CHAPTER XX

“It’s not possible, Señor, for this grass not to be a sign that somewhere nearby there’s a spring or brook that waters these plants, and so it would be a good idea for us to go a little farther until we find a place where we can quench this terrible thirst that’s plaguing us and is, no doubt about it, harder to bear than hunger.”

This seemed good advice to Don Quixote, and after packing away the remains of their supper on the donkey, he led Rocinante by the reins, and Sancho held his donkey’s halter, and they began to walk to the top of the meadow, feeling their way because the dark of night did not allow them to see anything at all; but they had not gone two hundred paces when a sound of crashing reached their ears, as if water were hurtling over large, high cliffs. The sound made them very happy, and they stopped to hear where it was coming from, when they suddenly heard another exceedingly loud noise that watered down their joy at finding water, especially Sancho’s, for he was naturally fearful and not very brave. I say that they heard the sound of rhythmic pounding, along with a certain clanking of irons and chains that, accompanied by the clamorous fury of the water, would have put terror in any heart other than Don Quixote’s.

The night, as we have said, was dark, and they happened to walk under some tall trees whose leaves, moved by the gentle breeze, made a muffled, frightening sound; in short, the solitude, the place, the darkness, the noise of the water, and the murmur of the leaves all combined to cause panic and consternation, especially when they saw that the pounding did not stop, the wind did not cease, and morning did not come; added to this was their not knowing where they were. But Don Quixote, accompanied by his intrepid heart, leaped onto Rocinante, and, holding his shield, he grasped his lance and said:

“Sancho, my friend, know that I was born, by the will of heaven, in this our iron age, to revive the one of gold, or the Golden Age, as it is called. I am he for whom are reserved dangers, great deeds, valiant feats. I am, I repeat, he who is to revive the Knights of the Round Table, the Twelve Peers of France, the Nine Worthies, he who is to make the world forget the Platirs, Tablants, Olivants, and Tirants, the Phoebuses and Belianises, and the entire horde of famous knights errant of a bygone age, by performing in this time in which I find myself such great and extraordinary deeds and feats of arms that they will overshadow the brightest they ever achieved. Note well, my faithful and loyal squire, the darkness of this night, its strange silence, the indistinct and confused sound of these trees, the fearful clamor of the water we came seeking, which seems to be falling and crashing from the high mountains of the moon, and the unceasing noise of pounding that wounds and pains our ears; all these things, taken together and separately, are enough to instill fear, terror, and dread in the bosom of Mars himself, not to mention one who is unaccustomed to such occurrences and adventures. But these things I have described for you are inspiration and encouragement to my valor, which makes my heart almost burst in my bosom with the desire to embark on this adventure, no matter how difficult it may prove to be. And so, tighten the cinches on Rocinante, and God be with you, and wait for me here no more than three days, and if I have not come back by then, you may return to our village, and from there, as a boon and good deed for my sake, you will go to Toboso and tell my peerless lady Dulcinea that her captive knight died performing deeds that would make him worthy of being called her own.”

When Sancho heard his master’s words, he began to cry with the greatest tenderness in the world, and he said:

“Señor, I don’t know why your grace wants to embark on this fearful adventure; it’s night, nobody can see us here, we can turn around and get away from the danger, even if we don’t drink anything for three days, and since there’s nobody here to see us, there’s nobody to call us cowards; besides, I’ve heard the sermons of our village priest, and your grace knows him very well, and he says that whoever goes looking for danger perishes; so it isn’t a good idea to tempt God by undertaking something so terrible that you can’t get out of it except through some miracle, and heaven has done enough of them for your grace, letting you escape being tossed in the blanket, like I was, and letting you come out victorious, free, and unharmed, over so many enemies who were escorting the dead man. And if all this doesn’t touch or soften your hard heart, let it be moved by thinking and believing that as soon as your grace has left this place, fear will make me give up my soul to anybody who wants to take it. I left my home and my children and my wife to serve your grace, thinking I would be better off, not worse; but just as greed makes the sack burst, it has torn my hopes apart when they were brightest for getting that wretched, ill-starred ínsula your grace has promised me so often; I see that as payment and reward you want to leave me now in a desolate place far from all other human beings. By the One God, Señor, you must not wrong me so, and if your grace absolutely refuses to think again about embarking on this deed, at least put it off until morning, for the lore I learned when I was a shepherd tells me it’s less than three hours till dawn, because the mouth of the Horn is over my head and midnight’s in line with my left arm.”¹⁴⁵

