"O blessed God!" exclaimed Sancho aloud at this, "is it possiblethat such things can be in the world, and that enchanters andenchantments can have such power in it as to have changed mymaster's right senses into a craze so full of absurdity! O senor,senor, for God's sake, consider yourself, have a care for your honour,and give no credit to this silly stuff that has left you scant andshort of wits."
"Thou talkest in this way because thou lovest me, Sancho," saidDon Quixote; "and not being experienced in the things of the world,everything that has some difficulty about it seems to thee impossible;but time will pass, as I said before, and I will tell thee some of thethings I saw down there which will make thee believe what I haverelated now, the truth of which admits of neither reply nor question."CHAPTER XXIV
WHEREIN ARE RELATED A THOUSAND TRIFLING MATTERS, AS TRIVIAL ASTHEY ARE NECESSARY TO THE RIGHT UNDERSTANDING OF THIS GREAT HISTORY
HE WHO translated this great history from the original written byits first author, Cide Hamete Benengeli, says that on coming to thechapter giving the adventures of the cave of Montesinos he foundwritten on the margin of it, in Hamete's own hand, these exact words:
"I cannot convince or persuade myself that everything that iswritten in the preceding chapter could have precisely happened tothe valiant Don Quixote; and for this reason, that all theadventures that have occurred up to the present have been possible andprobable; but as for this one of the cave, I see no way of acceptingit as true, as it passes all reasonable bounds. For me to believe thatDon Quixote could lie, he being the most truthful gentleman and thenoblest knight of his time, is impossible; he would not have told alie though he were shot to death with arrows. On the other hand, Ireflect that he related and told the story with all thecircumstances detailed, and that he could not in so short a space havefabricated such a vast complication of absurdities; if, then, thisadventure seems apocryphal, it is no fault of mine; and so, withoutaffirming its falsehood or its truth, I write it down. Decide forthyself in thy wisdom, reader; for I am not bound, nor is it in mypower, to do more; though certain it is they say that at the time ofhis death he retracted, and said he had invented it, thinking itmatched and tallied with the adventures he had read of in hishistories." And then he goes on to say:
The cousin was amazed as well at Sancho's boldness as at thepatience of his master, and concluded that the good temper thelatter displayed arose from the happiness he felt at having seen hislady Dulcinea, even enchanted as she was; because otherwise thewords and language Sancho had addressed to him deserved a thrashing;for indeed he seemed to him to have been rather impudent to hismaster, to whom he now observed, "I, Senor Don Quixote of La Mancha,look upon the time I have spent in travelling with your worship asvery well employed, for I have gained four things in the course of it;the first is that I have made your acquaintance, which I considergreat good fortune; the second, that I have learned what the cave ofMontesinos contains, together with the transformations of Guadiana andof the lakes of Ruidera; which will be of use to me for the SpanishOvid that I have in hand; the third, to have discovered theantiquity of cards, that they were in use at least in the time ofCharlemagne, as may be inferred from the words you say Durandarteuttered when, at the end of that long spell while Montesinos wastalking to him, he woke up and said, 'Patience and shuffle.' Thisphrase and expression he could not have learned while he wasenchanted, but only before he had become so, in France, and in thetime of the aforesaid emperor Charlemagne. And this demonstration isjust the thing for me for that other book I am writing, the'Supplement to Polydore Vergil on the Invention of Antiquities;' for Ibelieve he never thought of inserting that of cards in his book, asI mean to do in mine, and it will be a matter of great importance,particularly when I can cite so grave and veracious an authority asSenor Durandarte. And the fourth thing is, that I have ascertained thesource of the river Guadiana, heretofore unknown to mankind."
"You are right," said Don Quixote; "but I should like to know, if byGod's favour they grant you a licence to print those books of yours-which I doubt- to whom do you mean dedicate them?"
"There are lords and grandees in Spain to whom they can bededicated," said the cousin.
"Not many," said Don Quixote; "not that they are unworthy of it, butbecause they do not care to accept books and incur the obligation ofmaking the return that seems due to the author's labour andcourtesy. One prince I know who makes up for all the rest, and more-how much more, if I ventured to say, perhaps I should stir up envyin many a noble breast; but let this stand over for some moreconvenient time, and let us go and look for some place to shelterourselves in to-night."
