CHAPTER LV

Sancho’s having stopped with Ricote did not permit him to reach the duke’s castle that day, for although he had come to within half a league of it, night, which was somewhat dark and gloomy, overtook him; as it was summer, this did not trouble him very much, and so he moved off the road, intending to wait for morning, and it was his bad luck and misfortune that as he was looking for a spot where he would be comfortable, he and the gray fell into a deep and very dark pit that lay between some very old buildings, and as he fell he commended himself to God with all his heart, thinking he would not stop falling until he reached the depths of the abyss. But this was not the case, because after a little more than three estados the donkey hit bottom, and Sancho found himself on top of him, not having received any kind of wound or injury.

He felt his body and took a deep breath to see if he was whole or had been punctured anywhere; and seeing that he was safe and sound and in perfect health, he could not give enough thanks to Our Lord God for the mercy He had shown him, for he no doubt thought he had broken into a thousand pieces. He also felt the walls of the pit with his hands to see if it would be possible to climb out without anyone’s help, but he found that all of them were smooth, without any kind of foothold, which greatly distressed Sancho, especially when he heard the donkey moaning woefully and grievously, and no wonder, for he was not lamenting capriciously; in truth, he was not in very good condition.

“Oh,” said Sancho then, “what unexpected things can happen to those who live in this miserable world! Who could have said that the person who only yesterday sat on the governor’s throne on an ínsula, giving orders to his servants and vassals, today would find himself buried in a pit with no one to comfort him, and no servant or vassal to come and help him? Here my donkey and I will starve to death, if we don’t die first, he because he’s bruised and broken, and me because I’m full of grief. At least I won’t be as lucky as my master, Don Quixote of La Mancha, when he went down and descended into the cave of the enchanted Montesinos, where he found somebody who treated him better than they do in his own house, because it seems he found the table laid and the bed made. There he saw beautiful and peaceable visions, and here, it seems, I’ll see frogs and snakes. Woe is me, just look where my madness and fantasy have brought me! They’ll take my bones out of here, smooth, white, and scraped bare, and those of my good donkey with them, and maybe that, at least, will let them know who we are if they’ve heard that Sancho Panza was never parted from his donkey, or his donkey from Sancho Panza. I’ll say it again: how wretched we are, for our bad luck hasn’t allowed us to die in our own land, with our own people, so that even if there wasn’t a remedy for our misfortune, there’d be no lack of people to grieve over it, and to close our eyes at the final hour of our passing! Oh, my companion and friend, how badly I’ve paid you for your good service! Forgive me, and ask Fortune, in the best way you know how, to take us out of this terrible trouble, and I promise to crown your head with laurel so you’ll look exactly like a poet laureate, and to give you double rations.”

Sancho lamented in this fashion, and his donkey listened without saying a single word in response: such was the distress and anguish in which the poor creature found himself. Finally, after an entire night spent in wretched complaints and lamentations, day broke, and in its clear, bright light Sancho saw that it was utterly impossible to get out of the pit without help, and he began to lament and cry out, to see if anyone heard him, but all his shouts were cries in the wilderness, because there was no one to hear him anywhere in the vicinity, and then he began to think of himself as dead.

The gray was lying on his back, and Sancho Panza moved him around until he had him on his feet, though he could barely stand; he took a piece of bread out of the saddlebags, which had experienced the same unfortunate fall, and gave it to his donkey, who thought it did not taste bad, and Sancho said to him, as if he could understand:

“Griefs are better with bread.”

And then Sancho discovered that on one side of the pit there was a hole big enough for a person to fit into if he stooped and bent over. Sancho Panza went over to it, crouched down, went in, and saw that on the other side it was spacious and long, and he could see this because through what could be called the roof a ray of sunlight came in and illuminated everything. He also saw that the space widened and lengthened into another large concavity; when he saw this he returned to the donkey and with a stone began to dig the earth away from the hole; in a short while he made it large enough for the donkey to pass through, which he did; and taking him by the halter, Sancho began to walk through the cave to see if he could find another way out. At times he walked in darkness, and at times without light, but at no time without fear.

