Title: The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, Part 42
Author: Cervantes Saavedra, Miguel de, 1547-1616
Language: English
As this book started as an ASCII text book there are no pictures available.


*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, Part 42" ***


                           DON QUIXOTE

                            Volume II.

                             Part 42.

                     by Miguel de Cervantes


                    Translated by John Ormsby



CHAPTER LXXIII.

OF THE OMENS DON QUIXOTE HAD AS HE ENTERED HIS OWN VILLAGE, AND OTHER
INCIDENTS THAT EMBELLISH AND GIVE A COLOUR TO THIS GREAT HISTORY


At the entrance of the village, so says Cide Hamete, Don Quixote saw two
boys quarrelling on the village threshing-floor one of whom said to the
other, "Take it easy, Periquillo; thou shalt never see it again as long
as thou livest."

Don Quixote heard this, and said he to Sancho, "Dost thou not mark,
friend, what that boy said, 'Thou shalt never see it again as long as
thou livest'?"

"Well," said Sancho, "what does it matter if the boy said so?"

"What!" said Don Quixote, "dost thou not see that, applied to the object
of my desires, the words mean that I am never to see Dulcinea more?"

Sancho was about to answer, when his attention was diverted by seeing a
hare come flying across the plain pursued by several greyhounds and
sportsmen. In its terror it ran to take shelter and hide itself under
Dapple. Sancho caught it alive and presented it to Don Quixote, who was
saying, "Malum signum, malum signum! a hare flies, greyhounds chase it,
Dulcinea appears not."

"Your worship's a strange man," said Sancho; "let's take it for granted
that this hare is Dulcinea, and these greyhounds chasing it the malignant
enchanters who turned her into a country wench; she flies, and I catch
her and put her into your worship's hands, and you hold her in your arms
and cherish her; what bad sign is that, or what ill omen is there to be
found here?"

The two boys who had been quarrelling came over to look at the hare, and
Sancho asked one of them what their quarrel was about. He was answered by
the one who had said, "Thou shalt never see it again as long as thou
livest," that he had taken a cage full of crickets from the other boy,
and did not mean to give it back to him as long as he lived. Sancho took
out four cuartos from his pocket and gave them to the boy for the cage,
which he placed in Don Quixote's hands, saying, "There, senor! there are
the omens broken and destroyed, and they have no more to do with our
affairs, to my thinking, fool as I am, than with last year's clouds; and
if I remember rightly I have heard the curate of our village say that it
does not become Christians or sensible people to give any heed to these
silly things; and even you yourself said the same to me some time ago,
telling me that all Christians who minded omens were fools; but there's
no need of making words about it; let us push on and go into our
village."

The sportsmen came up and asked for their hare, which Don Quixote gave
them. They then went on, and upon the green at the entrance of the town
they came upon the curate and the bachelor Samson Carrasco busy with
their breviaries. It should be mentioned that Sancho had thrown, by way
of a sumpter-cloth, over Dapple and over the bundle of armour, the
buckram robe painted with flames which they had put upon him at the
duke's castle the night Altisidora came back to life. He had also fixed
the mitre on Dapple's head, the oddest transformation and decoration that
ever ass in the world underwent. They were at once recognised by both the
curate and the bachelor, who came towards them with open arms. Don
Quixote dismounted and received them with a close embrace; and the boys,
who are lynxes that nothing escapes, spied out the ass's mitre and came
running to see it, calling out to one another, "Come here, boys, and see
Sancho Panza's ass figged out finer than Mingo, and Don Quixote's beast
leaner than ever."

So at length, with the boys capering round them, and accompanied by the
curate and the bachelor, they made their entrance into the town, and
proceeded to Don Quixote's house, at the door of which they found his
housekeeper and niece, whom the news of his arrival had already reached.
It had been brought to Teresa Panza, Sancho's wife, as well, and she with
her hair all loose and half naked, dragging Sanchica her daughter by the
hand, ran out to meet her husband; but seeing him coming in by no means
as good case as she thought a governor ought to be, she said to him, "How
is it you come this way, husband? It seems to me you come tramping and
footsore, and looking more like a disorderly vagabond than a governor."

"Hold your tongue, Teresa," said Sancho; "often 'where there are pegs
there are no flitches;' let's go into the house and there you'll hear
strange things. I bring money, and that's the main thing, got by my own
industry without wronging anybody."