"Not far from this," said the cousin, "there is a hermitage, wherethere lives a hermit, who they say was a soldier, and who has thereputation of being a good Christian and a very intelligent andcharitable man. Close to the hermitage he has a small house which hebuilt at his own cost, but though small it is large enough for thereception of guests."
"Has this hermit any hens, do you think?" asked Sancho.
"Few hermits are without them," said Don Quixote; "for those wesee now-a-days are not like the hermits of the Egyptian deserts whowere clad in palm-leaves, and lived on the roots of the earth. Butdo not think that by praising these I am disparaging the others; all Imean to say is that the penances of those of the present day do notcome up to the asceticism and austerity of former times; but it doesnot follow from this that they are not all worthy; at least I thinkthem so; and at the worst the hypocrite who pretends to be good doesless harm than the open sinner."
At this point they saw approaching the spot where they stood a manon foot, proceeding at a rapid pace, and beating a mule loaded withlances and halberds. When he came up to them, he saluted them andpassed on without stopping. Don Quixote called to him, "Stay, goodfellow; you seem to be making more haste than suits that mule."
"I cannot stop, senor," answered the man; "for the arms you see Icarry here are to be used tomorrow, so I must not delay; God be withyou. But if you want to know what I am carrying them for, I mean tolodge to-night at the inn that is beyond the hermitage, and if yoube going the same road you will find me there, and I will tell yousome curious things; once more God be with you;" and he urged on hismule at such a pace that Don Quixote had no time to ask him what thesecurious things were that he meant to tell them; and as he was somewhatinquisitive, and always tortured by his anxiety to learn somethingnew, he decided to set out at once, and go and pass the night at theinn instead of stopping at the hermitage, where the cousin wouldhave had them halt. Accordingly they mounted and all three took thedirect road for the inn, which they reached a little before nightfall.On the road the cousin proposed they should go up to the hermitageto drink a sup. The instant Sancho heard this he steered his Dappletowards it, and Don Quixote and the cousin did the same; but itseems Sancho's bad luck so ordered it that the hermit was not at home,for so a sub-hermit they found in the hermitage told them. They calledfor some of the best. She replied that her master had none, but thatif they liked cheap water she would give it with great pleasure.
"If I found any in water," said Sancho, "there are wells along theroad where I could have had enough of it. Ah, Camacho's wedding, andplentiful house of Don Diego, how often do I miss you!"
Leaving the hermitage, they pushed on towards the inn, and alittle farther they came upon a youth who was pacing along in front ofthem at no great speed, so that they overtook him. He carried asword over his shoulder, and slung on it a budget or bundle of hisclothes apparently, probably his breeches or pantaloons, and his cloakand a shirt or two; for he had on a short jacket of velvet with agloss like satin on it in places, and had his shirt out; his stockingswere of silk, and his shoes square-toed as they wear them at court.His age might have been eighteen or nineteen; he was of a merrycountenance, and to all appearance of an active habit, and he wentalong singing seguidillas to beguile the wearisomeness of the road. Asthey came up with him he was just finishing one, which the cousingot by heart and they say ran thus-
I'm off to the wars
For the want of pence,
Oh, had I but money
I'd show more sense.
The first to address him was Don Quixote, who said, "You travel veryairily, sir gallant; whither bound, may we ask, if it is your pleasureto tell us?"
To which the youth replied, "The heat and my poverty are thereason of my travelling so airily, and it is to the wars that I ambound."
"How poverty?" asked Don Quixote; "the heat one can understand."
"Senor," replied the youth, "in this bundle I carry velvetpantaloons to match this jacket; if I wear them out on the road, Ishall not be able to make a decent appearance in them in the city, andI have not the wherewithal to buy others; and so for this reason, aswell as to keep myself cool, I am making my way in this fashion toovertake some companies of infantry that are not twelve leagues off,in which I shall enlist, and there will be no want of baggage trainsto travel with after that to the place of embarkation, which theysay will be Carthagena; I would rather have the King for a master, andserve him in the wars, than serve a court pauper."