PART II - CHAPTER V.

by Miguel de Cervantes

　　OF THE SHREWD AND DROLL CONVERSATION THAT PASSED BETWEEN SANCHO PANZA ANDHIS WIFE TERESA PANZA, AND OTHER MATTERS WORTHY OF BEING DULY RECORDEDThe translator of this history, when he comes to write this fifthchapter, says that he considers it apocryphal, because in it Sancho Panzaspeaks in a style unlike that which might have been expected from hislimited intelligence, and says things so subtle that he does not think itpossible he could have conceived them; however, desirous of doing whathis task imposed upon him, he was unwilling to leave it untranslated, andtherefore he went on to say:Sancho came home in such glee and spirits that his wife noticed hishappiness a bowshot off, so much so that it made her ask him, "What haveyou got, Sancho friend, that you are so glad?"To which he replied, "Wife, if it were God's will, I should be very gladnot to be so well pleased as I show myself.""I don't understand you, husband," said she, "and I don't know what youmean by saying you would be glad, if it were God's will, not to be wellpleased; for, fool as I am, I don't know how one can find pleasure in nothaving it.""Hark ye, Teresa," replied Sancho, "I am glad because I have made up mymind to go back to the service of my master Don Quixote, who means to goout a third time to seek for adventures; and I am going with him again,for my necessities will have it so, and also the hope that cheers me withthe thought that I may find another hundred crowns like those we havespent; though it makes me sad to have to leave thee and the children; andif God would be pleased to let me have my daily bread, dry-shod and athome, without taking me out into the byways and cross-roads--and he coulddo it at small cost by merely willing it--it is clear my happiness wouldbe more solid and lasting, for the happiness I have is mingled withsorrow at leaving thee; so that I was right in saying I would be glad, ifit were God's will, not to be well pleased.""Look here, Sancho," said Teresa; "ever since you joined on to aknight-errant you talk in such a roundabout way that there is nounderstanding you.""It is enough that God understands me, wife," replied Sancho; "for he isthe understander of all things; that will do; but mind, sister, you mustlook to Dapple carefully for the next three days, so that he may be fitto take arms; double his feed, and see to the pack-saddle and otherharness, for it is not to a wedding we are bound, but to go round theworld, and play at give and take with giants and dragons and monsters,and hear hissings and roarings and bellowings and howlings; and even allthis would be lavender, if we had not to reckon with Yanguesans andenchanted Moors.""I know well enough, husband," said Teresa, "that squires-errant don'teat their bread for nothing, and so I will be always praying to our Lordto deliver you speedily from all that hard fortune.""I can tell you, wife," said Sancho, "if I did not expect to see myselfgovernor of an island before long, I would drop down dead on the spot.""Nay, then, husband," said Teresa; "let the hen live, though it be withher pip, live, and let the devil take all the governments in the world;you came out of your mother's womb without a government, you have liveduntil now without a government, and when it is God's will you will go, orbe carried, to your grave without a government. How many there are in theworld who live without a government, and continue to live all the same,and are reckoned in the number of the people. The best sauce in the worldis hunger, and as the poor are never without that, they always eat with arelish. But mind, Sancho, if by good luck you should find yourself withsome government, don't forget me and your children. Remember thatSanchico is now full fifteen, and it is right he should go to school, ifhis uncle the abbot has a mind to have him trained for the Church.Consider, too, that your daughter Mari-Sancha will not die of grief if wemarry her; for I have my suspicions that she is as eager to get a husbandas you to get a government; and, after all, a daughter looks better illmarried than well whored.""By my faith," replied Sancho, "if God brings me to get any sort of agovernment, I intend, wife, to make such a high match for Mari-Sanchathat there will be no approaching her without calling her 'my lady.""Nay, Sancho," returned Teresa; "marry her to her equal, that is thesafest plan; for if you put her out of wooden clogs into high-heeledshoes, out of her grey flannel petticoat into hoops and silk gowns, outof the plain 'Marica' and 'thou,' into 'Dona So-and-so' and 'my lady,'the girl won't know where she is, and at every turn she will fall into athousand blunders that will show the thread of her coarse homespunstuff.""Tut, you fool," said Sancho; "it will be only to practise it for two orthree years; and then dignity and decorum will fit her as easily as aglove; and if not, what matter? Let her he 'my lady,' and never mind whathappens.""Keep to your own station, Sancho," replied Teresa; "don't try to raiseyourself higher, and bear in mind the proverb that says, 'wipe the noseof your neigbbour's son, and take him into your house.' A fine thing itwould be, indeed, to marry our Maria to some great count or grandgentleman, who, when the humour took him, would abuse her and call herclown-bred and clodhopper's daughter and spinning wench. I have not beenbringing up my daughter for that all this time, I can tell you, husband.Do you bring home money, Sancho, and leave marrying her to my care; thereis Lope Tocho, Juan Tocho's son, a stout, sturdy young fellow that weknow, and I can see he does not look sour at the girl; and with him, oneof our own sort, she will be well married, and we shall have her alwaysunder our eyes, and be all one family, parents and children,grandchildren and sons-in-law, and the peace and blessing of God willdwell among us; so don't you go marrying her in those courts and grandpalaces where they won't know what to make of her, or she what to make ofherself.""Why, you idiot and wife for Barabbas," said Sancho, "what do you mean bytrying, without why or wherefore, to keep me from marrying my daughter toone who will give me grandchildren that will be called 'your lordship'?Look ye, Teresa, I have always heard my elders say that he who does notknow how to take advantage of luck when it comes to him, has no right tocomplain if it gives him the go-by; and now that it is knocking at ourdoor, it will not do to shut it out; let us go with the favouring breezethat blows upon us."It is this sort of talk, and what Sancho says lower down, that made thetranslator of the history say he considered this chapter apocryphal."Don't you see, you