Chap. II The Adventure That Happened to This Sagacious Knight at the Inn, Which He Mistook for a Castle
The innkeeper seeing Don Quixote laid athwart the ass, asked what was the matter? to which interrogation Sancho replied, ‘Nothing but a few bruises which my master has received in a fall from a rock in this neighbourhood.’ The landlady, who differed in disposition from most of your innkeepers wives, being naturally charitable and sympathizing with the calamities of her fellow-creatures, came running to the relief of the battered knight, and brought her daughter, who was a very handsome girl, to assist in taking care of her guest. There was in the same house a servant-maid from the Asturies, remarkable for her capacious countenance, beetle brow’d, flat-nosed, blind of one eye, and bleared in the other: true it is, the gentility of her shape made amends for her other defects; she was something short of seven hands from head to foot, and moreover incumbered so much by her shoulders, that she was obliged to contemplate the dust beneath her feet oftener than she could have wished.
This comely creature, with the assistance of the other damsel, made up a sort of sorry bed for our hero in a garret; which gave evident tokens of having been formerly an hay-loft, and in which at that time a certain carrier had taken up his quarters, in a bed of his own making, a little on one side our knight’s: and though his couch was composed of the pannels and furniture of his mules, it had greatly the advantage over Don Quixote’s, which consisted only of four rough boards, supported on two benches of unequal height, covered by a mattras, so thin it might have passed for a quilt, and full of knots so hard as to be mistaken for pebble stones, had not the wool appeared through divers openings; with a couple of sheets made of bull’s hide, and a blanket so bare, that you might have counted every thread, without losing one of the reckoning.
In this wretched bed, Don Quixote having laid himself down, was anointed from head to foot by the good woman and her daughter, while Maritornes (that was the Asturian’s name) stood hard by holding a light. The landlady, in the course of her application, perceiving the knight’s whole body black and blue, observed that those marks seemed rather the effects of drubbing than of a fall; but Sancho affirmed she was mistaken, and that the marks in question were occasioned by the knobs and corners of the rocks among which he fell. ‘And now I think of it,’ said he, ‘pray, Madam, manage matters so as to leave a little of your ointment, for it will be needed, I’ll assure you; my own loins are none of the soundest at present.’—‘What, did you fall too?’ said she. ‘I can’t say I did,’ answered the squire, ‘but I was so infected by seeing my master tumble, that my whole body aches as much as if I had been cudgelled without mercy.’—‘That may very easily happen,’ cried the daughter: ‘I myself have often dreamed that I was falling from a high tower, without ever coming to the ground; and, upon waking, have found myself bruised and battered, as if I had actually got a great fall.’—‘Ah, mistress!’ replied the squire, ‘here is the point; I, without dreaming at all, but on the contrary, being as broad awake as I am this precious minute, found almost as many marks upon my own shoulders, as you have observed upon those of my master Don Quixote.’—‘What is the name of that knight?’ said the Asturian. ‘Don Quixote de La Mancha,’ answered the squire: ‘he is a knight-adventurer, and one of the greatest and most valiant that have been seen in this world for many ages.’—’And what is a knight-adventurer?’ resumed the wench. ‘Are you such a suckling as not to know that?’ cried Sancho; ‘well, I’ll tell you, mistress of mine, a knight-adventurer is a thing, that before you count a couple, may be kicked and be crowned: to-day he is the most despicable and beggarly wretch upon earth, and to-morrow he will have a brace of kingdoms to bestow upon his squires.’—‘Methinks,’ said the landlady, ‘seeing you appertain to such a great man, you ought to be a count at least.’—‘All in good time,’ replied Sancho; ‘we have not been out a month in search of adventures, and have found none worth naming; besides, people sometimes go in quest of one thing, and meet with another: indeed, if my master Don Quixote gets well of this drubbing——fall, I mean, and I myself escape without being crippled, I won’t barter my hopes for the best lordship in Spain.’
The knight having listened attentively to this whole conversation, sat up in his bed as well as he could, and taking his landlady by the hand, ‘Believe me, beautiful lady,’ said he, ‘you may account yourself extremely happy in having within your castle my person as your guest; such a guest, that if I praise him not, it is on account of the common saying, that self-commendation is in effect self-dispraise. My squire, however, will intimate who I am; while I content myself with assuring you, that I will, to all eternity, preserve engraven upon the tables of my memory the benevolence you this day vouchsafed unto me, that I may be grateful for the favour, as long as life shall remain. And, oh! that it pleased you, Heaven supreme, that love had not so vanquished and enslaved my heart to the triumphant eyes of the beautiful ingrate whom I now mention between my teeth, but that the charms of this amiable young lady could be the authors of my freedom.’
The good woman, her daughter, and the gentle Maritornes, were astonished at this rhapsody, which they understood as much as if it had been delivered in Greek; though they could easily comprehend, that the whole of it tended to compliment and proffers of service: as they were therefore altogether unaccustomed to such language, they gazed at him with admiration, as a person of a different species from other men; and having thanked him for his courtesy, in their tapster phrase, left him to his repose; while the Asturian Maritornes administered to Sancho, who had as much need of assistance as his master.
