them.
Tell me, valiant youth, I pray,
and may God prosper all your longings,
were you brought up there in Libya
or among the hills of Jaca;
was it serpents gave you milk;
were your nurses, it may be,
the harshness of the forests
and the horror of the mountains?
Well indeed may Dulcinea,
plump and healthy maid that she is,
boast that she has brought to heel
a tigress and a savage beast.
For this she will be famous
from Henares to Jarama,
from the Tagus to Manzanares,
from Pisuerga to Arlanza.
I would gladly change with her,
and throw in a skirt besides,
one of my most gaily colored,
trimmed all round with bands of gold.
Oh, to find myself in your arms,
or if not, beside your bed,
scratching your head for you
and killing off your dandruff!
I ask much, and am not worthy
of a favor so distinguished:
I would like to rub your feet,
for a humble girl that is enough.
Oh, the caps I’d give you then,
and the slippers made of silver,
and the hose of figured damask,
and the capes of Holland linen!
Oh, the pearls of finest water,
every one as big as oak galls,
which, if they had no companions,
would be called ‘the Only Ones’!
Do not gaze down from your Tarpeia
on this fire that burns me up,
Manchegan Nero of the world,
nor fan it with your fury.
A girl I am, a tender maid,
my age is not past fifteen:
I am fourteen and three months,
I swear by God and by my soul.
I do not hobble, I do not limp,
nor is either hand a cripple’s;
and my hair, just like the lilies,
when I stand, trails on the ground.
And though my mouth is aquiline
and my nose is somewhat flat,
my teeth, which are of topaz,
raise my beauty to the skies.
My voice, you see, if you are listening,
is the equal of the sweetest,
and as for figure, I am
something less than middling.
These and other charms of mine
are the spoils of your quiver;
I’m a damsel of this house,
and Altisidora is my name.”

Here the song of the sore-wounded Altisidora came to an end, and the astonishment of the wooed Don Quixote began; and he, heaving a great sigh, said to himself:

“That I should be so unlucky a knight-errant that there is no damsel who looks at me but falls in love with me…! That the peerless Dulcinea del Toboso should be so short of luck that they will not let her enjoy my incomparable constancy alone…! What would you with her, queens? Why do you pursue her, empresses? Why do you harry her, damsels of fourteen and fifteen years? Leave, leave the poor lady to triumph, rejoice, and glory in the lot that Love chose to give her in surrendering my heart to her and handing over my soul. Mark, ye lovesick throng, that for Dulcinea alone I am of dough and sugar paste, and for all others I am of flint; for her I am honey, and for you aloes; for me Dulcinea alone is the beautiful, the wise, the chaste, the gallant, and the wellborn, and the rest are the ugly, the foolish, the wanton, and the lowest born; to be hers, and no other’s, nature cast me into the world. Let Altisidora weep or sing; let the Madama despair on whose account they cudgeled me in the castle of the enchanted Moor; for I must be Dulcinea’s, boiled or roasted, clean, well-bred, and chaste, in spite of all the sorcerous powers on earth.”

And with this he slammed the window shut, and, vexed and heavy-hearted, as if some great misfortune had befallen him, he lay down on his bed, where we will leave him for now, because the great Sancho Panza is calling us, wishing to make a beginning of his famous government.