“How can you, Sancho,” said Don Quixote, “see where that line is, or where the mouth of any Horn or any head is, if the night is so dark there is not a single star visible in all the sky?”

“That’s true,” said Sancho, “but fear has many eyes and can see things under the ground, let alone high in the sky; even so, it stands to reason that it won’t be long until daylight.”

“However long it may be,” responded Don Quixote, “let no one say of me, now or ever, that tears and pleas turned me from doing what I, as a knight, was obliged to do; and so I beg you, Sancho, to be quiet, for God, who has placed in my heart the desire to embark on this incomparable and most fearsome adventure, will surely look after my well-being and console you in your grief. What you must do is tighten Rocinante’s cinches and remain here; I shall soon return, either alive or dead.”

Sancho, seeing his master’s firm resolve, and how little he accomplished with tears, advice, and pleas, decided to take advantage of his task and do what he could to make Don Quixote wait until day, and so, as he was tightening the horse’s cinches, he very cunningly and quietly tied Rocinante’s forelegs together with his donkey’s halter, and when Don Quixote tried to leave he could not because his horse could not move except by hops and jumps. Seeing the success of his deception, Sancho Panza said:

“Oh, Señor, heaven, moved by my tears and prayers, has willed Rocinante not to move, and if you persist, and spur and urge him on, that will anger Fortune, and it will be, as they say, like kicking at thorns.”

At this Don Quixote grew desperate, for no matter how hard he spurred his horse, he could not make him move; then, not realizing that the animal’s legs had been tied, he thought it a good idea to be calm and wait, either for the dawn or until Rocinante could move forward, believing, no doubt, that this situation was caused by something other than Sancho’s labors, and so he said to him:

“Well, Sancho, since Rocinante cannot move, I am content to wait until dawn smiles upon us, although I weep at how long she will take to arrive.”

“There’s no reason to cry,” responded Sancho. “I’ll entertain your grace by telling you stories until daylight, unless you want to dismount and sleep a little on the green grass, in the manner of knights errant, so that you’ll be rested when day comes, and ready to embark on the unrivaled adventure that awaits you.”

“What do you mean, dismount and sleep?” said Don Quixote. “Am I, perchance, one of those knights who take their rest in the midst of dangers? You sleep, for you were born to sleep, or do whatever you wish, and I shall do what I deem most becoming to my profession.”

“Señor, your grace shouldn’t be angry,” responded Sancho, “I didn’t mean anything by it.”

And, going up to him, Sancho placed one hand on the front of the saddle and the other on the rear, so that he stood with his arms around his master’s left thigh, not daring to move a finger’s breadth away from him, so great was the fear he had of the pounding, which continued to sound rhythmically. Don Quixote told him to recount some story to amuse him, as he had promised, to which Sancho replied that he would, if his terror at what he was hearing allowed him to.

“But, even so, I’ll make an effort to tell a story, and if I manage to tell it and my fear doesn’t stop me, it’s the best of all stories; and your grace should pay careful attention, because here I go. ‘Once upon a time, and may good come to all and evil to him who seeks it…’ And, Señor, your grace should notice that the beginnings the ancients gave to their tales didn’t come out of nowhere; this was a maxim of the Roman Cato Nonsensor,¹⁴⁶ and it says: ‘Evil to him who seeks it,’ which fits here like the ring on your finger and means that your grace should stay put and not go looking for evil anywhere, and we should take another route, nobody’s forcing us to continue on this one with so many frightening things to scare us.”

