Chapter LXXII. Of how Don Quixote and Sancho reached their village

All that day, waiting for night, Don Quixote and Sancho stayed in that village and tavern: the one so as to finish the round of his discipline in the open country, and the other to see the end of it, on which the end of his desire depended. Meanwhile a traveler on horseback came to the tavern with three or four servants, one of whom said to the one who seemed to be their master:

“Here, Señor Don Álvaro Tarfe, your grace can take your siesta today: the inn looks clean and cool.”

Hearing this, Don Quixote said to Sancho:

“Look, Sancho: when I leafed through that book of the second part of my history, it seems to me that I came across this name of Don Álvaro Tarfe in passing.”

“That may well be,” answered Sancho. “Let’s let him dismount, and afterward we’ll ask him about it.”

The gentleman got down, and across from Don Quixote’s room the landlady gave him a ground-floor room, decked out with more painted serge cloths like those in Don Quixote’s room. The newly arrived gentleman changed into summer clothes, and, coming out onto the porch of the tavern, which was spacious and cool, where Don Quixote was walking up and down, he asked him:

“And where may your grace be bound, my good sir?”

And Don Quixote answered him:

“To a village close by here, where I was born. And your grace, where are you bound?”

“I, sir,” answered the gentleman, “am going to Granada, which is my homeland.”

“And a good homeland it is!” replied Don Quixote. “But tell me, your grace, of your courtesy, your name, for it seems to me it will matter more to me to know it than I can well say.”

“My name is Don Álvaro Tarfe,” answered the guest.

To which Don Quixote replied:

“Without any doubt I think your grace must be that Don Álvaro Tarfe who goes about printed in the Second Part of Don Quixote of La Mancha, newly printed and brought to the light of the world by a modern author.”

“I am the very man,” answered the gentleman, “and that Don Quixote, the principal subject of that history, was a very great friend of mine, and I was the one who drew him out of his country, or at least persuaded him to come to some jousts that were being held in Zaragoza, where I was going; and truly, truly, I did him many kindnesses, and I kept the executioner from tanning his back for being overbold.”

“And tell me, your grace, Señor Don Álvaro, do I look in any way like this Don Quixote your grace speaks of?”

“No, certainly not,” answered the guest; “in no way at all.”

“And this Don Quixote,” said ours, “did he have with him a squire called Sancho Panza?”

“Yes, he did,” answered Don Álvaro; “and though he was reputed very droll, I never once heard a droll thing out of him that was worth anything.”

“That I can well believe,” said Sancho at this point, “because saying droll things isn’t for everybody, and this Sancho your grace speaks of, my good sir, must be some enormous rogue, a dullard and a thief all at once, for the real Sancho Panza is me, and I’ve more drolleries than raindrops; and if not, let your grace try the experiment and follow me about for a year at least, and you’ll see them dropping from me at every step, and such and so many that, without my knowing most of the time what I’m saying, I make everybody who listens to me laugh; and the true Don Quixote of La Mancha, the famous, the valiant, and the sensible, the lover, the righter of wrongs, the guardian of wards and orphans, the shield of widows, the killer of damsels, the one who has for his only lady the peerless Dulcinea del Toboso, is this gentleman here present, who is my master; any other Don Quixote at all and any other Sancho Panza is a sham and a thing of dreams.”

“By God, I believe it!” answered Don Álvaro. “Because you have said more drolleries, friend, in four words you have spoken than the other Sancho Panza in all the times I heard him speak, which were many. He had more of the glutton than of the good talker, and more of the fool than of the wit, and I hold it beyond doubt that the enchanters who persecute Don Quixote the good have wished to persecute me with Don Quixote the bad. But I do not know what to say; for I would dare to swear that I left him shut up in the Nuncio’s asylum in Toledo, for them to cure him, and now another Don Quixote turns up here, though very different from mine.”

