Don Quixote [Trans. by Edith Grossman] (76 page)

Cide Hamete Benengeli tells us in the second part of this history, which recounts the third sally of Don Quixote, that the priest and the barber did not see the knight for almost a month in order not to restore and bring back to his mind events of the past, but this did not stop them from visiting his niece and housekeeper, charging them to be sure to pamper him and give him food to eat that would strengthen and fortify his heart and brain, the source, as they had good reason to think, of all his misfortunes. The two women said that they already were doing so, and would continue to do so, as willingly and carefully as possible, because they could see that there were moments when their lord and master gave signs of being in his right mind; this made the priest and the barber extremely happy, for then it seemed to them that they had done the right thing by bringing him home, enchanted, in the oxcart, as recounted in the final chapter of the first part of this great and accurate history. And so they decided to visit him and see his improvement for themselves, although they considered a complete cure almost impossible, and they agreed not to make any mention at all of knight errantry so as not to run the risk of reopening his wounds, which were still so fresh.

In short, they visited him and found him sitting up in bed, dressed in the green flannel vest he wore under his armor, and a red Toledan cap, and looking so dry and gaunt that he seemed to be a mummy. They received a warm welcome, they asked after his health, and he accounted for himself and the state of his health with very good judgment and in very elegant words, and in the course of their conversation they began to discuss what is called reason of state and ways of governing, correcting
this abuse and condemning that one, reforming one custom and eliminating another, each one of the three becoming a new legislator, a modern Lycurgus, a latter-day Solon,
¹
and they so transformed the nation that it seemed as if they had placed it in the forge and taken out a new one, and Don Quixote spoke with so much intelligence regarding all the subjects they touched upon that his two examiners thought there was no doubt that he was completely well and his sanity restored.

The niece and housekeeper were present at this conversation, and they never tired of giving thanks to God at seeing their lord and master with all his wits; the priest, however, changing his earlier intention, which was not to touch on chivalric matters, wanted a more thorough test of whether or not Don Quixote’s recovery was false or true, and so he gradually began to recount news of the court, and among other things, he said it was thought certain that the Turk would come down with a powerful fleet, but no one knew his plans or where the huge cloud would burst; this fear, which has us on the alert almost every year, had now affected all of Christendom, and His Majesty had fortified the coasts of Naples and Sicily and the island of Malta. To which Don Quixote responded:

“His Majesty has behaved like a most prudent warrior by fortifying his states in good time so that the enemy will not find them unprepared, but if he were to take my advice, I would counsel him to take a precautionary measure that His Majesty is very far from considering at present.”

As soon as the priest heard this, he said to himself:

“May God hold you in his hand, my poor Don Quixote, for it seems to me you have leaped from the high peak of your madness into the profound abyss of your foolishness!”

But the barber, who had already had the same thought as the priest, asked Don Quixote to tell him the precautionary measure he thought it would be good to undertake; perhaps it might be put on the list of the many impertinent proposals that are commonly offered to princes.

“Mine, Señor Shaver,” said Don Quixote, “is not impertinent but completely pertinent.”

“I don’t say it isn’t,” replied the barber, “but experience shows that all or most of the schemes presented to His Majesty are either impossible, or absurd, or harmful to the king and his kingdom.”

“Well, mine,” responded Don Quixote, “is neither impossible nor ab
surd, but is, rather, the easiest, most just, most practical, and shrewdest that has ever occurred to any planner.”

“Your grace is slow in telling us what it is, Señor Don Quixote,” said the priest.

“I would not want,” said Don Quixote, “to state it here and now, and tomorrow have it find its way to the ears of the king’s advisers so that another receives the thanks and rewards for my labor.”

“As far as I am concerned,” said the barber, “I give my word, here and before God, not to repeat what your grace would tell the king or the rook or any man on earth, a vow I learned in the tale of the priest
²
who, in the preface, told the king about the thief who had stolen one hundred
doblas
from him, as well as his mule with the ambling gait.”

“I know nothing of stories,” said Don Quixote, “but I do know this is a good vow because I know the barber is a trustworthy man.”

“Even if he were not,” said the priest, “I would vouch for him and guarantee that in this case he will say no more than if he were mute, under pain of sentence by the court.”

