To all this Sancho listened with no little sorrow at heart to see how his hopes of dignity were fading away and vanishing in smoke, and how the fair Princess Micomicona had turned into Dorothea, and the giant into Don Fernando, while his master was sleeping tranquilly, totally unconscious of all that had come to pass. Dorothea was unable to persuade herself that her present happiness was not all a dream; Cardenio was in a similar state of mind, and Luscinda’s thoughts ran in the same direction. Don Fernando gave thanks to Heaven for the favour shown to him and for having been rescued from the intricate labyrinth in which he had been brought so near the destruction of his good name and of his soul; and in short everybody in the inn was full of contentment and satisfaction at the happy issue of such a complicated and hopeless business. The curate as a sensible man made sound reflections upon the whole affair, and congratulated each upon his good fortune; but the one that was in the highest spirits and good humour was the landlady, because of the promise Cardenio and the curate had given her to pay for all the losses and damage she had sustained through Don Quixote’s means. Sancho, as has been already said, was the only one who was distressed, unhappy, and dejected; and so with a long face he went in to his master, who had just awoke, and said to him:
“Sir Rueful Countenance, your worship may as well sleep on as much as you like, without troubling yourself about killing any giant or restoring her kingdom to the princess; for that is all over and settled now.”
“I should think it was,” replied Don Quixote, “for I have had the most prodigious and stupendous battle with the giant that I ever remember having had all the days of my life; and with one back-stroke — swish! — I brought his head tumbling to the ground, and so much blood gushed forth from him that it ran in rivulets over the earth like water.”
“Like red wine, your worship had better say,” replied Sancho; “for I would have you know, if you don’t know it, that the dead giant is a hacked wine-skin, and the blood four-and-twenty gallons of red wine that it had in its belly, and the cut-off head is the bitch that bore me; and the devil take it all.”
“What art thou talking about, fool?” said Don Quixote; “art thou in thy senses?”
“Let your worship get up,” said Sancho, “and you will see the nice business you have made of it, and what we have to pay; and you will see the queen turned into a private lady called Dorothea, and other things that will astonish you, if you understand them.”
“I shall not be surprised at anything of the kind,” returned Don Quixote; “for if thou dost remember the last time we were here I told thee that everything that happened here was a matter of enchantment, and it would be no wonder if it were the same now.”
“I could believe all that,” replied Sancho, “if my blanketing was the same sort of thing also; only it wasn’t, but real and genuine; for I saw the landlord, Who is here to-day, holding one end of the blanket and jerking me up to the skies very neatly and smartly, and with as much laughter as strength; and when it comes to be a case of knowing people, I hold for my part, simple and sinner as I am, that there is no enchantment about it at all, but a great deal of bruising and bad luck.”
“Well, well, God will give a remedy,” said Don Quixote; “hand me my clothes and let me go out, for I want to see these transformations and things thou speakest of.”
Sancho fetched him his clothes; and while he was dressing, the curate gave Don Fernando and the others present an account of Don Quixote’s madness and of the stratagem they had made use of to withdraw him from that Pena Pobre where he fancied himself stationed because of his lady’s scorn. He described to them also nearly all the adventures that Sancho had mentioned, at which they marvelled and laughed not a little, thinking it, as all did, the strangest form of madness a crazy intellect could be capable of. But now, the curate said, that the lady Dorothea’s good fortune prevented her from proceeding with their purpose, it would be necessary to devise or discover some other way of getting him home.
Cardenio proposed to carry out the scheme they had begun, and suggested that Luscinda would act and support Dorothea’s part sufficiently well.
“No,” said Don Fernando, “that must not be, for I want Dorothea to follow out this idea of hers; and if the worthy gentleman’s village is not very far off, I shall be happy if I can do anything for his relief.”
“It is not more than two days’ journey from this,” said the curate.
“Even if it were more,” said Don Fernando, “I would gladly travel so far for the sake of doing so good a work.
“At this moment Don Quixote came out in full panoply, with Mambrino’s helmet, all dinted as it was, on his head, his buckler on his arm, and leaning on his staff or pike. The strange figure he presented filled Don Fernando and the rest with amazement as they contemplated his lean yellow face half a league long, his armour of all sorts, and the solemnity of his deportment. They stood silent waiting to see what he would say, and he, fixing his eyes on the air Dorothea, addressed her with great gravity and composure:
“I am informed, fair lady, by my squire here that your greatness has been annihilated and your being abolished, since, from a queen and lady of high degree as you used to be, you have been turned into a private maiden. If this has been done by the command of the magician king your father, through fear that I should not afford you the aid you need and are entitled to, I may tell you he did not know and does not know half the mass, and was little versed in the annals of chivalry; for, if he had read and gone through them as attentively and deliberately as I have, he would have found at every turn that knights of less renown than mine have accomplished things more difficult: it is no great matter to kill a whelp of a giant, however arrogant he may be; for it is not many hours since I myself was engaged with one, and — I will not speak of it, that they may not say I am lying; time, however, that reveals all, will tell the tale when we least expect it.”
