CHAPTER XVI — OF WHAT HAPPENED TO THE INGENIOUS GENTLEMAN IN THE INN WHICH HE TOOK TO — BE A CASTLE

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The innkeeper, seeing Don Quixote slung across the ass, asked Sancho
what was amiss with him. Sancho answered that it was nothing, only that
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 of her
calling commonly have, for she was by nature kind-hearted and felt for
the sufferings of her neighbours, so she at once set about tending Don
Quixote, and made her young daughter, a very comely girl, help her in
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 of one
eye and not very sound in the other. The elegance of her shape, to be
sure, made up for all her defects; she did not measure seven palms from
head to foot, and her shoulders, which overweighted her somewhat, made
her contemplate the ground more than she liked. This graceful lass,
then, helped the young girl, and the two made up a very bad bed for Don
Quixote in a garret that showed evident signs of having formerly served
for many years as a straw-loft, in which there was also quartered a
carrier whose bed was placed a little beyond our Don Quixote’s, and,
though only made of the pack-saddles and cloths of his mules, had much
the advantage of it, as Don Quixote’s consisted simply of four rough
boards on two not very even trestles, a mattress, that for thinness
might have passed for a quilt, full of pellets which, were they not
seen through the rents to be wool, would to the touch have seemed
pebbles in hardness, two sheets made of buckler leather, and a coverlet
the threads of which anyone that chose might have counted without
missing one in the reckoning.

On this accursed bed Don Quixote stretched himself, and the hostess and
her daughter soon covered him with plasters from top to toe, while
Maritornes—for that was the name of the Asturian—held the light for
them, and while plastering him, the hostess, observing how full of
wheals Don Quixote was in some places, remarked that this had more the
look of blows than of a fall.

It was not blows, Sancho said, but that the rock had many points and
projections, and that each of them had left its mark. “Pray, señora,”
he added, “manage to save some tow, as there will be no want of someone
to use it, for my loins too are rather sore.”

“Then you must have fallen too,” said the hostess.

“I did not fall,” said Sancho Panza, “but from the shock I got at
seeing my master fall, my body aches so that I feel as if I had had a
thousand thwacks.”

“That may well be,” said the young girl, “for it has many a time
happened to me to dream that I was falling down from a tower and never
coming to the ground, and when I awoke from the dream to find myself as
weak and shaken as if I had really fallen.”

“There is the point, señora,” replied Sancho Panza, “that I without
dreaming at all, but being more awake than I am now, find myself with
scarcely less wheals than my master, Don Quixote.”

“How is the gentleman called?” asked Maritornes the Asturian.

“Don Quixote of La Mancha,” answered Sancho Panza, “and he is a
knight-adventurer, and one of the best and stoutest that have been seen
in the world this long time past.”

“What is a knight-adventurer?” said the lass.

“Are you so new in the world as not to know?” answered Sancho Panza.
“Well, then, you must know, sister, that a knight-adventurer is a thing
that in two words is seen drubbed and emperor, that is to-day the most
miserable and needy being in the world, and to-morrow will have two or
three crowns of kingdoms to give his squire.”

“Then how is it,” said the hostess, “that belonging to so good a master
as this, you have not, to judge by appearances, even so much as a
county?”

“It is too soon yet,” answered Sancho, “for we have only been a month
going in quest of adventures, and so far we have met with nothing that
can be called one, for it will happen that when one thing is looked for
another thing is found; however, if my master Don Quixote gets well of
this wound, or fall, and I am left none the worse of it, I would not
change my hopes for the best title in Spain.”

To all this conversation Don Quixote was listening very attentively,
and sitting up in bed as well as he could, and taking the hostess by
the hand he said to her, “Believe me, fair lady, you may call yourself
fortunate in having in this castle of yours sheltered my person, which
is such that if I do not myself praise it, it is because of what is
commonly said, that self-praise debaseth; but my squire will inform you
who I am. I only tell you that I shall preserve for ever inscribed on
my memory the service you have rendered me in order to tender you my
gratitude while life shall last me; and would to Heaven love held me
not so enthralled and subject to its laws and to the eyes of that fair
ingrate whom I name between my teeth, but that those of this lovely
damsel might be the masters of my liberty.”

