CHAPTER 32
WHICH TREATS OF WHAT BEFELL DON QUIXOTE’S PARTY AT THE INN
Their dainty repast being finished, they saddled at once, and without any
adventure worth mentioning they reached next day the inn, the object of
Sancho Panza’s fear and dread; but though he would have rather not entered
it, there was no help for it. The landlady, the landlord, their daughter, and
Maritornes, when they saw Don Quixote and Sancho coming, went out to
welcome them with signs of hearty satisfaction, which Don Quixote re-
ceived with dignity and gravity, and bade them make up a better bed for
him than the last time: to which the landlady replied that if he paid better
than he did the last time she would give him one fit for a prince. Don
Quixote said he would, so they made up a tolerable one for him in the same
garret as before; and he lay down at once, being sorely shaken and in want
of sleep.
No sooner was the door shut upon him than the landlady made at the bar-
ber, and seizing him by the beard, said:
“By my faith you are not going to make a beard of my tail any longer;
you must give me back tail, for it is a shame the way that thing of my hus-
band’s goes tossing about on the floor; I mean the comb that I used to stick
in my good tail.”
But for all she tugged at it the barber would not give it up until the licen-
tiate told him to let her have it, as there was now no further occasion for
that stratagem, because he might declare himself and appear in his own
character, and tell Don Quixote that he had fled to this inn when those
thieves the galley slaves robbed him; and should he ask for the princess’s
squire, they could tell him that she had sent him on before her to give notice
to the people of her kingdom that she was coming, and bringing with her
the deliverer of them all. On this the barber cheerfully restored the tail to
the landlady, and at the same time they returned all the accessories they had
borrowed to effect Don Quixote’s deliverance. All the people of the inn
were struck with astonishment at the beauty of Dorothea, and even at the
comely figure of the shepherd Cardenio. The curate made them get ready
such fare as there was in the inn, and the landlord, in hope of better pay-
ment, served them up a tolerably good dinner. All this time Don Quixote
was asleep, and they thought it best not to waken him, as sleeping would
now do him more good than eating.
While at dinner, the company consisting of the landlord, his wife, their
daughter, Maritornes, and all the travellers, they discussed the strange craze
of Don Quixote and the manner in which he had been found; and the landla-
dy told them what had taken place between him and the carrier; and then,
looking round to see if Sancho was there, when she saw he was not, she
gave them the whole story of his blanketing, which they received with no
little amusement. But on the curate observing that it was the books of
chivalry which Don Quixote had read that had turned his brain, the landlord
said:
“I cannot understand how that can be, for in truth to my mind there is no
better reading in the world, and I have here two or three of them, with other
writings that are the very life, not only of myself but of plenty more; for
when it is harvest-time, the reapers flock here on holidays, and there is al-
ways one among them who can read and who takes up one of these books,
and we gather round him, thirty or more of us, and stay listening to him
with a delight that makes our grey hairs grow young again. At least I can
say for myself that when I hear of what furious and terrible blows the
knights deliver, I am seized with the longing to do the same, and I would
like to be hearing about them night and day.”
“And I just as much,” said the landlady, “because I never have a quiet
moment in my house except when you are listening to some one reading;
for then you are so taken up that for the time being you forget to scold.”
“That is true,” said Maritornes; “and, faith, I relish hearing these things
greatly too, for they are very pretty; especially when they describe some
lady or another in the arms of her knight under the orange trees, and the
duenna who is keeping watch for them half dead with envy and fright; all
this I say is as good as honey.”
“And you, what do you think, young lady?” said the curate turning to the
landlord’s daughter.
“I don’t know indeed, senor,” said she; “I listen too, and to tell the truth,
though I do not understand it, I like hearing it; but it is not the blows that
my father likes that I like, but the laments the knights utter when they are
separated from their ladies; and indeed they sometimes make me weep with
the pity I feel for them.”
“Then you would console them if it was for you they wept, young lady?”
said Dorothea.