She and the carrier had made an assignation to divert themselves that night; nay, she had given her word that as soon as the company should be quiet, and her master and mistress asleep, she would visit him in the dark, and give him all the satisfaction he desired; and indeed it is recorded, for the honour of this good creature, that she never failed to perform her promises of that kind punctually, although they had been made in the midst of a heath, and out of the hearing of all evidence: for she valued herself much upon her gentility, and did not look upon it as any affront to be servant at an inn, because, she observed, disappointments and misfortunes had reduced her to that condition.
The bed of Don Quixote, which we have described so hard, so narrow, crazy, and uncomfortable, stood foremost, and exactly in the middle of this ruinous hay-loft; hard by had Sancho taken up his quarters upon a rush-mat, covered with a rug, which seemed to be manufactured of hemp, rather than wool; and last of all was the carrier’s couch, composed, as we have already said, of the pannels and furniture of his two best mules; for he had no less than twelve plump, sleek, and notable beasts, being one of the richest carriers in Arevalo, according to the report of the author of this history, who makes particular mention of him, and says he knew him perfectly well; nay, some go so far as to affirm, that he was his distant relation: be this as it will, Cid Hamet Benengeli was a most curious historian, and punctual to admiration, as appears from what hath been related, which, though in itself mean and trivial, he would by no means pass over in silence. This ought to serve as an example to those important and weighty historians, who recount events so succinctly and superficially, that the reader can scarce get a smack of them; while the most substantial circumstances are left, as it were, in the ink-horn, through carelessness, ignorance, and malice. A thousand times blessed be the authors of Tablante and Ricamonte, and he that compiled that other book, in which are recounted the atchievements of Count Tomillas! How punctually have they described the most minute particular!—But, to return to our story.
The carrier having visited his cattle, and given them their night’s allowance, stretched himself upon his pannels, in expectation of the most faithful Maritornes; while Sancho, plaistered all over, and huddled up in his kennel, endeavoured with all his might to sleep; but the aching of his ribs would by no means allow him to enjoy that satisfaction; and Don Quixote, for the same uncomfortable reason, lay like a hare, with his eyes wide open. A profound silence reigned throughout the whole house, in which there was no other light than a lamp stuck up in the passage; and this wonderful quiet, together with those reflections which always occurred to our knight, relating to the events continually recorded in the books of chivalry, that first disordered his understanding; I say, those reflections suggested to his fancy one of the strangest whims that ever entered a man’s imagination. This was no other than a full persuasion that he was arrived at some famous castle; for, as we have before observed, all the inns he lodged at seemed castles to him; and that the landlord’s daughter was the governor’s only child, who, captivated by his genteel appearance, was become deeply enamoured of him, and had actually promised to come, without the knowledge of her parents, and pass the best part of the night in bed with him. Believing, therefore, this chimera (which was the work of his own brain) to be a firm and undoubted fact, he began to reflect with extreme anxiety upon the dangerous dilemma into which his virtue was like to be drawn; and resolved in his heart to commit no treason against his mistress Dulcinea del Toboso; even though Queen Ginebra herself, and the lady Quintaniona, should make him a tender of their favours.
While his mind was engrossed by these extravagant fancies, the hour of assignation arrived, and an unlucky hour it was for him, when the kind Asturian, barefoot and in her smock, having her hair tucked up under a fustian nightcap, entered the apartment in which the three guests were lodged, and with silence and caution directed her steps towards the nest of her beloved carrier. But scarce had she got within the door, when her approach was perceived by our knight, who sitting up in his bed, in spite of his plaisters and the aching of his ribs, stretched forth his arms to receive this beautiful young lady, who, on her part, holding in her breath, moved softly on her tiptoes, groping her way with her hands before her.
While she thus crept along, in quest of her lover, she chanced to come within arm’s-length of Don Quixote, who laid fast hold of her by the wrist, and without her daring to speak a syllable, pulled her towards him, and made her sit down upon the bed; he then felt her smock, which, though made of the coarsest canvas, to him seemed a shift of the finest and softest lawn; the string of glass beads she wore about her wrist, in his apprehension out-shone the brightest oriental pearl: her hair, which bore some resemblance to a horse’s mane, he mistook for threads of pure Arabian gold, that even eclipsed the splendor of the sun; and her breath, which doubtless smelt strong of broken meat and garlick, his fancy converted into an aromatick flavour, proceeding from her delicate mouth: in short, his imagination represented her in the same form and situation with that of a certain princess, recorded in one of his books, who came to visit a wounded knight of whom she was enamoured; with all the other embellishments there described. Nay, such was the infatuation of this poor gentleman, that he was not to be undeceived, either by the touch, the breath, or any other circumstance of this honest wench, though they were powerful enough to discompose the stomach of anybody but a rampant carrier.
