Don Quixote

N WHICH IS CONTINUED THE ADVENTURE OF THE SIERRA MORENA
The history relates that it was with the greatest attention Don Quixote
listened to the ragged knight of the Sierra, who began by saying:

“Of a surety, señor, whoever you are, for I know you not, I thank you
for the proofs of kindness and courtesy you have shown me, and would I
were in a condition to requite with something more than good-will that
which you have displayed towards me in the cordial reception you have
given me; but my fate does not afford me any other means of returning
kindnesses done me save the hearty desire to repay them.”

“Mine,” replied Don Quixote, “is to be of service to you, so much so
that I had resolved not to quit these mountains until I had found you,
and learned of you whether there is any kind of relief to be found for
that sorrow under which from the strangeness of your life you seem to
labour; and to search for you with all possible diligence, if search
had been necessary. And if your misfortune should prove to be one of
those that refuse admission to any sort of consolation, it was my
purpose to join you in lamenting and mourning over it, so far as I
could; for it is still some comfort in misfortune to find one who can
feel for it. And if my good intentions deserve to be acknowledged with
any kind of courtesy, I entreat you, señor, by that which I perceive
you possess in so high a degree, and likewise conjure you by whatever
you love or have loved best in life, to tell me who you are and the
cause that has brought you to live or die in these solitudes like a
brute beast, dwelling among them in a manner so foreign to your
condition as your garb and appearance show. And I swear,” added Don
Quixote, “by the order of knighthood which I have received, and by my
vocation of knight-errant, if you gratify me in this, to serve you with
all the zeal my calling demands of me, either in relieving your
misfortune if it admits of relief, or in joining you in lamenting it as
I promised to do.”

The Knight of the Thicket, hearing him of the Rueful Countenance talk
in this strain, did nothing but stare at him, and stare at him again,
and again survey him from head to foot; and when he had thoroughly
examined him, he said to him:

“If you have anything to give me to eat, for God’s sake give it me, and
after I have eaten I will do all you ask in acknowledgment of the
goodwill you have displayed towards me.”

Sancho from his sack, and the goatherd from his pouch, furnished the
Ragged One with the means of appeasing his hunger, and what they gave
him he ate like a half-witted being, so hastily that he took no time
between mouthfuls, gorging rather than swallowing; and while he ate
neither he nor they who observed him uttered a word. As soon as he had
done he made signs to them to follow him, which they did, and he led
them to a green plot which lay a little farther off round the corner of
a rock. On reaching it he stretched himself upon the grass, and the
others did the same, all keeping silence, until the Ragged One,
settling himself in his place, said:

“If it is your wish, sirs, that I should disclose in a few words the
surpassing extent of my misfortunes, you must promise not to break the
thread of my sad story with any question or other interruption, for the
instant you do so the tale I tell will come to an end.”

These words of the Ragged One reminded Don Quixote of the tale his
squire had told him, when he failed to keep count of the goats that had
crossed the river and the story remained unfinished; but to return to
the Ragged One, he went on to say:

“I give you this warning because I wish to pass briefly over the story
of my misfortunes, for recalling them to memory only serves to add
fresh ones, and the less you question me the sooner shall I make an end
of the recital, though I shall not omit to relate anything of
importance in order fully to satisfy your curiosity.”

Don Quixote gave the promise for himself and the others, and with this
assurance he began as follows:

