CHAPTER LXI

Don Quixote spent three days and three nights with Roque, and if it had been three hundred years, there would have been no lack of things to observe and marvel at in the way he lived: they awoke here and ate there; at times they fled, not knowing from whom, and at other times they waited, not knowing for whom. They slept on their feet, interrupting their slumber and moving from one place to another. It was always a matter of posting spies, listening to scouts, blowing on the locks of their harquebuses, although they had few of those since everyone used flintlocks. Roque spent the nights away from his men, in locations and places they did not know, because the many edicts issued by the viceroy of Barcelona⁶⁰⁸ against his life made him uneasy and apprehensive, and he did not dare trust anyone, fearing his own men might kill him or turn him in to the authorities: a life, certainly, that was disquieting and troublesome.

Finally, using abandoned roads, shortcuts, and hidden paths, Roque, Don Quixote, Sancho, and another six squires set out for Barcelona. They reached the shore on the night of St. John’s Eve, and Roque embraced Don Quixote and Sancho, presented the squire with the ten escudos he had promised but had not yet given him, and took his leave, with a thousand services offered on both sides.

Roque returned to the countryside, and Don Quixote remained mounted on his horse, waiting for daybreak, and it was not long before the pale face of dawn began to appear along the balconies of the east, bringing joy to the grass and flowers rather than to the ear, for at that very moment ears were made joyous by the sound of many flageolets and timbrels, the jingling of bells, the “make way, make way, stand aside, stand aside!” of runners who, apparently, were coming from the city. Dawn made way for the sun, whose face, larger than a shield, gradually rose from below the horizon.

Don Quixote and Sancho turned their eyes in all directions; they saw the ocean, which they had not seen before: it seemed broad and vast to them, much larger than the Lakes of Ruidera that they had seen in La Mancha; they saw the galleys near the shore, and when the canopies were raised, their pennants and streamers were revealed, fluttering in the wind and kissing and sweeping the water; from the galleys came the sound of bugles, trumpets, and flageolets, and the breeze carried the sweetly martial tones near and far. The ships began to move, performing a mock skirmish on the quiet waters, and, corresponding in almost the same fashion, an infinite number of knights on beautiful horses and in splendid livery rode out from the city. The soldiers on the galleys fired countless pieces of artillery, to which those who were on the walls and in the forts of the city responded, and the heavy artillery shook the air with a fearsome clamor and was answered by the midship cannon on the galleys. The joyful sea, the jocund land, the transparent air, perhaps clouded only by the smoke from the artillery, seemed to create and engender a sudden delight in all the people.

Sancho could not imagine how those shapes moving on the ocean could have so many feet. And then, the knights in livery, with shouts, lelelíes, and cries, came galloping up to a stupefied and astounded Don Quixote, and one of them, who had been advised by Roque, called in a loud voice to Don Quixote:

“May the model, beacon, light, and polestar of all knight errantry be welcome to our city, world without end. Welcome, I say, to the valorous Don Quixote of La Mancha: not the false, the fictitious, the apocryphal one we have seen recently in false histories, but the true, the legitimate, the faithful one described for us by Cide Hamete Benengeli, the flower of all historians.”

Don Quixote did not say a word, and the knights did not wait for him to respond, but wheeling and turning with all their entourage behind them, they began to move in caracoles around Don Quixote, who turned to Sancho and said:

“These men know us very well: I would wager that they have read our history, and even the one recently published by the Aragonese.”

The knight who had spoken to Don Quixote returned, saying:

“Your grace, Señor Don Quixote, come with us, for we are all your servants and great friends of Roque Guinart’s.”

To which Don Quixote responded:

“If courtesy engenders courtesy, yours, Señor Knight, is the daughter or close relative of the great Roque’s. Take me wherever you wish, for I shall have no will but yours, above all if you desire to employ mine in your service.”

The knight responded with words no less courtly, and the others encircled Don Quixote, and to the sound of flageolets and timbrels they rode with him to the city, and as they entered it, there were the Evil One, who ordains all wickedness, and boys, who are more evil than the Evil One; two of them who were particularly mischievous and impudent made their way through all the people, and one lifted the gray’s tail and the other lifted Rocinante’s, and there they placed and inserted branches of furze⁶⁰⁹ in each one. The poor animals felt these new spurs, and when they pressed down their tails, they increased their discomfort to such an extent that they reared and bucked a thousand times and threw their riders to the ground. Don Quixote, enraged and affronted, hurried to remove the plumage from the tail of his nag, and Sancho did the same for his gray. Those who were escorting Don Quixote wanted to punish the insolence of the boys, but it was not possible because they hid among the thousand others who were following them.

Don Quixote and Sancho remounted; accompanied by the same acclamation and music, they arrived at the house of their guide, which was large and imposing, as befitted a wealthy gentleman, and there we shall leave them for now, since this is the wish of Cide Hamete.