"You bring the money, my good husband," said Teresa, "and no matter
whether it was got this way or that; for, however you may have got it,
you'll not have brought any new practice into the world."

Sanchica embraced her father and asked him if he brought her anything,
for she had been looking out for him as for the showers of May; and she
taking hold of him by the girdle on one side, and his wife by the hand,
while the daughter led Dapple, they made for their house, leaving Don
Quixote in his, in the hands of his niece and housekeeper, and in the
company of the curate and the bachelor.

Don Quixote at once, without any regard to time or season, withdrew in
private with the bachelor and the curate, and in a few words told them of
his defeat, and of the engagement he was under not to quit his village
for a year, which he meant to keep to the letter without departing a
hair's breadth from it, as became a knight-errant bound by scrupulous
good faith and the laws of knight-errantry; and of how he thought of
turning shepherd for that year, and taking his diversion in the solitude
of the fields, where he could with perfect freedom give range to his
thoughts of love while he followed the virtuous pastoral calling; and he
besought them, if they had not a great deal to do and were not prevented
by more important business, to consent to be his companions, for he would
buy sheep enough to qualify them for shepherds; and the most important
point of the whole affair, he could tell them, was settled, for he had
given them names that would fit them to a T. The curate asked what they
were. Don Quixote replied that he himself was to be called the shepherd
Quixotize and the bachelor the shepherd Carrascon, and the curate the
shepherd Curambro, and Sancho Panza the shepherd Pancino.

Both were astounded at Don Quixote's new craze; however, lest he should
once more make off out of the village from them in pursuit of his
chivalry, they trusting that in the course of the year he might be cured,
fell in with his new project, applauded his crazy idea as a bright one,
and offered to share the life with him. "And what's more," said Samson
Carrasco, "I am, as all the world knows, a very famous poet, and I'll be
always making verses, pastoral, or courtly, or as it may come into my
head, to pass away our time in those secluded regions where we shall be
roaming. But what is most needful, sirs, is that each of us should choose
the name of the shepherdess he means to glorify in his verses, and that
we should not leave a tree, be it ever so hard, without writing up and
carving her name on it, as is the habit and custom of love-smitten
shepherds."

"That's the very thing," said Don Quixote; "though I am relieved from
looking for the name of an imaginary shepherdess, for there's the
peerless Dulcinea del Toboso, the glory of these brooksides, the ornament
of these meadows, the mainstay of beauty, the cream of all the graces,
and, in a word, the being to whom all praise is appropriate, be it ever
so hyperbolical."

"Very true," said the curate; "but we the others must look about for
accommodating shepherdesses that will answer our purpose one way or
another."

"And," added Samson Carrasco, "if they fail us, we can call them by the
names of the ones in print that the world is filled with, Filidas,
Amarilises, Dianas, Fleridas, Galateas, Belisardas; for as they sell them
in the market-places we may fairly buy them and make them our own. If my
lady, or I should say my shepherdess, happens to be called Ana, I'll sing
her praises under the name of Anarda, and if Francisca, I'll call her
Francenia, and if Lucia, Lucinda, for it all comes to the same thing; and
Sancho Panza, if he joins this fraternity, may glorify his wife Teresa
Panza as Teresaina."

Don Quixote laughed at the adaptation of the name, and the curate
bestowed vast praise upon the worthy and honourable resolution he had
made, and again offered to bear him company all the time that he could
spare from his imperative duties. And so they took their leave of him,
recommending and beseeching him to take care of his health and treat
himself to a suitable diet.

It so happened his niece and the housekeeper overheard all the three of
them said; and as soon as they were gone they both of them came in to Don
Quixote, and said the niece, "What's this, uncle? Now that we were
thinking you had come back to stay at home and lead a quiet respectable
life there, are you going to get into fresh entanglements, and turn
'young shepherd, thou that comest here, young shepherd going there?' Nay!
indeed 'the straw is too hard now to make pipes of.'"

"And," added the housekeeper, "will your worship be able to bear, out in
the fields, the heats of summer, and the chills of winter, and the
howling of the wolves? Not you; for that's a life and a business for
hardy men, bred and seasoned to such work almost from the time they were
in swaddling-clothes. Why, to make choice of evils, it's better to be a
knight-errant than a shepherd! Look here, senor; take my advice--and I'm
not giving it to you full of bread and wine, but fasting, and with fifty
years upon my head--stay at home, look after your affairs, go often to
confession, be good to the poor, and upon my soul be it if any evil comes
to you."

