About what happened to don Quixote with his niece and his housekeeper—one of the most important chapters in the entire history.
WHILE SANCHO Panza and his wife were having that irrelevant conversation, don Quixote’s niece and housekeeper weren’t idle, for by a thousand signs they began to suspect that their uncle and master wanted to escape for a third time and return to the profession of his—for them—ill-errant chivalry. They tried every way they could think of to try to dissuade him from such a bad plan, but it was all preaching in the wilderness and pounding on cold iron. With all this, among other things, the housekeeper told him: “In truth, señor mío, if your grace doesn’t behave and stay quietly at home, and if you go wandering about mountains and valleys, like a soul in torment, seeking what they say are called adventures—which I call misadventures—I’ll complain loudly to God and the king so they can send some help.”
To which don Quixote responded: “Housekeeper, I don’t know how God will respond to your complaints, nor his majesty either, and I only know that if I were the king, I would avoid responding to such an infinity of inconsequential petitions they give him every day—for one of the annoyances that kings have to put up with is hearing and responding to every one of them, and I don’t want my affairs added to his burden.”
To which the housekeeper said: “Tell us, señor, are there knights in his majesty’s court?”
“Yes,” responded don Quixote. “There are many of them, and it’s proper for there to be, as an adornment to the greatness of princes, and for glory of royal majesty.”
“So, shouldn’t your grace,” she replied, “be one of those who, without moving a step, serves the king in his court?”
“Look, my friend,” responded don Quixote, “not all knights can be courtly nor can—or should—the courtly knights be errant. In the world there must be both kinds, and although we’re all knights, there’s a lot of difference between the one and the other, because the courtly ones, without leaving their rooms or stepping over the threshold of the court, travel the world by looking at a map, without it costing them a blanca, or suffering cold, hunger, or thirst. But we true knights errant—in the sun, in the cold, in the inclemencies of the skies, by night or by day, on foot or on horseback—measure the earth with our own feet. And we don’t know our enemies just through paintings, but in the flesh, and in every battle we attack them, without minding trifles or laws of the duel—checking to make sure both have swords or lances of equal length, to see if one is wearing holy relics for good luck or is concealing some ploy, or to verify that the sun affects both combatants equally, and other formalities of that kind used in duels—something you don’t know about, but I do.
“And here’s something else for you to know; the good knight errant, even though he sees ten giants whose heads not only touch, but pierce the clouds, and each one of whom has enormous towers for legs, and whose arms look like immense masts taken from huge and powerful ships, and every eye like a huge millstone, and burning hotter than a glass furnace—these giants must not frighten him; rather, with an easy bearing and intrepid heart he has to attack, and if possible, vanquish and rout them in an instant, even though their armor is made of scales of a certain fish they say are harder than diamonds, and in place of swords they bring sharp Damascus knives or clubs studded with sharp steel protrusions, which I’ve seen more than twice. I’ve said all this, my housekeeper, so that you could see the difference there is between some knights and others, and it would be good if princes esteemed this second kind of knights, or maybe I should have said first kind of knights, which are the knights errant—some of which, according to their histories, have been the salvation not only of one kingdom but of many.”
“Ay, señor mío,” the niece interrupted, “don’t you know that everything you’ve said about knights errant is fiction and lies, and their histories—those that aren’t burned—deserve at least to have a sambenito put on them, or some other marking, which clearly shows that they’re infamous and corruptors of good customs.”
“By the God who sustains me,” said don Quixote, “if you weren’t my own niece, the daughter of my sister, I’d have to punish you for the blasphemy you’ve uttered in such a way that it would echo through the whole world. How can it be that a girl who can hardly manage twelve lace bobbins can open her mouth to disapprove of the histories of knights errant? What would señor Amadís say if he heard you say that? But he surely would have pardoned you because he was the most humble and courteous knight of his time, and besides, he was a great protector of damsels; but there are some who could have heard what you said and it wouldn’t have sat so well with them. Not all of them were courteous and well-mannered—some were rude and insolent. Not all those who call themselves knights are gentlemen—some are of gold, others of fool’s gold—yet all of them look like knights, but not all of them can withstand the touchstone. There are base fellows who pride themselves on looking like knights, and there are high-born knights who, it seems, are dying to appear to be common folk. The former rise either through ambition or virtue, and the latter sink through sloth or vice, and you have to use knowledge and discretion to distinguish between the two types, so similar in name but so different in actions.”