“You go on with your story, Sancho,” said Don Quixote, “and leave the route we shall follow to me.”

“Well, I’ll tell you,” Sancho continued, “that somewhere in Extremadura there was a goatherd, I mean to say the man tended goats, and this goatherd I was telling you about in my story was named Lope Ruiz, and this Lope Ruiz was in love with a shepherdess named Torralba, and this shepherdess named Torralba was the daughter of a rich herder, and this rich herder—”

“If you tell your story this way, Sancho,” said Don Quixote, “repeating everything you say two times, you will not finish in two days; tell it in a continuous way, and speak like a man of understanding, or do not say anything at all.”

“The way I’m telling it,” responded Sancho, “is how tales are told in my village, and I don’t know any other way to tell it, and it isn’t right for your grace to ask me to do things in new ways.”

“Tell it however you wish,” responded Don Quixote. “Fate has willed that I cannot help listening to you, and so continue.”

“And so it was, Señor of my soul,” Sancho continued, “that, as I’ve already said, this goatherd was in love with Torralba, the shepherdess, who was a stout girl, and wild, and a little mannish because she had something of a mustache; it’s as if I could see her now.”

“Then, did you know her?” said Don Quixote.

“I didn’t know her,” responded Sancho. “But the man who told me this story said it was so true and correct that I certainly could, when I told it to somebody else, affirm and swear that I had seen it all. And so, as the days came and went, the devil, who never sleeps and is always stirring up trouble, turned the love that the goatherd had for the shepherdess into hate and ill will, and the reason was, the gossips said, a certain amount of jealousy that she made him feel, and it went too far, into forbidden areas, and then the goatherd hated her so much that in order not to see her he wanted to leave his home and go where he would never lay eyes on her again. Torralba, when she found herself rejected by Lope, began to love him dearly, though she had never loved him before.”

“That is the nature of women,” said Don Quixote. “They reject the man who loves them and love the man who despises them. Go on, Sancho.”

“It so happened,” said Sancho, “that the goatherd put his plan into effect, and, driving his goats ahead of him, he set out through the countryside of Extremadura, heading for the kingdom of Portugal. Torralba, who found this out, went after him, and followed him at a distance, walking barefoot, with a staff in her hand and some saddlebags around her neck, and in them she was carrying, people say, a piece of mirror, and a broken comb, and some kind of paint for her face; but, whatever it was that she was carrying, I don’t want to take the trouble to find out about it, so I’ll just say that people say that the goatherd and his flock came to the Guadiana River, and at that time of year it was rising and almost flooding its banks, and at the part he came to there wasn’t any boat or barge or anybody to ferry him and his flock to the other side, and this caused him a lot of grief because he saw that Torralba was coming closer and closer and would bother him with her pleading and her tears; but he kept looking around until he saw a fisherman with a boat, one so small that only one person and one goat could fit in it; even so, he talked to him and they arranged for the fisherman to ferry him and his three hundred goats across the river. The fisherman got into the boat and ferried across a goat; he came back, and ferried another one; he came back again, and again he ferried one across. Your grace has to keep count of the goats the fisherman ferries across, because if you miss one the story will be over and it won’t be possible to say another word. And so I’ll go on and say that the landing on the other side was very muddy and slippery, and it took the fisherman a long time to go back and forth. Even so, he came back for another goat, and another, and another—”

“Just say he ferried them all,” said Don Quixote. “If you keep going back and forth like that, it will take you a year to get them across.”

“How many have gone across so far?” said Sancho.

“How the devil should I know?” responded Don Quixote.

“That’s just what I told your grace to do: to keep a good count. Well, by God, the story’s over, and there’s no way to go on.”

