Chapter XLVI. Of the dreadful fright of bells and cats that Don Quixote received in the course of the enamored Altisidora’s love

We left the great Don Quixote wrapped in the thoughts that the music of the enamored damsel Altisidora had stirred up in him. He went to bed with them, and, as if they were fleas, they would not let him sleep or rest for a moment, and to them were added the stitches missing from his stockings; but since time is swift, and there is no ravine that can hold it back, it went galloping on the back of the hours, and very quickly the hour of morning arrived. Seeing which, Don Quixote left the soft feathers, and, not at all slothful, put on his chamois-colored suit and pulled on his traveling boots, to hide the misfortune of his stockings; he threw his scarlet mantle over himself and put on his head a cap of green velvet trimmed with silver braid; he hung the baldric with his good, keen-cutting sword from his shoulders, took up a great rosary that he always carried with him, and with great pomp and swagger went out into the antechamber, where the duke and duchess were already dressed and as if waiting for him; and, as he passed along a gallery, Altisidora and the other damsel, her friend, were waiting for him on purpose, and, as soon as Altisidora saw Don Quixote, she pretended to faint, and her friend caught her in her lap and very quickly set about unlacing her bodice. Don Quixote, seeing this, went up to them and said:

“I know very well what these fits come from.”

“I don’t know what from,” answered the friend, “because Altisidora is the healthiest damsel in this whole house, and I’ve never heard so much as an ‘oh’ from her in all the time I’ve known her, and bad luck to all the knights-errant there are in the world, if they are all so ungrateful. Go away, your grace, Señor Don Quixote, for this poor girl won’t come to herself as long as your grace is here.”

To which Don Quixote answered:

“Let your grace, my lady, have a lute put in my room tonight, and I will console this wounded damsel as best I can; for at the beginnings of love, prompt disillusionment is usually a proven remedy.”

And with this he left, so as not to be noticed by those who might see him there. He had hardly moved away when the fainting Altisidora, coming to herself, said to her companion:

“We’ll have to give him the lute, for no doubt Don Quixote means to give us some music, and it won’t be bad, being his.”

They went at once to report to the duchess what was going on and the lute Don Quixote was asking for, and she, delighted beyond measure, arranged with the duke and her damsels to play a jest on him that would be more laughable than harmful, and they waited very contentedly for the night, which came on as quickly as the day had come, a day the duke and duchess spent in delightful conversation with Don Quixote. And that day the duchess really and truly dispatched a page of hers, the one who had played the enchanted figure of Dulcinea in the wood, to Teresa Panza, with the letter from her husband Sancho Panza and with the bundle of clothes he had left to be sent to her, charging him to bring back a good account of everything that passed with her.

This done, and eleven o’clock at night having come, Don Quixote found a guitar in his room; he tuned it, opened the grating, and sensed that there were people walking in the garden; and, having run his fingers over the frets and brought the strings into tune as best he could, he spat and cleared his throat, and then, in a voice a little hoarse though true to pitch, he sang the following ballad, which he had composed himself that day:

“Mighty forces of Love are wont
to knock souls clean off their hinges,
and the tool they take in hand
is a careless idleness.
Sewing and embroidering,
and a maid’s being always busy,
are the antidote, as a rule,
to the poison of love’s longings.
For the damsels kept at home
who aspire to be married,
modesty is all their dowry
and the voice that sings their praises.
Knights who go a-wandering,
and the gallants of the court,
whisper sweet words to the free ones
but they marry the chaste.
There are loves of the rising east,
struck up among guests at inns,
that soon reach their western setting,
for they end with the leave-taking.
Love that is but newly come,
here today, tomorrow going,
does not leave its images
deeply printed on the soul.
Painting laid on painting
neither shows nor leaves its mark;
and where there is a first beauty
the second takes no trick.
Dulcinea del Toboso
on the blank slate of my soul
I have painted in such fashion
that she never can be erased.
Constancy in those who love
is the part most highly prized,
for its sake Love works his wonders,
and he lifts them high as well.”

Don Quixote had got this far in his song, to which the duke and duchess, Altisidora, and almost all the people of the castle were listening, when suddenly, from a gallery that fell straight down above Don Quixote’s grating, they let down a cord on which more than a hundred cowbells were strung, and then, after them, emptied out a great sackful of cats, which also had smaller bells tied to their tails. So great was the din of the bells and the yowling of the cats that, although the duke and duchess had been the inventors of the jest, it still startled them; and Don Quixote, frightened, stood stunned. And luck would have it that two or three cats got in through the grating of his room, and, as they dashed from one side to the other, it seemed as if a region of devils were loose in it. The cats put out the candles that were burning in the room and went about looking for a way out. The letting down and hauling up of the cord with the big bells never stopped; most of the people of the castle, who did not know the truth of the matter, were left in suspense and amazement.

Don Quixote rose to his feet, and, setting hand to his sword, began to make thrusts through the grating and to shout at the top of his voice:

“Away, malignant enchanters! Away, ye sorcerous rabble, for I am Don Quixote of La Mancha, against whom your wicked intentions avail naught and have no force!”

And, turning on the cats that were running about the room, he slashed at them many times; they made for the grating and got out that way, though one of them, finding itself so harried by Don Quixote’s slashes, sprang at his face and seized him by the nose with claws and teeth, at the pain of which Don Quixote began to let out the loudest yells he could. Hearing this, the duke and duchess, and guessing what it might be, ran very quickly to his room, and, opening it with a master key, saw the poor knight struggling with all his strength to tear the cat off his face. They came in with lights and saw the unequal fight; the duke hurried to part it, and Don Quixote cried out:

“Let no one take him off me! Leave me hand to hand with this demon, with this sorcerer, with this enchanter, for I will make him understand, between me and him, who Don Quixote of La Mancha is!”

But the cat, paying no heed to these threats, snarled and held on tight. In the end, though, the duke pulled it loose and threw it out through the grating.

Don Quixote was left with his face riddled like a sieve and his nose not very sound, though he was greatly vexed because they had not let him finish the battle he had so hotly joined with that miscreant enchanter. They had oil of Aparicio, the famous wound salve, brought, and Altisidora herself, with her whitest of hands, put some bandages on all the wounded places; and, as she put them on, she said to him in a low voice:

“All these mishaps befall you, hard-hearted knight, for the sin of your hardness and obstinacy; and please God your squire Sancho forgets to whip himself, so that this beloved Dulcinea of yours may never come out of her enchantment, and you may never enjoy her or come to the marriage bed with her, at least while I live, for I adore you.”

To all this Don Quixote answered not a word but gave a deep sigh, and then he stretched out on his bed, thanking the duke and duchess for the favor, not because he had any fear of that catty, enchanting, cowbelled rabble, but because he had recognized the good intention with which they had come to help him. The duke and duchess let him rest and went away, sorry for the bad outcome of the jest; for they had not thought that this adventure would turn out so heavy and costly for Don Quixote, since it cost him five days of being shut in and in bed, where another adventure befell him more delightful than the last, which his historian does not wish to tell now, so as to attend to Sancho Panza, who was going about his government very busily and very amusingly.