"Hold your peace, my daughters," said Don Quixote; "I know very well what
my duty is; help me to bed, for I don't feel very well; and rest assured
that, knight-errant now or wandering shepherd to be, I shall never fail
to have a care for your interests, as you will see in the end." And the
good wenches (for that they undoubtedly were), the housekeeper and niece,
helped him to bed, where they gave him something to eat and made him as
comfortable as possible.



CHAPTER LXXIV.

OF HOW DON QUIXOTE FELL SICK, AND OF THE WILL HE MADE, AND HOW HE DIED


As nothing that is man's can last for ever, but all tends ever downwards
from its beginning to its end, and above all man's life, and as Don
Quixote's enjoyed no special dispensation from heaven to stay its course,
its end and close came when he least looked for it. For-whether it was of
the dejection the thought of his defeat produced, or of heaven's will
that so ordered it--a fever settled upon him and kept him in his bed for
six days, during which he was often visited by his friends the curate,
the bachelor, and the barber, while his good squire Sancho Panza never
quitted his bedside. They, persuaded that it was grief at finding himself
vanquished, and the object of his heart, the liberation and
disenchantment of Dulcinea, unattained, that kept him in this state,
strove by all the means in their power to cheer him up; the bachelor
bidding him take heart and get up to begin his pastoral life, for which
he himself, he said, had already composed an eclogue that would take the
shine out of all Sannazaro had ever written, and had bought with his own
money two famous dogs to guard the flock, one called Barcino and the
other Butron, which a herdsman of Quintanar had sold him.

But for all this Don Quixote could not shake off his sadness. His friends
called in the doctor, who felt his pulse and was not very well satisfied
with it, and said that in any case it would be well for him to attend to
the health of his soul, as that of his body was in a bad way. Don Quixote
heard this calmly; but not so his housekeeper, his niece, and his squire,
who fell weeping bitterly, as if they had him lying dead before them. The
doctor's opinion was that melancholy and depression were bringing him to
his end. Don Quixote begged them to leave him to himself, as he had a
wish to sleep a little. They obeyed, and he slept at one stretch, as the
saying is, more than six hours, so that the housekeeper and niece thought
he was going to sleep for ever. But at the end of that time he woke up,
and in a loud voice exclaimed, "Blessed be Almighty God, who has shown me
such goodness. In truth his mercies are boundless, and the sins of men
can neither limit them nor keep them back!"

The niece listened with attention to her uncle's words, and they struck
her as more coherent than what usually fell from him, at least during his
illness, so she asked, "What are you saying, senor? Has anything strange
occurred? What mercies or what sins of men are you talking of?"

"The mercies, niece," said Don Quixote, "are those that God has this
moment shown me, and with him, as I said, my sins are no impediment to
them. My reason is now free and clear, rid of the dark shadows of
ignorance that my unhappy constant study of those detestable books of
chivalry cast over it. Now I see through their absurdities and
deceptions, and it only grieves me that this destruction of my illusions
has come so late that it leaves me no time to make some amends by reading
other books that might be a light to my soul. Niece, I feel myself at the
point of death, and I would fain meet it in such a way as to show that my
life has not been so ill that I should leave behind me the name of a
madman; for though I have been one, I would not that the fact should be
made plainer at my death. Call in to me, my dear, my good friends the
curate, the bachelor Samson Carrasco, and Master Nicholas the barber, for
I wish to confess and make my will." But his niece was saved the trouble
by the entrance of the three. The instant Don Quixote saw them he
exclaimed, "Good news for you, good sirs, that I am no longer Don Quixote
of La Mancha, but Alonso Quixano, whose way of life won for him the name
of Good. Now am I the enemy of Amadis of Gaul and of the whole countless
troop of his descendants; odious to me now are all the profane stories of
knight-errantry; now I perceive my folly, and the peril into which
reading them brought me; now, by God's mercy schooled into my right
senses, I loathe them."

