CHAPTER 9
WHEREIN IS RELATED WHAT WILL BE SEEN THERE
‘Twas at the very midnight hour—more or less—when Don Quixote and
Sancho quitted the wood and entered El Toboso. The town was in deep si-
lence, for all the inhabitants were asleep, and stretched on the broad of their
backs, as the saying is. The night was darkish, though Sancho would have
been glad had it been quite dark, so as to find in the darkness an excuse for
his blundering. All over the place nothing was to be heard except the bark-
ing of dogs, which deafened the ears of Don Quixote and troubled the heart
of Sancho. Now and then an ass brayed, pigs grunted, cats mewed, and the
various noises they made seemed louder in the silence of the night; all
which the enamoured knight took to be of evil omen; nevertheless he said to
Sancho, “Sancho, my son, lead on to the palace of Dulcinea, it may be that
we shall find her awake.”
“Body of the sun! what palace am I to lead to,” said Sancho, “when what
I saw her highness in was only a very little house?”
“Most likely she had then withdrawn into some small apartment of her
palace,” said Don Quixote, “to amuse herself with damsels, as great ladies
and princesses are accustomed to do.”
“Senor,” said Sancho, “if your worship will have it in spite of me that the
house of my lady Dulcinea is a palace, is this an hour, think you, to find the
door open; and will it be right for us to go knocking till they hear us and
open the door; making a disturbance and confusion all through the house-
hold? Are we going, do you fancy, to the house of our wenches, like gal-
lants who come and knock and go in at any hour, however late it may be?”
“Let us first of all find out the palace for certain,” replied Don Quixote,
“and then I will tell thee, Sancho, what we had best do; but look, Sancho,
for either I see badly, or that dark mass that one sees from here should be
Dulcinea’s palace.”
“Then let your worship lead the way,” said Sancho, “perhaps it may be
so; though I see it with my eyes and touch it with my hands, I’ll believe it as
much as I believe it is daylight now.”
Don Quixote took the lead, and having gone a matter of two hundred
paces he came upon the mass that produced the shade, and found it was a
great tower, and then he perceived that the building in question was no
palace, but the chief church of the town, and said he, “It’s the church we
have lit upon, Sancho.”
“So I see,” said Sancho, “and God grant we may not light upon our
graves; it is no good sign to find oneself wandering in a graveyard at this
time of night; and that, after my telling your worship, if I don’t mistake, that
the house of this lady will be in an alley without an outlet.”
“The curse of God on thee for a blockhead!” said Don Quixote; “where
hast thou ever heard of castles and royal palaces being built in alleys with-
out an outlet?”
“Senor,” replied Sancho, “every country has a way of its own; perhaps
here in El Toboso it is the way to build palaces and grand buildings in al-
leys; so I entreat your worship to let me search about among these streets or
alleys before me, and perhaps, in some corner or other, I may stumble on
this palace—and I wish I saw the dogs eating it for leading us such a
dance.”
“Speak respectfully of what belongs to my lady, Sancho,” said Don
Quixote; “let us keep the feast in peace, and not throw the rope after the
bucket.”
“I’ll hold my tongue,” said Sancho, “but how am I to take it patiently
when your worship wants me, with only once seeing the house of our mis-
tress, to know always, and find it in the middle of the night, when your wor-
ship can’t find it, who must have seen it thousands of times?”
“Thou wilt drive me to desperation, Sancho,” said Don Quixote. “Look
here, heretic, have I not told thee a thousand times that I have never once in
my life seen the peerless Dulcinea or crossed the threshold of her palace,
and that I am enamoured solely by hearsay and by the great reputation she
bears for beauty and discretion?”
“I hear it now,” returned Sancho; “and I may tell you that if you have not
seen her, no more have I.”
“That cannot be,” said Don Quixote, “for, at any rate, thou saidst, on
bringing back the answer to the letter I sent by thee, that thou sawest her
sifting wheat.”
“Don’t mind that, senor,” said Sancho; “I must tell you that my seeing her
and the answer I brought you back were by hearsay too, for I can no more
tell who the lady Dulcinea is than I can hit the sky.”
“Sancho, Sancho,” said Don Quixote, “there are times for jests and times
when jests are out of place; if I tell thee that I have neither seen nor spoken
to the lady of my heart, it is no reason why thou shouldst say thou hast not
spoken to her or seen her, when the contrary is the case, as thou well
knowest.”
While the two were engaged in this conversation, they perceived some
one with a pair of mules approaching the spot where they stood, and from
the noise the plough made, as it dragged along the ground, they guessed
him to be some labourer who had got up before daybreak to go to his work,
and so it proved to be. He came along singing the ballad that says—
Ill did ye fare, ye men of France, In Roncesvalles chase—
“May I die, Sancho,” said Don Quixote, when he heard him, “if any good
will come to us tonight! Dost thou not hear what that clown is singing?”
“I do,” said Sancho, “but what has Roncesvalles chase to do with what
we have in hand? He might just as well be singing the ballad of Calainos,
for any good or ill that can come to us in our business.”
By this time the labourer had come up, and Don Quixote asked him,
“Can you tell me, worthy friend, and God speed you, whereabouts here is
the palace of the peerless princess Dona Dulcinea del Toboso?”
“Senor,” replied the lad, “I am a stranger, and I have been only a few days
in the town, doing farm work for a rich farmer. In that house opposite there
live the curate of the village and the sacristan, and both or either of them
will be able to give your worship some account of this lady princess, for
they have a list of all the people of El Toboso; though it is my belief there is
not a princess living in the whole of it; many ladies there are, of quality, and
in her own house each of them may be a princess.”
“Well, then, she I am inquiring for will be one of these, my friend,” said
Don Quixote.
“May be so,” replied the lad; “God be with you, for here comes the day-
light;” and without waiting for any more of his questions, he whipped on his
mules.
Sancho, seeing his master downcast and somewhat dissatisfied, said to
him, “Senor, daylight will be here before long, and it will not do for us to let
the sun find us in the street; it will be better for us to quit the city, and for
your worship to hide in some forest in the neighbourhood, and I will come
back in the daytime, and I won’t leave a nook or corner of the whole village
that I won’t search for the house, castle, or palace, of my lady, and it will be
hard luck for me if I don’t find it; and as soon as I have found it I will speak
to her grace, and tell her where and how your worship is waiting for her to
arrange some plan for you to see her without any damage to her honour and
reputation.”
“Sancho,” said Don Quixote, “thou hast delivered a thousand sentences
condensed in the compass of a few words; I thank thee for the advice thou
hast given me, and take it most gladly. Come, my son, let us go look for
some place where I may hide, while thou dost return, as thou sayest, to
seek, and speak with my lady, from whose discretion and courtesy I look for
favours more than miraculous.”
Sancho was in a fever to get his master out of the town, lest he should
discover the falsehood of the reply he had brought to him in the Sierra
Morena on behalf of Dulcinea; so he hastened their departure, which they
took at once, and two miles out of the village they found a forest or thicket
wherein Don Quixote ensconced himself, while Sancho returned to the city
to speak to Dulcinea, in which embassy things befell him which demand
fresh attention and a new chapter.
