Bright Book of Life : Novels to Read and Reread (9780525657279)

by Bloom, Harold

  As they were talking, they saw thirty or forty of the windmills found in that countryside, and as soon as Don Quixote caught sight of them, he said to his squire:

  “Good fortune is guiding our affairs better than we could have desired, for there you see, friend Sancho Panza, thirty or more enormous giants with whom I intend to do battle and whose lives I intend to take, and with the spoils we shall begin to grow rich, for this is righteous warfare, and it is a great service to God to remove so evil a breed from the face of the earth.”

  “What giants?” said Sancho Panza.

  “Those you see over there,” replied his master, “with the long arms; sometimes they are almost two leagues long.”

  “Look, your grace,” Sancho responded, “those things that appear over there aren’t giants but windmills, and what looks like their arms are the sails that are turned by the wind and make the grindstone move.”

  “It seems clear to me,” replied Don Quixote, “that thou art not well-versed in the matter of adventures: these are giants; and if thou art afraid, move aside and start to pray whilst I enter with them in fierce and unequal combat.”

  And having said this, he spurred his horse, Rocinante, paying no attention to the shouts of his squire, Sancho, who warned him that, beyond any doubt, those things he was about to attack were windmills and not giants. But he was so convinced they were giants that he did not hear the shouts of his squire, Sancho, and could not see, though he was very close, what they really were; instead, he charged and called out:

  “Flee not, cowards and base creatures, for it is a single knight who attacks you.”

  Just then a gust of wind began to blow, and the great sails began to move, and, seeing this, Don Quixote said:

  “Even if you move more arms than the giant Briareus, you will answer to me.”

  And saying this, and commending himself with all his heart to his lady Dulcinea, asking that she come to his aid at this critical moment, and well-protected by his shield, with his lance in its socket, he charged at Rocinante’s full gallop and attacked the first mill he came to; and as he thrust his lance into the sail, the wind moved it with so much force that it broke the lance into pieces and picked up the horse and the knight, who then dropped to the ground and were very badly battered. Sancho Panza hurried to help as fast as his donkey could carry him, and when he reached them he discovered that Don Quixote could not move because he had taken so hard a fall with Rocinante.

  “God save me!” said Sancho. “Didn’t I tell your grace to watch what you were doing, that these were nothing but windmills, and only somebody whose head was full of them wouldn’t know that?”

  Sometimes I regret that tilting at windmills has become the key signature of Cervantes’s masterpiece. Yet Cervantes and the Knight know exactly what they are doing. Extravagance, going beyond limits, and exuberant disregard for safety or comfort are necessities if the order of play is to triumph over the commonplace.

  The Knight is neither madman nor fool. He plays at knight-errantry. We love Don Quixote because he trusts in his own freedom, and also in its seclusion and disinterestedness, and, finally, in its limits. When he is defeated, he gives up the game, goes back to sanity, “and dies.” I second the remark of Miguel de Unamuno (1864–1936), that the Knight quests for his authentic country and finds it only in exile.

  So varied are the exploits of Don Quixote that more summary quickly becomes useless. I move on to one of the more magnificent achievements of Cervantes, the first of the two appearances of the master illusionist Ginés de Pasamonte, a grand confidence man:

  Behind all of them came a man of about thirty who was very good-looking except that one eye tended to veer slightly toward the other. He was shackled differently from the rest, because around his foot was a chain so large it encircled his entire body, and there were two fetters around his neck, one attached to the chain and the other, the kind called a keeper or a brace, from which there hung two irons that reached to his waist, and on these were two manacles holding his hands and locked with a heavy padlock, so that he could not raise his hands to his mouth or lower his head to his hands. Don Quixote asked why that man wore so many more shackles than the others. The guard responded that it was because he alone had committed more crimes than all the rest combined, and was so daring and such a great villain that even though he was bound in this way, they still did not feel secure about him and were afraid he would escape.

  “What crimes can they be,” said Don Quixote, “if they have deserved no greater punishment than his being sent to the galleys?”

  “He’s going for ten years,” replied the guard, “which is like a civil death. All you need to know is that this is the famous Ginés de Pasamonte, also known as Ginesillo de Parapilla.”

  “Señor Commissary,” the galley slave said, “just take it easy and let’s not go around dropping all kinds of names and surnames. My name is Ginés, not Ginesillo, and my family is from Pasamonte, not Parapilla, as you’ve said; and if each man looks to his own affairs, he’ll have plenty to tend to.”

  “Keep a civil tongue,” replied the commissary, “you great thief, unless you want me to shut you up in a way you won’t like.”

  “It certainly seems,” responded the galley slave, “that man proposes and God disposes, but one day somebody will know whether or not my name is Ginesillo de Parapilla.”

  “Well, don’t they call you that, you liar?” said the guard.

  “They do,” responded Ginés, “but I’ll make sure they don’t, or I’ll tear out their hair and they know where. Señor, if you have anything to give us, give it and go with God; your wanting to know so much about other people’s lives is becoming irritating, but if you want to know more about mine, know that I’m Ginés…even for two hundred ducados.”

