Where the innumerable travails that the brave don Quixote and his faithful squire Sancho Panza had in the inn that, to his sorrow, he thought was a castle.
By this time don Quixote had come to, and with the same tone of voice that he’d used the previous day with his squire when he was stretched out in the «valley of the stakes», he began to call out, saying: “Sancho, my friend, are you asleep? Are you sleeping, friend Sancho?”
“How can I be sleeping, for God’s sake,” responded Sancho, filled with grief and dismay. “It seems like all the devils in hell have been after me tonight.”
“You can well believe it without a doubt,” responded don Quixote, “because either I know very little, or this castle is enchanted. I want you to know… but what I’m going to tell you now, you have to swear to me you’ll keep secret until after my death.”
“I say this,” replied don Quixote, “because I don’t like it if anyone loses his reputation.”
“I say that I swear,” Sancho said again, “that I’ll keep quiet about it until after the days of your grace; and may it please God that I can reveal it tomorrow.”
“Do I treat you so badly, Sancho,” responded don Quixote, “that you want to see me dead so soon?”
“No, it’s not that,” responded Sancho. “I just hate to keep things for a long time, and I wouldn’t want them to go rotten for having kept them too long.”
“Be that as it may,” said don Quixote, “I’m confident enough of your love and respect that I can tell you that tonight one of the strangest adventures that can be imagined happened to me. I’ll tell it to you in a few words. Just a little while ago the daughter of the lord of this castle came to me. She’s the most elegant and beautiful maiden that can be found in this part of the world. How can I describe the way she was dressed? How can I describe her brilliant mind? How can I describe her other hidden charms that—to keep the faith I have for Dulcinea del Toboso—I’ll leave intact and unsaid? I’ll only say that either heaven was jealous of the marvels that Fortune had placed in my arms, or—and this seems more likely—as I said, this castle is enchanted. While I was immersed in a sweet and loving dialogue with her, without my seeing or finding out where it came from, a hand connected to an arm belonging to some enormous giant struck me on the jaw, and now it’s all bathed in blood. After that, he beat me up so that I’m worse than yesterday when the Galicians, through the excesses of Rocinante, mauled us in the way you know. I conjecture from all this that the treasure of beauty belonging to this maiden must be guarded by some enchanted Moor, and must not have been meant for me.”
“Nor for me,” responded Sancho, “because more than four hundred Moors walloped me, so that the beating with the stakes was nothing in comparison. But, tell me, señor, what sort of adventure do you call this fine and rare one that has left us in this condition? For your grace it wasn’t so bad since you had that incomparable beauty you mentioned in your arms. But in my case, what did I have, if not the hardest punches I ever expect to get in my whole life? Unlucky me and the mother who bore me! I’m not a knight errant nor do I ever plan to be one, yet I get the better part of all these misfortunes.”
“So, you’re beaten up, too?” responded don Quixote.
“Didn’t I say that I was, curses on my family!?” said Sancho.
“Don’t be troubled, my friend,” said don Quixote, “because I’ll make the precious balm right now, and we’ll be healed in the twinkling of an eye.”
The officer at this point had finally lighted his lamp and returned to see what he thought would be the dead man, and as soon as Sancho saw him, with this nightshirt and cap, and lamp in his hand, and with a very sour expression, asked his master: “Señor, is this the enchanted Moor who has returned to punish us some more, just in case he left any ink in the inkwell?”
“He can’t be the Moor,” responded don Quixote, “because the enchanted never let anyone see them.”
“If they don’t let themselves be seen, they sure let themselves be felt,” said Sancho, “as my back will bear witness.”
“Mine could say a few things, too,” responded don Quixote, “but this isn’t reason enough to believe this is the enchanted Moor.”
The officer came in and since he found them talking in such quiet tones, he was quite surprised. It’s true that don Quixote was still on his back, not being able to move, since he was so beaten and covered with plasters. The officer approached and said: “Well, how are you, my good man?”
“I’d speak more respectfully,” responded don Quixote, “if I were you. Is this the way they speak to knights errant in these parts, you blockhead?”
The officer, seeing himself mistreated by a man of such wretched appearance and doubtful sanity, couldn’t stand it, and, raising his lamp with all its oil, he smashed don Quixote on the head with it, making quite a wound, then he left the darkened room.
Sancho said to him: “That doubtless was the enchanted Moor who is keeping treasures for other people, but he has only punches and whacks with lamps for us.”
“That’s right,” responded don Quixote, “and there’s no reason to be vexed by these enchantments, nor should you get mad or angry over them since the enchanters are invisible and unreal, and we won’t find anyone to take vengeance on, no matter how hard we look. Get up, Sancho, if you can, and call the warden of the castle, and get a bit of oil, wine, salt, and rosemary with which to make that curative balm, because I truly feel that I need some now, since a lot of blood is flowing from the wound this phantom gave me.”
