Don Quixote [Trans. by Edith Grossman] (107 page)

Sancho stood, amazed by the beauty of the good lady and by her great breeding and courtesy, and especially by her saying that she had heard of his master, the Knight of the Sorrowful Face, and if she did not call him the Knight of the Lions, it must have been because he had taken the name so recently. The duchess, whose title was still unknown, asked him:

“Tell me, my dear squire: this master of yours, isn’t he the one who has a history published about him called
The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha,
and isn’t the mistress of his heart a lady named Dulcinea of Toboso?”

“He’s the very one, Señora,” responded Sancho, “and that squire of his who is, or ought to be, in that history, the one named Sancho Panza, is me, unless I was changed for another in the cradle, I mean the printing press.”

“All of this makes me very happy,” said the duchess. “Go, my dear Panza, and tell your master that he is a most welcome visitor to my estates, and that nothing could give me greater joy than to receive him.”

Sancho, with this extremely amiable reply, returned to his master with great pleasure and recounted everything that the great lady had said, praising to the skies, in his rustic way, her great beauty, charm, and courtesy. Don Quixote arranged himself in the saddle, set his feet firmly in the stirrups, adjusted his visor, spurred on Rocinante, and with a gallant bearing went to kiss the hands of the duchess, who, sending for the duke, her husband, told him, as Don Quixote was approaching, about his message; and the two of them, because they had read the first part of this history and consequently had learned of Don Quixote’s absurd turn of mind, waited for him with great pleasure and a desire to know him, intending to follow that turn of mind and acquiesce to everything he said, and, for as long as he stayed with them, treat him like a knight errant with all the customary ceremonies found in the books of chivalry, which they had read and of which they were very fond.

At this point Don Quixote reached them, with his visor raised, and as he gave signs of dismounting, Sancho hurried to hold the stirrup for him but was so unfortunate that when he dismounted from the donkey he caught his foot in a cord on the packsaddle and could not get free; instead, he was left dangling, with his face and chest on the ground. Don Quixote, who was not in the habit of dismounting without someone to hold the stirrup for him, and thinking that Sancho had already come to do that, went flying off Rocinante and pulled the saddle after him, for its cinches must have been loose, and he and the saddle both fell to the ground, not without great embarrassment to him and a good number of curses that he muttered between his teeth against the luckless Sancho, whose foot was still trammeled.

The duke ordered his hunters to assist the knight and the squire, and they helped up Don Quixote, who was badly bruised from his fall and,
limping and hobbling, attempted to kneel before the two nobles, but the duke would not permit it; instead, after dismounting his horse, he went to embrace Don Quixote, saying:

“It grieves me, Señor Knight of the Sorrowful Face, that the first step your grace has taken on my land has turned out so badly, but the carelessness of squires is often the cause of unforeseen events that are even worse.”

“The one I experienced when I saw you, most valiant prince,” responded Don Quixote, “could not possibly be bad, even if my fall had been to the bottom of the abyss, for the glory of having seen you would lift me and raise me even from the depths. My squire, may God curse him, loosens his tongue to speak mischief better than he fastens the cinches to secure a saddle; but however I may be, fallen or upright, on foot or mounted, I shall always be in your service and in that of my lady the duchess, your most esteemed consort, and most worthy mistress of beauty, and universal princess of courtesy.”

“Softly, Señor Don Quixote of La Mancha,” said the duke, “for when Señora Doña Dulcinea of Toboso is present, no other beauty should be praised.”

By this time Sancho Panza was free of his bonds, and finding himself close by, before his master could respond he said:

“It can’t be denied but must be affirmed that my lady Dulcinea of Toboso is very beautiful, but the hare leaps up when you least expect it;
²
I’ve heard that this thing they call nature is like a potter who makes clay bowls, and if he makes a beautiful bowl, he can also make two, or three, or a hundred: I say this because, by my faith, my lady the duchess is as good-looking as my mistress the lady Dulcinea of Toboso.”

