DON QUIXOTE was riding along on the one hand feeling vanquished and beaten, and on the other, he was very happy. His defeat caused his sadness, but Sancho’s powers, as revealed in the resurrection of Altisidora, revived his spirits, although he did wonder if the enamored maiden had really been dead.
Sancho was not at all happy because Altisidora had not kept her word to give him the six shirts, and as these thoughts ran to and fro in his mind, he said to his master: “In truth, señor, I’m the most unfortunate doctor in the world, for there are physicians who, even when they kill the patient they’re treating, insist on being paid for their work, which is only to sign a prescription for some medicine, which they don’t even compound—the pharmacist does—and the poor patient is out of luck! And look at me—other people’s health costs me blood, slaps, pinches, pinpricks, and lashes, and they don’t give me an ardite for it. I swear, if they bring me another sick person, before I cure him, they’ll have to grease my palms. «Where the abbot sings, he dines» and I don’t think that heaven gave me these powers so that I can use them with other people de bóbilis, bóbilis.”
“You’re right, Sancho my friend,” responded don Quixote. “Altisidora did ill in not giving you the shirts she promised, and even though your power is gratis data, at least you didn’t have to study; but it’s worse than studying when you have to withstand torture on your body. For myself, I’ll say that if you wanted to receive pay for the lashes to disenchant Dulcinea, I would have already paid you well. But I don’t know if payment will affect the cure, and I wouldn’t want the fee to counteract the medicine. With all this, it seems to me that it wouldn’t hurt to try. Sancho, figure out the price you want, and start whipping yourself right now, then you can pay yourself in cash with your own hand since you have my money.”
Sancho opened his eyes and ears wide when he heard this offer, and resolved in his heart to whip himself lustily, and he said to his master: “All right, señor, I want to please you in what you want, to my profit. The love for my children and wife makes me interested. Tell me, your grace, how much you’ll give me for each lash I give myself.”
“If I were to pay you, Sancho,” responded don Quixote, “according to the worth and quality of this remedy, the treasures of Venice and the mines of Potosí wouldn’t be enough to pay you. Estimate what money of mine you have and put a price on each lash.”
“There are,” responded Sancho, “three thousand three hundred lashes. Of those I’ve given myself as many as five. The rest are left. Let’s add back the five already given, and let’s start with three thousand three hundred at a cuartillo apiece—and I won’t take anything less even if the whole world commanded me to—it comes to three thousand three hundred cuartillos. Three thousand cuartillos are one thousand five hundred half reales, and that’s seven hundred fifty reales. And the three hundred makes a hundred fifty half reales and that comes to seventy five reales. These added together come to eight hundred twenty five reales. I will take this amount from what I have of yours and I’ll go home rich and content, although well whipped, because «you don’t catch trout…» and I’ll say no more.”
“Oh, blessed Sancho! Oh, amiable Sancho!” responded don Quixote, “How obliged Dulcinea and I will be to you to serve you all the days that heaven is pleased to give us! If she comes back to her lost self—and it’s not possible that she won’t—her misfortune will be turned into joy and my vanquishment will be a happy triumph. And when do you think, Sancho, you want to start this whipping, because if you do it quickly, I’ll add a hundred reales.”
“When?” replied Sancho. “I’ll begin tonight without fail. Make sure we’re in the countryside, beneath a clear sky, and I’ll open my flesh.”
The night don Quixote was waiting for finally came. It seemed to him that the wheels of Apollo’s chariot had broken, and that the day was much longer than usual, as happens with people in love, who can never adjust time to their desires. Finally, they went in among some trees that were a bit off the road, and where they left the saddle and packsaddle of Rocinante and the grey unoccupied, and they stretched out on the grass and ate a dinner from Sancho’s saddlebag. He made a flexible and strong whip from the grey’s halter and headstall, and went about twenty paces away among some beech trees.
Don Quixote, who saw him go off with such courage and dash, said to him: “Watch out, my friend, and don’t whip yourself to pieces. Make sure that you space the lashes out. Don’t hurry so much that your breath will fail you half way through. I mean, don’t whip yourself so hard that your life will be over before you get to the necessasry number. And so that you won’t lose track of how many lashes you will have given yourself, I’ll keep count over here with my rosary. May heaven favor you as much as your good purpose deserves.”
“«Pledges never bother a good payer»,” responded Sancho. “I plan to administer them in such a way that I’ll hurt myself without killing myself. This must be the essence of this miracle.”
Sancho then took off his clothes from the waist up, and seizing the whip he began to lash himself, and don Quixote began to count.
Sancho gave himself six or eight lashes when it seemed that the joke was a little costly and the price for them was too cheap, so he stopped for a moment and said to his master that he’d made a bad deal because each lash was worth a half real and not a cuartillo.
“Keep going, Sancho, and don’t worry,” don Quixote said to him, “because I’ll double the stake.”
“In that case,” said Sancho, “it’s in God’s hands, and let it rain lashes.”
