THE AUTHOR’S PREFACE
God bless me, gentle (or it may be plebeian) reader, how eagerly must thou
be looking forward to this preface, expecting to find there retaliation, scold-
ing, and abuse against the author of the second Don Quixote—I mean him
who was, they say, begotten at Tordesillas and born at Tarragona! Well then,
the truth is, I am not going to give thee that satisfaction; for, though injuries
stir up anger in humbler breasts, in mine the rule must admit of an excep-
tion. Thou wouldst have me call him ass, fool, and malapert, but I have no
such intention; let his offence be his punishment, with his bread let him eat
it, and there’s an end of it. What I cannot help taking amiss is that he
charges me with being old and one-handed, as if it had been in my power to
keep time from passing over me, or as if the loss of my hand had been
brought about in some tavern, and not on the grandest occasion the past or
present has seen, or the future can hope to see. If my wounds have no beau-
ty to the beholder’s eye, they are, at least, honourable in the estimation of
those who know where they were received; for the soldier shows to greater
advantage dead in battle than alive in flight; and so strongly is this my feel-
ing, that if now it were proposed to perform an impossibility for me, I
would rather have had my share in that mighty action, than be free from my
wounds this minute without having been present at it. Those the soldier
shows on his face and breast are stars that direct others to the heaven of ho-
nour and ambition of merited praise; and moreover it is to be observed that
it is not with grey hairs that one writes, but with the understanding, and that
commonly improves with years. I take it amiss, too, that he calls me envi-
ous, and explains to me, as if I were ignorant, what envy is; for really and
truly, of the two kinds there are, I only know that which is holy, noble, and
high-minded; and if that be so, as it is, I am not likely to attack a priest,
above all if, in addition, he holds the rank of familiar of the Holy Office.
And if he said what he did on account of him on whose behalf it seems he
spoke, he is entirely mistaken; for I worship the genius of that person, and
admire his works and his unceasing and strenuous industry. After all, I am
grateful to this gentleman, the author, for saying that my novels are more
satirical than exemplary, but that they are good; for they could not be that
unless there was a little of everything in them.
I suspect thou wilt say that I am taking a very humble line, and keeping
myself too much within the bounds of my moderation, from a feeling that
additional suffering should not be inflicted upon a sufferer, and that what
this gentleman has to endure must doubtless be very great, as he does not
dare to come out into the open field and broad daylight, but hides his name
and disguises his country as if he had been guilty of some lese majesty. If
perchance thou shouldst come to know him, tell him from me that I do not
hold myself aggrieved; for I know well what the temptations of the devil
are, and that one of the greatest is putting it into a man’s head that he can
write and print a book by which he will get as much fame as money, and as
much money as fame; and to prove it I will beg of you, in your own spright-
ly, pleasant way, to tell him this story.
There was a madman in Seville who took to one of the drollest absurdi-
ties and vagaries that ever madman in the world gave way to. It was this: he
made a tube of reed sharp at one end, and catching a dog in the street, or
wherever it might be, he with his foot held one of its legs fast, and with his
hand lifted up the other, and as best he could fixed the tube where, by blow-
ing, he made the dog as round as a ball; then holding it in this position, he
gave it a couple of slaps on the belly, and let it go, saying to the bystanders
(and there were always plenty of them): “Do your worships think, now, that
it is an easy thing to blow up a dog?”—Does your worship think now, that it
is an easy thing to write a book?
And if this story does not suit him, you may, dear reader, tell him this
one, which is likewise of a madman and a dog.
In Cordova there was another madman, whose way it was to carry a piece
of marble slab or a stone, not of the lightest, on his head, and when he came
upon any unwary dog he used to draw close to him and let the weight fall
right on top of him; on which the dog in a rage, barking and howling, would
run three streets without stopping. It so happened, however, that one of the
dogs he discharged his load upon was a cap-maker’s dog, of which his mas-
ter was very fond. The stone came down hitting it on the head, the dog
raised a yell at the blow, the master saw the affair and was wroth, and
snatching up a measuring-yard rushed out at the madman and did not leave
a sound bone in his body, and at every stroke he gave him he said, “You
dog, you thief! my lurcher! Don’t you see, you brute, that my dog is a
lurcher?” and so, repeating the word “lurcher” again and again, he sent the
madman away beaten to a jelly. The madman took the lesson to heart, and
vanished, and for more than a month never once showed himself in public;
but after that he came out again with his old trick and a heavier load than
ever. He came up to where there was a dog, and examining it very carefully
without venturing to let the stone fall, he said: “This is a lurcher; ware!” In
short, all the dogs he came across, be they mastiffs or terriers, he said were
lurchers; and he discharged no more stones. Maybe it will be the same with
this historian; that he will not venture another time to discharge the weight
of his wit in books, which, being bad, are harder than stones. Tell him, too,
that I do not care a farthing for the threat he holds out to me of depriving
me of my profit by means of his book; for, to borrow from the famous inter-
lude of “The Perendenga,” I say in answer to him, “Long life to my lord the
Veintiquatro, and Christ be with us all.” Long life to the great Conde de
Lemos, whose Christian charity and well-known generosity support me
against all the strokes of my curst fortune; and long life to the supreme
benevolence of His Eminence of Toledo, Don Bernardo de Sandoval y Ro-
jas; and what matter if there be no printing-presses in the world, or if they
print more books against me than there are letters in the verses of Mingo
Revulgo! These two princes, unsought by any adulation or flattery of mine,
of their own goodness alone, have taken it upon them to show me kindness
and protect me, and in this I consider myself happier and richer than if For-
tune had raised me to her greatest height in the ordinary way. The poor man
may retain honour, but not the vicious; poverty may cast a cloud over nobil-
ity, but cannot hide it altogether; and as virtue of itself sheds a certain light,
even though it be through the straits and chinks of penury, it wins the es-
teem of lofty and noble spirits, and in consequence their protection. Thou
needst say no more to him, nor will I say anything more to thee, save to tell
thee to bear in mind that this Second Part of “Don Quixote” which I offer
thee is cut by the same craftsman and from the same cloth as the First, and
that in it I present thee Don Quixote continued, and at length dead and
buried, so that no one may dare to bring forward any further evidence
against him, for that already produced is sufficient; and suffice it, too, that
some reputable person should have given an account of all these shrewd lu-
nacies of his without going into the matter again; for abundance, even of
good things, prevents them from being valued; and scarcity, even in the
case of what is bad, confers a certain value. I was forgetting to tell thee that
thou mayest expect the “Persiles,” which I am now finishing, and also the
Second Part of “Galatea.”