“May Almighty God save me!” he murmured to himself. “What for me is a misadventure would seem like an adventure to my master, Don Quixote. He’d think these caverns and dungeons were gardens in flower and the palaces of Galiana,⁵⁶⁷ and would expect to come out of this dark, narrow place into a flowering meadow; but I’m so unlucky, so in need of advice, and so lacking in courage, that at each step I think another pit deeper than the first one is suddenly going to open beneath my feet and swallow me up. Evil is welcome if it comes alone.”

In this manner, and with these thoughts, it seemed to him he must have walked more than half a league when he saw a dim illumination that he thought was daylight, shining in somewhere and indicating an opening at the end of what seemed to him like the road to the next world.

Here Cide Hamete Benengeli leaves him and returns to Don Quixote, who, with joy and happiness, waited for the appointed time of the battle that he was to fight with the thief of the honor of Doña Rodríguez’s daughter, for he intended to right the wrong and correct the outrage so wickedly committed against her.

It so happened that he rode out one morning to practice and rehearse what he was to do during the combat he would soon be engaged in, and after spurring Rocinante into a charge or short gallop, the horse’s feet came so close to a cave that if he had not pulled hard on the reins, it would have been impossible not to fall in. In short, Don Quixote stopped Rocinante and did not fall, and coming a little closer, and without dismounting, he peered into that deep hole, and as he was looking in he heard someone shouting inside; he listened carefully and could understand and ascertain what was being said:

“You up there! Is there some Christian who can hear me, some charitable knight who’ll take pity on a sinner buried alive, an unfortunate governor without a governorship?”

It seemed to Don Quixote that he was hearing the voice of Sancho Panza, which left him astonished and perplexed, and raising his voice as much as he could, he said:

“Who is down there? Who is crying out?”

“Who else would be here crying out,” was the response, “but a wretched Sancho Panza, the governor, on account of his sins and bad luck, of the Ínsula Barataria, and at one time the squire of the famous knight Don Quixote of La Mancha?”

When Don Quixote heard this, his amazement doubled and his bewilderment increased, for it occurred to him that Sancho Panza might be dead and his soul suffering the torments of purgatory down there; carried away by this thought, he said:

“I conjure thee by all that I can conjure thee with as a Catholic Christian to tell me who thou art, and if thou art a soul in torment, tell me what thou wantest me to do for thee, for since it is my profession to favor and come to the aid of those in need in this world, I shall do the same and come to the aid and assistance of those in distress in the next world who cannot help themselves.”

“From the way your grace talks,” came the response, “it seems to me you must be my master, Don Quixote of La Mancha, and from the sound of your voice, you can be nobody else, no doubt about that.”

“I am Don Quixote,” replied Don Quixote, “whose profession it is to assist and help the living and the dead in their distress. Therefore tell me who you are, for you have astonished me; if you are my squire, Sancho Panza, and you have died, and the devils have not carried you off, and through God’s mercy you are in purgatory, our Holy Mother Roman Catholic Church has enough prayers of intercession to deliver you from the torments you are suffering, and I, for my part, shall supplicate as far as my fortune will allow; therefore declare yourself once and for all and tell me who you are.”

“By God,” came the response, “and by the birth of whoever your grace loves, I swear, Señor Don Quixote of La Mancha, that I’m your squire, Sancho Panza, and I’ve never died in all the days of my life, but I left my governorship for causes and reasons that I need more time to tell you about, and last night I fell into this pit where I’m lying now, and the gray with me, and he won’t let me tell a lie, to be specific, he’s here with me now.”

And there is more: it seems as if the donkey understood exactly what Sancho said, because he immediately began to bray, and so loudly that the entire cave resonated.

“A famous witness!” said Don Quixote. “I recognize the bray as if it were my own, and I hear your voice, friend Sancho. Wait for me: I shall go to the duke’s castle, which is close by, and bring someone who can rescue you from the pit where your sins must have brought you.”

“Go, your grace,” said Sancho, “and by the one God come back soon, because I can’t stand being buried alive here, and I’m dying of fear.”