Sancho got up, with enormous pain in his bones, and went off in the darkness to look for the innkeeper, and along the way met up with the officer who was listening to see what was happening with his enemy, and said to him: “Señor, whoever you are, please do us the kindness of giving us a bit of rosemary, oil, salt, and wine, which we need to heal one of the best knights errant in the world, who is lying in that bed badly wounded by the hand of the enchanted Moor who is in this inn.”
When the officer heard those words, he took him for a crazy person. And because day was beginning to break, he opened the door of the inn and called the innkeeper to tell him what that good man wanted. The innkeeper gave him everything he wanted, and Sancho took it to don Quixote, whom he found with his hands on his head, groaning from the pain of the lamp blow, which had done nothing more than raise two lumps, and what he thought was blood was just sweat from the anguish caused by the latest misfortune.
He took the ingredients, which he mixed together, and then cooked them for a long time, until he felt that they were ready. He then asked for a flask to put it all in, but there was none at the inn, so he resolved to put it in a cruet or tin oil container the innkeeper gave him. Then don Quixote recited over the cruet more than eighty Our Fathers and the same number of Hail Marys, Salve Reginas, credos, and with every word he crossed himself by way of a blessing. Sancho, the innkeeper, and the officer witnessed all this, but the muleteer was calmly attending to the welfare of his mules.
Once he was finished, he wanted to sample some of the precious balm to see about the curative qualities he imagined it had, so he drank some of what hadn’t fit into the cruet from the pot that he’d used to cook it in—almost a full quart. And no sooner had he drunk it when he began to vomit so violently that absolutely nothing remained in his stomach, and with the nausea and spasms caused by the vomiting, he began to sweat profusely, so he asked that he be covered and left alone. They covered him and he slept for three hours, after which he woke up feeling like a new man, and his bruises felt so much better that he thought he was completely healed. He truly felt that the balm of Fierabrás had really worked and that he could engage in fights from then on without any fear of disasters, battles, or clashes, no matter how perilous they might be.
Sancho Panza, who also thought the recovery of his master was a miracle, begged him for what was left over in the pot, which was not a little amount. Don Quixote allowed him to have it. Sancho took it in both hands, in good faith and with better will, and gulped down not much less than his master. As it happened, poor Sancho’s stomach must not have been as delicate as that of his master, so before he could throw up, he suffered so much nausea and so many swoons, with so much sweating and fainting spells, that he truly thought that his final hour had come. Seeing himself so afflicted and distressed, he cursed the balm and the thief who had given it to him.
When don Quixote saw what had happened to him, he said: “I think, Sancho, that all this trouble comes from your not having been dubbed a knight. I’m convinced that this balm shouldn’t be taken by those who aren’t so dubbed.”
“If your grace knew this all along,” replied Sancho, “—woe is me and all my kindred!—why did you let me drink it?”
At this point the brew started to act, and the poor squire began to discharge from both ends with such force that neither the mat on which he was lying, nor the canvas cover that was on top of him, were of further use. He sweated and sweated with such seizures and paroxysms that not only he, but everyone else, thought that his life was ending. This tempest and misfortune lasted almost two hours, after which he wasn’t in good shape like his master, but rather too beaten up and weak to stand up.
But don Quixote, as has been said, felt so relieved and hale that he wanted to leave immediately to seek adventures, because it seemed to him that all the time he delayed was depriving the world and those needy people in it of his favor and assistance. The self-assurance he got from the balm instilled even more confidence in him, so, armed with this desire, he saddled Rocinante himself and put the packsaddle on his squire’s donkey, and he also helped Sancho to get dressed and get on the donkey. He then got on his horse and went over to a corner of the yard and picked up a short lance to use.
Everyone in the inn—and there were more than twenty—was watching him. The daughter of the innkeeper was among those looking on, and he never took his eyes from hers. Once in a while he heaved a great sigh that seemed to be coming from the depths of his bowels, but everyone interpreted it as being due to the pain he felt in his ribs, at least those who had seen him being plastered the night before.
As soon as the two of them were mounted and at the gate of the inn, don Quixote called the innkeeper over, and with a very calm and grave voice said: “Señor warden, many and very great are the favors I’ve received in this castle, and I remain very much in your debt. I’ll be thankful to you all the days of my life. If I can repay you by avenging an injury done to you by some arrogant person, I want you to know that my profession is none other than to help those not very able to help themselves, to settle accounts for those who have been wronged, and to punish treacheries. Think back and tell me if there’s anything of this kind to charge me with. All you have to do is ask and I promise you, by the order of chivalry that I’ve received, to satisfy you completely.”
The innkeeper responded with the same tranquil air: “Señor knight, I don’t need you to avenge any injury, because I know how to take any vengeance I see fit, when necessary. I only need for you to pay me for the expenses you incurred at the inn last night, such as the straw and barley for your mounts, and for the dinner and the beds.”