But that jokester Sancho stopped lashing his back and started whipping the trees, giving moans once in a while that gave the impression that he was tearing out his soul with every lash. Don Quixote was tender-hearted and fearful that Sancho would end his life and therefore not achieve his desire through his own carelessness, so he said to him: “On your life, my friend, stop this business right now. This medicine seems harsh and it’d be a good idea to take it at intervals. «Rome wasn’t built in a day». You’ve given yourself more than a thousand lashes, if I counted right. That’s enough for now. «A donkey—speaking in general terms—can carry a load, but not a double load».”
“No, no, señor,” responded Sancho, “I don’t want anyone to say about me «once the money’s paid, the labor’s delayed». Stay away a bit longer, and let me give myself just another thousand lashes. With two of these series we’ll have finished the match, and there’ll be merchandise left over.”
“Since you’re so eager,” said don Quixote, “may heaven assist you. Lash yourself and I’ll go back where I was.”
Sancho went back to his task with great enthusiasm and he removed the bark from many trees, such was the rigor with which he whipped himself. Once he raised his voice and—giving an enormous lash to a beech tree—said: “«Here Samson will die, and all those with him.»”
Don Quixote went over to where the doleful voice and terrible blow came from, and seized the halter that served as a whip for Sancho, and said to him: “Don’t let Fortune, Sancho my friend, in order to please me, let you lose your life, which has to support your wife and children. Let Dulcinea wait a bit more—I’ll keep myself within the limits of my soon-to-be-realized hope, and I’ll wait for you to get back some strength so you can finish this business to the satisfaction of everyone.”
“Since your grace wants it that way, señor mío,” responded Sancho, “let it be as you say. Toss your cape over my shoulders—I’m sweating and I don’t want to catch a cold. Novice flagellants run that risk.”
Don Quixote did as he was asked, and he covered Sancho, who slept until the sun came up. They then continued their journey, which ended in a village three leagues down the road. They stopped at an inn, for that’s what don Quixote called it, and not a castle with a deep moat, iron gratings, and drawbridge. After he was vanquished his mind was more lucid, as will be seen now. He was lodged in a first-floor room where, instead of tooled leather panels, there were painted fabric hangings, commonly seen in villages. One of them showed a badly-painted scene of the kidnaping of Helen, when the daring guest took her from Menelaus, and in another one the story of Dido and Æneas, where she’s in a tower, waving what looked like half a sheet at the fleeing guest, who was at sea in a frigate or a brigantine.
Don Quixote could see in the hangings that Helen wasn’t exactly going against her will because she was laughing on the sly. But the beautiful Dido was crying tears the size of walnuts. When don Quixote saw them he said: “These two señoras were most unfortunate for not having been born in these times, and I, most unfortunate of all for not having been born in theirs. If I had found those two fellows, Troy wouldn’t have burned, and Carthage wouldn’t have been destroyed, because if I had just killed Paris, so many misfortunes would have been prevented.”
“I’ll bet,” said Sancho, “that before much time passes there won’t be a wine-shop, inn, or barbershop where the history of our deeds isn’t painted. But I’d prefer that a better painter do it than the one who did these.”
“You’re right, Sancho,” said don Quixote, “because this painter is like Orbaneja, a painter who was in Úbeda, who, when they asked him what he was painting, he would answer: ‘Whatever it turns out to be.’ And if by chance he was painting a rooster, he wrote beneath it: «THIS IS A ROOSTER» so that they wouldn’t think it was a fox. The painter or writer (for it’s all the same) who brought to light this new don Quixote must have done the same thing—he painted or wrote whatever it turned out to be. Or maybe it was like a poet who wrote in the court years ago named Mauleón, who gave instant answers to everything he was asked, and when he was asked what «Deum de Deo» meant, he said ‘Dé donde diere.’ But, leaving this aside, tell me if you plan to do more whipping tonight, Sancho, and whether or not you’ll do it inside or out.”
“By golly, señor, what I plan to do I can do either inside or out. But even so, I’d prefer that it be among the trees, because it seems to me that they help me to bear my toil marvelously well.”
“Well, it shouldn’t be that way, Sancho my friend,” responded don Quixote. “We should wait until we’re in our own village so that you can get back some strength, because we’ll arrive there the day after tomorrow at the latest.”
Sancho said that he’d go along with his master’s wishes, but he’d prefer to finish that business «while the blood was still flowing warm» and «while the mill was still grinding», because «danger lurks in delay» and «pray to God and wield the mallet» and «one TAKE is worth two I’LL GIVE YOUs», and «a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush».
“No more proverbs, Sancho, by the only God,” said don Quixote, “because it seems like you’re going back to sicut erat. Speak plainly, smoothly, and not in a roundabout way, as I’ve asked you many times, and you’ll see how «one loaf is as good as a hundred».”
“I don’t know what my problem is,” responded Sancho, “because I don’t know how to say a word without a proverb, and all of my proverbs seem to be to the point. But I’ll try to mend my ways if I can.” And with this, their conversation ended.