IT WAS exactly midnight, a little more or less, when don Quixote and Sancho left the forest and went into El Toboso. The town was very still because everyone was sleeping and stretched out, as they say. The night was fairly bright, although Sancho preferred for it to be completely dark so the darkness might give them an excuse for their folly. In the whole town the only sounds were the barking of dogs that deafened the ears of don Quixote and upset Sancho’s heart. Once in a while a donkey brayed, the pigs grunted, the cats meowed—the different animal noises being intensified by the stillness of the night, all of which seemed to be a bad omen to the enamored knight, but even so he said to Sancho: “Sancho, my son, lead me to Dulcinea’s palace. Perhaps we’ll find her awake.”
“What palace am I to lead you to, by golly,” responded Sancho, “because the one in which I saw her greatness was nothing more than a very small house.”
“She must have withdrawn,” responded don Quixote, “to a small apartment in her palace, taking her ease with her maidens, as such noble ladies and princesses are wont to do.”
“Señor,” said Sancho, “since your grace insists, in spite of me, that Dulcinea’s house is a palace, do you suppose we’ll find an open door at this hour? And will it be good to start knocking loudly so that they’ll hear us and open the doors to us, upsetting everyone? Are we going, perhaps, to knock on the door of our mistresses, as lovers do, who knock and go in at any hour, no matter how late?”
“In any case, Sancho, let’s find the palace,” replied don Quixote, “and then I’ll tell you what would be appropriate for us to do. And, look, Sancho, either my eyes are deceiving me, or that large shadowy mass over there must be Dulcinea’s palace.”
“All right, you lead me, then,” responded Sancho. “Maybe it is. Even if I were to see it with my eyes and touch it with my hands, I’d believe it as I believe that it’s day right now.”
Don Quixote went ahead, and having gone two-hundred paces, he came to the shape that caused the silhouette, and saw a great tower, and recognized right away that it wasn’t the palace, but the main church in town, and he said: “We’ve come across the church, Sancho.”
“I see it,” responded Sancho, “and may it please God that we don’t find our graves as well—because it’s not good to rummage about cemeteries at such hours, and the more so since I told your grace, if I remember correctly, that the house of this lady was on a dead end.”
“May God curse you, you fool!” said don Quixote. “Where did you learn that royal palaces are built on dead ends?
“Señor,” responded Sancho, “every region has its own customs. Maybe in El Toboso they build palaces and large buildings on dead ends. I would ask your grace to let me search these streets to see what I can find. It may be that in some corner I’ll find this palace; and may I see it eaten by dogs for having put us on this wild-goose chase.”
“Speak with respect, Sancho, about things pertaining to my lady,” said don Quixote, “and let’s not argue or «throw the rope in after the bucket».”
“I won’t say anything more,” responded Sancho, “but how am I going to be patient if your grace expects me to remember where our lady’s house is—I saw it only once—and find it at midnight, when you can’t even locate it, and you must have seen it thousands of times?”
“You’re making me despair, Sancho,” said don Quixote. “Listen, you heretic, haven’t I told you a thousand times that I haven’t seen the peerless Dulcinea in all the days of my life, nor have I once crossed the threshold of her palace, and that I’m in love with her only by hearsay, owing to her fame as a beauty and woman of discretion.”
“I hear you,” responded Sancho, “and I’ll tell your grace that since you haven’t seen her, neither have I.”
“That can’t be,” replied don Quixote, “because you told me that you saw her winnowing wheat when you brought me the response to the letter I sent with you.”
“Don’t believe that, señor,” responded Sancho, “because I can tell your grace that my visit was also by hearsay, as was the response I brought you. I know who the señora Dulcinea is about as well as I can punch the sky.”
“Sancho, Sancho,” responded don Quixote, “there are times to joke around, and times when jokes are not appropriate. Just because I said I haven’t seen or spoken to the lady of my soul doesn’t mean that you, too, haven’t spoken to or seen her either, when the opposite is true, as you know.”
While they were conversing thus, they saw a man with two mules approaching, and by the noise of the plow being dragged on the ground, they figured it must be a peasant who had gotten up before sunup to go do his farming, and it was the truth. The peasant came singing that ballad that says:
“May I die, Sancho,” said don Quixote when he heard this, “if anything good happens to us tonight. Don’t you hear what this rustic is singing?”
“Yes, I hear it,” responded Sancho, “but what does the hunt at Roncesvalles have to do with our business at hand? He might as well be singing the «Ballad of Calaínos», which would make no difference as far as we’re concerned.”
At this moment the farmhand arrived, and don Quixote asked him: “Can you tell me, my good friend, and may God give you good luck, where the palaces of the peerless Dulcinea del Toboso are.”
“Señor,” responded the young man, “I’m not from around here, and I’ve only been here a few days working for a rich farmer in his fields. The priest and sexton of this village live in this house right in front of us. Both of them, or either one, can tell your grace about this princess because they have the list of all the people who live in El Toboso. I think, though, that there’s no princess at all living here—but there are many important women, and each one can be a princess in her own home.”
“The one I’m asking you about,” said don Quixote, “must be among those.”
“It might be,” responded the young man, “and good bye, for the sun is coming up.”
And putting the whip to his mules, he didn’t wait for any more questions. Sancho, who saw that his master was perplexed and quite ill at ease, said to him: “Señor, I know that it’ll soon be day, and it won’t be right to have the sun find us in the street. It’ll be better for us to leave town and for you to hide in a nearby thicket, and I’ll come back when it’s daytime, and I’ll leave no stone unturned in the whole town looking for the house, castle, or palace of my lady. And I’ll be pretty upset if I can’t find it; and when I do find it I’ll speak with her grace and will tell her where you are and how you’re hoping she’ll tell you how to visit her without damaging her honor and reputation.”
“You’ve said, Sancho,” said don Quixote, “a thousand wise thoughts within those few words. I enthusiastically accept the advice you’ve just given me. Come, my son, let’s look for a place among the trees where I can hide. You’ll come back, as you say, to see and speak with my lady, from whose discretion and courtesy I expect more than miraculous favors.”
Sancho was desperately eager to take his master out of the town so that he wouldn’t discover the lie about Dulcinea’s response that he’d taken to him in the Sierra Morena, and he made sure they left in a hurry. Two miles from town they found a thicket or forest where don Quixote hid while Sancho returned to the city to speak with Dulcinea, and on this errand things befell him that require both the reader’s attention and suspension of disbelief.
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