When the three heard him speak in this way, they had no doubt whatever
that some new craze had taken possession of him; and said Samson, "What?
Senor Don Quixote! Now that we have intelligence of the lady Dulcinea
being disenchanted, are you taking this line; now, just as we are on the
point of becoming shepherds, to pass our lives singing, like princes, are
you thinking of turning hermit? Hush, for heaven's sake, be rational and
let's have no more nonsense."

"All that nonsense," said Don Quixote, "that until now has been a reality
to my hurt, my death will, with heaven's help, turn to my good. I feel,
sirs, that I am rapidly drawing near death; a truce to jesting; let me
have a confessor to confess me, and a notary to make my will; for in
extremities like this, man must not trifle with his soul; and while the
curate is confessing me let some one, I beg, go for the notary."

They looked at one another, wondering at Don Quixote's words; but, though
uncertain, they were inclined to believe him, and one of the signs by
which they came to the conclusion he was dying was this so sudden and
complete return to his senses after having been mad; for to the words
already quoted he added much more, so well expressed, so devout, and so
rational, as to banish all doubt and convince them that he was sound of
mind. The curate turned them all out, and left alone with him confessed
him. The bachelor went for the notary and returned shortly afterwards
with him and with Sancho, who, having already learned from the bachelor
the condition his master was in, and finding the housekeeper and niece
weeping, began to blubber and shed tears.

The confession over, the curate came out saying, "Alonso Quixano the Good
is indeed dying, and is indeed in his right mind; we may now go in to him
while he makes his will."

This news gave a tremendous impulse to the brimming eyes of the
housekeeper, niece, and Sancho Panza his good squire, making the tears
burst from their eyes and a host of sighs from their hearts; for of a
truth, as has been said more than once, whether as plain Alonso Quixano
the Good, or as Don Quixote of La Mancha, Don Quixote was always of a
gentle disposition and kindly in all his ways, and hence he was beloved,
not only by those of his own house, but by all who knew him.

The notary came in with the rest, and as soon as the preamble of the had
been set out and Don Quixote had commended his soul to God with all the
devout formalities that are usual, coming to the bequests, he said,
"Item, it is my will that, touching certain moneys in the hands of Sancho
Panza (whom in my madness I made my squire), inasmuch as between him and
me there have been certain accounts and debits and credits, no claim be
made against him, nor any account demanded of him in respect of them; but
that if anything remain over and above, after he has paid himself what I
owe him, the balance, which will be but little, shall be his, and much
good may it do him; and if, as when I was mad I had a share in giving him
the government of an island, so, now that I am in my senses, I could give
him that of a kingdom, it should be his, for the simplicity of his
character and the fidelity of his conduct deserve it." And then, turning
to Sancho, he said, "Forgive me, my friend, that I led thee to seem as
mad as myself, making thee fall into the same error I myself fell into,
that there were and still are knights-errant in the world."

"Ah!" said Sancho weeping, "don't die, master, but take my advice and
live many years; for the foolishest thing a man can do in this life is to
let himself die without rhyme or reason, without anybody killing him, or
any hands but melancholy's making an end of him. Come, don't be lazy, but
get up from your bed and let us take to the fields in shepherd's trim as
we agreed. Perhaps behind some bush we shall find the lady Dulcinea
disenchanted, as fine as fine can be. If it be that you are dying of
vexation at having been vanquished, lay the blame on me, and say you were
overthrown because I had girthed Rocinante badly; besides you must have
seen in your books of chivalry that it is a common thing for knights to
upset one another, and for him who is conquered to-day to be conqueror
tomorrow."

"Very true," said Samson, "and good Sancho Panza's view of these cases is
quite right."

"Sirs, not so fast," said Don Quixote, "'in last year's nests there are
no birds this year.' I was mad, now I am in my senses; I was Don Quixote
of La Mancha, I am now, as I said, Alonso Quixano the Good; and may my
repentance and sincerity restore me to the esteem you used to have for
me; and now let Master Notary proceed.

"Item, I leave all my property absolutely to Antonia Quixana my niece,
here present, after all has been deducted from the most available portion
of it that may be required to satisfy the bequests I have made. And the
first disbursement I desire to be made is the payment of the wages I owe
for the time my housekeeper has served me, with twenty ducats, over and
above, for a gown. The curate and the bachelor Samson Carrasco, now
present, I appoint my executors.

