Where it is revealed who he of the White Moon was, together with the return to freedom of don Gregorio, and other events.
DON ANTONIO Moreno followed the Knight of the White Moon, and many boys also followed and even pursued him until they caught up with him at an inn inside the city. Don Antonio went in to meet him. A squire came out to receive the knight and take off his armor, and he went into one of the rooms on the ground floor. With him went don Antonio, whose «bread wouldn’t bake» until he learned who he was.
When the Knight of the White Moon saw that the man wouldn’t leave him alone, he said to him: “I know, señor, why you have come—to find out who I am. Since there’s no reason to deny you, while my servant is taking off my armor, I’ll tell you the whole truth of the matter. Señor, I’m the bachelor Sansón Carrasco. I’m from the same village as don Quixote de La Mancha, whose madness and folly has moved all of us who know him to pity, and among them I’m the one who pitied him the most. I believe that his health lies in his resting, being in his own region, and at home. I devised a plan to force him to go home. About three months ago I left home dressed as a knight errant, calling myself the Knight of the Mirrors, intending to fight with him and vanquish him without doing him any harm, demanding that the loser of our battle should do whatever the winner said. And what I was going to demand of him, since I thought he would lose, was that he should return to his village and not leave it for a year, during which time he would be cured.
“But Fate made it turn out differently because he conquered me and knocked me off my horse, so my plan didn’t work out. He went his way and I went home vanquished, embarrassed, and hurting from the fall, which was a dangerous one as well. But this didn’t dissuade me from coming back to look for him and conquer him, as has been seen today. Since he’s so conscientious in keeping the rules of knight-errantry, he will without a doubt keep his word. This is, señores, what is going on, and I don’t need to tell you anything else.
“I beg you not to reveal any of this, nor tell don Quixote who I am, so that my good plan will be complied with, and a man who has such good wits about him will recover them as soon as his folly about chivalry leaves him.”
“Oh, señor,” said don Antonio, “may God forgive the injury you’ve done to the world in wanting to restore the sanity to its most amusing crazy man. Don’t you see, señor, that the benefit of don Quixote’s sanity doesn’t approach the pleasure that his insanity gives. But I imagine that the stratagem of the señor bachelor won’t be enough to make a man who is so completely mad sane again. If it weren’t charitable, I would say that I hope don Quixote never gets better, because with his cure, not only do we lose his own pleasantries, but also those of Sancho Panza, his squire, for either one of them can turn melancholy itself into merriment.
“But I’ll be quiet about it and won’t say a thing, to see if I’m right in suspecting the plan concocted by señor Carrasco won’t have any effect.”
Carrasco answered that in any case the affair was having a good beginning and he expected a happy outcome. And once don Antonio offered to do anything else he was asked, Carrasco bade him farewell and had his armor tied to a pack mule. He mounted the horse he’d used for the battle right away, and left the city that very day and went home without anything happening to him that we should report in this true history.
Don Antonio told the viceroy what Carrasco had related, from which he got little delight, because in don Quixote’s retirement, all pleasure from hearing further crazy exploits vanished.
Don Quixote was in bed for six days, under the weather, sad, pensive, and with a bad disposition. Sancho tried to console him, and among other things, he said: “Señor mío, raise your head and cheer up if you can, and thank heaven, because, although you were cast to the ground, you have no broken ribs, and you know that «if you dish it out you can take it» and «there’s not always bacon where there’s stakes», and who cares about the doctor?—you don’t need one for this. Let’s go home and stop seeking adventures in regions and villages we don’t know. And if you consider it, I’m the one who loses the most, although you’re in worse shape. When I left my government, I also lost interest in being a governor again, but I still would like to be a count, and this will never happen if your grace fails to become a king, leaving your profession of knighthood, and thus seeing my hopes go up in smoke.”
“Hush, Sancho, my retirement will be no longer than a year. After that, I’ll go back to my honorable profession, and there’ll be no lack of kingdoms to win and some county to give you.”
“«May God listen,” said Sancho, “and may sin be deaf». I’ve always heard that «a good hope is better than a bad holding».
They were thus engaged when don Antonio came in saying, with a showing of great content: “Good news, señor don Quixote—don Gregorio and the renegade who went to rescue him are on the beach! What do I mean ‘on the beach’? They’re already in the house of the viceroy, and will be here in a moment.”