But our knight believed he folded in his arms the goddess of beauty, straining her in his embrace, began to pronounce, in a soft and amorous tone, ‘Would to Heaven! I were so circumstanced, beautiful and high-born lady! as to be able to pay the transcendent favour bestowed upon me, in the contemplation of your amazing charms; but it hath pleased fortune, that never ceases to persecute the virtuous, to lay me upon this bed, so bruised and battered, that even if it was my desire to gratify yours, I should find it utterly impossible; how much more so, when that impossibility is linked to another still greater? I mean the plighted faith I have vowed to the peerless Dulcinea del Toboso, the sole mistress of my most hidden thoughts: did not that consideration interpose, I should not be such a simple knight, as to let slip this happy occasion which your benevolence hath tendered to my choice.’
Maritornes, sweating with vexation to find herself thus pinioned, as it were, by the knight, whose discourse she neither heeded nor understood; endeavoured, without answering a syllable, to disengage herself from his embrace: while the honest carrier, whose lewd desires kept him awake, and made him perceive his doxy from the moment she entered, listened attentively to every thing that Don Quixote said; and being jealous that the Asturian had broke her promise to him, in order to keep it with another, crept nearer the bed of his rival, to wait the issue of this rhapsody, the meaning of which he could not comprehend; observing, however, that the wench struggled to get loose, and that the knight endeavoured to detain her, he could not relish the joke, but lifting his arm on high, discharged such a terrible blow on the lanthorn jaws of the enamoured Don, as bathed his whole countenance in blood; and not satisfied with this application, jumped upon his ribs, and travelled over his whole carcase, at a pace somewhat exceeding that of a brisk trot, until the bed, which was none of the strongest, either in materials or foundation, unable to sustain the additional weight, sunk to the ground with both; and made such a hideous noise in its fall, as waked the inn-keeper, who immediately concluded that Maritornes was concerned in the adventure, because she made no answer when he called.
On this supposition he arose, and lighting a candle, went directly to the place where he had heard the scuffle: meanwhile, the poor wench, confused and affrighted at the approach of her master, who was a fellow of a most savage disposition, retreated to the kennel of Sancho Panza, who slept in spite of all this din, and nestling in beside him, wound herself up like a ball, and lay snug. The landlord now entered the apartment, and crying with a loud voice, ‘Where have you got, strumpet? to be sure these must be your jade’s tricks, with a vengeance!’ Sancho started, and feeling a prodigious weight upon him, thought he was labouring under the night-mare, and beginning to lay about him on all sides, chanced, in course of his efforts, to bestow divers cuffs on Maritornes, who feeling herself thus belaboured, forgot the care of her reputation, and returned the squire’s compliments so heartily, that sleep forsook him whether he would or not: without knowing the person who treated him so roughly, he raised himself up, as well as he could, and going to loggerheads with Maritornes, a most furious and diverting skirmish ensued.
By this time, the carrier perceiving by the light the situation of his mistress, ran to her assistance; and the landlord followed the same course, though with a very different intention, namely, to chastise the maid; being fully persuaded, that she was the sole cause of all this uproar; and so, as the saying is, the cat to the rat, the rat to the rope, the rope to the gallows. The carrier drummed upon Sancho, Sancho struck at the maid, the maid pummelled him, the innkeeper disciplined her; all of them exerting themselves with such eagerness, that there was not one moment’s pause. But, to crown the joke, the landlord’s candle went out, and the combatants being left in the dark, such a circulation of blows ensued, that wheresoever the fist fell, there the patient was disabled.
There chanced to lodge at the inn that night, a trooper belonging to the ancient holy brotherhood of Toledo, who also hearing the strange noise of this fray, arose, and seizing his tipstaff, together with the tin-box that contained his commission, entered the apartment in the dark, calling aloud—‘Keep the peace, in the king’s name; keep the peace, in the name of the holy brotherhood.’ The first he encountered was the forlorn Don Quixote, who lay insensible on his demolished bed, with his face uppermost; so that groping about, he happened to lay hold of his beard, and cried—‘Assist, I charge you, the officers of justice:’ but perceiving that the person he held neither stirred nor spoke, he concluded that he must be dead, and that the people within were the assassins. In this persuasion he raised his voice, crying—‘Shut the gates of the inn, that none may escape; for here is a man murdered.’ This exclamation, which astonished them all, was no sooner heard, than every one quitted his share in the battle; the landlord retreated to his own chamber, the carrier sneaked to his panniers, and the damsel to her straw: while the unfortunate knight and squire were left on the spot, unable to move from the places where they lay. The trooper letting go the beard of Don Quixote, went out for a light to search for and apprehend the delinquents; but in this design he was disappointed; the landlord having purposely extinguished the lamp when he retired to his apartment; so that he was obliged to have recourse to the embers, at which, with great industry and time, he made shift to light another candle.