As evening approached they left the village, and after about half a league their ways diverged, one leading to Don Quixote’s village, the other the road that Don Álvaro had to follow. In this short period of time, Don Quixote recounted the misfortune of his defeat, and the enchantment of Dulcinea and its remedy, all of which caused renewed as-tonishment in Don Álvaro, who embraced Don Quixote and Sancho and continued on his way, while Don Quixote continued on his, planning to spend the night in another wood in order to give Sancho a chance to complete his penance, which he did in the same manner as the previous night, more at the expense of the bark on the beeches than his back, which he protected so carefully that the lashes could not have removed a fly if one had been there.
The deceived Don Quixote did not miss a single blow as he kept count, and he discovered that with those administered the night before, they amounted to three thousand twenty-nine. It seems the sun rose early in order to witness the sacrifice, and in its light they resumed their journey, the two of them discussing the deception of Don Álvaro and how wise it had been to take his statement legally, before a magistrate.
They traveled that day and night, and nothing occurred worthy of recording except that Sancho completed his task, which made Don Quixote extraordinarily happy, and he longed for daylight to see if he would meet on the road his disenchanted lady Dulcinea; but as he traveled, he encountered no woman whom he recognized as Dulcinea of Toboso, for he considered it incontrovertible that the promises of Merlin could not lie.
With these thoughts and desires they climbed a hill, and from there they could see their village, and when he saw it, Sancho dropped to his knees and said:
“Open your eyes, my beloved country, and see that your son Sancho Panza has come back to you, if not very rich, at least well-flogged. Open your arms and receive as well your son Don Quixote, who, though he returns conquered by another, returns the conqueror of himself; and, as he has told me, that is the greatest conquest anyone can desire. I’m bringing money, because if I’ve had a good lashing, at least I left riding a horse.”3
“Enough of your foolishness,” said Don Quixote, “and let us get off to a good start in our village, where we shall exercise our imaginations and plan the pastoral life we intend to lead.”
With this they descended the hill and went toward their village.
CHAPTER LXXIII
Regarding the omens Don Quixote encountered as he entered his village, along with other events that adorn and lend credit to this great history
And at the entrance, according to Cide Hamete, Don Quixote saw two boys arguing on the threshing floor of the town, and one said to the other:
“Don’t worry, Periquillo, you won’t see it1 in all the days of your life.”
Don Quixote heard this and said to Sancho:
“Friend, did you notice that the boy said: ‘You won’t see her in all the days of your life’?”
“Well, why does it matter,” responded Sancho, “what the boy said?”
“Why?” replied Don Quixote. “Do you not see that if you apply those words to my intention, it signifies that I am not to see Dulcinea again?”
Sancho was about to respond but was prevented from doing so when he saw a hare racing across the field, followed by a good number of greyhounds and hunters, and the terrified animal took refuge and shelter between the feet of the gray. Sancho picked it up, keeping it from harm, and handed it to Don Quixote, who was saying:
“Malum signum! Malum signum!2 A hare flees, with greyhounds in pursuit: Dulcinea will not appear!”
“Your grace is a puzzle,” said Sancho. “Let’s suppose that this hare is Dulcinea of Toboso and these greyhounds chasing her are the wicked enchanters who changed her into a peasant; she flees, I catch her and turn her over to your grace, who holds her and cares for her: what kind of bad sign is that? What kind of evil omen can you find here?”
The two boys who had been quarreling came over to see the hare, and Sancho asked one of them why they were arguing. And the one who had said ‘You won’t see it again in your whole life’ responded that he had taken a cricket cage from the other boy and never intended to give it back to him. Sancho took four cuartos from his pocket and gave them to the boy in exchange for the cage, and he placed it in Don Quixote’s hands, saying:
“Here, Señor, are your omens, broken and wrecked, and as far as I’m concerned, though I may be a fool, they have no more to do with our affairs than the clouds of yesteryear. And if I remember correctly, I’ve heard the priest in our village say that it isn’t right for sensible Christians to heed this kind of nonsense, and even your grace has told me the same thing, letting me know that Christians who paid attention to omens were fools. But there’s no need to spend any more time on this; let’s go on into our village.”
The hunters rode up, asked for their hare, and Don Quixote gave it to them; he and Sancho went on, and at the entrance to the village they encountered the priest and Bachelor Carrasco praying in a small meadow. And it should be noted here that Sancho Panza had draped the buckram tunic painted with flames, which they had placed on him in the duke’s castle on the night Altisidora was resuscitated, over the bundle of armor on the gray to serve as his repostero.3 He had also set the cone-shaped hat on the gray’s head, which was the oddest transformation and adornment ever seen on any donkey in the world.
The priest and the bachelor recognized them immediately and came toward them with open arms. Don Quixote dismounted and embraced them warmly, and some boys, who are as sharp-eyed as lynxes, caught sight of the donkey’s hat and hurried over to see it, saying to one another:
“Come on, boys, and you’ll see Sancho Panza’s donkey all dressed up and Don Quixote’s animal skinnier today than he ever was.”