Don Quixote turned to the duchess and said:

“Your highness can imagine that no knight errant in the world ever had a squire more talkative or comical than the one I have, and he will prove me truthful if your magnificence should wish to have me serve you for a few days.”

To which the duchess responded:

“That our good Sancho is comical is something I esteem greatly, because it is a sign of his cleverness; for wit and humor, Señor Don Quixote, as your grace well knows, do not reside in slow minds, and since our good Sancho is comical and witty, from this moment on I declare him a clever man.”

“And a talkative one,” added Don Quixote.

“So much the better,” said the duke, “for there are many witticisms that cannot be said in only a few words. And in order not to waste time in merely speaking them, let the great Knight of the Sorrowful Face come—”

“Of the Lions is what your highness should say,” said Sancho, “because there’s no more Sorrowful Face, or Figure: let it be of the Lions.”
³

The duke continued:

“I say that Señor Knight of the Lions should come to a castle of mine that is nearby, and there he will receive the welcome that so distinguished a personage deserves, the kind that the duchess and I are accustomed to offering to all the knights errant who come there.”

By this time, Sancho had adjusted Rocinante’s saddle and carefully fastened the cinches; Don Quixote mounted, and the duke mounted his beautiful horse, and they rode with the duchess between them and set out for the castle. The duchess told Sancho to ride near her because she took infinite pleasure in hearing the clever things he said. Sancho did not have to be asked twice, and he wove his way in among the three of them and made a fourth in the conversation, to the delight of the duchess and the duke, who considered it their great good fortune to welcome to their castle such a knight errant and so erring a squire.

CHAPTER XXXI

Sancho’s joy was great at finding himself, as it seemed to him, so favored by the duchess, because he imagined he would find in her castle what he had found in the house of Don Diego and in the house of Basilio, for he was always very fond of the good life and missed no opportunity to indulge himself whenever one was presented to him.

The history recounts, then, that before they reached the country estate or castle, the duke rode ahead and gave orders to all his servants concerning how they were to treat Don Quixote; as soon as the knight arrived at the gates of the castle with the duchess, two lackeys or grooms immediately came out, dressed in the kind of long, ankle-length gowns that are called at-home robes and were made of very fine crimson satin, and rapidly putting their arms around Don Quixote and taking him down from his horse, almost before he heard or saw them, they said to him:

“Go, your highness, and help my lady the duchess dismount.”

Don Quixote did so, and there were extremely courteous exchanges between them regarding this matter, but, in the end, the persistence of the duchess triumphed, and she refused to descend or dismount the palfrey except in the arms of the duke, saying that she did not consider herself worthy of imposing so useless a burden on so great a knight. Finally, the duke came out to help her dismount, and when they had entered a spacious courtyard, two beautiful maidens approached and placed around Don Quixote’s shoulders a great mantle of the finest scarlet, and in an instant all the passageways of the courtyard were crowded with the servants, male and female, of those nobles, and the servants were shouting:

“Welcome to the flower of chivalry, the greatest of all knights errant!”

And all, or most of them, sprinkled flagons of perfumed water on Don Quixote and on the duke and duchess, all of which astounded Don Quixote, and this was the first day he really knew and believed he was a true knight errant and not a fantastic one, for he saw himself treated in the same manner in which, he had read, knights were treated in past ages.

Sancho, forsaking his donkey, attached himself to the duchess and entered the castle, and feeling some remorse at leaving the donkey alone, he went up to a reverend duenna,
¹
who had come out with other ladies to receive the duchess, and in a quiet voice he said to her:

“Señora González, or whatever your grace’s name may be…”

“Doña Rodríguez de Grijalba is my name,” responded the duenna. “How can I help you, brother?”

To which Sancho responded:

“I would like your grace to please go out of the castle gate, where
you’ll find a donkey of mine, and if your grace would be so kind, have him taken, or take him yourself, to the stable, because the poor thing is a little fearful and doesn’t like to be left alone under any circumstances.”

“If the master is as clever as his servant,” responded the duenna, “then we’re certainly sitting pretty! Go on, brother, and may bad luck follow you and whoever brought you here, and take care of your jackass yourself; the duennas in this house are not accustomed to duties of that nature.”

