To all which his master said in reply, "I wish I had breath enoughto speak somewhat easily, and that the pain I feel on this sidewould abate so as to let me explain to thee, Panza, the mistake thoumakest. Come now, sinner, suppose the wind of fortune, hitherto soadverse, should turn in our favour, filling the sails of our desiresso that safely and without impediment we put into port in some oneof those islands I have promised thee, how would it be with thee if onwinning it I made thee lord of it? Why, thou wilt make it well-nighimpossible through not being a knight nor having any desire to be one,nor possessing the courage nor the will to avenge insults or defendthy lordship; for thou must know that in newly conquered kingdomsand provinces the minds of the inhabitants are never so quiet nor sowell disposed to the new lord that there is no fear of their makingsome move to change matters once more, and try, as they say, whatchance may do for them; so it is essential that the new possessorshould have good sense to enable him to govern, and valour to attackand defend himself, whatever may befall him."
"In what has now befallen us," answered Sancho, "I'd have beenwell pleased to have that good sense and that valour your worshipspeaks of, but I swear on the faith of a poor man I am more fit forplasters than for arguments. See if your worship can get up, and letus help Rocinante, though he does not deserve it, for he was themain cause of all this thrashing. I never thought it of Rocinante, forI took him to be a virtuous person and as quiet as myself. Afterall, they say right that it takes a long time to come to knowpeople, and that there is nothing sure in this life. Who would havesaid that, after such mighty slashes as your worship gave that unluckyknight-errant, there was coming, travelling post and at the very heelsof them, such a great storm of sticks as has fallen upon ourshoulders?"
"And yet thine, Sancho," replied Don Quixote, "ought to be used tosuch squalls; but mine, reared in soft cloth and fine linen, it isplain they must feel more keenly the pain of this mishap, and if itwere not that I imagine- why do I say imagine?- know of a certaintythat all these annoyances are very necessary accompaniments of thecalling of arms, I would lay me down here to die of pure vexation."
To this the squire replied, "Senor, as these mishaps are what onereaps of chivalry, tell me if they happen very often, or if theyhave their own fixed times for coming to pass; because it seems tome that after two harvests we shall be no good for the third, unlessGod in his infinite mercy helps us."
"Know, friend Sancho," answered Don Quixote, "that the life ofknights-errant is subject to a thousand dangers and reverses, andneither more nor less is it within immediate possibility forknights-errant to become kings and emperors, as experience has shownin the case of many different knights with whose histories I amthoroughly acquainted; and I could tell thee now, if the pain wouldlet me, of some who simply by might of arm have risen to the highstations I have mentioned; and those same, both before and after,experienced divers misfortunes and miseries; for the valiant Amadis ofGaul found himself in the power of his mortal enemy Arcalaus themagician, who, it is positively asserted, holding him captive, gavehim more than two hundred lashes with the reins of his horse whiletied to one of the pillars of a court; and moreover there is a certainrecondite author of no small authority who says that the Knight ofPhoebus, being caught in a certain pitfall, which opened under hisfeet in a certain castle, on falling found himself bound hand and footin a deep pit underground, where they administered to him one of thosethings they call clysters, of sand and snow-water, that well-nighfinished him; and if he had not been succoured in that soreextremity by a sage, a great friend of his, it would have gone veryhard with the poor knight; so I may well suffer in company with suchworthy folk, for greater were the indignities which they had to sufferthan those which we suffer. For I would have thee know, Sancho, thatwounds caused by any instruments which happen by chance to be inhand inflict no indignity, and this is laid down in the law of theduel in express words: if, for instance, the cobbler strikes anotherwith the last which he has in his hand, though it be in fact a pieceof wood, it cannot be said for that reason that he whom he struck withit has been cudgelled. I say this lest thou shouldst imagine thatbecause we have been drubbed in this affray we have therefore sufferedany indignity; for the arms those men carried, with which they poundedus, were nothing more than their stakes, and not one of them, so faras I remember, carried rapier, sword, or dagger."
"They gave me no time to see that much," answered Sancho, "forhardly had I laid hand on my tizona when they signed the cross on myshoulders with their sticks in such style that they took the sight outof my eyes and the strength out of my feet, stretching me where Inow lie, and where thinking of whether all those stake-strokes were anindignity or not gives me no uneasiness, which the pain of the blowsdoes, for they will remain as deeply impressed on my memory as on myshoulders."
"For all that let me tell thee, brother Panza," said Don Quixote,"that there is no recollection which time does not put an end to,and no pain which death does not remove."
"And what greater misfortune can there be," replied Panza, "than theone that waits for time to put an end to it and death to remove it? Ifour mishap were one of those that are cured with a couple of plasters,it would not be so bad; but I am beginning to think that all theplasters in a hospital almost won't be enough to put us right."