“And who vouches for your grace, Señor Priest?” said Don Quixote.

“My profession,” responded the priest, “which is to keep secrets.”

“By my faith!” Don Quixote said then. “What else can His Majesty do but command by public proclamation that on a specific day all the knights errant wandering through Spain are to gather at court, and even if no more than half a dozen were to come, there might be one among them who could, by himself, destroy all the power of the Turk. Your graces should listen carefully and follow what I say. Is it by any chance surprising for a single knight errant to vanquish an army of two hundred thousand men, as if all of them together had but one throat or were made of sugar candy? Tell me, then: how many histories are filled with such marvels? If only—to my misfortune, if not to anyone else’s—the famous Don Belianís were alive today, or any one of the countless descendants of Amadís of Gaul! If any of them were here today and confronted the Turk, it would not be to his advantage! But God will look after His people and provide one who, if not as excellent as the knights errant of old, at least will not be inferior to them in courage; God understands me, and I shall say no more.”

“Oh!” said the niece at this point. “You can kill me if my uncle doesn’t want to be a knight errant again!”

To which Don Quixote said:

“I shall die a knight errant, and let the Turk come down or go up whenever he wishes and however powerfully he can; once again I say that God understands me.”

And then the barber said:

“I beg your graces to give me leave to tell a brief story that occurred in Sevilla; since it is very much to the point here, I should like to tell it now.”

Don Quixote gave his permission, and the priest and the others listened carefully, and the barber began in this manner:

“In the madhouse in Sevilla was a man whose relatives had put him there because he had lost his reason. He was a graduate in canon law from Osuna, but even if he had graduated from Salamanca, in the opinion of many he would not have been any less mad. This graduate, after some years of confinement, came to believe that he was sane and in his right mind, and with this thought he wrote to the archbishop earnestly entreating him, in carefully chosen phrases, to have him removed from the misery in which he was living, for through God’s mercy he had now recovered his reason, but his relatives, in order to enjoy his share of the estate, were keeping him there, and despite the truth would have wanted him mad until his death. The archbishop, persuaded by his many well-written and well-reasoned letters, ordered one of his chaplains to learn from the superintendent of the madhouse if what the licentiate had written was true, and to speak to the madman as well, and, if it seemed he was in his right mind, to release him and set him free. The chaplain did so, and the superintendent told him that the man was still mad; though he often spoke like a person of great intelligence, he eventually would begin to say countless foolish things, as many and as deeply felt as his earlier rational statements, and this the chaplain could see for himself if he spoke to him. The chaplain agreed, visited the madman, spoke to him for more than an hour, and in all that time the madman never made a confused or foolish statement; rather, he spoke so judiciously that the chaplain was obliged to believe that the madman was sane; one of the things the madman told him was that the superintendent bore him ill will because he did not want to lose the gifts his relatives gave him for saying he was still mad, though with periods of lucidity; the greatest obstacle for him in his misfortune was his wealth, because in order to enjoy it, his enemies were deceptive and denied the mercy Our Lord had shown by turning him from a beast back into a man. In short, what he
said depicted the superintendent as suspect, his relatives as greedy and heartless, and himself as so reasonable that the chaplain resolved to take him back so that the archbishop could see and touch the truth of the matter for himself. With this virtuous intention, the good chaplain asked the superintendent to return the clothes the licentiate had been wearing when he was first admitted; again the superintendent told him to think about what he was doing because there was no doubt that the licentiate was still mad. The superintendent’s warnings and admonitions were in vain: the chaplain insisted on taking him away; the superintendent obeyed, since it was by order of the archbishop, and the licentiate was dressed in his clothes, which were new and decent, and when he saw himself in the raiment of a sane man and no longer wearing the clothing of a madman, he asked the chaplain to please give him permission to say goodbye to his mad companions. The chaplain said that he wished to accompany him and see the madmen who were in the hospital. And so they went up, along with some other people, and when the licentiate reached a cage that held a raving maniac who was, however, calm and quiet for the moment, he said:

‘Brother, see if there is anything you wish to ask of me, for I am going home; God in His infinite goodness and mercy, though I do not deserve it, has been pleased to restore my reason to me: now I am healthy and sane; nothing is impossible for the power of God. Place your hope and trust in Him, for as He has returned me to my earlier state, He will do the same for you if you trust in Him. I will be sure to send you some good things to eat, and eat them you must, for I say that I believe, as one who has experienced it himself, that all our madness comes from having our stomachs empty and our heads full of air. Take heart, take heart: despondency in misfortune lessens one’s health and hastens death.’