In short, surrounded by boys and accompanied by the priest and the bachelor, they entered the village and went to Don Quixote’s house, and at the door they saw his housekeeper and his niece, who had already heard the news of their return. Teresa Panza, Sancho’s wife, had heard exactly the same news, and disheveled and half-dressed and pulling her daughter, Sanchica, along by the hand, she hurried to see her husband, and when she saw him not as elegantly dressed as she thought a governor should be, she said:
“Husband, why are you traveling like this, on foot and footsore and, it seems to me, looking more like a misgoverned fool than like a governor?”
“Be quiet, Teresa,” responded Sancho, “because often you can have hooks and no bacon;4 let’s go home, and there you will hear wonderful things. I have money, which is what matters, that I earned by my own labor, and with no harm to anybody.”
“Bring the money, my good husband,” said Teresa, “no matter if you earned it here or there; no matter how you did it, you won’t have thought up any new ways of earning it.”
Sanchica embraced her father and asked if he had brought her anything, for she had been waiting for him like the showers of May, and she held him on one side by his belt; and with his wife holding his hand and his daughter leading the gray, they went to their house, leaving Don Quixote in his, in the hands of his niece and his housekeeper, and in the company of the priest and the bachelor.
Don Quixote, at that very moment, without regard for the time or the hour, withdrew with the bachelor and the priest, and when they were alone he told them briefly about his defeat and the obligation he was under not to leave his village for a year, which he intended to obey to the letter and not violate in the slightest, as befitted a knight errant bound by the order and demands of knight errantry, and that he had thought of becoming a shepherd for the year and spending his time in the solitude of the countryside, where he could freely express his amorous thoughts and devote himself to the virtuous pastoral occupation; and he implored them, if they did not have too much to do and were not prevented by more important matters, to be his companions, and he would buy enough sheep and livestock to give them the name of shepherds; and he told them that the most important part of the business had already been t
aken care of, because he had given them names that would fit them like a glove. The priest asked him to say what they were. Don Quixote responded that he would be called Shepherd Quixotiz, and the bachelor would be Shepherd Carrascón, and the priest, Shepherd Curambro, and Sancho Panza, Shepherd Pancino.
They were stunned by Don Quixote’s new madness, but in order to keep him from leaving the village again on chivalric exploits, and hoping he might be cured during that year, they acquiesced to his new intentions, and approved his madness as sensible, and offered to be his companions in his occupations.
“Moreover,” said Sansón Carrasco, “as everyone already knows, I am a celebrated poet and shall constantly compose pastoral verses, or courtly ones, or whatever seems most appropriate, to entertain us as we wander those out-of-the-way places; and what is most necessary, Señores, is for each to choose the name of the shepherdess to be celebrated in his verses, the name he will carve and inscribe on every tree, no matter how hard, as is the usage and custom of enamored shepherds.”
“That is quite fitting,” responded Don Quixote, “although I do not need to find the name of a feigned shepherdess, for there is the peerless Dulcinea of Toboso, glory of these fields, ornament of these meadows, mainstay of beauty, flower of all graces, and, in short, a subject on whom all praise sits well, no matter how hyperbolic.”
“That is true,” said the priest, “but we shall have to find some well-mannered shepherdesses, and if their names don’t suit us, we can trim them to fit.”
To which Sansón Carrasco added:
“And if our invention fails, we can give them the names that have been published and printed and that fill the world: Phyllida, Amaryllis, Diana, Flerida, Galatea, and Belisarda; since they’re sold on every square, we can certainly buy them and keep them for our own. If my lady, or I should say my shepherdess, happens to be named Ana, I shall celebrate her under the name Anarda, and if her name is Francisca, I shall call her Francenia, and if Lucia, Lucinda, for that’s all it amounts to; and Sancho Panza, if he joins our fraternity, can celebrate his wife, Teresa Panza, with the name Teresaina.”
Don Quixote laughed at the aptness of the name, and the priest praised to the skies his honest and honorable resolution and once again offered to accompany him in the time he was not occupied in attending to his obligations. And with this they took their leave of Don Quixote and implored him and advised him to take care of his health and to eat well.
It so happened that the niece and the housekeeper heard the conversation of the three men, and as soon as the visitors left, the two women entered the room to see Don Quixote, and his niece said:
“What is this, Uncle? We thought your grace would stay at home again and lead a quiet and honorable life, and now you want to go into new labyrinths and become
Little shepherd, now you’re coming,
little shepherd, now you’re going?5
Well, the truth is that the stem’s too hard for making flutes.6
To which the housekeeper added:
“And there in the countryside will your grace be able to endure the heat of summer, the night air of winter, the howling of the wolves? No, certainly not; this is work for strong, hard men who’ve been brought up to the life almost from the time they’re in swaddling clothes. No matter how bad it is, it’s better to be a knight errant than a shepherd. Look, Señor, take my advice; I’m giving it to you not when I’m full of bread and wine, but when I’m fasting, and based on what I’ve learned in my fifty years: stay in your house, tend to your estate, go to confession often, favor the poor, and let it be on my soul if that does you any harm.”