The hostess, her daughter, and the worthy Maritornes listened in
bewilderment to the words of the knight-errant; for they understood
about as much of them as if he had been talking Greek, though they
could perceive they were all meant for expressions of good-will and
blandishments; and not being accustomed to this kind of language, they
stared at him and wondered to themselves, for he seemed to them a man
of a different sort from those they were used to, and thanking him in
pothouse phrase for his civility they left him, while the Asturian gave
her attention to Sancho, who needed it no less than his master.

The carrier had made an arrangement with her for recreation that night,
and she had given him her word that when the guests were quiet and the
family asleep she would come in search of him and meet his wishes
unreservedly. And it is said of this good lass that she never made
promises of the kind without fulfilling them, even though she made them
in a forest and without any witness present, for she plumed herself
greatly on being a lady and held it no disgrace to be in such an
employment as servant in an inn, because, she said, misfortunes and
ill-luck had brought her to that position. The hard, narrow, wretched,
rickety bed of Don Quixote stood first in the middle of this star-lit
stable, and close beside it Sancho made his, which merely consisted of
a rush mat and a blanket that looked as if it was of threadbare canvas
rather than of wool. Next to these two beds was that of the carrier,
made up, as has been said, of the pack-saddles and all the trappings of
the two best mules he had, though there were twelve of them, sleek,
plump, and in prime condition, for he was one of the rich carriers of
Arévalo, according to the author of this history, who particularly
mentions this carrier because he knew him very well, and they even say
was in some degree a relation of his; besides which Cid Hamete
Benengeli was a historian of great research and accuracy in all things,
as is very evident since he would not pass over in silence those that
have been already mentioned, however trifling and insignificant they
might be, an example that might be followed by those grave historians
who relate transactions so curtly and briefly that we hardly get a
taste of them, all the substance of the work being left in the inkstand
from carelessness, perverseness, or ignorance. A thousand blessings on
the author of “Tablante de Ricamonte” and that of the other book in
which the deeds of the Conde Tomillas are recounted; with what
minuteness they describe everything!

To proceed, then: after having paid a visit to his team and given them
their second feed, the carrier stretched himself on his pack-saddles
and lay waiting for his conscientious Maritornes. Sancho was by this
time plastered and had lain down, and though he strove to sleep the
pain of his ribs would not let him, while Don Quixote with the pain of
his had his eyes as wide open as a hare’s.

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The inn was all in silence, and in the whole of it there was no light
except that given by a lantern that hung burning in the middle of the
gateway. This strange stillness, and the thoughts, always present to
our knight’s mind, of the incidents described at every turn in the
books that were the cause of his misfortune, conjured up to his
imagination as extraordinary a delusion as can well be conceived, which
was that he fancied himself to have reached a famous castle (for, as
has been said, all the inns he lodged in were castles to his eyes), and
that the daughter of the innkeeper was daughter of the lord of the
castle, and that she, won by his high-bred bearing, had fallen in love
with him, and had promised to come to his bed for a while that night
without the knowledge of her parents; and holding all this fantasy that
he had constructed as solid fact, he began to feel uneasy and to
consider the perilous risk which his virtue was about to encounter, and
he resolved in his heart to commit no treason to his lady Dulcinea del
Toboso, even though the queen Guinevere herself and the dame Quintañona
should present themselves before him.

While he was taken up with these vagaries, then, the time and the
hour—an unlucky one for him—arrived for the Asturian to come, who in
her smock, with bare feet and her hair gathered into a fustian coif,
with noiseless and cautious steps entered the chamber where the three
were quartered, in quest of the carrier; but scarcely had she gained
the door when Don Quixote perceived her, and sitting up in his bed in
spite of his plasters and the pain of his ribs, he stretched out his
arms to receive his beauteous damsel. The Asturian, who went all
doubled up and in silence with her hands before her feeling for her
lover, encountered the arms of Don Quixote, who grasped her tightly by
the wrist, and drawing her towards him, while she dared not utter a
word, made her sit down on the bed. He then felt her smock, and
although it was of sackcloth it appeared to him to be of the finest and
softest silk: on her wrists she wore some glass beads, but to him they
had the sheen of precious Orient pearls: her hair, which in some
measure resembled a horse’s mane, he rated as threads of the brightest
gold of Araby, whose refulgence dimmed the sun himself: her breath,
which no doubt smelt of yesterday’s stale salad, seemed to him to
diffuse a sweet aromatic fragrance from her mouth; and, in short, he
drew her portrait in his imagination with the same features and in the
same style as that which he had seen in his books of the other
princesses who, smitten by love, came with all the adornments that are
here set down, to see the sorely wounded knight; and so great was the
poor gentleman’s blindness that neither touch, nor smell, nor anything
else about the good lass that would have made any but a carrier vomit,
were enough to undeceive him; on the contrary, he was persuaded he had
the goddess of beauty in his arms, and holding her firmly in his grasp
he went on to say in low, tender voice:

“Would that I found myself, lovely and exalted lady, in a position to
repay such a favour as that which you, by the sight of your great
beauty, have granted me; but fortune, which is never weary of
persecuting the good, has chosen to place me upon this bed, where I lie
so bruised and broken that though my inclination would gladly comply
with yours it is impossible; besides, to this impossibility another yet
greater is to be added, which is the faith that I have pledged to the
peerless Dulcinea del Toboso, sole lady of my most secret thoughts; and
were it not that this stood in the way I should not be so insensible a
knight as to miss the happy opportunity which your great goodness has
offered me.”

Maritornes was fretting and sweating at finding herself held so fast by
Don Quixote, and not understanding or heeding the words he addressed to
her, she strove without speaking to free herself. The worthy carrier,
whose unholy thoughts kept him awake, was aware of his doxy the moment
she entered the door, and was listening attentively to all Don Quixote
said; and jealous that the Asturian should have broken her word with
him for another, drew nearer to Don Quixote’s bed and stood still to
see what would come of this talk which he could not understand; but
when he perceived the wench struggling to get free and Don Quixote
striving to hold her, not relishing the joke he raised his arm and
delivered such a terrible cuff on the lank jaws of the amorous knight
that he bathed all his mouth in blood, and not content with this he
mounted on his ribs and with his feet tramped all over them at a pace
rather smarter than a trot. The bed which was somewhat crazy and not
very firm on its feet, unable to support the additional weight of the
carrier, came to the ground, and at the mighty crash of this the
innkeeper awoke and at once concluded that it must be some brawl of
Maritornes’, because after calling loudly to her he got no answer. With
this suspicion he got up, and lighting a lamp hastened to the quarter
where he had heard the disturbance. The wench, seeing that her master
was coming and knowing that his temper was terrible, frightened and
panic-stricken made for the bed of Sancho Panza, who still slept, and
crouching upon it made a ball of herself.

The innkeeper came in exclaiming, “Where art thou, strumpet? Of course
this is some of thy work.” At this Sancho awoke, and feeling this mass
almost on top of him fancied he had the nightmare and began to
distribute fisticuffs all round, of which a certain share fell upon
Maritornes, who, irritated by the pain and flinging modesty aside, paid
back so many in return to Sancho that she woke him up in spite of
himself. He then, finding himself so handled, by whom he knew not,
raising himself up as well as he could, grappled with Maritornes, and
he and she between them began the bitterest and drollest scrimmage in
the world. The carrier, however, perceiving by the light of the
innkeeper candle how it fared with his ladylove, quitting Don Quixote,
ran to bring her the help she needed; and the innkeeper did the same
but with a different intention, for his was to chastise the lass, as he
believed that beyond a doubt she alone was the cause of all the
harmony. And so, as the saying is, cat to rat, rat to rope, rope to
stick, the carrier pounded Sancho, Sancho the lass, she him, and the
innkeeper her, and all worked away so briskly that they did not give
themselves a moment’s rest; and the best of it was that the innkeeper’s
lamp went out, and as they were left in the dark they all laid on one
upon the other in a mass so unmercifully that there was not a sound
spot left where a hand could light.

It so happened that there was lodging that night in the inn a
caudrillero of what they call the Old Holy Brotherhood of Toledo, who,
also hearing the extraordinary noise of the conflict, seized his staff
and the tin case with his warrants, and made his way in the dark into
the room crying: “Hold! in the name of the Jurisdiction! Hold! in the
name of the Holy Brotherhood!”