“How can that be?” responded Don Quixote. “Is it so essential to the story to know the exact number of goats that have crossed that a mistake in the count means you cannot continue the tale?”

“No, Señor, I can’t,” responded Sancho, “because as soon as I asked your grace to tell me how many goats had crossed, and you said you didn’t know, at that very moment I forgot everything I had left to say, and, by my faith, it was very interesting and pleasing.”

“Do you mean to say that the story is finished?” said Don Quixote.

“As finished as my mother,” said Sancho.

“I tell you truthfully,” responded Don Quixote, “that you have told one of the strangest tales, stories, or histories that anyone in the world ever thought of, and this manner of telling it and then stopping it is something I shall never see, and have never seen, in my life, although I expected nothing else from your intellect; but I am not surprised, for perhaps the sound of the pounding, which has not ceased, has clouded your understanding.”

“That may be,” responded Sancho, “but I know that in my story, there’s nothing else to say: it ended right where you lost count of the number of goats that had crossed.”

“Then let it end where it will,” said Don Quixote, “and now let us see if Rocinante can move.”

He spurred him again, and Rocinante hopped again and then stood still: that is how well he was tied.

At this moment it seems that either because of the cold of the morning, which was approaching, or because Sancho had eaten something laxative for supper, or because it was in the natural order of things—which is the most credible—he felt the urge and desire to do what no one else could do for him, but his heart was so overwhelmed by fear that he did not dare to move a nail paring away from his master. But not doing what he desired to do was not possible, either, and so what he did as a compromise was to free his right hand, which was clutching the back of the saddle, and with it, cunningly and without making a sound, he loosened the slip knot that was the only thing holding up his breeches, and when he did they came down and settled around his ankles like leg irons. After this he lifted his shirt the best he could and stuck out both buttocks, which were not very small. Having done this—which he thought was all he had to do to escape that terrible difficulty and anguish—he was overcome by an even greater distress, which was that it seemed to him he could not relieve himself without making some noise and sound, and he began to clench his teeth and hunch his shoulders, holding his breath as much as he could, but despite all his efforts, he was so unfortunate that he finally made a little noise quite different from the one that had caused him so much fear. Don Quixote heard it and said:

“What sound is that, Sancho?”

“I don’t know, Señor,” he responded. “It must be something new; adventures and misadventures never begin for no reason.”

He tried his luck again, and things went so smoothly that with no more noise or disturbance than the last time, he found himself rid of the burden that had caused him so much grief. But since Don Quixote had a sense of smell as acute as his hearing, and Sancho was joined so closely to him, and the vapors rose up almost in a straight line, some unavoidably reached his nostrils, and as soon as they did he came to the assistance of his nostrils and squeezed them closed between two fingers, and in a somewhat nasal voice, he said:

“It seems to me, Sancho, that you are very frightened.”

“Yes, I am,” responded Sancho, “but what makes your grace see that now more than ever?”

“Because you smell now more than ever, and not of amber,” responded Don Quixote.

“That might be,” said Sancho, “but it’s not my fault, it’s your grace’s for choosing the most ungodly times to put me through the strangest paces.”

“Take three or four of them back, friend,” said Don Quixote without removing his fingers from his nose, “and from now on be more mindful of your person and of what you owe to mine; engaging in so much conversation with you has caused this lack of respect.”

“I’ll wager,” replied Sancho, “that your grace thinks I’ve done something with my person I shouldn’t have.”

“The less said the better, Sancho my friend,” responded Don Quixote.

