CHAPTER LXX

That night Sancho slept on a low, small bed in the same room as Don Quixote, something that Sancho would have avoided if he could because he knew very well that with all his questions and answers, his master would not let him sleep, and he was not inclined to speak a great deal because the pains of his recent torments were very present and had done nothing to loosen his tongue, and he would have preferred to sleep in a hovel alone than in that rich chamber in the company of another. What he feared was so real and what he suspected so true, that as soon as his master climbed into his bed, he heard his master say:

“What do you think, Sancho, of what happened tonight? Great and powerful is the strength of love scorned, for with your own eyes you saw Altisidora dead, not by arrows or sword or any other instrument of war, or by deadly poison, but because of the harshness and disdain with which I have always treated her.”

“She was welcome to die as much as she wanted and however she wanted,” responded Sancho, “and to leave me alone, because I never fell in love with her or scorned her in my life. As I’ve said before, I don’t know how it can be that Altisidora’s well-being, a maiden who’s more willful than wise, has anything to do with the sufferings of Sancho Panza. Now at last I see, clearly and distinctly, that there are enchanters and enchantments in the world, and may God save me from them because I don’t know how to save myself; even so, I beg your grace to let me sleep and not ask me anything else, unless you want me to throw myself out a window.”

“Then sleep, Sancho my friend,” responded Don Quixote, “if the pinpricks and pinches and slaps you have received allow you to sleep.”

“No pain,” replied Sancho, “was as great an insult as the slaps, simply because they were given to me by duennas, confound them; and again I beg your grace to let me sleep, because it relieves the miseries we feel when we’re awake.”

“Then sleep,” said Don Quixote, “and God be with you.”

Both of them fell asleep, and during this time Cide Hamete, author of this great history, wished to write and give an account of what moved the duke and duchess to devise the elaborate scheme that has just been narrated; he says that Bachelor Sansón Carrasco, not having forgotten when the Knight of the Mirrors was vanquished and overthrown by Don Quixote, a defeat and a fall that ruined and destroyed all his plans, wanted to try his hand again, hoping for better success than before; and so, learning from the page who carried the letter and gift to Teresa Panza, Sancho’s wife, where Don Quixote was, he found new arms and another horse, and on his shield he put the white moon and had all of it carried by a mule led by a peasant and not Tomé Cecial, his former squire, so that he would not be recognized by Sancho or Don Quixote.

And so he came to the castle of the duke, who informed him of the direction and route Don Quixote had taken and of his intention to appear in the jousts at Zaragoza. He also told him of the tricks that had been played on Don Quixote and of the scheme for disenchanting Dulcinea that would have to take place at the expense of Sancho’s hindquarters. Finally, he recounted the trick that Sancho had played on his master, leading him to believe that Dulcinea had been enchanted and transformed into a peasant girl, and how his wife, the duchess, led Sancho to believe that he was the one deceived because Dulcinea really was enchanted; the bachelor laughed a good deal and marveled as he considered Sancho’s shrewdness and simplicity, and the extremes of Don Quixote’s madness.

The duke asked if he found Don Quixote, and regardless of whether he defeated him or not, that he return and tell him what had occurred. The bachelor agreed and set out to look for him; he did not find him in Zaragoza and continued on his way, and what has already been related happened to him.

He returned to the castle of the duke and told him everything, including the conditions of their combat, and he said that Don Quixote was already returning home to keep, like a good knight errant, his promise to withdraw to his village for a year, in which time it might be, said the bachelor, that his madness would be cured; for this was the purpose that had moved him to assume those disguises, since it was a sad thing for a gentleman as intelligent as Don Quixote to be mad. With this, he took his leave of the duke and returned to his village and waited there for Don Quixote, who was riding behind him.

This gave the duke the opportunity to arrange the deception: such was the pleasure he derived from matters concerning Sancho and Don Quixote; he sent out many of his servants on foot and on horseback to search roads close to and far from the castle, all the ones he imagined Don Quixote might use to return home, so that either willingly or by force they could bring him back to the castle if they found him. They did find him, and they so informed the duke, who had already arranged what was to be done, and as soon as he had been informed of their arrival, he ordered the torches lit, and the lamps placed in the courtyard, and Altisidora to climb the catafalque, and all the devices that have been recounted performed so vividly and realistically that there was very little difference between them and the truth.