"No more of that: pluck strength out of weakness, Sancho, as Imean to do," returned Don Quixote, "and let us see how Rocinante is,for it seems to me that not the least share of this mishap hasfallen to the lot of the poor beast."
"There is nothing wonderful in that," replied Sancho, "since he is aknight-errant too; what I wonder at is that my beast should havecome off scot-free where we come out scotched."
"Fortune always leaves a door open in adversity in order to bringrelief to it," said Don Quixote; "I say so because this little beastmay now supply the want of Rocinante, carrying me hence to some castlewhere I may be cured of my wounds. And moreover I shall not hold itany dishonour to be so mounted, for I remember having read how thegood old Silenus, the tutor and instructor of the gay god of laughter,when he entered the city of the hundred gates, went very contentedlymounted on a handsome ass."
"It may be true that he went mounted as your worship says," answeredSancho, "but there is a great difference between going mounted andgoing slung like a sack of manure."
To which Don Quixote replied, "Wounds received in battle conferhonour instead of taking it away; and so, friend Panza, say no more,but, as I told thee before, get up as well as thou canst and put me ontop of thy beast in whatever fashion pleases thee best, and let usgo hence ere night come on and surprise us in these wilds."
"And yet I have heard your worship say," observed Panza, "that it isvery meet for knights-errant to sleep in wastes and deserts, andthat they esteem it very good fortune."
"That is," said Don Quixote, "when they cannot help it, or when theyare in love; and so true is this that there have been knights who haveremained two years on rocks, in sunshine and shade and all theinclemencies of heaven, without their ladies knowing anything of it;and one of these was Amadis, when, under the name of Beltenebros, hetook up his abode on the Pena Pobre for -I know not if it was eightyears or eight months, for I am not very sure of the reckoning; at anyrate he stayed there doing penance for I know not what pique thePrincess Oriana had against him; but no more of this now, Sancho,and make haste before a mishap like Rocinante's befalls the ass."
"The very devil would be in it in that case," said Sancho; andletting off thirty "ohs," and sixty sighs, and a hundred and twentymaledictions and execrations on whomsoever it was that had brought himthere, he raised himself, stopping half-way bent like a Turkish bowwithout power to bring himself upright, but with all his pains hesaddled his ass, who too had gone astray somewhat, yielding to theexcessive licence of the day; he next raised up Rocinante, and asfor him, had he possessed a tongue to complain with, most assuredlyneither Sancho nor his master would have been behind him. To be brief,Sancho fixed Don Quixote on the ass and secured Rocinante with aleading rein, and taking the ass by the halter, he proceeded more orless in the direction in which it seemed to him the high road mightbe; and, as chance was conducting their affairs for them from goodto better, he had not gone a short league when the road came in sight,and on it he perceived an inn, which to his annoyance and to thedelight of Don Quixote must needs be a castle. Sancho insisted that itwas an inn, and his master that it was not one, but a castle, andthe dispute lasted so long that before the point was settled theyhad time to reach it, and into it Sancho entered with all his teamwithout any further controversy.
CHAPTER XVI
OF WHAT HAPPENED TO THE INGENIOUS GENTLEMAN IN THE INN WHICH HE TOOKTO BE A CASTLE
THE innkeeper, seeing Don Quixote slung across the ass, asked Sanchowhat was amiss with him. Sancho answered that it was nothing, onlythat he had fallen down from a rock and had his ribs a little bruised.The innkeeper had a wife whose disposition was not such as those ofher calling commonly have, for she was by nature kind-hearted and feltfor the sufferings of her neighbours, so she at once set about tendingDon Quixote, and made her young daughter, a very comely girl, help herin taking care of her guest. There was besides in the inn, as servant,an Asturian lass with a broad face, flat poll, and snub nose, blind ofone eye and not very sound in the other. The elegance of her shape, tobe sure, made up for all her defects; she did not measure sevenpalms from head to foot, and her shoulders, which overweighted hersomewhat, made her contemplate the ground more than she liked. Thisgraceful lass, then, helped the young girl, and the two made up a verybad bed for Don Quixote in a garret that showed evident signs ofhaving formerly served for many years as a straw-loft, in whichthere was also quartered a carrier whose bed was placed a littlebeyond our Don Quixote's, and, though only made of the pack-saddlesand cloths of his mules, had much the advantage of it, as DonQuixote's consisted simply of four rough boards on two not very eventrestles, a mattress, that for thinness might have passed for a quilt,full of pellets which, were they not seen through the rents to bewool, would to the touch have seemed pebbles in hardness, two sheetsmade of buckler leather, and a coverlet the threads of which anyonethat chose might have counted without missing one in the reckoning.