Master and servant passed the night in these exchanges and others like them. But Sancho, seeing that morning would soon be upon them, very carefully unhobbled Rocinante and tied up his breeches. When Rocinante found himself free, though he was not by nature high-spirited, it seems he felt offended and began to paw the ground because—and for this I beg his pardon—he could not prance. Don Quixote, seeing that Rocinante was moving again, took this as a favorable sign and believed it meant he should embark on the fearful adventure. By this time dawn finally had made its presence known and changed the appearance of things, and Don Quixote saw that he was under some tall trees; they were chestnuts and cast a very dark shadow. He also heard that the pounding had not stopped, but he did not see who could be causing it, and so, with no further delay, he made Rocinante feel his spurs, and, turning to take his leave of Sancho, he ordered him to wait no more than three days, as he had already told him, and if at the end of that time he had not returned, Sancho could be certain it had been God’s will that his master’s days come to an end in that perilous adventure. Don Quixote told him again about the message and communication he was to take to his lady Dulcinea; as for payment for his services, Sancho should not be concerned because Don Quixote had made his will before leaving home, and in it the squire would find himself recompensed for everything relating to his salary, the amount prorated according to the length of time he had been in his service, but if God allowed him to emerge from this danger safe and sound and unharmed, then Sancho could be more than certain of the promised ínsula.

Sancho began to cry again when he heard the sorrowful words of his good master, and he resolved not to leave him until the final conclusion and end of that affair.

These tears and Sancho Panza’s honorable decision lead the author of this history to conclude that he must have been wellborn and, at the very least, an Old Christian;¹⁴⁷ the sentiment softened his master somewhat, but not enough for him to demonstrate any weakness; instead, dissimulating as much as he could, he began to ride toward the place where it seemed to him the sound of the water and the pounding originated.

Sancho followed on foot, leading by the halter, as was his custom, the donkey who was his constant companion in good fortune and bad; having traveled some distance through those somber chesnut trees, they came upon a small meadow at the foot of some high crags over which a great rush of water fell. At the foot of the crags were some dilapidated hovels that looked more like ruins than houses, and they realized that the noise and din of the pounding, which had not ceased, was coming from these structures.

Rocinante became agitated by the clamor of the water and the pounding, and Don Quixote, calming him, gradually approached the hovels, commending himself with all his heart to his lady, imploring that she favor him in this fearsome circumstance and undertaking, and he also commended himself to God, praying that He not forget him. Sancho did not leave his side, craning his neck and peering between the legs of Rocinante to see if he could see what it was that had so frightened and perplexed him.

They must have gone another hundred paces when, as they turned a corner, there appeared, clear and plain, the unmistakable cause of the terrible-sounding and, for them, terrifying noise that had kept them frightened and perplexed the whole night. And it was—if you have not already guessed, O reader, in sorrow and anger!—six wooden fulling hammers that with their alternating strokes were responsible for the clamor.

When Don Quixote saw this he fell silent and sat as if paralyzed from head to toe. Sancho looked at him and saw that his head hung down toward his chest, indicating that he was mortified. Don Quixote also looked at Sancho and saw that his cheeks were puffed out and his mouth full of laughter, clear signs that he soon would explode, and Don Quixote’s melancholy was not so great that he could resist laughing at the sight of Sancho, and when Sancho saw that his master had begun, the floodgates opened with such force that he had to press his sides with his fists to keep from bursting with laughter. Four times he calmed down, and four times his laughter returned as powerfully as before; by now Don Quixote was sending him to the devil, especially when he heard him say, in a derisive tone:

“‘Sancho my friend, know that I was born, by the will of heaven, in this our iron age, to revive the one of gold, or the Golden Age. I am he for whom are reserved dangers, great deeds, valiant feats…’”

And in this fashion he repeated all or most of the words that Don Quixote had said when they first heard the fearful pounding.

Don Quixote, seeing that Sancho was mocking him, became so wrathful and angry that he raised his lance and struck him twice, blows so hard that if he had received them on his head instead of his back, his master would have been freed of the obligation of paying his salary, unless it was to his heirs. Sancho, seeing that his jokes were taken so seriously and fearing that his master would go even further, said to him very humbly:

“Your grace should calm down; by God, I’m only joking.”

