Which follows the sixty-ninth and deals with things necessary to the clear understanding of this history.
SANCHO SLEPT in a portable bed that night in the same room as don Quixote, which he would have liked to have avoided if he could have since he well knew that his master was going to keep him awake by asking him questions, and he wasn’t in the mood to talk a lot because he still was hurting from his recent martyrdom, and his pain wouldn’t let his tongue move freely. He would have preferred to sleep in a hut by himself rather than in that elegant room with someone else.
His fear turned out to be well-founded and his suspicion true, because no sooner did his master get into bed but what he said: “What do you think, Sancho, about what happened tonight? The might of a lover’s scorn is great and powerful—you’ve seen Altisidora with your own eyes, dead, and not killed by arrows, nor by a sword, nor by any other instrument of war, nor by deadly poisons, but just by her brooding on the rigor and scorn with which I’ve always treated her.”
“Let her die as much as she wants and however she wants,” responded Sancho, “and let me stay at home, because I never led her to love me, nor did I ever scorn her in my entire life. I don’t know, nor can I think, how the health of Altisidora, a girl more capricious than discreet, can have to do—as I’ve said before—with the torments of Sancho Panza. Now I can certainly understand clearly and distinctly that there are enchanters and enchantments in the world, and may God free me from them, since I cannot free myself. Even so, I beg your worship to let me sleep, and not ask me anything else unless you want me to throw myself out the window.”
“Sleep, Sancho my friend,” responded don Quixote, “if the pinpricks, pinches, and slaps that you received will allow you.”
“No pain,” replied Sancho, “comes close to the affront of the slaps, if only because they were done by duennas—may God confound them! And I ask you once again to let me sleep because sleep soothes the miseries of those who have them when awake.”
“All right,” said don Quixote, “and may God be with you.”
The two of them went to sleep, and while they slept, Cide Hamete Benengeli, the author of this great history, wanted to explain how the duke and duchess came to dream up the aforementioned scheme. He says that the bachelor Sansón Carrasco (having not forgotten when he was the Knight of the Mirrors, that he was vanquished and knocked down by don Quixote, which erased and ruined all his plans) wanted to try again, expecting a better result than the first time. And so he found out from the page who had taken the letter and present to Teresa Panza, Sancho’s wife, where don Quixote was. He found another set of armor and a new horse, and he put a white moon on his shield. He put the shield and armor on a mule guided by a peasant (not Tomé Cecial, his former squire, so he wouldn’t be recognized either by Sancho or don Quixote).
He arrived, finally, at the castle of the duke, who informed him about the road don Quixote was taking and his plan to participate in the jousts in Zaragoza. He also told him about the pranks they had played, especially about the scheme to disenchant Dulcinea, at the expense of Sancho’s rear end. He revealed the joke Sancho had played on his master as well, making him believe that Dulcinea was enchanted and transformed into a peasant, and how the duchess, his wife, had made Sancho believe that he was the one who was deceived, because Dulcinea was really enchanted. The bachelor laughed no little about this, reflecting on the shrewdness and simplicity of Sancho, as well as the complete madness of don Quixote.
The duke asked that if he should find him, and whether or not he vanquished him, he should go back to tell him what happened. The bachelor did just that. He went off looking for him and didn’t find him in Zaragoza, so he kept on going, and what has been recounted happened. He returned by way of the duke’s castle, and told him everything that had taken place, along with the conditions of the battle, and that don Quixote was going back to keep, as a good knight errant, the word he’d given to retire for a year in his village during which time it might be—said the bachelor—he would regain his sanity. He was moved to take on that disguise because it was such a pity to see an intelligent hidalgo as don Quixote without his wits. With this he bade farewell to the duke and went back to his village, waiting for don Quixote who was following along.
The duke decided to play another trick on him, since he enjoyed so much the things that don Quixote and Sancho did. By using many of his servants on foot and on horseback, who combed the roads near and far from the castle, everywhere he thought don Quixote might be coming, so that they could bring him back either by force or by his free will to the castle, if they found him.