The first that he came upon was the pummelled Don Quixote, who lay
stretched senseless on his back upon his broken-down bed, and, his hand
falling on the beard as he felt about, he continued to cry, “Help for
the Jurisdiction!” but perceiving that he whom he had laid hold of did
not move or stir, he concluded that he was dead and that those in the
room were his murderers, and with this suspicion he raised his voice
still higher, calling out, “Shut the inn gate; see that no one goes
out; they have killed a man here!” This cry startled them all, and each
dropped the contest at the point at which the voice reached him. The
innkeeper retreated to his room, the carrier to his pack-saddles, the
lass to her crib; the unlucky Don Quixote and Sancho alone were unable
to move from where they were. The cuadrillero on this let go Don
Quixote’s beard, and went out to look for a light to search for and
apprehend the culprits; but not finding one, as the innkeeper had
purposely extinguished the lantern on retreating to his room, he was
compelled to have recourse to the hearth, where after much time and
trouble he lit another lamp.

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CHAPTER XVII.
IN WHICH ARE CONTAINED THE INNUMERABLE TROUBLES WHICH THE BRAVE DON
QUIXOTE AND HIS GOOD SQUIRE SANCHO PANZA ENDURED IN THE INN, WHICH TO
HIS MISFORTUNE HE TOOK TO BE A CASTLE

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By this time Don Quixote had recovered from his swoon; and in the same
tone of voice in which he had called to his squire the day before when
he lay stretched “in the vale of the stakes,” he began calling to him
now, “Sancho, my friend, art thou asleep? sleepest thou, friend
Sancho?”

“How can I sleep, curses on it!” returned Sancho discontentedly and
bitterly, “when it is plain that all the devils have been at me this
night?”

“Thou mayest well believe that,” answered Don Quixote, “because, either
I know little, or this castle is enchanted, for thou must know—but this
that I am now about to tell thee thou must swear to keep secret until
after my death.”

“I swear it,” answered Sancho.

“I say so,” continued Don Quixote, “because I hate taking away anyone’s
good name.”

“I say,” replied Sancho, “that I swear to hold my tongue about it till
the end of your worship’s days, and God grant I may be able to let it
out to-morrow.”

“Do I do thee such injuries, Sancho,” said Don Quixote, “that thou
wouldst see me dead so soon?”

“It is not for that,” replied Sancho, “but because I hate keeping
things long, and I don’t want them to grow rotten with me from
over-keeping.”

“At any rate,” said Don Quixote, “I have more confidence in thy
affection and good nature; and so I would have thee know that this
night there befell me one of the strangest adventures that I could
describe, and to relate it to thee briefly thou must know that a little
while ago the daughter of the lord of this castle came to me, and that
she is the most elegant and beautiful damsel that could be found in the
wide world. What I could tell thee of the charms of her person! of her
lively wit! of other secret matters which, to preserve the fealty I owe
to my lady Dulcinea del Toboso, I shall pass over unnoticed and in
silence! I will only tell thee that, either fate being envious of so
great a boon placed in my hands by good fortune, or perhaps (and this
is more probable) this castle being, as I have already said, enchanted,
at the time when I was engaged in the sweetest and most amorous
discourse with her, there came, without my seeing or knowing whence it
came, a hand attached to some arm of some huge giant, that planted such
a cuff on my jaws that I have them all bathed in blood, and then
pummelled me in such a way that I am in a worse plight than yesterday
when the carriers, on account of Rocinante’s misbehaviour, inflicted on
us the injury thou knowest of; whence conjecture that there must be
some enchanted Moor guarding the treasure of this damsel’s beauty, and
that it is not for me.”

“Not for me either,” said Sancho, “for more than four hundred Moors
have so thrashed me that the drubbing of the stakes was cakes and
fancy-bread to it. But tell me, señor, what do you call this excellent
and rare adventure that has left us as we are left now? Though your
worship was not so badly off, having in your arms that incomparable
beauty you spoke of; but I, what did I have, except the heaviest whacks
I think I had in all my life? Unlucky me and the mother that bore me!
for I am not a knight-errant and never expect to be one, and of all the
mishaps, the greater part falls to my share.”