  “Is it that good?” said Don Quixote.

  “It’s so good,” responded Ginés, “that it’s too bad for Lazarillo de Tormes and all the other books of that genre that have been or will be written. What I can tell your grace is that it deals with truths, and they are truths so appealing and entertaining that no lies can equal them.”

  “And what is the title of the book?” asked Don Quixote.

  “The Life of Ginés de Pasamonte,” Ginés replied.

  Ginés will reappear in Part II as the trickster Master Pedro, whose puppet show is destroyed by Don Quixote. Lope de Vega (1562–1635), described by Cervantes as “the Monster of Literature,” was the insanely prolific and successful rival of our beloved creator of Quixote and Sancho. There are about three thousand sonnets, nine epics, seven novellas and novels, and perhaps five hundred plays accepted as being by Lope. He must have written from morning to night on a daily basis. Cervantes attempted to write dramas but had no chance against Lope and Calderón. Whatever distress that gave the greater writer, we can appreciate his two depictions of Lope as a picaroon and as an illusionist:

  “And is it finished?” asked Don Quixote.

  “How can it be finished,” he responded, “if my life isn’t finished yet? What I’ve written goes from my birth to the moment when they sentenced me to the galleys this last time.”

  “Then you have been there before?” said Don Quixote.

  “To serve God and the king, I’ve already spent four years on the galleys, and I know the taste of the hardtack and the overseer’s whip,” responded Ginés. “And I’m not too sorry to go there, because I’ll have time to finish my book, for I still have lots of things to say, and on the galleys of Spain there’s more leisure than I’ll need, though I don’t need much for what I have to write because I know it by heart.”

  “You seem clever,” said Don Quixote.

  “And unfortunate,” responded Ginés, “because misfortunes always pursue the talented.”

  “They pursue villains,” said the commissary.

  “I’ve alr
eady told you, Señor Commissary,” responded Pasamonte, “to take it easy; those gentlemen didn’t give you that staff of office for you to abuse us poor wretches but to lead and guide us to wherever His Majesty commands. If not, by the life of…Enough! One day those dark stains at the inn may come to light, so let’s all hold our tongues, and live well, and speak better, and keep walking; the joke’s gone on too long.”

  The commissary raised his staff to strike Pasamonte in response to his threats, but Don Quixote placed himself between them and asked that he not abuse the prisoner, for it was not surprising that a man whose hands were so tightly bound would have a rather loose tongue. And turning to all those on the chain, he said:

  “From everything you have said to me, dear brothers, I deduce that although you are being punished for your faults, the penalties you are about to suffer are not to your liking, and you go to them unwillingly and involuntarily; it might be that the lack of courage this one showed under torture, that one’s need of money, another’s lack of favor, and finally, the twisted judgment of the judge, have been the reason for your ruination, and for not having justice on your side. All of which is pictured in my mind, and is telling, persuading, and even compelling me to show to all of you the reason that heaven put me in the world and made me profess the order of chivalry, which I do profess, and take the vow I took to favor those in need and those oppressed by the powerful. But, because I know that one of the rules of prudence is that what can be done by good means should not be done by bad, I want to ask these gentlemen, the guards and the commissary, to be so good as to unchain you and let you go in peace; there will be no lack of other men to serve the king under better circumstances, for to me it seems harsh to make slaves of those whom God and nature made free. Furthermore, these poor wretches have done nothing against you gentlemen. Each man must bear his own sin; there is a God in heaven who does not fail to punish the wicked or reward the good, and it is not right for honorable men to persecute other men who have not harmed them. I ask this quietly and calmly because if you comply, I shall have reason to thank you, and if you do not comply willingly, this lance and this sword, and the valor of this my arm, will force you to comply against your will.”

  This superbly mad oration soars beyond any question as to who is guilty or innocent. We love the Knight because his politics are anarchist. The “order of play” must overturn every social order and every constraint. We need not ask whether Cervantes endorses the stance of Don Quixote. Both of them know what they know, and they do not always know the same things:

  “A fine piece of nonsense!” responded the commissary. “He’s finally come out with it! He wants us to let the king’s prisoners go, as if we had the authority to free them or he had the authority to order us to do so! Your grace, Señor, be on your way, and straighten that basin you’re wearing on your head, and don’t go around looking for a three-legged cat.”

  “You’re the cat, the rat, and the scoundrel!” responded Don Quixote.

  Speaking and acting were all one, and he charged so quickly that he did not give the commissary time to defend himself and knocked him to the ground, wounding him with a thrust of his lance, and it was fortunate for Don Quixote that he did, for this was the man holding the flintlock. The other guards were stunned, overwhelmed by this unexpected turn of events, but they came to their senses, and those on horseback put their hands on their swords, and those on foot grasped their javelins, and they charged Don Quixote, who very calmly waited for them; matters undoubtedly would have gone badly for him if the galley slaves, seeing the opportunity presented to them to obtain their freedom, had not attempted to achieve it by breaking the chain to which they were fettered. So great was the confusion that the guards, turning now to the galley slaves, who were breaking free, and now to Don Quixote, who was attacking them, did nothing of any use.

