About what happened to don Quixote as he entered Barcelona, with other things that are truer than they are clever.
FOR THREE days and nights don Quixote stayed with Roque, and had he stayed three hundred years, there still would have been new things to learn and cause wonder about in his way of life. They would wake up here, they ate lunch over there, sometimes they fled not knowing from whom, and other times they waited without knowing for whom. They slept on horseback, and interrupted their sleep by moving from one place to another. Their whole life was placing spies, listening to sentinels, and blowing on the wicks of their muskets, but they had few of these since they all used flint-pistols. Roque spent the nights separated from his men in places where they couldn’t know where he was, because the viceroy of Barcelona had issued several edicts against his life, and he was nervous and fearful, and didn’t dare confide in anyone, afraid that even his own men would either kill him or hand him over to the authorities—a miserable and vexing way of life to be sure.
So, by lesser-used roads, short cuts, and secret paths, Roque, don Quixote, and Sancho left with six other squires for Barcelona. They arrived at the beach there the night before Saint John the Baptist’s day. Roque embraced don Quixote and Sancho (to whom he gave the ten escudos that he’d promised but hadn’t yet handed over), and they took their leave, offering a thousand services to each other.
Roque went back and don Quixote stayed there waiting for daybreak on horseback, and he didn’t have to wait long for the shining Aurora to show her face in the balconies of the East, gladdening the grass and flowers, and at that same instant, ears were gladdened by the music of chirimías and drums, the ringing of jingle bells, and the shouts of “Make way, make way,” given by runners coming from town. Aurora gave way to the sun, who, with a face larger than a shield, starting at the horizon, began to rise little by little. Don Quixote and Sancho looked all around and saw the sea, which they had never seen before; it seemed very wide and vast, and considerably larger than the Lagunas de Ruidera that they had seen in La Mancha. They saw galleys along the beach that, when they had rolled up their awnings, seemed covered with pennants that fluttered in the wind and even kissed and swept the surface of the water. From inside came the music of trumpets and chirimías, which from near and far filled the air with military melodies. The galleys began to move about and engage in a mock skirmish in the calm waters, and almost in imitation of them came from the city a large number of knights mounted on horses, with handsome liveries. Soldiers on the ships shot a great deal of artillery, and those along the walls and forts of the city responded, and the shot from heavy cannons broke into the wind, and the large maritime cannons aboard the galleys responded to them. The sea was merry, the earth cheerful, the air clear, but darkened at times by the smoke from the artillery; all this appeared to instill all the people with instant pleasure.
Sancho couldn’t imagine how those hulks moving around the sea could have so many feet. Just then, all those in liveries raced up to don Quixote with shouts, Arabic war cries, and uproar. He was amazed and astonished. One of them, the person Roque had written to, said in a loud voice to don Quixote: “Welcome to our city, mirror, lantern, and north star of knight errantry, and everything else that goes along with it. Welcome, I say, to the valiant don Quixote de La Mancha, not the false, not the fictional, not the apocryphal one written about in false histories, but rather the true, real, and faithful one described to us by Cide Hamete Benengeli, the flower of historians.”
Don Quixote couldn’t say a thing, and the knights didn’t wait for a response, but, whirling about on their horses with those who followed, began to prance all around don Quixote, who, turning to Sancho, said: “These people have recognized us. I’ll bet they’ve read our history, and even the one recently printed by the Aragonese fellow.”
The knight who spoke first to don Quixote came back and said to him: “Your grace, señor don Quixote, come with us. We’re your servants and great friends of Roque Guinart.”
To which don Quixote responded: “If courtesy engenders courtesy, yours, señor knight, must be the child, or a close relative of that of the great Roque. Take me to wherever you want, for I’ve no will other than yours, and more so if you want to use my desire to serve you.”
With words no less courteous than these the knight answered him, and gathering him in their midst, to the music of the chirimías and the drums, they went toward the city. When they were in the city, the devil—who makes all bad things happen—and the boys, who are worse than the devil, two of them, mischievous and daring, threaded themselves through the crowd and with one of them raising the donkey’s tail and the other raising Rocinante’s, they stuck in bunches of furze. The poor animals immediately felt a different kind of spur, and, as they pressed their tails down they increased their torment in such a way that they bucked a thousand times and threw their riders to the ground. Don Quixote was embarrassed and offended, and went to remove the plumage from the tail of his nag, and Sancho did the same for his grey. Those who were leading don Quixote wanted to punish the daring of the boys, but it wasn’t possible since they were now mixed in with a thousand people who were following. Don Quixote and Sancho mounted again and with the same applause and music they arrived at the house of their guide, which was large and princely, that is, like that of a rich gentleman, where we will leave him for the time being, for that’s what Cide Hamete wants.