“Then thou hast been thrashed too?” said Don Quixote.

“Didn’t I say so? worse luck to my line!” said Sancho.

“Be not distressed, friend,” said Don Quixote, “for I will now make the
precious balsam with which we shall cure ourselves in the twinkling of
an eye.”

By this time the cuadrillero had succeeded in lighting the lamp, and
came in to see the man that he thought had been killed; and as Sancho
caught sight of him at the door, seeing him coming in his shirt, with a
cloth on his head, and a lamp in his hand, and a very forbidding
countenance, he said to his master, “Señor, can it be that this is the
enchanted Moor coming back to give us more castigation if there be
anything still left in the ink-bottle?”

“It cannot be the Moor,” answered Don Quixote, “for those under
enchantment do not let themselves be seen by anyone.”

“If they don’t let themselves be seen, they let themselves be felt,”
said Sancho; “if not, let my shoulders speak to the point.”

“Mine could speak too,” said Don Quixote, “but that is not a sufficient
reason for believing that what we see is the enchanted Moor.”

The officer came up, and finding them engaged in such a peaceful
conversation, stood amazed; though Don Quixote, to be sure, still lay
on his back unable to move from pure pummelling and plasters. The
officer turned to him and said, “Well, how goes it, good man?”

“I would speak more politely if I were you,” replied Don Quixote; “is
it the way of this country to address knights-errant in that style, you
booby?”

The cuadrillero finding himself so disrespectfully treated by such a
sorry-looking individual, lost his temper, and raising the lamp full of
oil, smote Don Quixote such a blow with it on the head that he gave him
a badly broken pate; then, all being in darkness, he went out, and
Sancho Panza said, “That is certainly the enchanted Moor, Señor, and he
keeps the treasure for others, and for us only the cuffs and
lamp-whacks.”

“That is the truth,” answered Don Quixote, “and there is no use in
troubling oneself about these matters of enchantment or being angry or
vexed at them, for as they are invisible and visionary we shall find no
one on whom to avenge ourselves, do what we may; rise, Sancho, if thou
canst, and call the alcaide of this fortress, and get him to give me a
little oil, wine, salt, and rosemary to make the salutiferous balsam,
for indeed I believe I have great need of it now, because I am losing
much blood from the wound that phantom gave me.”

Sancho got up with pain enough in his bones, and went after the
innkeeper in the dark, and meeting the officer, who was looking to see
what had become of his enemy, he said to him, “Señor, whoever you are,
do us the favour and kindness to give us a little rosemary, oil, salt,
and wine, for it is wanted to cure one of the best knights-errant on
earth, who lies on yonder bed wounded by the hands of the enchanted
Moor that is in this inn.”

When the officer heard him talk in this way, he took him for a man out
of his senses, and as day was now beginning to break, he opened the inn
gate, and calling the host, he told him what this good man wanted. The
host furnished him with what he required, and Sancho brought it to Don
Quixote, who, with his hand to his head, was bewailing the pain of the
blow of the lamp, which had done him no more harm than raising a couple
of rather large lumps, and what he fancied blood was only the sweat
that flowed from him in his sufferings during the late storm. To be
brief, he took the materials, of which he made a compound, mixing them
all and boiling them a good while until it seemed to him they had come
to perfection. He then asked for some vial to pour it into, and as
there was not one in the inn, he decided on putting it into a tin
oil-bottle or flask of which the host made him a free gift; and over
the flask he repeated more than eighty paternosters and as many more
ave-marias, salves, and credos, accompanying each word with a cross by
way of benediction, at all which there were present Sancho, the
innkeeper, and the cuadrillero; for the carrier was now peacefully
engaged in attending to the comfort of his mules.

This being accomplished, he felt anxious to make trial himself, on the
spot, of the virtue of this precious balsam, as he considered it, and
so he drank near a quart of what could not be put into the flask and
remained in the pigskin in which it had been boiled; but scarcely had
he done drinking when he began to vomit in such a way that nothing was
left in his stomach, and with the pangs and spasms of vomiting he broke
into a profuse sweat, on account of which he bade them cover him up and
leave him alone. They did so, and he lay sleeping more than three
hours, at the end of which he awoke and felt very great bodily relief
and so much ease from his bruises that he thought himself quite cured,
and verily believed he had hit upon the balsam of Fierabras; and that
with this remedy he might thenceforward, without any fear, face any
kind of destruction, battle, or combat, however perilous it might be.

