Don Quixote

F THE SHREWD DISCOURSE WHICH SANCHO HELD WITH HIS MASTER, AND OF THE
ADVENTURE THAT BEFELL HIM WITH A DEAD BODY, TOGETHER WITH OTHER NOTABLE
OCCURRENCES

“It seems to me, señor, that all these mishaps that have befallen us of
late have been without any doubt a punishment for the offence committed
by your worship against the order of chivalry in not keeping the oath
you made not to eat bread off a tablecloth or embrace the queen, and
all the rest of it that your worship swore to observe until you had
taken that helmet of Malandrino’s, or whatever the Moor is called, for
I do not very well remember.”

“Thou art very right, Sancho,” said Don Quixote, “but to tell the
truth, it had escaped my memory; and likewise thou mayest rely upon it
that the affair of the blanket happened to thee because of thy fault in
not reminding me of it in time; but I will make amends, for there are
ways of compounding for everything in the order of chivalry.”

“Why! have I taken an oath of some sort, then?” said Sancho.

“It makes no matter that thou hast not taken an oath,” said Don
Quixote; “suffice it that I see thou art not quite clear of complicity;
and whether or no, it will not be ill done to provide ourselves with a
remedy.”

“In that case,” said Sancho, “mind that your worship does not forget
this as you did the oath; perhaps the phantoms may take it into their
heads to amuse themselves once more with me; or even with your worship
if they see you so obstinate.”

While engaged in this and other talk, night overtook them on the road
before they had reached or discovered any place of shelter; and what
made it still worse was that they were dying of hunger, for with the
loss of the alforjas they had lost their entire larder and
commissariat; and to complete the misfortune they met with an adventure
which without any invention had really the appearance of one. It so
happened that the night closed in somewhat darkly, but for all that
they pushed on, Sancho feeling sure that as the road was the king’s
highway they might reasonably expect to find some inn within a league
or two. Going along, then, in this way, the night dark, the squire
hungry, the master sharp-set, they saw coming towards them on the road
they were travelling a great number of lights which looked exactly like
stars in motion. Sancho was taken aback at the sight of them, nor did
Don Quixote altogether relish them: the one pulled up his ass by the
halter, the other his hack by the bridle, and they stood still,
watching anxiously to see what all this would turn out to be, and found
that the lights were approaching them, and the nearer they came the
greater they seemed, at which spectacle Sancho began to shake like a
man dosed with mercury, and Don Quixote’s hair stood on end; he,
however, plucking up spirit a little, said:

“This, no doubt, Sancho, will be a most mighty and perilous adventure,
in which it will be needful for me to put forth all my valour and
resolution.”

“Unlucky me!” answered Sancho; “if this adventure happens to be one of
phantoms, as I am beginning to think it is, where shall I find the ribs
to bear it?”

“Be they phantoms ever so much,” said Don Quixote, “I will not permit
them to touch a thread of thy garments; for if they played tricks with
thee the time before, it was because I was unable to leap the walls of
the yard; but now we are on a wide plain, where I shall be able to
wield my sword as I please.”

“And if they enchant and cripple you as they did the last time,” said
Sancho, “what difference will it make being on the open plain or not?”

“For all that,” replied Don Quixote, “I entreat thee, Sancho, to keep a
good heart, for experience will tell thee what mine is.”

“I will, please God,” answered Sancho, and the two retiring to one side
of the road set themselves to observe closely what all these moving
lights might be; and very soon afterwards they made out some twenty
encamisados, all on horseback, with lighted torches in their hands, the
awe-inspiring aspect of whom completely extinguished the courage of
Sancho, who began to chatter with his teeth like one in the cold fit of
an ague; and his heart sank and his teeth chattered still more when
they perceived distinctly that behind them there came a litter covered
over with black and followed by six more mounted figures in mourning
down to the very feet of their mules—for they could perceive plainly
they were not horses by the easy pace at which they went. And as the
encamisados came along they muttered to themselves in a low plaintive
tone. This strange spectacle at such an hour and in such a solitary
place was quite enough to strike terror into Sancho’s heart, and even
into his master’s; and (save in Don Quixote’s case) did so, for all
Sancho’s resolution had now broken down. It was just the opposite with
his master, whose imagination immediately conjured up all this to him
vividly as one of the adventures of his books.