Don Quixote left him and went to the castle to recount to the duke and duchess what had happened to Sancho Panza, which caused them no small astonishment, although they knew very well where he must have fallen because it corresponded to a cave that had been there from time immemorial; they could not imagine, however, how he could have abandoned his governorship without their being informed that he was coming to the castle. Finally, thick ropes and stout cords, as they say,⁵⁶⁸ were brought in, and by dint of many people and a good amount of work, they raised the gray and Sancho Panza out of that darkness into the light of the sun. A student saw him and said:

“This is how all wicked governors should leave their governorships, just as this sinner leaves the depths of the abyss: dying of hunger, pale, and without a blanca, or so it seems.”

Sancho heard him and said:

“It was eight or ten days ago, Brother Gossip, that I came to govern the ínsula that they gave me, and in all that time I didn’t even have enough bread to eat; I’ve been persecuted by doctors and had my bones trampled by enemies, and I haven’t had time to take any bribes or collect any fees, and this being true, which it is, in my opinion I didn’t deserve to leave in this way; but man proposes and God disposes, and God knows what suits each man and what’s best for him, and time changes the rhyme, and nobody should say, ‘That’s water I won’t drink,’ because you’re in a place where you think there’s bacon, and you don’t even find a nail; God understands me, and that’s enough, and I’ll say no more, though I could.”

“Do not be angry, Sancho, or troubled by what you may hear, for there is no end to it: you keep your conscience clear, and let them say whatever they wish, for trying to restrain the tongues of slanderers is the same as trying to put doors in a field. If the governor leaves his governorship a wealthy man, they say he has been a thief, and if he leaves it poor, they say he has been a dullard and a fool.”

“Then there’s no doubt,” responded Sancho, “that this time they’ll have to take me for a fool and not a thief.”

Conversing in this way, and surrounded by boys and by many other people, they arrived at the castle, where the duke and the duchess were already in a gallery waiting for Don Quixote and Sancho, who did not wish to go up to see the duke without first settling the gray in the stable, because he said the donkey had spent a very bad night in the cave; then he went up to see his lord and lady, before whom he kneeled and said:

“My lord and my lady, because it was the wish of your highnesses, and not because of any merit in me, I went to govern your ínsula of Barataria, which I entered naked, and I’m naked now: I haven’t lost or gained a thing. As to whether I governed well or badly, I’ve had witnesses before me, and they’ll say whatever they want. I decided questions and settled cases, always dying of hunger, for such was the desire of Dr. Pedro Recio, a native of Tirteafuera and a governoresque and insulano doctor. Enemies attacked us by night, placing us in great difficulties, and the people of the ínsula say we emerged free and victorious because of the valor of my arm, and if they’re telling the truth, may God keep them safe. In short, in this time I’ve weighed the burdens and obligations that come with governing, and I’ve found, by my own reckoning, that my shoulders can’t carry them; they’re not the right load for my ribs, and not the right arrows for my quiver, and so, before the governorship could do away with me I decided to do away with the governorship, and yesterday morning I left the ínsula just as I found it, with the same streets, houses, and roofs that it had when I came in. I haven’t borrowed money from anybody, or taken any profits, and though I planned to issue a few good laws, I didn’t, because I was afraid nobody would obey them, and then it doesn’t matter if you issue them or not. As I said, I left the ínsula with no other escort but my donkey; I fell into a pit and walked through it until this morning, when by the light of the sun I saw the way out, but it wasn’t so easy to leave, and if heaven hadn’t provided me with my master, Don Quixote, I would’ve been there until the end of the world. And so, my lord duke and my lady duchess, here’s your governor Sancho Panza; in the ten short days he had the governorship, he learned that he wouldn’t give anything to be a governor, not just of an ínsula but of the whole world; and knowing that, and kissing the feet of your graces, and imitating the children’s game when they say, ‘You jump out and give it to me,’⁵⁶⁹ I’ll jump out of the governorship and pass into the service of my master, Don Quixote, and there, though I eat my bread in fear, at least I eat my fill; and for me, if I have enough to eat, I don’t care if it’s carrots or partridges.”

With this Sancho brought his long speech to an end, Don Quixote constantly fearing he would say thousands of nonsensical things, and when he saw him conclude having said so few, he gave thanks to heaven in his heart, and the duke embraced Sancho and said he was grieved to his very soul that he had left the governorship so soon, but he would arrange to give him another less burdensome and more profitable position on his estate. The duchess also embraced him and ordered that he be very well treated, for he showed signs of having been badly bruised and of having slept even worse.