CHAPTER IV

Sancho came back to Don Quixote’s house, and returning to their earlier discussion, he said:

“As for what Señor Sansón said about people wanting to know who stole my donkey, and how, and when, I can answer by saying that on the same night we were running from the Holy Brotherhood, and entered the Sierra Morena after the misadventurous adventure of the galley slaves, and of the dead man being carried to Segovia, my master and I rode into a stand of trees where my master rested on his lance, and I on my donkey, and battered and tired from our recent skirmishes, we began to sleep as if we were lying on four featherbeds; I was so sound asleep that whoever the thief was could come up to me, and put me on four stakes that he propped under the four sides of my packsaddle, and leave me mounted on them, and take my donkey out from under me without my even knowing it.”

“That is an easy thing to do, and nothing new; the same thing happened to Sacripante when he was at the siege of Albraca; with that same trick the famous thief named Brunelo took his horse from between his legs.”³²⁹

“Dawn broke,” Sancho continued, “and as soon as I moved, the stakes gave way and I fell to the ground; I looked for the donkey and didn’t see him; tears filled my eyes, and I began to lament, and if the author of our history didn’t put that in, you can be sure he left out something good. After I don’t know how many days, when we were traveling with the Señora Princess Micomicona, I saw my donkey, and riding him, dressed like a Gypsy, was Ginés de Pasamonte, the lying crook that my master and I freed from the chain.”

“The error doesn’t lie there,” replied Sansón, “but in the fact that before the donkey appeared, the author says that Sancho was riding on that same animal.”

“I don’t know how to answer that,” said Sancho, “except to say that either the historian was wrong or the printer made a mistake.”

“That must be the case, no doubt about it,” said Sansón, “but what happened to the hundred escudos? Are they gone?”

“I spent them for myself, and my wife, and my children, and they are the reason my wife patiently puts up with my traveling highways and byways in the service of my master, Don Quixote; if after so much time I came back home without a blanca and without my donkey, a black future would be waiting for me; if there’s any more to know about me, here I am, and I’ll answer the king himself in person, and nobody has any reason to worry about whether I kept them or didn’t keep them, spent them or didn’t spend them; if the beatings I got on these journeys were paid for in money, even if they didn’t cost more than four maravedís a piece, another hundred escudos wouldn’t pay for half of them; so let each man put his hand over his own heart and not start judging white as black and black as white; each of us is as God made him, and often much worse.”

“I’ll be sure,” said Carrasco, “to tell the author of the history that if it has a second printing, he should not forget what our good Sancho has said, for that would elevate it a good half-span higher than it is now.”

“Is there anything else that needs to be corrected in the book, Señor Bachelor?” asked Don Quixote.

“I’m sure there is,” he responded, “but nothing as important as the ones we’ve already mentioned.”

“And by any chance,” said Don Quixote, “does the author promise a second part?”

“Yes, he does,” responded Sansón, “but he says he hasn’t found it and doesn’t know who has it, and so we don’t know if it will be published or not; for this reason, and because some people say: ‘Second parts were never very good,’ and others say: ‘What’s been written about Don Quixote is enough,’ there is some doubt there will be a second part; but certain people who are more jovial than saturnine say: ‘Let’s have more quixoticies: let Don Quixote go charging and Sancho Panza keep talking, and whatever else happens, that will make us happy.’”

“And what does the author say to all of this?”

“He says,” responded Sansón, “that as soon as he finds the history, which he is searching for with extraordinary diligence, he will immediately have it printed, for he is more interested in earning his profit than in winning any praise.”

Sancho responded to this by saying:

“The author’s interested in money and profit? I’d be surprised if he got any, because all he’ll do is rush rush rush, like a tailor on the night before a holiday, and work done in a hurry is never as perfect as it should be. Let this Moorish gentleman, or whatever he is, pay attention to what he’s doing; my master and I will give him such an abundance of adventures and so many different deeds that he’ll be able to write not just a second part, but a hundred more parts. No doubt about it, the good man must think we’re asleep here; well, just let him try to shoe us, and he’ll know if we’re lame or not. What I can say is that if my master would take my advice, we’d already be out in those fields righting wrongs and undoing injustices, which is the habit and custom of good knights errant.”