“My name is Cardenio, my birthplace one of the best cities of this
Andalusia, my family noble, my parents rich, my misfortune so great
that my parents must have wept and my family grieved over it without
being able by their wealth to lighten it; for the gifts of fortune can
do little to relieve reverses sent by Heaven. In that same country
there was a heaven in which love had placed all the glory I could
desire; such was the beauty of Luscinda, a damsel as noble and as rich
as I, but of happier fortunes, and of less firmness than was due to so
worthy a passion as mine. This Luscinda I loved, worshipped, and adored
from my earliest and tenderest years, and she loved me in all the
innocence and sincerity of childhood. Our parents were aware of our
feelings, and were not sorry to perceive them, for they saw clearly
that as they ripened they must lead at last to a marriage between us, a
thing that seemed almost prearranged by the equality of our families
and wealth. We grew up, and with our growth grew the love between us,
so that the father of Luscinda felt bound for propriety’s sake to
refuse me admission to his house, in this perhaps imitating the parents
of that Thisbe so celebrated by the poets, and this refusal but added
love to love and flame to flame; for though they enforced silence upon
our tongues they could not impose it upon our pens, which can make
known the heart’s secrets to a loved one more freely than tongues; for
many a time the presence of the object of love shakes the firmest will
and strikes dumb the boldest tongue. Ah heavens! how many letters did I
write her, and how many dainty modest replies did I receive! how many
ditties and love-songs did I compose in which my heart declared and
made known its feelings, described its ardent longings, revelled in its
recollections and dallied with its desires! At length growing impatient
and feeling my heart languishing with longing to see her, I resolved to
put into execution and carry out what seemed to me the best mode of
winning my desired and merited reward, to ask her of her father for my
lawful wife, which I did. To this his answer was that he thanked me for
the disposition I showed to do honour to him and to regard myself as
honoured by the bestowal of his treasure; but that as my father was
alive it was his by right to make this demand, for if it were not in
accordance with his full will and pleasure, Luscinda was not to be
taken or given by stealth. I thanked him for his kindness, reflecting
that there was reason in what he said, and that my father would assent
to it as soon as I should tell him, and with that view I went the very
same instant to let him know what my desires were. When I entered the
room where he was I found him with an open letter in his hand, which,
before I could utter a word, he gave me, saying, ‘By this letter thou
wilt see, Cardenio, the disposition the Duke Ricardo has to serve
thee.’ This Duke Ricardo, as you, sirs, probably know already, is a
grandee of Spain who has his seat in the best part of this Andalusia. I
took and read the letter, which was couched in terms so flattering that
even I myself felt it would be wrong in my father not to comply with
the request the duke made in it, which was that he would send me
immediately to him, as he wished me to become the companion, not
servant, of his eldest son, and would take upon himself the charge of
placing me in a position corresponding to the esteem in which he held
me. On reading the letter my voice failed me, and still more when I
heard my father say, ‘Two days hence thou wilt depart, Cardenio, in
accordance with the duke’s wish, and give thanks to God who is opening
a road to thee by which thou mayest attain what I know thou dost
deserve; and to these words he added others of fatherly counsel. The
time for my departure arrived; I spoke one night to Luscinda, I told
her all that had occurred, as I did also to her father, entreating him
to allow some delay, and to defer the disposal of her hand until I
should see what the Duke Ricardo sought of me: he gave me the promise,
and she confirmed it with vows and swoonings unnumbered. Finally, I
presented myself to the duke, and was received and treated by him so
kindly that very soon envy began to do its work, the old servants
growing envious of me, and regarding the duke’s inclination to show me
favour as an injury to themselves. But the one to whom my arrival gave
the greatest pleasure was the duke’s second son, Fernando by name, a
gallant youth, of noble, generous, and amorous disposition, who very
soon made so intimate a friend of me that it was remarked by everybody;
for though the elder was attached to me, and showed me kindness, he did
not carry his affectionate treatment to the same length as Don
Fernando. It so happened, then, that as between friends no secret
remains unshared, and as the favour I enjoyed with Don Fernando had
grown into friendship, he made all his thoughts known to me, and in
particular a love affair which troubled his mind a little. He was
deeply in love with a peasant girl, a vassal of his father’s, the
daughter of wealthy parents, and herself so beautiful, modest,
discreet, and virtuous, that no one who knew her was able to decide in
which of these respects she was most highly gifted or most excelled.
The attractions of the fair peasant raised the passion of Don Fernando
to such a point that, in order to gain his object and overcome her
virtuous resolutions, he determined to pledge his word to her to become
her husband, for to attempt it in any other way was to attempt an
impossibility. Bound to him as I was by friendship, I strove by the
best arguments and the most forcible examples I could think of to
restrain and dissuade him from such a course; but perceiving I produced
no effect I resolved to make the Duke Ricardo, his father, acquainted
with the matter; but Don Fernando, being sharp-witted and shrewd,
foresaw and apprehended this, perceiving that by my duty as a good
servant I was bound not to keep concealed a thing so much opposed to
the honour of my lord the duke; and so, to mislead and deceive me, he
told me he could find no better way of effacing from his mind the
beauty that so enslaved him than by absenting himself for some months,
and that he wished the absence to be effected by our going, both of us,
to my father’s house under the pretence, which he would make to the
duke, of going to see and buy some fine horses that there were in my
city, which produces the best in the world. When I heard him say so,
even if his resolution had not been so good a one I should have hailed
it as one of the happiest that could be imagined, prompted by my
affection, seeing what a favourable chance and opportunity it offered
me of returning to see my Luscinda. With this thought and wish I
commended his idea and encouraged his design, advising him to put it
into execution as quickly as possible, as, in truth, absence produced
its effect in spite of the most deeply rooted feelings. But, as
afterwards appeared, when he said this to me he had already enjoyed the
peasant girl under the title of husband, and was waiting for an
opportunity of making it known with safety to himself, being in dread
of what his father the duke would do when he came to know of his folly.
It happened, then, that as with young men love is for the most part
nothing more than appetite, which, as its final object is enjoyment,
comes to an end on obtaining it, and that which seemed to be love takes
to flight, as it cannot pass the limit fixed by nature, which fixes no
limit to true love—what I mean is that after Don Fernando had enjoyed
this peasant girl his passion subsided and his eagerness cooled, and if
at first he feigned a wish to absent himself in order to cure his love,
he was now in reality anxious to go to avoid keeping his promise.

