AS SOON as the housekeeper saw that Sancho Panza was closed up with his master, she figured out what they were talking about, and concluded that the conversation would result in their third expedition. Taking her shawl, and filled with anguish and grief, she went to look for the bachelor Sansón Carrasco, thinking that since he was so well-spoken and a new friend of her master, he could persuade him to abandon such a ludicrous proposition.
She found him pacing in the patio of his house, and when she saw him, she fell at his feet, sweating and distressed. When Carrasco saw her looking so doleful and terrified, he said to her: “What’s this, señora housekeeper? What has happened—it looks like you’re about to give up the ghost.”
“It’s nothing, señor Sansón, except my master is breaking out, he’s surely breaking out.”
“Where’s he breaking out, señora?” asked Sansón. “Has he eaten something that has caused him to break out?”
“He’s breaking out,” she responded, “through the door of his madness. I mean, my dear señor bachelor, that he’s about to make another expedition—and this will be the third time—to roam the world to seek what he calls adventures. I don’t understand how he can give them that name. The first time they brought him back stretched across a donkey, beaten to bits. The second time he came in an oxcart, shut up in a cage, where he said he was enchanted. He was so pathetic, the mother who bore him wouldn’t have recognized him—gaunt, yellow, his eyes sunken into the deepest recesses of his brain. And to help him get restored it took more than six hundred eggs, as God and everyone knows, and my chickens won’t let me lie.”
“I can well believe it,” responded the bachelor, “they’re so good and well-trained that they won’t say one thing for another even though they might burst. So then, señora housekeeper, there’s nothing else—no other misfortune has happened—except that you fear what señor don Quixote will do.”
“Then don’t worry,” responded the bachelor, “and go back home, fix me something hot to eat for lunch, and along the way say the prayer to Saint Apolonia, if you know it. I’ll come over right away and you’ll witness miracles.”
“Woe is me,” replied the housekeeper, “you say I should say the prayer to Saint Apolonia—this would be if my master had a toothache, but where he aches is in his brain.”
“I know what I’m talking about, señora housekeeper—go on and don’t argue with me since you know I’m a Bachelor of Arts from Salamanca, and there’s no better bachelor than that.”
And with this, the housekeeper went away, and the bachelor immediately went to look for the priest to tell him what will be said in due time.
While don Quixote and Sancho were shut up, this is the conversation they had, as recorded accurately in the true account of the history:
Sancho said to his master: “Señor, I’ve dissuaded my wife to let me go with your grace wherever you want to lead me.”
“Persuaded you should say, Sancho,” said don Quixote, “and not dissuaded.
“Once or twice,” responded Sancho, “if I remember correctly, I’ve asked your grace not to fix my words if you understand what I mean, but when you don’t understand, just say ‘Sancho, I don’t understand you,’ and if I’m not yet clear, I’m fossil enough to let you correct me.”
“I don’t understand you, Sancho,” said don Quixote, “since I don’t know what ‘fossil enough’ means.”
“‘Fossil enough means, responded Sancho, “I’m sufficiently that way.”
“I understand that even less,” replied don Quixote.
“Well, if your grace doesn’t understand me,” responded Sancho, “I don’t know how else to say it. I don’t know anything else, and may God be with me.”
“Now I catch on,” responded don Quixote. “You mean that you’re so docile—accommodating and meek—that you will go along with what I tell you to do, and you’ll do what I instruct you to do.”
“I bet,” said Sancho, “that since I began, your grace understood me, but you just wanted to embarrass me to hear me say another two hundred stupid things.”
“That may be,” replied don Quixote, “but indeed, tell me—what does Teresa say?”
“Teresa says,” said Sancho, “that I should «tie a string around my finger»” with your grace, and that «documents speak, not beards», because «he who cuts doesn’t shuffle» and «a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush». And I say that «the advice of a woman is not worth very much and he who doesn’t heed it is crazy».”
“I agree, too,” responded don Quixote. “Tell me, Sancho, move along, for you’re saying real gems.”