"Item, it is my wish that if Antonia Quixana, my niece, desires to marry,
she shall marry a man of whom it shall be first of all ascertained by
information taken that he does not know what books of chivalry are; and
if it should be proved that he does, and if, in spite of this, my niece
insists upon marrying him, and does marry him, then that she shall
forfeit the whole of what I have left her, which my executors shall
devote to works of charity as they please.

"Item, I entreat the aforesaid gentlemen my executors, that, if any happy
chance should lead them to discover the author who is said to have
written a history now going about under the title of 'Second Part of the
Achievements of Don Quixote of La Mancha,' they beg of him on my behalf
as earnestly as they can to forgive me for having been, without intending
it, the cause of his writing so many and such monstrous absurdities as he
has written in it; for I am leaving the world with a feeling of
compunction at having provoked him to write them."

With this he closed his will, and a faintness coming over him he
stretched himself out at full length on the bed. All were in a flutter
and made haste to relieve him, and during the three days he lived after
that on which he made his will he fainted away very often. The house was
all in confusion; but still the niece ate and the housekeeper drank and
Sancho Panza enjoyed himself; for inheriting property wipes out or
softens down in the heir the feeling of grief the dead man might be
expected to leave behind him.

At last Don Quixote's end came, after he had received all the sacraments,
and had in full and forcible terms expressed his detestation of books of
chivalry. The notary was there at the time, and he said that in no book
of chivalry had he ever read of any knight-errant dying in his bed so
calmly and so like a Christian as Don Quixote, who amid the tears and
lamentations of all present yielded up his spirit, that is to say died.
On perceiving it the curate begged the notary to bear witness that Alonso
Quixano the Good, commonly called Don Quixote of La Mancha, had passed
away from this present life, and died naturally; and said he desired this
testimony in order to remove the possibility of any other author save
Cide Hamete Benengeli bringing him to life again falsely and making
interminable stories out of his achievements.

Such was the end of the Ingenious Gentleman of La Mancha, whose village
Cide Hamete would not indicate precisely, in order to leave all the towns
and villages of La Mancha to contend among themselves for the right to
adopt him and claim him as a son, as the seven cities of Greece contended
for Homer. The lamentations of Sancho and the niece and housekeeper are
omitted here, as well as the new epitaphs upon his tomb; Samson Carrasco,
however, put the following lines:

A doughty gentleman lies here;
A stranger all his life to fear;
Nor in his death could Death prevail,
In that last hour, to make him quail.
He for the world but little cared;
And at his feats the world was scared;
A crazy man his life he passed,
But in his senses died at last.

And said most sage Cide Hamete to his pen, "Rest here, hung up by this
brass wire, upon this shelf, O my pen, whether of skilful make or clumsy
cut I know not; here shalt thou remain long ages hence, unless
presumptuous or malignant story-tellers take thee down to profane thee.
But ere they touch thee warn them, and, as best thou canst, say to them:

Hold off! ye weaklings; hold your hands!
  Adventure it let none,
For this emprise, my lord the king,
  Was meant for me alone.

For me alone was Don Quixote born, and I for him; it was his to act, mine
to write; we two together make but one, notwithstanding and in spite of
that pretended Tordesillesque writer who has ventured or would venture
with his great, coarse, ill-trimmed ostrich quill to write the
achievements of my valiant knight;--no burden for his shoulders, nor
subject for his frozen wit: whom, if perchance thou shouldst come to know
him, thou shalt warn to leave at rest where they lie the weary mouldering
bones of Don Quixote, and not to attempt to carry him off, in opposition
to all the privileges of death, to Old Castile, making him rise from the
grave where in reality and truth he lies stretched at full length,
powerless to make any third expedition or new sally; for the two that he
has already made, so much to the enjoyment and approval of everybody to
whom they have become known, in this as well as in foreign countries, are
quite sufficient for the purpose of turning into ridicule the whole of
those made by the whole set of the knights-errant; and so doing shalt
thou discharge thy Christian calling, giving good counsel to one that
bears ill-will to thee. And I shall remain satisfied, and proud to have
been the first who has ever enjoyed the fruit of his writings as fully as
he could desire; for my desire has been no other than to deliver over to
the detestation of mankind the false and foolish tales of the books of
chivalry, which, thanks to that of my true Don Quixote, are even now
tottering, and doubtless doomed to fall for ever. Farewell."





*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, Part 42" ***

Copyright 2023 LibraryBlog. All rights reserved.