Don Quixote

OF THE SECOND SALLY OF OUR WORTHY KNIGHT DON QUIXOTE OF LA MANCHA
At this instant Don Quixote began shouting out, “Here, here, valiant
knights! here is need for you to put forth the might of your strong
arms, for they of the Court are gaining the mastery in the tourney!”
Called away by this noise and outcry, they proceeded no farther with
the scrutiny of the remaining books, and so it is thought that “The
Carolea,” “The Lion of Spain,” and “The Deeds of the Emperor,” written
by Don Luis de Ávila, went to the fire unseen and unheard; for no doubt
they were among those that remained, and perhaps if the curate had seen
them they would not have undergone so severe a sentence.

When they reached Don Quixote he was already out of bed, and was still
shouting and raving, and slashing and cutting all round, as wide awake
as if he had never slept.

They closed with him and by force got him back to bed, and when he had
become a little calm, addressing the curate, he said to him, “Of a
truth, Señor Archbishop Turpin, it is a great disgrace for us who call
ourselves the Twelve Peers, so carelessly to allow the knights of the
Court to gain the victory in this tourney, we the adventurers having
carried off the honour on the three former days.”

“Hush, gossip,” said the curate; “please God, the luck may turn, and
what is lost to-day may be won to-morrow; for the present let your
worship have a care of your health, for it seems to me that you are
over-fatigued, if not badly wounded.”

“Wounded no,” said Don Quixote, “but bruised and battered no doubt, for
that bastard Don Roland has cudgelled me with the trunk of an oak tree,
and all for envy, because he sees that I alone rival him in his
achievements. But I should not call myself Reinaldos of Montalvan did
he not pay me for it in spite of all his enchantments as soon as I rise
from this bed. For the present let them bring me something to eat, for
that, I feel, is what will be more to my purpose, and leave it to me to
avenge myself.”

They did as he wished; they gave him something to eat, and once more he
fell asleep, leaving them marvelling at his madness.

That night the housekeeper burned to ashes all the books that were in
the yard and in the whole house; and some must have been consumed that
deserved preservation in everlasting archives, but their fate and the
laziness of the examiner did not permit it, and so in them was verified
the proverb that the innocent suffer for the guilty.

One of the remedies which the curate and the barber immediately applied
to their friend’s disorder was to wall up and plaster the room where
the books were, so that when he got up he should not find them
(possibly the cause being removed the effect might cease), and they
might say that a magician had carried them off, room and all; and this
was done with all despatch. Two days later Don Quixote got up, and the
first thing he did was to go and look at his books, and not finding the
room where he had left it, he wandered from side to side looking for
it. He came to the place where the door used to be, and tried it with
his hands, and turned and twisted his eyes in every direction without
saying a word; but after a good while he asked his housekeeper
whereabouts was the room that held his books.

The housekeeper, who had been already well instructed in what she was
to answer, said, “What room or what nothing is it that your worship is
looking for? There are neither room nor books in this house now, for
the devil himself has carried all away.”

“It was not the devil,” said the niece, “but a magician who came on a
cloud one night after the day your worship left this, and dismounting
from a serpent that he rode he entered the room, and what he did there
I know not, but after a little while he made off, flying through the
roof, and left the house full of smoke; and when we went to see what he
had done we saw neither book nor room: but we remember very well, the
housekeeper and I, that on leaving, the old villain said in a loud
voice that, for a private grudge he owed the owner of the books and the
room, he had done mischief in that house that would be discovered
by-and-by: he said too that his name was the Sage Muñaton.”

“He must have said Friston,” said Don Quixote.

“I don’t know whether he called himself Friston or Friton,” said the
housekeeper, “I only know that his name ended with ‘ton.’”

“So it does,” said Don Quixote, “and he is a sage magician, a great
enemy of mine, who has a spite against me because he knows by his arts
and lore that in process of time I am to engage in single combat with a
knight whom he befriends and that I am to conquer, and he will be
unable to prevent it; and for this reason he endeavours to do me all
the ill turns that he can; but I promise him it will be hard for him to
oppose or avoid what is decreed by Heaven.”

“Who doubts that?” said the niece; “but, uncle, who mixes you up in
these quarrels? Would it not be better to remain at peace in your own
house instead of roaming the world looking for better bread than ever
came of wheat, never reflecting that many go for wool and come back
shorn?”

“Oh, niece of mine,” replied Don Quixote, “how much astray art thou in
thy reckoning: ere they shear me I shall have plucked away and stripped
off the beards of all who dare to touch only the tip of a hair of
mine.”