  Sancho, for his part, helped to free Ginés de Pasamonte, who was the first to leap into the battle free and unencumbered, and, rushing at the fallen commissary, he took his sword and flintlock, and by pointing it at one and aiming it at another, without ever firing he cleared the field of guards because they all fled from Pasamonte’s flintlock and from the shower of stones that the galley slaves, who were free by now, were hurling at them.

  This made Sancho very sad, because it seemed to him that those who were fleeing would inform the Holy Brotherhood, who would then come looking for the lawbreakers, sounding the alarm, and he told this to his master and begged that they leave immediately and hide in the mountains, which were not far away.

  “That is all very well and good,” said Don Quixote, “but I know what must be done now.”

  And calling to all the galley slaves, who were in a state of frenzy and had stripped the commissary down to his skin, they gathered round to see what he wanted of them, and he said:

  “It is customary for wellborn people to give thanks for the benefits they receive, and one of the sins that most offends God is ingratitude. I say this, Señores, because you have already seen and had manifest proof of what you have received from me, and in payment it is my wish and desire that, bearing the chain which I removed from your necks, you immediately set out for the city of Toboso, and there appear before the lady Dulcinea of Toboso, and say that her knight, he of the Sorrowful Face, commends himself to her, and you will tell her, point by point, every detail of this famous adventure, up to the moment when you achieved your desired freedom; having done this, you may go wherever you wish, and may good fortune go with you.”

  Ginés de Pasamonte responded for all of them, and he said:

  “What your grace, our lord and liberator, orders us to do, is absolutely impossible for us to carry out, because we cannot travel the roads together but must go our separate ways, each man on his own, trying to burrow into the bowels of the earth so as not be found by the Holy Brotherhood, who, beyond any doubt, will come looking for us. What your grace can do, and it is right and proper that you do so, is to change this service and tribute to the lady Dulcinea of Toboso into a certain number of Ave Marías and Credos, which we will say on your grace’s behalf, and this is something that can be done night or day, fleeing or at rest, at peace or at war; but to think that we will go back to our miseries in Egypt, I mean to say, that we will take up our chain and set out for Toboso, is to think that night has fallen now when it is not yet ten in the morning; asking that of us is like asking pears of an elm tree.”

  Ginés is totally justified; does the reader agree with him or not? The aesthetic strength wielded by Cervantes must slash even the most attentive into hearers wounded by wonder:

  “Well, then, I do swear,” said Don Quixote, his wrath rising, “Don Whoreson, Don Ginesillo de Paropillo, or whatever your name is, that you will go alone, your tail between your legs, and the entire chain on your back!”

  Pasamonte was not a man of great forbearance; already aware that Don Quixote was not very sane, for he had done something so foolish as wanting to give them their freedom, and seeing himself spoken to in this way, he winked at his companions, and, moving a short distance away, they began to throw so many stones at Don Quixote that he could not even manage to protect himself with his shield, and poor Rocinante paid no more attention to his master’s spurs than if he had been made of bronze. Sancho hid behind his donkey, protecting himself in this way from the hailstorm of rocks pouring down on them. Don Quixote could not shield himself as well as Sancho, for so many stones found their mark on his body, and with so much force, that they knocked him to the ground; as soon as he had fallen, the student attacked him and took the basin from his head and struck him three or four blows with it on his shoulders and smashed it an equal number of times on the ground until he had shattered it. They took a doublet he wore over his armor and would have taken his horse if the greaves of his leg armor had not prevented them from doing so. From Sancho they took his coat, leaving him in shirtsleeves; then, after dividing
among themselves the other spoils of battle, each went his separate way, more concerned with escaping the Brotherhood, which they feared, than with picking up the chain and carrying it to the lady Dulcinea of Toboso.

  The donkey and Rocinante, Sancho and Don Quixote, were left alone; the donkey, pensive, with bowed head, twitching his ears from time to time, thinking that the tempest of stones had not yet ended and was still falling around his ears; Rocinante, lying beside his master, for he too had fallen to the ground in the shower of stones; Sancho, in his shirtsleeves and afraid of the Holy Brotherhood; Don Quixote, grief-stricken at seeing himself so injured by the very people for whom he had done so much good.

  Miguel de Unamuno could be as sublimely mad as his lord Don Quixote: “All of which should teach us to liberate galley slaves precisely because they will not be grateful to us for it.” The battered Knight Quixote probably would not have accepted Unamuno, a numinous Basque exegete, since he pledges to Sancho that he has learned his lesson, but the wary Sancho ripostes: “Your grace will learn the lesson the same way I’m a Turk.” It was Cervantes who took warning, because of his affection for his minor but superb creation Ginés de Pasamonte, “the lying crook.” Ginés, confidence man and shamanistic imp of the perverse, is what might be called one of the canonical criminal characters in literature, like Shakespeare’s Barnardine in Measure for Measure or Balzac’s superb Vautrin. If Vautrin can reappear as Abbé Carlos Herrera, then Ginés can manifest himself as Master Pedro, the puppet master.