animal," continued Sancho, "that it will be well forme to drop into some profitable government that will lift us out of themire, and marry Mari-Sancha to whom I like; and you yourself will findyourself called 'Dona Teresa Panza,' and sitting in church on a finecarpet and cushions and draperies, in spite and in defiance of all theborn ladies of the town? No, stay as you are, growing neither greater norless, like a tapestry figure--Let us say no more about it, for Sanchicashall be a countess, say what you will.""Are you sure of all you say, husband?" replied Teresa. "Well, for allthat, I am afraid this rank of countess for my daughter will be her ruin.You do as you like, make a duchess or a princess of her, but I can tellyou it will not be with my will and consent. I was always a lover ofequality, brother, and I can't bear to see people give themselves airswithout any right. They called me Teresa at my baptism, a plain, simplename, without any additions or tags or fringes of Dons or Donas; Cascajowas my father's name, and as I am your wife, I am called Teresa Panza,though by right I ought to be called Teresa Cascajo; but 'kings go wherelaws like,' and I am content with this name without having the 'Don' puton top of it to make it so heavy that I cannot carry it; and I don't wantto make people talk about me when they see me go dressed like a countessor governor's wife; for they will say at once, 'See what airs the slutgives herself! Only yesterday she was always spinning flax, and used togo to mass with the tail of her petticoat over her head instead of amantle, and there she goes to-day in a hooped gown with her broaches andairs, as if we didn't know her!' If God keeps me in my seven senses, orfive, or whatever number I have, I am not going to bring myself to such apass; go you, brother, and be a government or an island man, and swaggeras much as you like; for by the soul of my mother, neither my daughternor I are going to stir a step from our village; a respectable womanshould have a broken leg and keep at home; and to be busy at something isa virtuous damsel's holiday; be off to your adventures along with yourDon Quixote, and leave us to our misadventures, for God will mend themfor us according as we deserve it. I don't know, I'm sure, who fixed the'Don' to him, what neither his father nor grandfather ever had.""I declare thou hast a devil of some sort in thy body!" said Sancho. "Godhelp thee, what a lot of things thou hast strung together, one after theother, without head or tail! What have Cascajo, and the broaches and theproverbs and the airs, to do with what I say? Look here, fool and dolt(for so I may call you, when you don't understand my words, and run awayfrom good fortune), if I had said that my daughter was to throw herselfdown from a tower, or go roaming the world, as the Infanta Dona Urracawanted to do, you would be right in not giving way to my will; but if inan instant, in less than the twinkling of an eye, I put the 'Don' and 'mylady' on her back, and take her out of the stubble, and place her under acanopy, on a dais, and on a couch, with more velvet cushions than all theAlmohades of Morocco ever had in their family, why won't you consent andfall in with my wishes?""Do you know why, husband?" replied Teresa; "because of the proverb thatsays 'who covers thee, discovers thee.' At the poor man people only throwa hasty glance; on the rich man they fix their eyes; and if the said richman was once on a time poor, it is then there is the sneering and thetattle and spite of backbiters; and in the streets here they swarm asthick as bees.""Look here, Teresa," said Sancho, "and listen to what I am now going tosay to you; maybe you never heard it in all your life; and I do not givemy own notions, for what I am about to say are the opinions of hisreverence the preacher, who preached in this town last Lent, and whosaid, if I remember rightly, that all things present that our eyesbehold, bring themselves before us, and remain and fix themselves on ourmemory much better and more forcibly than things past."These observations which Sancho makes here are the other ones on accountof which the translator says he regards this chapter as apocryphal,inasmuch as they are beyond Sancho's capacity."Whence it arises," he continued, "that when we see any person welldressed and making a figure with rich garments and retinue of servants,it seems to lead and impel us perforce to respect him, though memory mayat the same moment recall to us some lowly condition in which we haveseen him, but which, whether it may have been poverty or low birth, beingnow a thing of the past, has no existence; while the only thing that hasany existence is what we see before us; and if this person whom fortunehas raised from his original lowly state (these were the very words thepadre used) to his present height of prosperity, be well bred, generous,courteous to all, without seeking to vie with those whose nobility is ofancient date, depend upon it, Teresa, no one will remember what he was,and everyone will respect what he is, except indeed the envious, fromwhom no fair fortune is safe.""I do not understand you, husband," replied Teresa; "do as you like, anddon't break my head with any more speechifying and rethoric; and if youhave revolved to do what you say-""Resolved, you should say, woman," said Sancho, "not revolved.""Don't set yourself to wrangle with me, husband," said Teresa; "I speakas God pleases, and don't deal in out-of-the-way phrases; and I say ifyou are bent upon having a government, take your son Sancho with you, andteach him from this time on how to hold a government; for sons ought toinherit and learn the trades of their fathers.""As soon as I have the government," said Sancho, "I will send for him bypost, and I will send thee money, of which I shall have no lack, forthere is never any want of people to lend it to governors when they havenot got it; and do thou dress him so as to hide what he is and make himlook what he is to be.""You send the money," said Teresa, "and I'll dress him up for you as fineas you please.""Then we are agreed that our daughter is to be a countess," said Sancho."The day that I see her a countess," replied Teresa, "it will be the sameto me as if I was burying her; but once more I say do as you please, forwe women are born to this burden of being obedient to our husbands,though they be dogs;" and with this she began to weep in earnest, as ifshe already saw Sanchica dead and buried.Sancho consoled her by saying that though he must make her a countess, hewould put it off as long as possible. Here their conversation came to anend, and Sancho went back to see Don Quixote, and make arrangements fortheir departure.