“It happens,” replied Sancho, “as you know better than I do, we’re all subject to death, and «here today and gone tomorrow», and «the lamb goes to the slaughter just as the sheep does», and «no one can have more time in this world than God wants to give him» because «death is deaf», and when he comes to knock on the door of our life, he’s always in a hurry and won’t stop for entreaties, nor resistance, nor scepters, nor miters. This is all common knowledge and we also hear it preached from the pulpits.”
“All that is true,” said don Quixote, “but I don’t know where it’s all leading.”
“It’s leading,” said Sancho, “to asking you to tell me what salary you intend to pay me every month of the time that I serve you, and that the salary be paid from your income. I don’t want to be dependent on favors, which come late or never—may God help me with what I hope to earn. In a word, I want to know what I am to earn—as little or as much as it may be, because «the hen will sit on only one egg», and «many littles make a big», and «if you’re earning something you’re not losing anything». The truth is, if it should happen—and I don’t think it will nor are my hopes up—that you give me the ínsula you promised me, I’m not so ungrateful, nor do I take things to such extremes, that I won’t want the income that would come from the ínsula to be appraised and discounted from my salary, procreated.”
“Sancho, my friend,” responded don Quixote, “sometimes it’s better to rate something instead of creating it.”
“I see,” said Sancho, “I’ll bet I was supposed to say prorate and not procreate. But this isn’t important at all since you understood me.”
“And so well,” responded don Quixote, “that I’ve penetrated to the very bottom of your thoughts, and I know what the target of the innumerable arrows of your proverbs is. Look, Sancho, I would fix a wage if I had found in any one of the histories of knights errant an example that would show a glimmering of what squires would earn every month or every year. But I’ve read all or most of their histories, and I cannot recall that a single knight errant had given a fixed salary to his squire. I only know that they all served in expectation of favors, and when least they expected it, if their masters had been lucky, they found themselves regaled with an ínsula, or something similar, and in any case they were given a title or made a lord. If with these hopes and inducements you, Sancho, want to serve me again, well and good—because to consider that I would knock the ancient custom of knight errantry off its hinges is to think the unthinkable. So, Sancho mío, go back home and declare my intent to your Teresa, and if she wants, and you want to be dependent on my favors, bene quidem, and if not, we’ll be friends as always—for «if the pigeon house doesn’t lack grain, it won’t lack pigeons either». And again, my son, «a favorable hope is better than a bad possession» and «a good claim is better than bad pay». I’m speaking this way, Sancho, to make you see that I, like you, know how to hurl proverbs as if they were rain. Finally, I want to say, and I will say, that if you don’t want to work for favors and take the same risks I take, may God stay with you and make you a saint—for I won’t lack squires more obedient and more diligent, and are not so awkward and loquacious as you.”
When Sancho heard his master’s firm resolution, his sky clouded over and the wings of his heart drooped, because he’d believed his master wouldn’t go without him for all the money in the world, and while he was crestfallen and pensive, Sansón Carrasco came in with the niece, the latter wanting to hear what Sansón would say to her master to prevent him from going out to seek more adventures. Sansón—the famous jokester—went up to him and embraced him as before, and with a raised voice said: “Oh, flower of knight errantry! Oh, shining light of arms. Oh, honor and mirror of the Spanish nation! May it please God Almighty to grant that any person or persons who try to hinder your third expedition be mired in the labyrinth of their desires, and may their wicked design never be realized!”
And turning to the housekeeper, he said: “You needn’t recite the prayer to Saint Apolonia any longer, for I know that heaven has clearly ordained that señor don Quixote should go out to put his high-minded and new intent into effect. I would wrong the dictates of my conscience if I didn’t suggest and even urge this knight to let the strength of his arm and the virtue of his very brave spirit be confined and detained any longer, because through his delay he neglects the righting of wrongs, the protection of orphans, the honor of maidens, the favoring of widows, the support of married women, and other similar endeavors, all of which deal with, pertain to, depend on, and are associated with knight errantry. Come, don Quixote mío, handsome and fierce, right this moment rather than tomorrow let your grace and greatness get on the road, and if you need anything to help your endeavor, here I am to supply with my person and financial support; and if you need me, I’ll even be your squire, and I’ll consider it to be very good fortune.”