He took it into his head that the litter was a bier on which was borne
some sorely wounded or slain knight, to avenge whom was a task reserved
for him alone; and without any further reasoning he laid his lance in
rest, fixed himself firmly in his saddle, and with gallant spirit and
bearing took up his position in the middle of the road where the
encamisados must of necessity pass; and as soon as he saw them near at
hand he raised his voice and said:

“Halt, knights, or whosoever ye may be, and render me account of who ye
are, whence ye come, where ye go, what it is ye carry upon that bier,
for, to judge by appearances, either ye have done some wrong or some
wrong has been done to you, and it is fitting and necessary that I
should know, either that I may chastise you for the evil ye have done,
or else that I may avenge you for the injury that has been inflicted
upon you.”

“We are in haste,” answered one of the encamisados, “and the inn is far
off, and we cannot stop to render you such an account as you demand;”
and spurring his mule he moved on.

Don Quixote was mightily provoked by this answer, and seizing the mule
by the bridle he said, “Halt, and be more mannerly, and render an
account of what I have asked of you; else, take my defiance to combat,
all of you.”

The mule was shy, and was so frightened at her bridle being seized that
rearing up she flung her rider to the ground over her haunches. An
attendant who was on foot, seeing the encamisado fall, began to abuse
Don Quixote, who now moved to anger, without any more ado, laying his
lance in rest charged one of the men in mourning and brought him badly
wounded to the ground, and as he wheeled round upon the others the
agility with which he attacked and routed them was a sight to see, for
it seemed just as if wings had that instant grown upon Rocinante, so
lightly and proudly did he bear himself. The encamisados were all timid
folk and unarmed, so they speedily made their escape from the fray and
set off at a run across the plain with their lighted torches, looking
exactly like maskers running on some gala or festival night. The
mourners, too, enveloped and swathed in their skirts and gowns, were
unable to bestir themselves, and so with entire safety to himself Don
Quixote belaboured them all and drove them off against their will, for
they all thought it was no man but a devil from hell come to carry away
the dead body they had in the litter.

Sancho beheld all this in astonishment at the intrepidity of his lord,
and said to himself, “Clearly this master of mine is as bold and
valiant as he says he is.”

A burning torch lay on the ground near the first man whom the mule had
thrown, by the light of which Don Quixote perceived him, and coming up
to him he presented the point of the lance to his face, calling on him
to yield himself prisoner, or else he would kill him; to which the
prostrate man replied, “I am prisoner enough as it is; I cannot stir,
for one of my legs is broken: I entreat you, if you be a Christian
gentleman, not to kill me, which will be committing grave sacrilege,
for I am a licentiate and I hold first orders.”

“Then what the devil brought you here, being a churchman?” said Don
Quixote.

“What, señor?” said the other. “My bad luck.”

“Then still worse awaits you,” said Don Quixote, “if you do not satisfy
me as to all I asked you at first.”

“You shall be soon satisfied,” said the licentiate; “you must know,
then, that though just now I said I was a licentiate, I am only a
bachelor, and my name is Alonzo Lopez; I am a native of Alcobendas, I
come from the city of Baeza with eleven others, priests, the same who
fled with the torches, and we are going to the city of Segovia
accompanying a dead body which is in that litter, and is that of a
gentleman who died in Baeza, where he was interred; and now, as I said,
we are taking his bones to their burial-place, which is in Segovia,
where he was born.”

“And who killed him?” asked Don Quixote.

“God, by means of a malignant fever that took him,” answered the
bachelor.

“In that case,” said Don Quixote, “the Lord has relieved me of the task
of avenging his death had any other slain him; but, he who slew him
having slain him, there is nothing for it but to be silent, and shrug
one’s shoulders; I should do the same were he to slay myself; and I
would have your reverence know that I am a knight of La Mancha, Don
Quixote by name, and it is my business and calling to roam the world
righting wrongs and redressing injuries.”

“I do not know how that about righting wrongs can be,” said the
bachelor, “for from straight you have made me crooked, leaving me with
a broken leg that will never see itself straight again all the days of
its life; and the injury you have redressed in my case has been to
leave me injured in such a way that I shall remain injured for ever;
and the height of misadventure it was to fall in with you who go in
search of adventures.”

“Things do not all happen in the same way,” answered Don Quixote; “it
all came, Sir Bachelor Alonzo Lopez, of your going, as you did, by
night, dressed in those surplices, with lighted torches, praying,
covered with mourning, so that naturally you looked like something evil
and of the other world; and so I could not avoid doing my duty in
attacking you, and I should have attacked you even had I known
positively that you were the very devils of hell, for such I certainly
believed and took you to be.”

“As my fate has so willed it,” said the bachelor, “I entreat you, sir
knight-errant, whose errand has been such an evil one for me, to help
me to get from under this mule that holds one of my legs caught between
the stirrup and the saddle.”