“Well, you may be joking, but I am not,”¹⁴⁸ responded Don Quixote. “Come here, you merry man; do you think that if these were not fulling hammers but a dangerous adventure, I would not have displayed the courage needed to undertake and conclude it? Am I obliged, perchance, being, as I am, a knight, to recognize and differentiate sounds, and know which are fulling hammers and which are not? Moreover, it well might be, as is the case, that I have never seen them in my life, though you must have, being the lowborn peasant you are, and reared and born among them. If not, pretend that these six fulling hammers are six giants, and turn them on me one by one, or all together, and if I do not knock them all to the ground, you can mock me in any way you choose.”

“No more, Señor,” replied Sancho. “I confess that I have gone a little too far with my joking. But tell me, your grace, now that we’re at peace (and may God bring you as safe and sound through all the adventures you have as He has brought you through this one), wasn’t it laughable how frightened we were, and wouldn’t it make a good story? At least, how frightened I was, for I already know that your grace doesn’t know what fright is or understand the meaning of fear or terror.”

“I do not deny,” responded Don Quixote, “that what happened to us is deserving of laughter, but it does not deserve to be told, for not all persons are wise enough to put things in their proper place.”

“At least,” responded Sancho, “your grace knew how to place the lance, aiming for my head and hitting me on the back, thanks be to God and the care I took to move to the side. Well, well, it all comes out in the end, for I’ve heard people say: ‘The one who hurts you is the one who loves you,’ and I’ve also heard that great gentlemen, after speaking harshly to a servant, give him breeches, though I don’t know what they give after beating him with a lance, unless knights errant give ínsulas after a beating, or kingdoms on dry land.”

“The dice may fall,” said Don Quixote, “so that everything you say turns out to be true; forgive what happened, for you are clever and know that first impulses are not ours to control, but be advised of one thing: from now on you are to refrain and abstain from speaking too much to me, for in all the books of chivalry I have read, which are infinite in number, I have never found any squire who talks as much with his master as you do with yours. In truth I consider it a great fault, both on your part and on mine: on yours, because you do not have a high opinion of me; on mine, because I do not allow a higher opinion. For instance, Gandalín, the squire of Amadís of Gaul, became count of Ínsula Firme, yet one reads of him that he always spoke to his master with hat in hand, bending his head and bowing his body, more turquesco. ¹⁴⁹ And what shall we say of Gasabal, the squire of Don Galaor, who was so silent that in order to declare to us the excellence of his wondrous silence, his name is mentioned only once in the course of that history, as great as it is true? From everything I have said you must infer, Sancho, that it is necessary to distinguish between master and minion, gentleman and servant, knight and squire. Therefore, from this day forward, we must treat each other with more respect and refrain from mockery, because no matter why I lose my temper with you, it will be bad for the pitcher.¹⁵⁰ The rewards and benefits that I have promised you will come in time, and if they do not, your wages, at least, will not be lost, as I have already told you.”

“Everything your grace says is fine,” said Sancho. “But I’d like to know, if the time for rewards happens not to come and it’s necessary to fall back on wages, how much the squire of a knight errant earned in those days, and if he was paid by the month or by the day, like a mason’s helpers.”

“I do not believe,” Don Quixote responded, “that those squires ever received wages, but only favors. And if I have mentioned you in the last will and testament that I left in my house, it was because of what might happen, for I do not yet know the standing of chivalry in these our calamitous times, and I should not want my soul to suffer in the next world on account of trivial details. Because I want you to know, Sancho, that there is no profession more dangerous than that of adventuring knight.”

“That’s true,” said Sancho, “for just the noise of the fulling hammers could upset and disturb the heart of an adventuring knight errant as valiant as your grace. But you can be sure that from now on my lips will not open to joke about your grace’s affairs, but only to honor you as my master and natural lord.”

“In that way,” replied Don Quixote, “you will live long on the face of the earth, for after parents, masters must be respected as if they were progenitors.”