The two were unwilling to make any further answer, as they saw that his
anger was kindling.

In short, then, he remained at home fifteen days very quietly without
showing any signs of a desire to take up with his former delusions, and
during this time he held lively discussions with his two gossips, the
curate and the barber, on the point he maintained, that knights-errant
were what the world stood most in need of, and that in him was to be
accomplished the revival of knight-errantry. The curate sometimes
contradicted him, sometimes agreed with him, for if he had not observed
this precaution he would have been unable to bring him to reason.

Meanwhile Don Quixote worked upon a farm labourer, a neighbour of his,
an honest man (if indeed that title can be given to him who is poor),
but with very little wit in his pate. In a word, he so talked him over,
and with such persuasions and promises, that the poor clown made up his
mind to sally forth with him and serve him as esquire. Don Quixote,
among other things, told him he ought to be ready to go with him
gladly, because any moment an adventure might occur that might win an
island in the twinkling of an eye and leave him governor of it. On
these and the like promises Sancho Panza (for so the labourer was
called) left wife and children, and engaged himself as esquire to his
neighbour.
Don Quixote next set about getting some money; and selling one thing
and pawning another, and making a bad bargain in every case, he got
together a fair sum. He provided himself with a buckler, which he
begged as a loan from a friend, and, restoring his battered helmet as
best he could, he warned his squire Sancho of the day and hour he meant
to set out, that he might provide himself with what he thought most
needful. Above all, he charged him to take alforjas with him. The other
said he would, and that he meant to take also a very good ass he had,
as he was not much given to going on foot. About the ass, Don Quixote
hesitated a little, trying whether he could call to mind any
knight-errant taking with him an esquire mounted on ass-back, but no
instance occurred to his memory. For all that, however, he determined
to take him, intending to furnish him with a more honourable mount when
a chance of it presented itself, by appropriating the horse of the
first discourteous knight he encountered. Himself he provided with
shirts and such other things as he could, according to the advice the
host had given him; all which being done, without taking leave, Sancho
Panza of his wife and children, or Don Quixote of his housekeeper and
niece, they sallied forth unseen by anybody from the village one night,
and made such good way in the course of it that by daylight they held
themselves safe from discovery, even should search be made for them.

Sancho rode on his ass like a patriarch, with his alforjas and bota,
and longing to see himself soon governor of the island his master had
promised him. Don Quixote decided upon taking the same route and road
he had taken on his first journey, that over the Campo de Montiel,
which he travelled with less discomfort than on the last occasion, for,
as it was early morning and the rays of the sun fell on them obliquely,
the heat did not distress them.

And now said Sancho Panza to his master, “Your worship will take care,
Señor Knight-errant, not to forget about the island you have promised
me, for be it ever so big I’ll be equal to governing it.”

To which Don Quixote replied, “Thou must know, friend Sancho Panza,
that it was a practice very much in vogue with the knights-errant of
old to make their squires governors of the islands or kingdoms they
won, and I am determined that there shall be no failure on my part in
so liberal a custom; on the contrary, I mean to improve upon it, for
they sometimes, and perhaps most frequently, waited until their squires
were old, and then when they had had enough of service and hard days
and worse nights, they gave them some title or other, of count, or at
the most marquis, of some valley or province more or less; but if thou
livest and I live, it may well be that before six days are over, I may
have won some kingdom that has others dependent upon it, which will be
just the thing to enable thee to be crowned king of one of them. Nor
needst thou count this wonderful, for things and chances fall to the
lot of such knights in ways so unexampled and unexpected that I might
easily give thee even more than I promise thee.”

“In that case,” said Sancho Panza, “if I should become a king by one of
those miracles your worship speaks of, even Juana Gutierrez, my old
woman, would come to be queen and my children infantes.”

“Well, who doubts it?” said Don Quixote.

“I doubt it,” replied Sancho Panza, “because for my part I am persuaded
that though God should shower down kingdoms upon earth, not one of them
would fit the head of Mari Gutierrez. Let me tell you, señor, she is
not worth two maravedis for a queen; countess will fit her better, and
that only with God’s help.”

“Leave it to God, Sancho,” returned Don Quixote, “for he will give her
what suits her best; but do not undervalue thyself so much as to come
to be content with anything less than being governor of a province.”

“I will not, señor,” answered Sancho, “specially as I have a man of
such quality for a master in your worship, who will know how to give me
all that will be suitable for me and that I can bear.”

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