“I don’t know what I should do,” said the girl; “I only know that there are
some of those ladies so cruel that they call their knights tigers and lions and
a thousand other foul names: and Jesus! I don’t know what sort of folk they
can be, so unfeeling and heartless, that rather than bestow a glance upon a
worthy man they leave him to die or go mad. I don’t know what is the good
of such prudery; if it is for honour’s sake, why not marry them? That’s all
they want.”
“Hush, child,” said the landlady; “it seems to me thou knowest a great
deal about these things, and it is not fit for girls to know or talk so much.”
“As the gentleman asked me, I could not help answering him,” said the
girl.
“Well then,” said the curate, “bring me these books, senor landlord, for I
should like to see them.”
“With all my heart,” said he, and going into his own room he brought out
an old valise secured with a little chain, on opening which the curate found
in it three large books and some manuscripts written in a very good hand.
The first that he opened he found to be “Don Cirongilio of Thrace,” and the
second “Don Felixmarte of Hircania,” and the other the “History of the
Great Captain Gonzalo Hernandez de Cordova, with the Life of Diego Gar-
cia de Paredes.”
When the curate read the two first titles he looked over at the barber and
said, “We want my friend’s housekeeper and niece here now.”
“Nay,” said the barber, “I can do just as well to carry them to the yard or
to the hearth, and there is a very good fire there.”
“What! your worship would burn my books!” said the landlord.
“Only these two,” said the curate, “Don Cirongilio, and Felixmarte.”
“Are my books, then, heretics or phlegmaties that you want to burn
them?” said the landlord.
“Schismatics you mean, friend,” said the barber, “not phlegmatics.”
“That’s it,” said the landlord; “but if you want to burn any, let it be that
about the Great Captain and that Diego Garcia; for I would rather have a
child of mine burnt than either of the others.”
“Brother,” said the curate, “those two books are made up of lies, and are
full of folly and nonsense; but this of the Great Captain is a true history, and
contains the deeds of Gonzalo Hernandez of Cordova, who by his many and
great achievements earned the title all over the world of the Great Captain,
a famous and illustrious name, and deserved by him alone; and this Diego
Garcia de Paredes was a distinguished knight of the city of Trujillo in Es-
tremadura, a most gallant soldier, and of such bodily strength that with one
finger he stopped a mill-wheel in full motion; and posted with a two-handed
sword at the foot of a bridge he kept the whole of an immense army from
passing over it, and achieved such other exploits that if, instead of his relat-
ing them himself with the modesty of a knight and of one writing his own
history, some free and unbiassed writer had recorded them, they would have
thrown into the shade all the deeds of the Hectors, Achilleses, and
Rolands.”
“Tell that to my father,” said the landlord. “There’s a thing to be aston-
ished at! Stopping a mill-wheel! By God your worship should read what I
have read of Felixmarte of Hircania, how with one single backstroke he
cleft five giants asunder through the middle as if they had been made of
bean-pods like the little friars the children make; and another time he at-
tacked a very great and powerful army, in which there were more than a
million six hundred thousand soldiers, all armed from head to foot, and he
routed them all as if they had been flocks of sheep.
“And then, what do you say to the good Cirongilio of Thrace, that was so
stout and bold; as may be seen in the book, where it is related that as he was
sailing along a river there came up out of the midst of the water against him
a fiery serpent, and he, as soon as he saw it, flung himself upon it and got
astride of its scaly shoulders, and squeezed its throat with both hands with
such force that the serpent, finding he was throttling it, had nothing for it
but to let itself sink to the bottom of the river, carrying with it the knight
who would not let go his hold; and when they got down there he found him-
self among palaces and gardens so pretty that it was a wonder to see; and
then the serpent changed itself into an old ancient man, who told him such
things as were never heard. Hold your peace, senor; for if you were to hear
this you would go mad with delight. A couple of figs for your Great Captain
and your Diego Garcia!”
Hearing this Dorothea said in a whisper to Cardenio, “Our landlord is al-
most fit to play a second part to Don Quixote.”
“I think so,” said Cardenio, “for, as he shows, he accepts it as a certainty
that everything those books relate took place exactly as it is written down;
and the barefooted friars themselves would not persuade him to the
contrary.”