“You mean this is an inn?” replied don Quixote.
“And a very reputable one,” responded the innkeeper.
“I’ve been deceived until now,” responded don Quixote. “In truth I thought it was a castle, and not a bad one. But since it’s an inn and not a castle, the only thing you can do is forgive the payment, because I can’t contravene the laws of knight errantry. I know for a fact—and I haven’t read anything to the contrary—that knights never paid for lodging or anything else in an inn where they stayed, because appropriate shelter is accorded them by law and by right in payment for the insufferable toil they endure while seeking adventures night and day, in winter and in summer, on foot and on horseback, suffering hunger and thirst, in heat and cold, subject to all the inclemencies of the heavens and all the discomforts of the earth.”
“I don’t know anything about that,” responded the innkeeper. “Pay me what is owed me, and let’s hear no more about stories and chivalry. The only thing I care about is getting what is due me.”
“You’re a foolish man and a bad innkeeper,” responded don Quixote.
And putting his spurs to Rocinante, and brandishing his lance, he left the inn without anyone stopping him; and he, not looking back to see if his squire was following, went quite a distance away. The innkeeper saw him leave without paying, so he went to collect from Sancho Panza, who said that since his master had refused to pay, he wouldn’t pay either. Being the squire of a knight errant, as he was, the same rule and principle applied to him as for his master in not paying for anything in inns. This irritated the innkeeper, who threatened him, saying that if he didn’t pay, he’d collect in a way that Sancho wouldn’t like. To which Sancho responded that by the laws of chivalry his master had received, he wouldn’t even pay a single cornado, even though it might cost him his life, because he didn’t want the good and ancient traditions of knights errant to be lost through him, nor did he want the squires of other knights who had yet to come into the world to complain about him, reproaching him for having broken such an exemplary law.
As the unfortunate Sancho’s bad luck would have it, among the people who were at the inn were four wool-carders from Segovia, three needle makers from the Plaza del Potro in Cordova, and two men who lived near the Marketplace of Seville, jovial, good-hearted, mischievous, and playful fellows, who were incited and moved by the same spirit, and who went to Sancho and pulled him off his donkey. Meanwhile one of them went to fetch a blanket from the innkeeper’s bed. They put Sancho on the blanket, looked up and saw that the ceiling was a bit lower than they needed for what the were going to do, so they decided to go to the corral, where the ceiling was the sky. And there, with Sancho in the middle of the blanket, they began to toss him in the air, having fun with him like they do with dogs at carnival time.
The shouts the wretched person being blanketed gave out were so loud they were heard by his master, who stopped to listen attentively, and believed that a new adventure had come his way, until he realized that the person who was bellowing was his squire. So he turned around, and with a laborious gallop, went back to the inn. When he arrived at the walls of the corral, which were not very high, he saw the joke they were playing on his squire. He saw him go up and down in the air with so much grace and nimbleness that—if his anger had allowed him—I think he would have laughed out loud. He tried to climb from the horse onto the walls, but he couldn’t even get off his horse, so from the saddle he began to hurl so many insults at those who were blanketing Sancho that it’s impossible to write them all down. The blanketers didn’t stop their laughing or their labor on account of them nor did the flying Sancho stop his complaints, mingled sometimes with threats and sometimes with supplications. But all this did little good until they stopped from utter exhaustion. They took him to his donkey and put him onto it, and draped his cloak over him. The compassionate Maritornes, seeing him suffering so, went to get a pitcher of water, which she got from the well so it would be cold, and took it to him. She was just at the point of giving it to him to drink when his master shouted to him: “Sancho, my son, don’t drink water—it’ll kill you! Look here, I have the holy balm,” and he held up the cruet so Sancho could see. “With two drops of it you’ll be whole again.”
Sancho rolled his eyes when he heard these shouts and shouted back even louder: “Has your grace forgotten by chance that I’m not a knight errant, or do you want me to vomit my guts out from what I have left over from last night? To the devil with that beverage, and leave me alone!”
When he finished talking, he began to drink right away. But with the first swallow he realized it was water and wouldn’t take any more. He begged Maritornes to get him some wine. She did so very graciously, and paid for it with her own money, for it’s said about her that, although she was just a serving girl, she was still something of a Christian.
As soon as Sancho drank, he put his heels to the donkey. They opened the gate of the inn, and he left, very content at not having had to pay anything and having gotten his way, although it had been at the expense of his usual guarantor, his back. It’s true that the innkeeper kept his saddlebags in payment for what he owed, but Sancho didn’t miss them since he was in such a tizzy. The innkeeper wanted to bar the gate as soon as he saw him outside, but the blanketers wouldn’t hear of it because even if don Quixote were truly one of the knights of the Round Table, they couldn’t have cared less.