Sancho Panza, who also regarded the amendment of his master as
miraculous, begged him to give him what was left in the pigskin, which
was no small quantity. Don Quixote consented, and he, taking it with
both hands, in good faith and with a better will, gulped down and
drained off very little less than his master. But the fact is, that the
stomach of poor Sancho was of necessity not so delicate as that of his
master, and so, before vomiting, he was seized with such gripings and
retchings, and such sweats and faintness, that verily and truly he
believed his last hour had come, and finding himself so racked and
tormented he cursed the balsam and the thief that had given it to him.

Don Quixote seeing him in this state said, “It is my belief, Sancho,
that this mischief comes of thy not being dubbed a knight, for I am
persuaded this liquor cannot be good for those who are not so.”

“If your worship knew that,” returned Sancho—“woe betide me and all my
kindred!—why did you let me taste it?”

At this moment the draught took effect, and the poor squire began to
discharge both ways at such a rate that the rush mat on which he had
thrown himself and the canvas blanket he had covering him were fit for
nothing afterwards. He sweated and perspired with such paroxysms and
convulsions that not only he himself but all present thought his end
had come. This tempest and tribulation lasted about two hours, at the
end of which he was left, not like his master, but so weak and
exhausted that he could not stand. Don Quixote, however, who, as has
been said, felt himself relieved and well, was eager to take his
departure at once in quest of adventures, as it seemed to him that all
the time he loitered there was a fraud upon the world and those in it
who stood in need of his help and protection, all the more when he had
the security and confidence his balsam afforded him; and so, urged by
this impulse, he saddled Rocinante himself and put the pack-saddle on
his squire’s beast, whom likewise he helped to dress and mount the ass;
after which he mounted his horse and turning to a corner of the inn he
laid hold of a pike that stood there, to serve him by way of a lance.
All that were in the inn, who were more than twenty persons, stood
watching him; the innkeeper’s daughter was likewise observing him, and
he too never took his eyes off her, and from time to time fetched a
sigh that he seemed to pluck up from the depths of his bowels; but they
all thought it must be from the pain he felt in his ribs; at any rate
they who had seen him plastered the night before thought so.

As soon as they were both mounted, at the gate of the inn, he called to
the host and said in a very grave and measured voice, “Many and great
are the favours, Señor Alcaide, that I have received in this castle of
yours, and I remain under the deepest obligation to be grateful to you
for them all the days of my life; if I can repay them in avenging you
of any arrogant foe who may have wronged you, know that my calling is
no other than to aid the weak, to avenge those who suffer wrong, and to
chastise perfidy. Search your memory, and if you find anything of this
kind you need only tell me of it, and I promise you by the order of
knighthood which I have received to procure you satisfaction and
reparation to the utmost of your desire.”

The innkeeper replied to him with equal calmness, “Sir Knight, I do not
want your worship to avenge me of any wrong, because when any is done
me I can take what vengeance seems good to me; the only thing I want is
that you pay me the score that you have run up in the inn last night,
as well for the straw and barley for your two beasts, as for supper and
beds.”

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“Then this is an inn?” said Don Quixote.

“And a very respectable one,” said the innkeeper.

“I have been under a mistake all this time,” answered Don Quixote, “for
in truth I thought it was a castle, and not a bad one; but since it
appears that it is not a castle but an inn, all that can be done now is
that you should excuse the payment, for I cannot contravene the rule of
knights-errant, of whom I know as a fact (and up to the present I have
read nothing to the contrary) that they never paid for lodging or
anything else in the inn where they might be; for any hospitality that
might be offered them is their due by law and right in return for the
insufferable toil they endure in seeking adventures by night and by
day, in summer and in winter, on foot and on horseback, in hunger and
thirst, cold and heat, exposed to all the inclemencies of heaven and
all the hardships of earth.”

“I have little to do with that,” replied the innkeeper; “pay me what
you owe me, and let us have no more talk of chivalry, for all I care
about is to get my money.”