“But consider, brother,” said the curate once more, “there never was any
Felixmarte of Hircania in the world, nor any Cirongilio of Thrace, or any of
the other knights of the same sort, that the books of chivalry talk of; the
whole thing is the fabrication and invention of idle wits, devised by them
for the purpose you describe of beguiling the time, as your reapers do when
they read; for I swear to you in all seriousness there never were any such
knights in the world, and no such exploits or nonsense ever happened
anywhere.”
“Try that bone on another dog,” said the landlord; “as if I did not know
how many make five, and where my shoe pinches me; don’t think to feed
me with pap, for by God I am no fool. It is a good joke for your worship to
try and persuade me that everything these good books say is nonsense and
lies, and they printed by the license of the Lords of the Royal Council, as if
they were people who would allow such a lot of lies to be printed all togeth-
er, and so many battles and enchantments that they take away one’s senses.”
“I have told you, friend,” said the curate, “that this is done to divert our
idle thoughts; and as in well-ordered states games of chess, fives, and bil-
liards are allowed for the diversion of those who do not care, or are not
obliged, or are unable to work, so books of this kind are allowed to be print-
ed, on the supposition that, what indeed is the truth, there can be nobody so
ignorant as to take any of them for true stories; and if it were permitted me
now, and the present company desired it, I could say something about the
qualities books of chivalry should possess to be good ones, that would be to
the advantage and even to the taste of some; but I hope the time will come
when I can communicate my ideas to some one who may be able to mend
matters; and in the meantime, senor landlord, believe what I have said, and
take your books, and make up your mind about their truth or falsehood, and
much good may they do you; and God grant you may not fall lame of the
same foot your guest Don Quixote halts on.”
“No fear of that,” returned the landlord; “I shall not be so mad as to make
a knight-errant of myself; for I see well enough that things are not now as
they used to be in those days, when they say those famous knights roamed
about the world.”
Sancho had made his appearance in the middle of this conversation, and
he was very much troubled and cast down by what he heard said about
knights-errant being now no longer in vogue, and all books of chivalry be-
ing folly and lies; and he resolved in his heart to wait and see what came of
this journey of his master’s, and if it did not turn out as happily as his mas-
ter expected, he determined to leave him and go back to his wife and chil-
dren and his ordinary labour.
The landlord was carrying away the valise and the books, but the curate
said to him, “Wait; I want to see what those papers are that are written in
such a good hand.” The landlord taking them out handed them to him to
read, and he perceived they were a work of about eight sheets of man-
uscript, with, in large letters at the beginning, the title of “Novel of the Ill-
advised Curiosity.” The curate read three or four lines to himself, and said,
“I must say the title of this novel does not seem to me a bad one, and I feel
an inclination to read it all.” To which the landlord replied, “Then your rev-
erence will do well to read it, for I can tell you that some guests who have
read it here have been much pleased with it, and have begged it of me very
earnestly; but I would not give it, meaning to return it to the person who
forgot the valise, books, and papers here, for maybe he will return here
some time or other; and though I know I shall miss the books, faith I mean
to return them; for though I am an innkeeper, still I am a Christian.”
“You are very right, friend,” said the curate; “but for all that, if the novel
pleases me you must let me copy it.”
“With all my heart,” replied the host.
While they were talking Cardenio had taken up the novel and begun to
read it, and forming the same opinion of it as the curate, he begged him to
read it so that they might all hear it.
“I would read it,” said the curate, “if the time would not be better spent in
sleeping.”
“It will be rest enough for me,” said Dorothea, “to while away the time
by listening to some tale, for my spirits are not yet tranquil enough to let me
sleep when it would be seasonable.”
“Well then, in that case,” said the curate, “I will read it, if it were only out
of curiosity; perhaps it may contain something pleasant.”
Master Nicholas added his entreaties to the same effect, and Sancho too;
seeing which, and considering that he would give pleasure to all, and re-
ceive it himself, the curate said, “Well then, attend to me everyone, for the
novel begins thus.”