Cide Hamete goes on to say that in his opinion the deceivers are as mad as the deceived, and that the duke and duchess came very close to seeming like fools since they went to such lengths to deceive two fools, who, one sleeping soundly and the other keeping watch over his unrestrained thoughts, were overtaken by daylight and filled with the desire to arise, for the featherbeds of idleness never gave pleasure to Don Quixote, whether he was the vanquished or the victor.

Altisidora—restored to life, in Don Quixote’s opinion—followed the whim of her master and mistress, and crowned with the same garland she had worn on the catafalque, and dressed in a tunic of white taffeta sown with gold flowers, and with her hair hanging loose down her back, and leaning on a staff of fine black ebony, she entered Don Quixote’s room; her presence disquieted and confused him, and he covered and concealed himself almost completely under the sheets and blankets on the bed, his tongue silenced, unable to utter a single courtesy. Altisidora sat on a chair near the head of his bed, and after heaving a great sigh, in a faint and piteous voice she said:

“When highborn women and secluded maidens trample on their honor, and give permission to their tongues to break free of all restraints and proclaim in public the secrets hidden in their hearts, they find themselves in desperate circumstances. I, Señor Don Quixote of La Mancha, am one of these, afflicted, vanquished, enamored, but with it all long-suffering and modest, so much so, and so much of each, that my silence made my heart burst and I lost my life. For two days, on account of the harshness with which you have treated me, O unfeeling knight,

I was dead, or, at least, judged to be so by those who saw me; and if it had not been that Love took pity on me and placed the remedy in the sufferings of this good squire, I would have remained in the next world.”

“Love could just as well have placed them in the sufferings of my donkey, and I would have thanked him for that. But tell me, Señora, and may heaven find you another lover more tenderhearted than my master, what did you see in the next world? What’s it like in hell? Because whoever dies in despair is bound to go there.”

“To tell the truth,” responded Altisidora, “I probably didn’t die completely because I didn’t enter hell, and if I had, I really couldn’t have left even if I’d wanted to. The truth is I reached the gate, where about a dozen devils were playing pelota, all of them in tights and doublets, their collars trimmed with borders of Flemish lace and cuffs of the same material, exposing four fingers’ width of arm so that their hands appeared longer, and in them they were holding bats of fire, and what amazed me most was that instead of balls they were using books, apparently full of wind and trash, which was something marvelous and novel; but this did not amaze me as much as seeing that, although it is natural for players to be happy when they win and sad when they lose, in that game everybody was grumbling, everybody was quarreling, and everybody was cursing.”

“That’s not surprising,” responded Sancho, “because devils, whether they play or not, can never be happy, whether they win or not.”

“That must be true,” responded Altisidora, “but there’s something else that also surprises me, I mean, surprised me then, and it was that at the first volley there wasn’t a ball left in play that was in condition to be used again, and so they went through books, new and old, which was a remarkable thing to see. One of them, brand new and nicely bound, was hit so hard that its innards spilled out and its pages were scattered. One devil said to another:

‘See what book that is.’

And the other devil responded:

‘This is the second part of the history of Don Quixote of La Mancha, composed not by Cide Hamete, its first author, but by an Aragonese who is, he says, a native of Tordesillas.’

‘Take it away from here,’ responded the other devil, ‘and throw it into the pit of hell so that my eyes never see it again.’

‘Is it so bad?’ responded the other one.

‘So bad,’ replied the first, ‘that if I myself set out to make it worse, I would fail.’ And they continued with their game, hitting other books, and I, because I had heard the name of Don Quixote, whom I love and adore so passionately, did my best to keep this vision in my memory.”

“It must have been a vision, no doubt about it,” said Don Quixote, “because there is no other I in the world, and that history is already being passed from hand to hand but stops in none, because everyone’s foot is kicking it along. I have not been perturbed to hear that I wander like a shade in the darkness of the abyss or in the light of the world, because I am not the one told about in that history. If it is good, faithful, and true, it will have centuries of life, but if it is bad, the road will not be long between its birth and its grave.”