“I would have talked on till to-morrow,” said Don Quixote; “how long
were you going to wait before telling me of your distress?”

He at once called to Sancho, who, however, had no mind to come, as he
was just then engaged in unloading a sumpter mule, well laden with
provender, which these worthy gentlemen had brought with them. Sancho
made a bag of his coat, and, getting together as much as he could, and
as the bag would hold, he loaded his beast, and then hastened to obey
his master’s call, and helped him to remove the bachelor from under the
mule; then putting him on her back he gave him the torch, and Don
Quixote bade him follow the track of his companions, and beg pardon of
them on his part for the wrong which he could not help doing them.

And said Sancho, “If by chance these gentlemen should want to know who
was the hero that served them so, your worship may tell them that he is
the famous Don Quixote of La Mancha, otherwise called the Knight of the
Rueful Countenance.”

The bachelor then took his departure.

I forgot to mention that before he did so he said to Don Quixote,
“Remember that you stand excommunicated for having laid violent hands
on a holy thing, juxta illud, si quis, suadente diabolo.”

“I do not understand that Latin,” answered Don Quixote, “but I know
well I did not lay hands, only this pike; besides, I did not think I
was committing an assault upon priests or things of the Church, which,
like a Catholic and faithful Christian as I am, I respect and revere,
but upon phantoms and spectres of the other world; but even so, I
remember how it fared with Cid Ruy Diaz when he broke the chair of the
ambassador of that king before his Holiness the Pope, who
excommunicated him for the same; and yet the good Roderick of Vivar
bore himself that day like a very noble and valiant knight.”

On hearing this the bachelor took his departure, as has been said,
without making any reply; and Don Quixote asked Sancho what had induced
him to call him the “Knight of the Rueful Countenance” more then than
at any other time.

“I will tell you,” answered Sancho; “it was because I have been looking
at you for some time by the light of the torch held by that
unfortunate, and verily your worship has got of late the most
ill-favoured countenance I ever saw: it must be either owing to the
fatigue of this combat, or else to the want of teeth and grinders.”

“It is not that,” replied Don Quixote, “but because the sage whose duty
it will be to write the history of my achievements must have thought it
proper that I should take some distinctive name as all knights of yore
did; one being ‘He of the Burning Sword,’ another ‘He of the Unicorn,’
this one ‘He of the Damsels,’ that ‘He of the Phœnix,’ another ‘The
Knight of the Griffin,’ and another ‘He of the Death,’ and by these
names and designations they were known all the world round; and so I
say that the sage aforesaid must have put it into your mouth and mind
just now to call me ‘The Knight of the Rueful Countenance,’ as I intend
to call myself from this day forward; and that the said name may fit me
better, I mean, when the opportunity offers, to have a very rueful
countenance painted on my shield.”

“There is no occasion, señor, for wasting time or money on making that
countenance,” said Sancho; “for all that need be done is for your
worship to show your own, face to face, to those who look at you, and
without anything more, either image or shield, they will call you ‘Him
of the Rueful Countenance’ and believe me I am telling you the truth,
for I assure you, señor (and in good part be it said), hunger and the
loss of your grinders have given you such an ill-favoured face that, as
I say, the rueful picture may be very well spared.”

Don Quixote laughed at Sancho’s pleasantry; nevertheless he resolved to
call himself by that name, and have his shield or buckler painted as he
had devised.

Don Quixote would have looked to see whether the body in the litter
were bones or not, but Sancho would not have it, saying:

“Señor, you have ended this perilous adventure more safely for yourself
than any of those I have seen: perhaps these people, though beaten and
routed, may bethink themselves that it is a single man that has beaten
them, and feeling sore and ashamed of it may take heart and come in
search of us and give us trouble enough. The ass is in proper trim, the
mountains are near at hand, hunger presses, we have nothing more to do
but make good our retreat, and, as the saying is, the dead to the grave
and the living to the loaf.”

And driving his ass before him he begged his master to follow, who,
feeling that Sancho was right, did so without replying; and after
proceeding some little distance between two hills they found themselves
in a wide and retired valley, where they alighted, and Sancho unloaded
his beast, and stretched upon the green grass, with hunger for sauce,
they breakfasted, dined, lunched, and supped all at once, satisfying
their appetites with more than one store of cold meat which the dead
man’s clerical gentlemen (who seldom put themselves on short allowance)
had brought with them on their sumpter mule. But another piece of
ill-luck befell them, which Sancho held the worst of all, and that was
that they had no wine to drink, nor even water to moisten their lips;
and as thirst tormented them, Sancho, observing that the meadow where
they were was full of green and tender grass, said what will be told in
the following chapter.