They found him, and sent word back to the duke, who had planned what to do, and as soon as he heard that they were about to arrive, had the torches and candles lit, and had Altisidora get up onto her catafalque, with all the other details mentioned, so well contrived and well done that there was little difference between appearance and reality.
Cide Hamete goes on to say that personally he thinks that the jokesters were as crazy as those played jokes upon, and the duke and duchess were themselves not two fingers from appearing to be fools in making fools of real ones. The two of them, one sleeping soundly, the other keeping vigil with unbridled thoughts, felt like getting up at the first rays of the sun, for staying in bed, either as victor or vanquished, never gave pleasure to don Quixote.
Altisidora, who had, in don Quixote’s opinion, returned from death to life—following the orders of her masters—crowned with the same garland that she was wearing while on her tomb, and dressed in a tunic of white taffeta, decorated with gold flowers, her hair flowing below her shoulders, and leaning on a cane made of very fine black ebony, went into don Quixote’s room. Upset and confused, he wrapped himself in his sheets and quilts from the bed, his tongue silent, without offering her any of the usual courtesies.
Altisidora sat in a chair at the head of the bed, after giving a great sigh, and with a tender and weakened voice she said: “When ladies of quality and modest maidens trample their honor, and let their tongues break through every obstruction, revealing the secrets from the depths of their hearts in public, they’re really in desperate straits. I, señor don Quixote de La Mancha, am one of those, enamored, vanquished, and in love. But, with all this, I’m patient and virtuous—so much so that my soul burst through my silence and I lost my life. I was dead for two days—at least, that’s what those who saw me thought—from dwelling on the severity with which you’ve treated me, oh, heart harder-than-marble to my laments, knight made of flint! And if it weren’t that Love, having compassion for me, found a way to save me through the torments of this good squire, I’d still be in the other world.”
“Love could have just as easily,” said Sancho, “found a way to torment my donkey instead, and I would have been grateful. But tell me, señora—and may heaven find a kinder lover for you than my master—what did you see in the other world? What is hell like? Why is it that someone who dies of despair has to wind up there?”
“To tell the truth,” responded Altisidora, “I must not have completely died because I didn’t go into hell. Once you go in, you can’t get out, even if you want to. The truth is, I got to the gate where a dozen devils were playing ball, all of them wearing pants and vests, with collars decorated with lace, and more lace at their cuffs, with four inches of their forearms showing to make their hands look longer, and in their hands they had bats made of fire.
“And what impressed me most was that instead of balls they were using books, seemingly filled with hot air and rubbish, a marvelous and novel thing to behold. But this didn’t amaze me as much as seeing that, whereas usually winners are happy and losers are sad, down there in that game everyone grunted, everyone argued, and everyone called each other names.”
“That doesn’t surprise me,” responded Sancho, “because devils, whether they’re playing or not, can never be content, win or lose.”
“That’s what it must be,” responded Altisidora, “but there’s something else that surprises me, I mean, that surprised me then, and that was that after the first thwack, no book was whole, nor was it usable again, and the way they smashed new books and old to smithereens was a marvel to see. They whacked one of those books, brand new and well bound, which came totally apart and its pages went flying around. One devil said to another: ‘Look and see what this book is.’ And the devil answered: ‘This is the Second Part of the History of don Quixote de La Mancha, not the one written by Cide Hamete, but rather by an Aragonese who says he’s from Tordesillas.’ ‘Take it away,’ responded the other devil, ‘and throw it into the depths of hell so my eyes won’t ever see it.’ ‘Is it so bad?’ asked the other. ‘So bad,’ replied the first, ‘that if I tried on purpose to write worse one, I couldn’t do it.’ They continued their game, hitting other books, and since they mentioned don Quixote—whom I adore and love—I tried to remember that vision.”
“It doubtless had to be a vision,” said don Quixote, “because there’s no other me in the world, and that history just goes from hand to hand, and stays in none, because they all kick it away. It makes no difference to me if I’m going like a ghost into the depths of hell, or in the brightness of the earth, because I’m not the person that history deals with. If it were good, faithful, and true, it would live for centuries, but if it’s bad, it’ll be a short road from its birth to its grave.”