Don Quixote then said, turning to Sancho: “Didn’t I tell you, Sancho, there would be an abundance of squires? Look who has offered to be mine—none but the phenomenal bachelor Sansón Carrasco, perpetual joker and merrymaker of the patios of the schools of Salamanca, sound of body, fleet of foot, endurer of both heat and cold, and hunger and thirst, with all the requisite qualities to be a squire of a knight errant… But heaven forbid that I should shatter this column of letters and vessel of knowledge, or fell the lofty palm of good and liberal arts. Let the new Samson remain at home, and by honoring it he’ll bring honor to the white hair of his agèd parents, for I’ll be content with any squire since Sancho doesn’t care to come with me.”
“Yes, I do care,” responded Sancho, deeply moved and with eyes filled with tears, and he went on: “Let it not be said of me, señor mío, «the bread partaken the company forsaken». I don’t come from an ungrateful stock—everybody knows, especially in my town, who the Panzas were who I come from. Moreover, I know and understand through your good deeds and kind words that your grace wants to show me favor, and if I’ve fussed a bit about my salary, it was to humor my wife, because when she has a mind to press a point, there’s no mallet that drives the hoops of a barrel the way she drives you to do what she wants. But, let’s face it, a man has to be a man, and a woman, a woman; and since I’m a man wherever I please, which I can’t deny, I’ll be one in my own house, no matter what. And there’s nothing left to do except for your grace to add a codicil to your will that cannot be provoked, and let’s get on the road right away, so that the soul of señor Sansón won’t suffer since he says that his conscience dictates him to persuade your grace to go out a third time through the world. And I once again offer myself to serve your grace faithfully, and as well as, or better than, all the squires who ever served knights errant in past and present times.”
The bachelor was amazed to hear Sancho Panza’s way of talking, and, although he’d read the first part of the history of his master, he never believed that Sancho was as amusing as they describe him; but hearing him say just now “codicil to your will that cannot be provoked,” and instead of “codicil to your will that cannot be revoked,” he came to believe everything that he’d read about him, and he deemed him one of the most celebrated idiots of our times, and he said to himself that two such crazy men as this master and servant had never been seen before in the world.
Finally, don Quixote and Sancho embraced and made up once again, and on the advice and with the blessing of the great Carrasco, who was at that point their oracle, it was ordered that three days hence they would leave, during which time they had to prepare for the journey and to find a covered helmet, which don Quixote said he needed to have. Sansón offered this to him because he had a friend who had one and wouldn’t refuse his request, although it was rusty and moldy rather than clean and brightly polished steel.
The curses that both the housekeeper and niece heaped upon the bachelor had no end; they pulled out their hair, they scratched their faces, and they raised a lamentation about the departure the same way hired mourners do, as if their master were dead. The plan that Sansón drew up to persuade him to go out a third time will be revealed later in the story, all of which was approved by the priest and barber, with whom he’d discussed it beforehand.
In short, in those three days they gathered what they thought they’d need, and Sancho, having appeased his wife, and don Quixote, having done the same with his niece and housekeeper, at dusk, without anyone seeing them except the bachelor, who wanted to go with them out of town for half a league, got on the road toward El Toboso—Don Quixote on his good Rocinante and Sancho on his regular donkey, the saddlebags filled with food and their purse with money, which don Quixote gave Sancho for whatever might come up. Sansón embraced him and begged him to write of his good or bad fortune, to sadden him with the former, or gladden him with the latter, as the laws of friendship demanded. Don Quixote promised him he’d do it, Sansón went back to their village, and the two got on the road toward the great city of El Toboso.