Another madman who was in a cage facing the cage of the first maniac heard everything the licentiate said, and he got up from an old mat where he had been lying naked and asked in a shout who it was that was leaving healthy and sane. The licentiate responded:

‘It is I, brother, who am leaving; I no longer have any need to be here, and for that I give infinite thanks to heaven for the mercy it has shown me.’

‘Think about what you are saying, Licentiate, don’t let the devil deceive you,’ replied the madman. ‘Keep your feet still, and stay peacefully in your house, and you’ll save yourself the trouble of having to come back.’

‘I know I am cured,’ replied the licentiate, ‘and will not have to do any of this again.’

‘You, cured?’ said the madman. ‘Well, well, time will tell; go with God, but I vow by Jupiter, whose majesty I represent on earth, that on account of the sin that Sevilla commits today by taking you out of this madhouse and calling you sane, I must inflict on her a punishment so severe that its memory will endure for all eternity, amen. And don’t you know, you miserable little licentiate, that I can do it? For, as I have said, I am Jupiter the Thunderer, and in my hands I hold the flaming thunderbolts with which I can threaten and destroy the world. But I wish to punish this ignorant city with only one thing: I will not rain on it or its environs for three whole years, which will be counted from the day and hour when the threat was made. You free, and healthy, and sane, while I am mad, and sick, and confined…? I would just as soon rain as hang myself.’

Those who were nearby heard the shouts and the words of the madman, but our licentiate, turning to the chaplain and grasping his hands, said:

‘Your grace should not be concerned by or pay attention to what this madman has said, for if he is Jupiter and does not wish to rain, I, who am Neptune, father and god of waters, shall rain whenever I please and whenever it is necessary.’

To which the chaplain replied:

‘Even so, Señor Neptune, it would not be a good idea to anger Señor Jupiter; your grace should stay in your house, and another day, when it is more convenient and there is more time, we shall come back for your grace.’

The superintendent and the bystanders all laughed, and their laughter mortified the chaplain; they stripped the licentiate, who remained in the madhouse, and that was the end of the story.”

“Well, Señor Barber, this is the story,” said Don Quixote, “so much to the point that you had to tell it? Ah, Señor Shaver, Señor Shaver, how blind must one be not to see through a sieve? Is it possible your grace does not know that comparisons of intelligence, or valor, or beauty, or lineage are always hateful and badly received? I, Señor Barber, am not Neptune, the god of waters, nor do I attempt to persuade anyone that I am clever when I am not; I only devote myself to making the world understand its error in not restoring that happiest of times when the order of knight errantry was in flower. But our decadent age does not deserve
to enjoy the good that was enjoyed in the days when knights errant took it as their responsibility to bear on their own shoulders the defense of kingdoms, the protection of damsels, the safeguarding of orphans and wards, the punishment of the proud, and the rewarding of the humble. Most knights today would rather rustle in damasks, brocades, and the other rich fabrics of their clothes than creak in chain mail; no longer do knights sleep in the fields, subject to the rigors of heaven, wearing all their armor from head to foot; no longer does anyone, with his feet still in the stirrups and leaning on his lance, catch forty winks, as they say, as the knights errant used to do. No longer does anyone ride out of this forest and into those mountains, and from there tread upon a bare and desolate beach, the sea most often stormy and tempestuous, and find along the shore a small boat without oars, sail, mast, or any kind of rigging, and with intrepid heart climb in and give himself over to the implacable waves of the deepest ocean, which first raise him up to heaven and then toss him into the abyss; and, with his breast turned to the insurmountable storm, when he least expects it he finds himself more than three thousand leagues distant from the place where he embarked, and he leaps out of the boat onto a distant unknown land, and there things occur that are worthy of being written not on parchment, but bronze.