“The duke gave him permission, and ordered me to accompany him; we
arrived at my city, and my father gave him the reception due to his
rank; I saw Luscinda without delay, and, though it had not been dead or
deadened, my love gathered fresh life. To my sorrow I told the story of
it to Don Fernando, for I thought that in virtue of the great
friendship he bore me I was bound to conceal nothing from him. I
extolled her beauty, her gaiety, her wit, so warmly, that my praises
excited in him a desire to see a damsel adorned by such attractions. To
my misfortune I yielded to it, showing her to him one night by the
light of a taper at a window where we used to talk to one another. As
she appeared to him in her dressing-gown, she drove all the beauties he
had seen until then out of his recollection; speech failed him, his
head turned, he was spell-bound, and in the end love-smitten, as you
will see in the course of the story of my misfortune; and to inflame
still further his passion, which he hid from me and revealed to Heaven
alone, it so happened that one day he found a note of hers entreating
me to demand her of her father in marriage, so delicate, so modest, and
so tender, that on reading it he told me that in Luscinda alone were
combined all the charms of beauty and understanding that were
distributed among all the other women in the world. It is true, and I
own it now, that though I knew what good cause Don Fernando had to
praise Luscinda, it gave me uneasiness to hear these praises from his
mouth, and I began to fear, and with reason to feel distrust of him,
for there was no moment when he was not ready to talk of Luscinda, and
he would start the subject himself even though he dragged it in
unseasonably, a circumstance that aroused in me a certain amount of
jealousy; not that I feared any change in the constancy or faith of
Luscinda; but still my fate led me to forebode what she assured me
against. Don Fernando contrived always to read the letters I sent to
Luscinda and her answers to me, under the pretence that he enjoyed the
wit and sense of both. It so happened, then, that Luscinda having
begged of me a book of chivalry to read, one that she was very fond of,
Amadis of Gaul—”

Don Quixote no sooner heard a book of chivalry mentioned, than he said:

“Had your worship told me at the beginning of your story that the Lady
Luscinda was fond of books of chivalry, no other laudation would have
been requisite to impress upon me the superiority of her understanding,
for it could not have been of the excellence you describe had a taste
for such delightful reading been wanting; so, as far as I am concerned,
you need waste no more words in describing her beauty, worth, and
intelligence; for, on merely hearing what her taste was, I declare her
to be the most beautiful and the most intelligent woman in the world;
and I wish your worship had, along with Amadis of Gaul, sent her the
worthy Don Rugel of Greece, for I know the Lady Luscinda would greatly
relish Daraida and Garaya, and the shrewd sayings of the shepherd
Darinel, and the admirable verses of his bucolics, sung and delivered
by him with such sprightliness, wit, and ease; but a time may come when
this omission can be remedied, and to rectify it nothing more is needed
than for your worship to be so good as to come with me to my village,
for there I can give you more than three hundred books which are the
delight of my soul and the entertainment of my life;—though it occurs
to me that I have not got one of them now, thanks to the spite of
wicked and envious enchanters;—but pardon me for having broken the
promise we made not to interrupt your discourse; for when I hear
chivalry or knights-errant mentioned, I can no more help talking about
them than the rays of the sun can help giving heat, or those of the
moon moisture; pardon me, therefore, and proceed, for that is more to
the purpose now.”

While Don Quixote was saying this, Cardenio allowed his head to fall
upon his breast, and seemed plunged in deep thought; and though twice
Don Quixote bade him go on with his story, he neither looked up nor
uttered a word in reply; but after some time he raised his head and
said, “I cannot get rid of the idea, nor will anyone in the world
remove it, or make me think otherwise—and he would be a blockhead who
would hold or believe anything else than that that arrant knave Master
Elisabad made free with Queen Madasima.”

“That is not true, by all that’s good,” said Don Quixote in high wrath,
turning upon him angrily, as his way was; “and it is a very great
slander, or rather villainy. Queen Madasima was a very illustrious
lady, and it is not to be supposed that so exalted a princess would
have made free with a quack; and whoever maintains the contrary lies
like a great scoundrel, and I will give him to know it, on foot or on
horseback, armed or unarmed, by night or by day, or as he likes best.”

Cardenio was looking at him steadily, and his mad fit having now come
upon him, he had no disposition to go on with his story, nor would Don
Quixote have listened to it, so much had what he had heard about
Madasima disgusted him. Strange to say, he stood up for her as if she
were in earnest his veritable born lady; to such a pass had his unholy
books brought him. Cardenio, then, being, as I said, now mad, when he
heard himself given the lie, and called a scoundrel and other insulting
names, not relishing the jest, snatched up a stone that he found near
him, and with it delivered such a blow on Don Quixote’s breast that he
laid him on his back. Sancho Panza, seeing his master treated in this
fashion, attacked the madman with his closed fist; but the Ragged One
received him in such a way that with a blow of his fist he stretched
him at his feet, and then mounting upon him crushed his ribs to his own
satisfaction; the goatherd, who came to the rescue, shared the same
fate; and having beaten and pummelled them all he left them and quietly
withdrew to his hiding-place on the mountain. Sancho rose, and with the
rage he felt at finding himself so belaboured without deserving it, ran
to take vengeance on the goatherd, accusing him of not giving them
warning that this man was at times taken with a mad fit, for if they
had known it they would have been on their guard to protect themselves.
The goatherd replied that he had said so, and that if he had not heard
him, that was no fault of his. Sancho retorted, and the goatherd
rejoined, and the altercation ended in their seizing each other by the
beard, and exchanging such fisticuffs that if Don Quixote had not made
peace between them, they would have knocked one another to pieces.

“Leave me alone, Sir Knight of the Rueful Countenance,” said Sancho,
grappling with the goatherd, “for of this fellow, who is a clown like
myself, and no dubbed knight, I can safely take satisfaction for the
affront he has offered me, fighting with him hand to hand like an
honest man.”

“That is true,” said Don Quixote, “but I know that he is not to blame
for what has happened.”

With this he pacified them, and again asked the goatherd if it would be
possible to find Cardenio, as he felt the greatest anxiety to know the
end of his story. The goatherd told him, as he had told him before,
that there was no knowing of a certainty where his lair was; but that
if he wandered about much in that neighbourhood he could not fail to
fall in with him either in or out of his senses.