“Be quiet, my dears,” responded Don Quixote, “for I know what I must do. Take me to my bed, because I think I am not well, and you can be certain that regardless of whether I am a knight errant or a shepherd on the verge of wandering, I shall always provide for you, as my actions will prove.”
And the two good women, which the housekeeper and niece undoubtedly were, took him to his bed, where they fed him and pampered him as much as possible.
CHAPTER LXXIV
Which deals with how Don Quixote fell ill, and the will he made, and his death
Since human affairs, particularly the lives of men, are not eternal and are always in a state of decline from their beginnings until they reach their final end, and since the life of Don Quixote had no privilege from heaven to stop its natural course, it reached its end and conclusion when he least expected it, for whether it was due to the melancholy caused by his defeat or simply the will of heaven, he succumbed to a fever that kept him in bed for six days, during which time he was often visited by his friends the priest, the bachelor, and the barber, while Sancho Panza, his good squire, never left his side.
They believed that his grief at being defeated, and his unsatisfied longing to see Dulcinea free and disenchanted, were responsible for his condition, and they did everything they could think of to lift his spirits; the bachelor told him to be of good cheer and to get out of bed so that they could begin the pastoral life, for which he had already composed an eclogue that would put all those written by Sannazaro1 to shame, and he said he had bought with his own money two famous dogs to guard the flocks, one named Barcino and the other Butrón, which had been sold to him by a herder from Quintanar. But not even this could bring Don Quixote out of his sorrow.
His friends called the physician, who took his pulse and did not give them good news, and said there was no doubt that he should attend to the health of his soul because the health of his body was in peril. Don Quixote heard him with a tranquil spirit, but not his housekeeper, his niece, and his squire, who began to weep piteously, as if he were already lying dead before them. It was the physician’s opinion that melancholy and low spirits were bringing his life to an end. Don Quixote asked to be left alone because he wanted to sleep for a while. They did as he asked, and he slept more than six hours at a stretch, as they say, so long that his housekeeper and his niece thought he would never open his eyes again. He awoke after the length of time that has been mentioned, and giving a great shout, he said:
“Blessed be Almighty God who has done such great good for me! His mercies have no limit, and the sins of men do not curtail or hinder them.”
His niece listened carefully to her uncle’s words, and they seemed more sensible than the ones he usually said, at least during his illness, and she asked him:
“What is your grace saying, Señor? Is there news? Which mercies are these, and which sins of men?”
“The mercies, Niece,” responded Don Quixote, “are those that God has shown to me at this very instant, and as I said, my sins do not hinder them. My judgment is restored, free and clear of the dark shadows of ignorance imposed on it by my grievous and constant reading of detestable books of chivalry. I now recognize their absurdities and deceptions, and my sole regret is that this realization has come so late it does not leave me time to compensate by reading other books that can be a light to the soul. I feel, Niece, that I am about to die; I should like to do so in a manner that would make it clear that my life was not so wicked that I left behind a reputation for being a madman, for although I have been one, I should not like to confirm this truth in my death. Dear girl, call my good friends for me: the priest, the bachelor Sansón Carrasco, and the barber Master Nicolás, for I wish to confess and make my will.”
But the niece was excused from this task by the entrance of the three men. As soon as Don Quixote saw them, he said:
“Good news, Señores! I am no longer Don Quixote of La Mancha but Alonso Quixano, once called the Good because of my virtuous life. Now I am the enemy of Amadís of Gaul and all the infinite horde of his lineage; now all the profane histories of knight errantry are hateful to me; now I recognize my foolishness and the danger I was in because I read them; now, by God’s mercy, I have learned from my experience and I despise them.”
When the three men heard him say this, they undoubtedly believed that some new madness had taken hold of him, a
nd Sansón said:
“Now, Señor Don Quixote, you say this now, when we have news of the disenchantment of Señora Dulcinea? And now that we are on the point of becoming shepherds and spending our lives in song, like princes, now your grace wishes to be a hermit? For God’s sake, be quiet, come to your senses, and tell us no more tales.”
“Those that until now,” replied Don Quixote, “have been real, to my detriment, will, with the help of heaven, be turned to my benefit by my death. Señores, I feel that I am dying very rapidly; let us put all jokes aside, and bring me a confessor to hear my confession, and a scribe to write my will, for at critical moments like these a man cannot play games with his soul; and so, while the priest hears my confession, I beg you to bring the scribe.”
They exchanged glances, astonished by Don Quixote’s words, and although they had their doubts, they tended to believe him; one of the signs that led them to think he really was dying was how easily he had moved from madness to sanity, because to the words already cited he added many others that were so well-spoken, so Christian, and so reasonable that their doubts were completely dispelled and they believed he was sane.
The priest had everyone leave, and was alone with him, and heard his confession.
The bachelor went for the scribe and returned a short time later with him and with Sancho Panza, and Sancho—who had already been told by the bachelor about his master’s condition—found the housekeeper and the niece weeping, and he began to sob and shed tears. When the confession had ended the priest came out and said:
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