“You were engaged with a couple of wine-skins, and not a giant,” said the landlord at this; but Don Fernando told him to hold his tongue and on no account interrupt Don Quixote, who continued, “I say in conclusion, high and disinherited lady, that if your father has brought about this metamorphosis in your person for the reason I have mentioned, you ought not to attach any importance to it; for there is no peril on earth through which my sword will not force a way, and with it, before many days are over, I will bring your enemy’s head to the ground and place on yours the crown of your kingdom.”
Don Quixote said no more, and waited for the reply of the princess, who aware of Don Fernando’s determination to carry on the deception until Don Quixote had been conveyed to his home, with great ease of manner and gravity made answer, “Whoever told you, valiant Knight of the Rueful Countenance, that I had undergone any change or transformation did not tell you the truth, for I am the same as I was yesterday. It is true that certain strokes of good fortune, that have given me more than I could have hoped for, have made some alteration in me; but I have not therefore ceased to be what I was before, or to entertain the same desire I have had all through of availing myself of the might of your valiant and invincible arm. And so, senor, let your goodness reinstate the father that begot me in your good opinion, and be assured that he was a wise and prudent man, since by his craft he found out such a sure and easy way of remedying my misfortune; for I believe, senor, that had it not been for you I should never have lit upon the good fortune I now possess; and in this I am saying what is perfectly true; as most of these gentlemen who are present can fully testify. All that remains is to set out on our journey to-morrow, for to-day we could not make much way; and for the rest of the happy result I am looking forward to, I trust to God and the valour of your heart.”
So said the sprightly Dorothea, and on hearing her Don Quixote turned to Sancho, and said to him, with an angry air, “I declare now, little Sancho, thou art the greatest little villain in Spain. Say, thief and vagabond, hast thou not just now told me that this princess had been turned into a maiden called Dorothea, and that the head which I am persuaded I cut off from a giant was the bitch that bore thee, and other nonsense that put me in the greatest perplexity I have ever been in all my life? I vow” (and here he looked to heaven and ground his teeth) “I have a mind to play the mischief with thee, in a way that will teach sense for the future to all lying squires of knights-errant in the world.”
“Let your worship be calm, senor,” returned Sancho, “for it may well be that I have been mistaken as to the change of the lady princess Micomicona; but as to the giant’s head, or at least as to the piercing of the wine-skins, and the blood being red wine, I make no mistake, as sure as there is a God; because the wounded skins are there at the head of your worship’s bed, and the wine has made a lake of the room; if not you will see when the eggs come to be fried; I mean when his worship the landlord calls for all the damages: for the rest, I am heartily glad that her ladyship the queen is as she was, for it concerns me as much as anyone.”
“I tell thee again, Sancho, thou art a fool,” said Don Quixote; “forgive me, and that will do.”
“That will do,” said Don Fernando; “let us say no more about it; and as her ladyship the princess proposes to set out to-morrow because it is too late to-day, so be it, and we will pass the night in pleasant conversation, and to-morrow we will all accompany Senor Don Quixote; for we wish to witness the valiant and unparalleled achievements he is about to perform in the course of this mighty enterprise which he has undertaken.”
“It is I who shall wait upon and accompany you,” said Don Quixote; “and I am much gratified by the favour that is bestowed upon me, and the good opinion entertained of me, which I shall strive to justify or it shall cost me my life, or even more, if it can possibly cost me more.”
Many were the compliments and expressions of politeness that passed between Don Quixote and Don Fernando; but they were brought to an end by a traveller who at this moment entered the inn, and who seemed from his attire to be a Christian lately come from the country of the Moors, for he was dressed in a short-skirted coat of blue cloth with half-sleeves and without a collar; his breeches were also of blue cloth, and his cap of the same colour, and he wore yellow buskins and had a Moorish cutlass slung from a baldric across his breast. Behind him, mounted upon an ass, there came a woman dressed in Moorish fashion, with her face veiled and a scarf on her head, and wearing a little brocaded cap, and a mantle that covered her from her shoulders to her feet. The man was of a robust and well-proportioned frame, in age a little over forty, rather swarthy in complexion, with long moustaches and ............