“God help me,” said the niece, “you know so many things, señor, that if it were necessary, you could climb up into a pulpit and start preaching through the streets, and yet with all this, you fall into a blindness so enormous and into an absurdity so obvious, that you believe that you’re courageous when you’re old; strong when you’re sick; that you redress wrongs when you’re bent over with age; and above all, that you’re a knight when you’re not one, because although hidalgos can be knights, the poor ones can’t be.”
“You’re quite correct, niece, in what you say,” responded don Quixote, “and I could tell you things about lineages that would amaze you—but so as not to mix the divine with the human, I won’t. Look, my friends, and listen carefully—you can reduce all the families in the world into four types, which are these: some had humble beginnings and gradually extended and expanded until they achieved the height of greatness; others had high beginnings and have preserved and maintained the greatness that they began with; still others, although they had great beginnings, wound up like the point of a pyramid, having diminished from what they originally were until they came to an end with nothing, which, when compared to its base is insignificant; and those—and these are the most common—which never had either a fine beginning, nor a reasonable middle, and that’s the way they’ll end up, nameless, like the plebeian and ordinary class.
“Of the first type, which had humble origins and rose to greatness and still exist, the Ottoman House will serve as an example, for from a humble and low shepherd who initiated it, it’s in its present glory. As an example of the second type of family, which started out in greatness and continue that way, would be the princes who, having inherited titles, preserve their greatness as they were, content to live within their borders peacefully. Of those who began great and wound up as nothing, there are thousands of examples, because the pharaohs and Ptolomeys of Egypt, the Cæsars of Rome, and all the multitude—if you can use that term with them—of infinite princes, monarchs, lords, Medes, Assyrians, Persians, Greeks, and barbarians —all these lineages and dominions have ended in nothing, themselves and their founders as well, since none of their descendants can be found anywhere, and even if we did find some, they would be in a low and humble circumstance. Of the plebeian lineage I’ve nothing to say except that it serves to increase the number of people who are living, and their importance deserves no other fame or praise.
“From all that I’ve said, I want you to deduce, my silly ones, that there’s great confusion among the various lineages, and that only those that are truly great and illustrious are so because of the goodness, bounty, and liberality of their members. I said ‘goodness, bounty, and liberality’ because a grandee who is depraved will be a depraved grandee, the rich man who is not liberal will be a miserly beggar—for the pleasure in possessing is not in hoarding one’s riches, but rather in sharing them, and not spending them in just any old way, but knowing how to spend them well. The poor knight has no way of showing that he’s a knight except by virtue, being affable, well-mannered, courteous, considerate, and obliging; not proud, not arrogant, not backbiting. Above all he must be charitable, since two maravedís gladly given to the poor will make him seem as liberal as the man who gives out alms accompanied by the clanging of bells. No one who sees him—not even persons who don’t know him—adorned with these virtues, will not consider him as of good descent. And it would be a miracle otherwise, since praise has always been a reward for virtue, virtuous people will always be praised.
“There are two roads, daughters, for men to become rich and honored. One is through letters and the other is through arms. I was born under the influence of the planet Mars, so I’m inclined to the latter. I’m bound to stick to that road, in spite of the whole world, and it would be fruitless for you to wear yourselves out trying to persuade me to do what I don’t want to, what heaven wants me to, what Fortune orders, and what reason demands, and especially what my will desires. Knowing as I do the innumerable travails associated with knight errantry, I also know the multitude of blessings that go along with it. And I know that the path of virtue is very narrow, and the road of vice is broad and ample. And I know that the goals of both are different, for the goal of vice, though wide and easy, is death; and the goal of virtue, narrow and laborious though it is, leads to life, and not in life that ends, but rather the one that has no end. And I know, as our great Castilian poet says:
“Ay, woe is me,” said the niece. “My uncle is a poet as well. He knows everything, he understands everything. I’ll bet that if he wanted to be a bricklayer, he’d know how to make a house as easily as he could a cage.”
“I promise you, niece,” responded don Quixote, “that if these thoughts of chivalry didn’t consume all my faculties, there would be nothing I couldn’t do, nor craft I couldn’t learn, especially birdcages and toothpicks.”10
At this point there were knocks at the door, and when they asked who was there, Sancho said it was him. The moment the housekeeper recognized him, she ran to hide, so much did she despise him. The niece opened the door for him, and his master don Quixote went to receive him with open arms. They went together into his room where they had a conversation that the previous one couldn’t match.