PART II - CHAPTER VII.

by Miguel de Cervantes

　　OF WHAT PASSED BETWEEN DON QUIXOTE AND HIS SQUIRE, TOGETHER WITH OTHERVERY NOTABLE INCIDENTSThe instant the housekeeper saw Sancho Panza shut himself in with hermaster, she guessed what they were about; and suspecting that the resultof the consultation would be a resolve to undertake a third sally, sheseized her mantle, and in deep anxiety and distress, ran to find thebachelor Samson Carrasco, as she thought that, being a well-spoken man,and a new friend of her master's, he might be able to persuade him togive up any such crazy notion. She found him pacing the patio of hishouse, and, perspiring and flurried, she fell at his feet the moment shesaw him.Carrasco, seeing how distressed and overcome she was, said to her, "Whatis this, mistress housekeeper? What has happened to you? One would thinkyou heart-broken.""Nothing, Senor Samson," said she, "only that my master is breaking out,plainly breaking out.""Whereabouts is he breaking out, senora?" asked Samson; "has any part ofhis body burst?""He is only breaking out at the door of his madness," she replied; "Imean, dear senor bachelor, that he is going to break out again (and thiswill be the third time) to hunt all over the world for what he callsventures, though I can't make out why he gives them that name. The firsttime he was brought back to us slung across the back of an ass, andbelaboured all over; and the second time he came in an ox-cart, shut upin a cage, in which he persuaded himself he was enchanted, and the poorcreature was in such a state that the mother that bore him would not haveknown him; lean, yellow, with his eyes sunk deep in the cells of hisskull; so that to bring him round again, ever so little, cost me morethan six hundred eggs, as God knows, and all the world, and my hens too,that won't let me tell a lie.""That I can well believe," replied the bachelor, "for they are so goodand so fat, and so well-bred, that they would not say one thing foranother, though they were to burst for it. In short then, mistresshousekeeper, that is all, and there is nothing the matter, except what itis feared Don Quixote may do?""No, senor," said she."Well then," returned the bachelor, "don't be uneasy, but go home inpeace; get me ready something hot for breakfast, and while you are on theway say the prayer of Santa Apollonia, that is if you know it; for I willcome presently and you will see miracles.""Woe is me," cried the housekeeper, "is it the prayer of Santa Apolloniayou would have me say? That would do if it was the toothache my masterhad; but it is in the brains, what he has got.""I know what I am saying, mistress housekeeper; go, and don't setyourself to argue with me, for you know I am a bachelor of Salamanca, andone can't be more of a bachelor than that," replied Carrasco; and withthis the housekeeper retired, and the bachelor went to look for thecurate, and arrange with him what will be told in its proper place.While Don Quixote and Sancho were shut up together, they had a discussionwhich the history records with great precision and scrupulous exactness.Sancho said to his master, "Senor, I have educed my wife to let me gowith your worship wherever you choose to take me.""Induced, you should say, Sancho," said Don Quixote; "not educed.""Once or twice, as well as I remember," replied Sancho, "I have begged ofyour worship not to mend my words, if so be as you understand what I meanby them; and if you don't understand them to say 'Sancho,' or 'devil,' 'Idon't understand thee; and if I don't make my meaning plain, then you maycorrect me, for I am so focile-""I don't understand thee, Sancho," said Don Quixote at once; "for I knownot what 'I am so focile' means.""'So focile' means I am so much that way," replied Sancho."I understand thee still less now," said Don Quixote."Well, if you can't understand me," said Sancho, "I don't know how to putit; I know no more, God help me.""Oh, now I have hit it," said Don Quixote; "thou wouldst say thou art sodocile, tractable, and gentle that thou wilt take what I say to thee, andsubmit to what I teach thee.""I would bet," said Sancho, "that from the very first you understood me,and knew what I meant, but you wanted to put me out that you might hearme make another couple of dozen blunders.""May be so," replied Don Quixote; "but to come to the point, what doesTeresa say?""Teresa says," replied Sancho, "that I should make sure with yourworship, and 'let papers speak and beards be still,' for 'he who bindsdoes not wrangle,' since one 'take' is better than two 'I'll givethee's;' and I say a woman's advice is no great thing, and he who won'ttake it is a fool.""And so say I," said Don Quixote; "continue, Sancho my friend; go on; youtalk pearls to-day.""The fact is," continued Sancho, "that, as your worship knows better thanI do, we are all of us liable to death, and to-day we