No sooner had Sancho said these words than the sound of Rocinante neighing reached their ears; Don Quixote took this as a very good omen and resolved that in three or four days he would undertake another sally, and after declaring his intention to the bachelor, he asked his advice as to the direction he should take on his journey; the bachelor responded that in his opinion, he ought to go to the kingdom of Aragón and the city of Zaragoza, where in a few days they would be holding solemn jousts for the Festival of San Jorge, and there he could win fame vanquishing all the Aragonese knights, which would be the same as vanquishing all the knights in the world. He praised his determination as being most honorable and brave and warned him to be more cautious about rushing into danger, because his life belonged not to him alone but to all those who needed him to protect and defend them in their misfortunes.

“That’s exactly what I hate most, Señor Sansón,” said Sancho. “My master goes charging at a hundred armed men like a greedy boy attacking half a dozen melons. Good Lord, Señor Bachelor! There are times to attack and times to retreat, and not everything’s ‘Charge for Santiago and Spain!’³³⁰ And besides, I’ve heard it said, I think by my master himself, if I remember correctly, that between the extremes of cowardice and recklessness lies the middle way of valor, and if this is true, I don’t want him to run for no reason or attack when the numbers demand something else. But above all, I advise my master that if he wants to take me with him, it has to be on the condition that he’ll do all the battles and I won’t be obliged to do anything except look after his person in questions of cleanliness and food; as far as this goes, I’ll do everything he asks, but to think that I’ll raise my sword, even against lowborn scoundrels with their caps and axes, is to think something that will never happen. I, Señor Sansón, don’t plan to win fame as a valiant man but as the best and most loyal squire who ever served a knight errant; and if my master, Don Quixote, as a reward for my many good services, wants to give me one of the many ínsulas that his grace says are to be found out there, I’ll be very happy to accept it; and if he doesn’t give it to me, I’m a human being, and a man shouldn’t live depending on anybody but God; besides, bread will taste as good, and maybe even better, whether I’m a governor or not; for all I know, in those governorships the devil could have set a snare for me that will make me stumble and fall and knock out all my teeth. Sancho I was born, and Sancho I plan to die; but even so, if heaven should be so kind as to offer me, without too much trouble or risk, an ínsula or something else like that, I’m not such a fool that I’d turn it down, because, as they say: ‘When they give you a heifer, don’t forget to bring a rope,’ and ‘When good comes along, lock it in your house.’”

“You, brother Sancho,” said Carrasco, “have spoken like a university professor, but still, trust in God and in Señor Don Quixote, who will give you a kingdom, not merely an ínsula.”

“Whatever it is, it’s all the same to me,” responded Sancho, “though I can tell Señor Carrasco that my master won’t be tossing that kingdom into a sack with holes in it; I’ve taken my own pulse and I’m healthy enough to rule kingdoms and govern ínsulas, and this is something I’ve already told my master.”

“Be careful, Sancho,” said Sansón, “for offices can alter behavior, and it might be that when you are governor you won’t know the mother who bore you.”

“That’s something that may apply,” responded Sancho, “to people of low birth, but not to those who have in their souls a little of the spirit of Old Christians, like me. No, first get to know my character and then tell me if I could be ungrateful to anybody!”

“God willing,” said Don Quixote, “we shall see when the governorship comes along, for I seem to see it right before my eyes.”

Having said this, he asked the bachelor, if he was a poet, to be so kind as to compose a few verses for him that would deal with the farewell he intended to make to his lady Dulcinea of Toboso, and he said that at the beginning of each line he was to place a letter of her name, so that when one reached the last verse and read all the first letters together, it would say: Dulcinea of Toboso.

The bachelor responded that although he was not one of the famous poets of Spain, who, as people said, did not number more than three and a half, he would be sure to write the lines, although he found a great difficulty in their composition because the number of letters in her name was seventeen, and if he made four Castilian stanzas of four octosyllabic lines each, there would be one letter too many, and if he made the stanzas of five octosyllabic lines each, the ones called décimas or redondillas, ³³¹ there would be three letters too few; despite this, however he would attempt to somehow shrink one letter so that the name Dulcinea of Toboso would fit into four Castilian stanzas.

“It must fit in, however you do it,” said Don Quixote, “because if the name is not there to see, patent and obvious, no woman will believe that the verses were written for her.”

They agreed to this, and to the knight’s departing in eight days. Don Quixote asked the bachelor to keep this secret, especially from the priest and Master Nicolás, and from his niece and housekeeper, so that they would not interfere with his honorable and valiant resolve. Carrasco promised he would, and then he took his leave, asking Don Quixote to keep him informed, when possible, of all his successes and failures; and so they said goodbye, and Sancho left to make preparations for their journey.