“I,” said Don Quixote, “do not know whether I am good, but I can say that I am not the bad one; in proof of which I would have your grace know, my lord Don Álvaro Tarfe, that in all the days of my life I have never been in Zaragoza; rather, because I had been told that this phantom Don Quixote had been present at the jousts of that city, I would not go into it, so as to show up his lie before the face of the world; and so I went straight on to Barcelona, the archive of courtesy, the lodging of strangers, the hospital of the poor, the homeland of the brave, the avenger of the wronged, and the welcome exchange of firm friendships, and, in its setting and its beauty, without equal. And though the things that befell me there are not of much pleasure, but of much sorrow, I bear them without sorrow, just for having seen it. In short, Señor Don Álvaro Tarfe, I am Don Quixote of La Mancha, the very one fame tells of, and not that wretch who has tried to usurp my name and honor himself with my thoughts. I beg your grace, by what you owe to being a gentleman, to be pleased to declare before the mayor of this village that your grace has never in all the days of your life seen me until now, and that I am not the Don Quixote printed in the second part, nor is this Sancho Panza my squire the one your grace knew.”

“That I will do very willingly,” answered Don Álvaro, “though it causes amazement to see two Don Quixotes and two Sanchos at one and the same time, as alike in their names as they are different in their actions; and I say again and affirm that I have not seen what I have seen, nor has what happened to me happened.”

“No doubt,” said Sancho, “your grace must be enchanted, like my lady Dulcinea del Toboso, and would to heaven your grace’s disenchantment depended on my giving myself another three thousand and some lashes, as I’m giving myself for her, for I’d give them to myself without any interest at all.”

“I do not understand this about lashes,” said Don Álvaro.

And Sancho answered him that it was a long story, but that he would tell it to him if by chance they were going the same way.

At this the dinner hour came; Don Quixote and Don Álvaro dined together. The mayor of the town happened to come into the tavern with a notary, and before this mayor Don Quixote requested, by a petition, that, as it was in the interest of his right, Don Álvaro Tarfe, that gentleman there present, should declare before his worship that he did not know Don Quixote of La Mancha, likewise there present, and that this was not the one going about in print in a history whose title was Second Part of Don Quixote of La Mancha, composed by one Avellaneda, a native of Tordesillas. In the end the mayor proceeded in due legal form; the declaration was made with all the force such declarations were required to have in such cases, at which Don Quixote and Sancho were left very happy, as if such a declaration mattered greatly to them and as if the gap between the two Don Quixotes and the two Sanchos were not plainly shown by their works and words. Many courtesies and offers passed between Don Álvaro and Don Quixote, in which the great Manchegan showed his good sense, so that he undeceived Don Álvaro Tarfe of the error he was in; who came to believe he must be enchanted, since he was touching with his own hand two such contrary Don Quixotes.

Evening came, and they left that village, and about half a league on two different roads parted, the one leading to Don Quixote’s village and the other the one Don Álvaro was to take. In this short space Don Quixote told him of the misfortune of his defeat and of Dulcinea’s enchantment and its remedy, all of which filled Don Álvaro with fresh amazement; and he, embracing Don Quixote and Sancho, went on his way, and Don Quixote on his, and he spent that night among other trees, to give Sancho the chance to fulfill his penance, which he fulfilled in the same way as the night before, at the cost of the beeches’ bark, much more than of his back, which he spared so well that the lashes could not have brushed off a fly, had he had one on it.

Not a single stroke of the count escaped the deceived Don Quixote, and he found that with those of the night before they came to 3,029. It seems the sun had risen early to see the sacrifice, and by its light they went on again with their journey, discussing between the two of them Don Álvaro’s mistake and how well advised it had been to take his declaration before the law, and in such authentic form.

That day and that night they traveled without anything worth telling happening to them, unless it was that in the night Sancho finished his task, at which Don Quixote was beyond measure pleased, and he waited for the day, to see whether on the road he might come across his lady Dulcinea already disenchanted; and, going on his way, he met no woman whom he did not go up to see whether she was Dulcinea del Toboso, holding it for infallible that Merlin’s promises could not lie.

With these thoughts and desires they climbed a slope, from which they caught sight of their village; and Sancho, on seeing it, fell on his knees and said:

“Open your eyes, longed-for homeland, and see that Sancho Panza, your son, is coming back to you, if not very rich, very well whipped. Open your arms and receive your son Don Quixote too, who, if he comes vanquished by another man’s arms, comes victor over himself; which, as he has told me, is the greatest victory that can be wished for. I bring money, for if they gave me a good whipping, I rode out on it like a fine gentleman.”

“Leave off these follies,” said Don Quixote, “and let us go in with the right foot into our village, where we will give free rein to our imaginings and to the plan for the pastoral life we mean to follow.”

With this they went down the slope and on to their village.