are, and to-morrowwe are not, and the lamb goes as soon as the sheep, and nobody canpromise himself more hours of life in this world than God may be pleasedto give him; for death is deaf, and when it comes to knock at our life'sdoor, it is always urgent, and neither prayers, nor struggles, norsceptres, nor mitres, can keep it back, as common talk and report say,and as they tell us from the pulpits every day.""All that is very true," said Don Quixote; "but I cannot make out whatthou art driving at.""What I am driving at," said Sancho, "is that your worship settle somefixed wages for me, to be paid monthly while I am in your service, andthat the same he paid me out of your estate; for I don't care to stand onrewards which either come late, or ill, or never at all; God help me withmy own. In short, I would like to know what I am to get, be it much orlittle; for the hen will lay on one egg, and many littles make a much,and so long as one gains something there is nothing lost. To be sure, ifit should happen (what I neither believe nor expect) that your worshipwere to give me that island you have promised me, I am not so ungratefulnor so grasping but that I would be willing to have the revenue of suchisland valued and stopped out of my wages in due promotion.""Sancho, my friend," replied Don Quixote, "sometimes proportion may be asgood as promotion.""I see," said Sancho; "I'll bet I ought to have said proportion, and notpromotion; but it is no matter, as your worship has understood me.""And so well understood," returned Don Quixote, "that I have seen intothe depths of thy thoughts, and know the mark thou art shooting at withthe countless shafts of thy proverbs. Look here, Sancho, I would readilyfix thy wages if I had ever found any instance in the histories of theknights-errant to show or indicate, by the slightest hint, what theirsquires used to get monthly or yearly; but I have read all or the bestpart of their histories, and I cannot remember reading of anyknight-errant having assigned fixed wages to his squire; I only know thatthey all served on reward, and that when they least expected it, if goodluck attended their masters, they found themselves recompensed with anisland or something equivalent to it, or at the least they were left witha title and lordship. If with these hopes and additional inducements you,Sancho, please to return to my service, well and good; but to supposethat I am going to disturb or unhinge the ancient usage ofknight-errantry, is all nonsense. And so, my Sancho, get you back to yourhouse and explain my intentions to your Teresa, and if she likes and youlike to be on reward with me, bene quidem; if not, we remain friends; forif the pigeon-house does not lack food, it will not lack pigeons; andbear in mind, my son, that a good hope is better than a bad holding, anda good grievance better than a bad compensation. I speak in this way,Sancho, to show you that I can shower down proverbs just as well asyourself; and in short, I mean to say, and I do say, that if you don'tlike to come on reward with me, and run the same chance that I run, Godbe with you and make a saint of you; for I shall find plenty of squiresmore obedient and painstaking, and not so thickheaded or talkative as youare."When Sancho heard his master's firm, resolute language, a cloud came overthe sky with him and the wings of his heart drooped, for he had made surethat his master would not go without him for all the wealth of the world;and as he stood there dumbfoundered and moody, Samson Carrasco came inwith the housekeeper and niece, who were anxious to hear by whatarguments he was about to dissuade their master from going to seekadventures. The arch wag Samson came forward, and embracing him as he haddone before, said with a loud voice, "O flower of knight-errantry! Oshining light of arms! O honour and mirror of the Spanish nation! may GodAlmighty in his infinite power grant that any person or persons, whowould impede or hinder thy third sally, may find no way out of thelabyrinth of their schemes, nor ever accomplish what they most desire!"And then, turning to the housekeeper, he said, "Mistress housekeeper mayjust as well give over saying the prayer of Santa Apollonia, for I knowit is the positive determination of the spheres that Senor Don Quixoteshall proceed to put into execution his new and lofty designs; and Ishould lay a heavy burden on my conscience did I not urge and persuadethis knight not to keep the might of his strong arm and the virtue of hisvaliant spirit any longer curbed and checked, for by his inactivity he isdefrauding the world of the redress of wrongs, of the protection oforphans, of the honour of virgins, of the aid of widows, and of thesupport of wives, and other matters of this kind appertaining, belonging,proper and peculiar to the order of knight-errantry. On, then, my lordDon Quixote, beautiful