“You are a stupid, scurvy innkeeper,” said Don Quixote, and putting
spurs to Rocinante and bringing his pike to the slope he rode out of
the inn before anyone could stop him, and pushed on some distance
without looking to see if his squire was following him.

The innkeeper when he saw him go without paying him ran to get payment
of Sancho, who said that as his master would not pay neither would he,
because, being as he was squire to a knight-errant, the same rule and
reason held good for him as for his master with regard to not paying
anything in inns and hostelries. At this the innkeeper waxed very
wroth, and threatened if he did not pay to compel him in a way that he
would not like. To which Sancho made answer that by the law of chivalry
his master had received he would not pay a rap, though it cost him his
life; for the excellent and ancient usage of knights-errant was not
going to be violated by him, nor should the squires of such as were yet
to come into the world ever complain of him or reproach him with
breaking so just a privilege.

The ill-luck of the unfortunate Sancho so ordered it that among the
company in the inn there were four woolcarders from Segovia, three
needle-makers from the Colt of Cordova, and two lodgers from the Fair
of Seville, lively fellows, tender-hearted, fond of a joke, and
playful, who, almost as if instigated and moved by a common impulse,
made up to Sancho and dismounted him from his ass, while one of them
went in for the blanket of the host’s bed; but on flinging him into it
they looked up, and seeing that the ceiling was somewhat lower than
what they required for their work, they decided upon going out into the
yard, which was bounded by the sky, and there, putting Sancho in the
middle of the blanket, they began to raise him high, making sport with
him as they would with a dog at Shrovetide.

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Full Size

The cries of the poor blanketed wretch were so loud that they reached
the ears of his master, who, halting to listen attentively, was
persuaded that some new adventure was coming, until he clearly
perceived that it was his squire who uttered them. Wheeling about he
came up to the inn with a laborious gallop, and finding it shut went
round it to see if he could find some way of getting in; but as soon as
he came to the wall of the yard, which was not very high, he discovered
the game that was being played with his squire. He saw him rising and
falling in the air with such grace and nimbleness that, had his rage
allowed him, it is my belief he would have laughed. He tried to climb
from his horse on to the top of the wall, but he was so bruised and
battered that he could not even dismount; and so from the back of his
horse he began to utter such maledictions and objurgations against
those who were blanketing Sancho as it would be impossible to write
down accurately: they, however, did not stay their laughter or their
work for this, nor did the flying Sancho cease his lamentations,
mingled now with threats, now with entreaties but all to little
purpose, or none at all, until from pure weariness they left off. They
then brought him his ass, and mounting him on top of it they put his
jacket round him; and the compassionate Maritornes, seeing him so
exhausted, thought fit to refresh him with a jug of water, and that it
might be all the cooler she fetched it from the well. Sancho took it,
and as he was raising it to his mouth he was stopped by the cries of
his master exclaiming, “Sancho, my son, drink not water; drink it not,
my son, for it will kill thee; see, here I have the blessed balsam (and
he held up the flask of liquor), and with drinking two drops of it thou
wilt certainly be restored.”

At these words Sancho turned his eyes asquint, and in a still louder
voice said, “Can it be your worship has forgotten that I am not a
knight, or do you want me to end by vomiting up what bowels I have left
after last night? Keep your liquor in the name of all the devils, and
leave me to myself!” and at one and the same instant he left off
talking and began drinking; but as at the first sup he perceived it was
water he did not care to go on with it, and begged Maritornes to fetch
him some wine, which she did with right good will, and paid for it with
her own money; for indeed they say of her that, though she was in that
line of life, there was some faint and distant resemblance to a
Christian about her. When Sancho had done drinking he dug his heels
into his ass, and the gate of the inn being thrown open he passed out
very well pleased at having paid nothing and carried his point, though
it had been at the expense of his usual sureties, his shoulders. It is
true that the innkeeper detained his alforjas in payment of what was
owing to him, but Sancho took his departure in such a flurry that he
never missed them. The innkeeper, as soon as he saw him off, wanted to
bar the gate close, but the blanketers would not agree to it, for they
were fellows who would not have cared two farthings for Don Quixote,
even had he been really one of the knights-errant of the Round Table.

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