Altisidora was going to continue her complaints about Don Quixote, when the knight said to her:

“As I have often told you, Señora, I am grieved that you have turned your thoughts to me, for they can sooner be thanked than remedied by mine; I was born to belong to Dulcinea of Toboso, and the Fates, if there are any, have dedicated me to her, and to think that any other beauty can occupy the place she has in my soul is to think the impossible. This is sufficient discouragement for you to withdraw inside the borders of your modesty, for no one can be obliged to do the impossible.”

Hearing which, Altisidora, showing signs of anger and vexation, said:

“Good Lord! Don Codfish, with a soul of metal, like the pit of a date, harder and more stubborn than a peasant when he has his mind set on something, if I get near you I’ll scratch out your eyes! Do you think by any chance, Don Defeated, Don Battered, that I died for you? Every-thing you saw tonight was pretense; I’m not the kind of woman who would let herself suffer as much as the dirt under her fingernail, much less die, on account of nonsense like that.”

“I believe it,” said Sancho, “because all this about lovers dying makes me laugh: they can say it easily enough, but doing it is a story only Judas would believe.”

While they were having this conversation, the musician, singer, and poet, who had sung the two stanzas already described, came in, and making a deep bow to Don Quixote, he said:

“Señor Knight, your grace should consider and count me in the number of your greatest admirers, for I have been devoted to you for some time now, as much for your fame as for your exploits.”

Don Quixote responded:

“Your grace should tell me who you are so that my courtesy may respond to your merits.”

The youth responded that he was the musician and panegyrist of the previous night.

“Certainly,” replied Don Quixote, “your grace has an excellent voice, but what you sang did not seem very appropriate to me. What do stanzas by Garcilaso have to do with the death of this lady?”

“Your grace should not be surprised at that,” responded the musician, “for among the untutored poets of our day, the custom is for each to write however he wishes and steal from whomever he wishes regardless of whether or not it suits his intention, and there is no foolishness, either sung or written, that is not attributed to poetic license.”

Don Quixote wished to respond but was prevented from doing so by the duke and duchess, who came in to see him, and they had a long and pleasant conversation in which Sancho said so many amusing things and so many clever things that the duke and duchess were once again astounded by his simplicity and his shrewdness. Don Quixote asked them to give him permission to depart that very day, because it is more seemly for defeated knights like him to sleep in pigsties rather than in royal palaces. They gave it willingly, and the duchess asked if Altisidora remained in his good graces. He responded:

“Señora, your ladyship should know that all the problems afflicting this maiden are born of idleness, and the remedy lies in honest and constant labor. She has told me that they use lace trimmings in hell, and since she must know how to make them, she should never let them out of her hands; if she is occupied in moving the bobbins, the image or images of what she desires will not move through her imagination, and this is the truth, this is my opinion, and this is my advice.”

“And mine,” added Sancho, “for I’ve never seen in all my life a lace-maker who’s died for love; maidens who are occupied think more about finishing their tasks than about love. At least that’s true for me, because when I’m busy digging I never think about my better half, I mean my Teresa Panza, and I love her more than my eyelashes.”

“Well said, Sancho,” said the duchess, “and from now on I shall keep my Altisidora busy doing needlework, which she does extremely well.”

“There’s no reason, Señora,” responded Altisidora, “to make use of this remedy, for consideration of the cruelties this wicked vagrant has inflicted on me will wipe him from my memory with no need for other measures. And with the permission of your highness, I should like to leave now in order not to have before my eyes not only his sorrowful face, but his hideous and hateful features.”

“That seems to me,” said the duke, “like the old saying:

Altisidora made a show of drying her tears with a handkerchief, and after curtsying to her master and mistress, she left the room.

“Go in peace,” said Sancho, “poor maiden, go in peace, I mean, you have bad luck because you fell in love with a soul of esparto grass and a heart of oak. By my faith, if you’d fallen in love with me, you’d be singing a different tune!”

The conversation came to an end, and Don Quixote dressed, dined with the duke and duchess, and departed that afternoon.