“Well, the truth is,” responded Sancho, “that I’ve heard my master, and he knows all about histories, telling the one about Lancelot,

and in the case of my donkey, I wouldn’t trade him for the steed of Señor Lancelot.”

“Brother, if you’re a jester,” replied the duenna, “then keep your jokes for people who like them and pay you for them; you won’t get anything but a fig
²
from me.”

“That’s fine,” responded Sancho, “as long as it’s nice and ripe, because your grace won’t lose the hand if you count years as points.”

“Whoreson,” said the duenna, in a rage, “if I’m old or not is God’s business, not yours, you garlic-stuffed scoundrel!”

And she said this in so loud a voice that the duchess heard her, and turning around and seeing the duenna so agitated, and her eyes ablaze, she asked whom she was berating.

“He’s right here,” responded the duenna, “this good man who asked me very insistently to go and put a donkey of his at the castle gate into the stable, and brought up as an example that somewhere, I don’t know where, some ladies healed somebody named Lancelot and some duennas took care of his horse, and then, for good measure, he called me old.”

“I would consider that the worst insult,” responded the duchess, “that anyone could say to me.”

And speaking to Sancho, she said:

“Be advised, Sancho my friend, that Doña Rodríguez is very young, and wears that headdress more for reasons of authority and custom than because of her years.”

“May the ones I have left to live be cursed,” responded Sancho, “if I said it for that reason; I said it only because I’m so fond of my donkey that it seemed to me I couldn’t entrust him to any person more charitable than Señora Doña Rodríguez.”

Don Quixote, who heard all of this, said:

“Is that the kind of talk appropriate to this place?”

“Señor,” responded Sancho, “each person must talk of what he needs no matter where he is; here I remembered about my donkey, and here I talked about him; if I remembered about him in the stable, I’d talk about him there.”

To which the duke said:

“Sancho is absolutely correct, and there is no reason to blame him for anything; the donkey will be given food to his heart’s content, and Sancho need not worry, for the donkey will be treated as if he were Sancho himself.”

With these remarks, pleasing to everyone except Don Quixote, they proceeded upstairs and brought Don Quixote into a room adorned with rich tapestries of gold and brocade; six maidens removed his armor and served as pages, all of them instructed and advised by the duke and duchess as to what they were to do and how they were to treat Don Quixote so that he would imagine and believe they were treating him as a knight errant. When his armor had been removed, Don Quixote was left in his narrow breeches and chamois doublet—dry, tall, thin, his jaws kissing each other inside his mouth—and if the maidens who were serving him had not been charged with hiding their laughter, for this was one of the precise orders their mistress and master had given them, they would have split their sides laughing.

They asked that they be allowed to remove his clothing and dress him in a shirt, but he would not give his consent, saying that modesty was as becoming in knights errant as valor. Even so, he said they should give the shirt to Sancho, and after going with his squire into an inner chamber that had a luxurious bed, he stripped and put on the shirt, and finding himself alone with Sancho, he said:

“Tell me, you recent jester and longtime nuisance: does it seem right to you to dishonor and insult a duenna as venerable and worthy of respect as she? Was that the time to remember about your donkey, or would these nobles mistreat animals when they treat their owners so elegantly? For the love of God, Sancho, restrain yourself, and do not reveal your true colors lest they realize that the cloth you are made of is coarse and rustic. Look, sinner that you are: the master is more highly esteemed
the more honorable and wellborn his servants are, and one of the greatest advantages princes have over other men is that they are served by men as good as they are. Do you not realize, limited as you are, and unfortunate as I am, that if they see that you are a crude peasant or a comical fool, they will think that I am an imposter or a fraudulent knight? No, no, Sancho my friend, flee, flee these perils, for the man who stumbles into being a talkative fool, at the first obstacle plunges into being an unfortunate buffoon. Curb your tongue; consider and reflect on your words before they leave your mouth, and be aware that we have come to a place from which, by the grace of God and the valor of my arm, we shall emerge with our fame and fortune greatly enhanced.”