and brave, let your worship and highness set outto-day rather than to-morrow; and if anything be needed for the executionof your purpose, here am I ready in person and purse to supply the want;and were it requisite to attend your magnificence as squire, I shouldesteem it the happiest good fortune."At this, Don Quixote, turning to Sancho, said, "Did I not tell thee,Sancho, there would be squires enough and to spare for me? See now whooffers to become one; no less than the illustrious bachelor SamsonCarrasco, the perpetual joy and delight of the courts of the Salamancanschools, sound in body, discreet, patient under heat or cold, hunger orthirst, with all the qualifications requisite to make a knight-errant'ssquire! But heaven forbid that, to gratify my own inclination, I shouldshake or shatter this pillar of letters and vessel of the sciences, andcut down this towering palm of the fair and liberal arts. Let this newSamson remain in his own country, and, bringing honour to it, bringhonour at the same time on the grey heads of his venerable parents; for Iwill be content with any squire that comes to hand, as Sancho does notdeign to accompany me.""I do deign," said Sancho, deeply moved and with tears in his eyes; "itshall not be said of me, master mine," he continued, "'the bread eatenand the company dispersed.' Nay, I come of no ungrateful stock, for allthe world knows, but particularly my own town, who the Panzas from whom Iam descended were; and, what is more, I know and have learned, by manygood words and deeds, your worship's desire to show me favour; and if Ihave been bargaining more or less about my wages, it was only to pleasemy wife, who, when she sets herself to press a point, no hammer drivesthe hoops of a cask as she drives one to do what she wants; but, afterall, a man must be a man, and a woman a woman; and as I am a man anyhow,which I can't deny, I will be one in my own house too, let who will takeit amiss; and so there's nothing more to do but for your worship to makeyour will with its codicil in such a way that it can't be provoked, andlet us set out at once, to save Senor Samson's soul from suffering, as hesays his conscience obliges him to persuade your worship to sally outupon the world a third time; so I offer again to serve your worshipfaithfully and loyally, as well and better than all the squires thatserved knights-errant in times past or present."The bachelor was filled with amazement when he heard Sancho's phraseologyand style of talk, for though he had read the first part of his master'shistory he never thought that he could be so droll as he was theredescribed; but now, hearing him talk of a "will and codicil that couldnot be provoked," instead of "will and codicil that could not berevoked," he believed all he had read of him, and set him down as one ofthe greatest simpletons of modern times; and he said to himself that twosuch lunatics as master and man the world had never seen. In fine, DonQuixote and Sancho embraced one another and made friends, and by theadvice and with the approval of the great Carrasco, who was now theiroracle, it was arranged that their departure should take place three daysthence, by which time they could have all that was requisite for thejourney ready, and procure a closed helmet, which Don Quixote said hemust by all means take. Samson offered him one, as he knew a friend ofhis who had it would not refuse it to him, though it was more dingy withrust and mildew than bright and clean like burnished steel.The curses which both housekeeper and niece poured out on the bachelorwere past counting; they tore their hair, they clawed their faces, and inthe style of the hired mourners that were once in fashion, they raised alamentation over the departure of their master and uncle, as if it hadbeen his death. Samson's intention in persuading him to sally forth oncemore was to do what the history relates farther on; all by the advice ofthe curate and barber, with whom he had previously discussed the subject.Finally, then, during those three days, Don Quixote and Sancho providedthemselves with what they considered necessary, and Sancho havingpacified his wife, and Don Quixote his niece and housekeeper, atnightfall, unseen by anyone except the bachelor, who thought fit toaccompany them half a league out of the village, they set out for ElToboso, Don Quixote on his good Rocinante and Sancho on his old Dapple,his alforjas furnished with certain matters in the way of victuals, andhis purse with money that Don Quixote gave him to meet emergencies.Samson embraced him, and entreated him to let him hear of his good orevil fortunes, so that he might rejoice over the former or condole withhim over the latter, as the laws of friendship required. Don Quixotepromised him he would do so, and Samson returned to the village, and theother two took the road for the great city of El Toboso.