Don Quixote cheered up a bit and said: “In truth, I’m almost at the point of saying that I would be better pleased if it had turned out quite the opposite, because then I’d have to go to the Barbary Coast, where, with the strength of my arm I would free not only don Gregorio, but also all the captive Christians there are in Barbary. But what am I saying, wretch that I am? Am I not the vanquished one? Am I not the fallen one? Am I not the one who cannot take up arms for a year? What am I promising? What am I boasting about if I’m better suited to working a spinning wheel than taking up the sword?”
“Stop that way of talking, señor,” said Sancho. “«Let the chicken live even with the pip». «Today for you, tomorrow for me». And pay no mind about battles and knocks, for «he who falls today can get up tomorrow», unless he wants to stay in bed, I mean, and allow himself to become weak, without finding new energy to fight new battles. Get up now, your grace, to welcome don Gregorio. It sounds like the household is in an uproar so he must be here already.”
And it was true, because once don Gregorio and the renegade had told the viceroy about that trip over and back, he wanted to see Ana Félix, and he went with the renegade to don Antonio’s house. Although don Gregorio left Algiers dressed as a women, aboard the boat he changed into garb of a captive who came back with him. But no matter what he was wearing he showed himself to be a person to be prized, waited upon, and respected, because he was extremely handsome, and seventeen or eighteen years old. Ricote and his daughter went out to greet him, the father with tears, and the daughter with modesty. They didn’t embrace because where there’s love there’s not excessive demonstration. Everyone present admired what a beautiful couple don Gregorio and Ana Félix were. Silence spoke for the two lovers, and their eyes were the tongues that revealed their joyful and chaste thoughts.
The renegade recounted the clever means he’d used to rescue don Gregorio. Don Gregorio told of the dangers and close calls he’d had to deal with among the women with whom he’d stayed—not with a long-winded speech, but with a few words, in which he showed his intelligence was greater than his years. Finally, Ricote paid and satisfied the renegade and the crew who had manned the oars. The renegade reconciled and reconfirmed himself with the Church, and from a rotted member, he was cleansed and made whole by his penitence and repentance.
Two days later the viceroy and don Antonio discussed how they could arrange for Ana Félix and her father to stay in Spain, since it seemed to them that there was no real obstacle in allowing such a Christian daughter and such a seemingly good-intentioned father to stay. Don Antonio offered to go to the capital—where he had to go on business in any case—to try to negociate for it, intimating that by using favors and gifts many difficult things could be resolved.
“There’s no need,” said Ricote, who overheard that conversation, “to try to use favors and gifts, because the great don Bernardino de Velasco, Count of Salazar, whom his Majesty put in charge of our expulsion, will not abide pleadings, promises, gifts, or pitiful demonstrations, because although it’s true that he tempers his justice with compassion, since he sees the whole body of our race as contaminated and rotten, he cauterizes our wounds rather than using a salve to soothe them.
“So with prudence, wisdom, and diligence, and by the fear that he inspires, on his broad shoulders he has carried the weight of this great challenge to its due implementation, without our ingenuity, ploys, persistence, and frauds being able to dazzle his Argus eyes, which are continually on the alert, so that none of our nation remains or is hidden, because with time one might sprout and give poisonous fruit in Spain, which is now cleansed, now unfettered of the fears the masses had. What a heroic resolution the great Felipe III had and what unheard-of astuteness in placing it all in don Bernardino de Velasco’s hands!”
“In any case, while I’m there, I’ll do everything I can, and let heaven do what it wills,” said don Antonio. “Don Gregorio will go with me to console the grief that his parents must have experienced by his absence. Ana Félix will stay with my wife at home, or in a convent, and I know that the señor viceroy will be pleased to have Ricote as a house guest until it’s seen how I deal with this matter.”
The viceroy consented to everything that was proposed, but don Gregorio, knowing what was going on, said that he in no way wanted to leave Ana Félix. But since he intended to see his parents, and since he could come back for her, he finally agreed to the plan they had discussed. Ana Félix stayed with don Antonio’s wife and Ricote in the house of the viceroy.
The day came for don Antonio to leave, and don Quixote and Sancho’s departure came two days later, for his fall prevented him from leaving any earlier. There were tears, there were sighs, faintings and sobs when don Gregorio said good-bye to Ana Félix. Ricote offered don Gregorio a thousand escudos if he wanted them, but he didn’t take any except for five that don Antonio lent him, and he promised to pay them back in the capital. With this, the two of them left, and don Quixote and Sancho later, as has been said—don Quixote, not wearing his armor, but rather dressed for travel, and Sancho was on foot because the grey was carrying the arms and armor.