Altisidora was going to continue her grievances about don Quixote when don Quixote said to her: “I’ve told you many times, señora, that it distresses me that you’ve made me the object of your affection, since my own thoughts can do nothing in return except acknowledge yours. I was born to belong to Dulcinea del Toboso, and the Fates—if indeed there are any—pledged me to her. To think that another beauty would take her place in my heart is to think the impossible. I hope this will enlighten you sufficiently so that you can withdraw into the bounds of your modesty, since no one should take on something impossible.”
When Altisidora heard this, she lost her temper and got upset, and said to him: “By God, don Codfish, soul of mortar, pit of a date, you’re more stubborn than a peasant when he insists he’s right. If I attack you, I’ll scratch your eyes out! Do you think, by chance, don Vanquished and don Cudgeled, that I died for you? Everything you saw tonight was pretend! I’m not a woman who would care the slightest bit about a camel such as you, not to mention to die for you!”
“I can believe it,” said Sancho, “because dying on account of love is something laughable. They may say they will, but actually doing it, let Judas believe it!”
When they were talking about these things, the singing musician came in, the fellow who had sung the two stanzas given earlier, and bowing deeply before don Quixote, he said: “Your grace, señor knight, can count me among your most faithful servants, because I’ve been a fan of yours for many days, as much because of your fame as because of your deeds.”
Don Quixote responded: “Tell me who your grace is, so that my courtesy can respond properly.”
The young man responded that he was the musician and poet from the night before.
“Of course,” replied don Quixote. “Your grace has a wonderful voice. But what you sang didn’t seem to the point, because what do Garcilaso’s stanzas have to do with the death of this señora?”
“Don’t wonder about that, your grace,” said the musician.“Among novice poets of our age each one writes whatever he wants and steals from whomever he wants, whether or not it fits with what his point is, and there’s nothing they sing or write that they don’t attribute to poetic license.”
Don Quixote tried to respond but the duke and duchess were coming over to see him, and prevented him from doing so, and there was a long and pleasant conversation in which Sancho said so many amusing and astute things that the duke and duchess were amazed once again, as much by his simplicity as by his acuity. Don Quixote begged them to allow him to leave that very day, since all vanquished knights such as he should live in a pigsty rather than royal palaces. They willingly gave him permission and the duchess asked him if Altisidora was still in his good graces.
He answered: “Señora mía, you should realize that this maiden’s trouble comes from being idle, and the remedy is for her to have something useful to do to occupy her time. She told me that lace is used in hell, and since she must know how to make lace, let her keep doing it. If she makes the bobbins flit about, the image or images of what she desires won’t flit about her imagination. And this is the truth, this is my opinion, and this is my advice.” “And mine,” added Sancho, “since I’ve never seen a lacemaker in all my life who died from love. Busy maidens think more about finishing their work than about love. At least that’s the way it is with me, because when I’m farming, I don’t think about my wife, I mean, about my Teresa Panza, whom I love more than my eyelashes.”
“You’ve spoken well, Sancho,” said the duchess, “and I’ll make sure my Altisidora keeps busy from now on doing handwork, which she knows how to do very well.”
“There’s no reason, señora,” responded Altisidora, “to use that remedy, since just thinking about the cruelty this ignorant brigand has done me will erase him from my memory without any other tactic. And with your greatness’s permission, I want to leave, so that I won’t see in front of me, not only his woebegone expression, but also his ugly and abominable appearance.”
“That seems to me,” said the duke, “like what they say: «He who offends is close to forgiving».”
Altisidora pretended to wipe tears from her face with a handkerchief, and, bowing toward her masters, left the room.
“I promise you, poor girl,” said Sancho, “that you’re bound to have bad luck, I say, since you were up against a soul of a rush and a heart of an oak tree. If you were dealing with me, another rooster would be singing to you.”
The conversation ended, don Quixote got dressed and ate with the duke and duchess, then left that afternoon.