CHAPTER LXXII.

OF HOW DON QUIXOTE AND SANCHO REACHED THEIR VILLAGE


All that day Don Quixote and Sancho remained in the village and inn
waiting for night, the one to finish off his task of scourging in the
open country, the other to see it accomplished, for therein lay the
accomplishment of his wishes. Meanwhile there arrived at the hostelry a
traveller on horseback with three or four servants, one of whom said to
him who appeared to be the master, "Here, Senor Don Alvaro Tarfe, your
worship may take your siesta to-day; the quarters seem clean and cool."

When he heard this Don Quixote said to Sancho, "Look here, Sancho; on
turning over the leaves of that book of the Second Part of my history I
think I came casually upon this name of Don Alvaro Tarfe."

"Very likely," said Sancho; "we had better let him dismount, and
by-and-by we can ask about it."

The gentleman dismounted, and the landlady gave him a room on the ground
floor opposite Don Quixote's and adorned with painted serge hangings of
the same sort. The newly arrived gentleman put on a summer coat, and
coming out to the gateway of the hostelry, which was wide and cool,
addressing Don Quixote, who was pacing up and down there, he asked, "In
what direction your worship bound, gentle sir?"

"To a village near this which is my own village," replied Don Quixote;
"and your worship, where are you bound for?"

"I am going to Granada, senor," said the gentleman, "to my own country."

"And a goodly country," said Don Quixote; "but will your worship do me
the favour of telling me your name, for it strikes me it is of more
importance to me to know it than I can tell you."

"My name is Don Alvaro Tarfe," replied the traveller.

To which Don Quixote returned, "I have no doubt whatever that your
worship is that Don Alvaro Tarfe who appears in print in the Second Part
of the history of Don Quixote of La Mancha, lately printed and published
by a new author."

"I am the same," replied the gentleman; "and that same Don Quixote, the
principal personage in the said history, was a very great friend of mine,
and it was I who took him away from home, or at least induced him to come
to some jousts that were to be held at Saragossa, whither I was going
myself; indeed, I showed him many kindnesses, and saved him from having
his shoulders touched up by the executioner because of his extreme
rashness."

"Tell me, Senor Don Alvaro," said Don Quixote, "am I at all like that Don
Quixote you talk of?"

"No indeed," replied the traveller, "not a bit."

"And that Don Quixote-" said our one, "had he with him a squire called
Sancho Panza?"

"He had," said Don Alvaro; "but though he had the name of being very
droll, I never heard him say anything that had any drollery in it."

"That I can well believe," said Sancho at this, "for to come out with
drolleries is not in everybody's line; and that Sancho your worship
speaks of, gentle sir, must be some great scoundrel, dunderhead, and
thief, all in one; for I am the real Sancho Panza, and I have more
drolleries than if it rained them; let your worship only try; come along
with me for a year or so, and you will find they fall from me at every
turn, and so rich and so plentiful that though mostly I don't know what I
am saying I make everybody that hears me laugh. And the real Don Quixote
of La Mancha, the famous, the valiant, the wise, the lover, the righter
of wrongs, the guardian of minors and orphans, the protector of widows,
the killer of damsels, he who has for his sole mistress the peerless
Dulcinea del Toboso, is this gentleman before you, my master; all other
Don Quixotes and all other Sancho Panzas are dreams and mockeries."

"By God I believe it," said Don Alvaro; "for you have uttered more
drolleries, my friend, in the few words you have spoken than the other
Sancho Panza in all I ever heard from him, and they were not a few. He
was more greedy than well-spoken, and more dull than droll; and I am
convinced that the enchanters who persecute Don Quixote the Good have
been trying to persecute me with Don Quixote the Bad. But I don't know
what to say, for I am ready to swear I left him shut up in the Casa del
Nuncio at Toledo, and here another Don Quixote turns up, though a very
different one from mine."

"I don't know whether I am good," said Don Quixote, "but I can safely say
I am not 'the Bad;' and to prove it, let me tell you, Senor Don Alvaro
Tarfe, I have never in my life been in Saragossa; so far from that, when
it was told me that this imaginary Don Quixote had been present at the
jousts in that city, I declined to enter it, in order to drag his
falsehood before the face of the world; and so I went on straight to
Barcelona, the treasure-house of courtesy, haven of strangers, asylum of
the poor, home of the valiant, champion of the wronged, pleasant exchange
of firm friendships, and city unrivalled in site and beauty. And though
the adventures that befell me there are not by any means matters of
enjoyment, but rather of regret, I do not regret them, simply because I
have seen it. In a word, Senor Don Alvaro Tarfe, I am Don Quixote of La
Mancha, the one that fame speaks of, and not the unlucky one that has
attempted to usurp my name and deck himself out in my ideas. I entreat
your worship by your devoir as a gentleman to be so good as to make a
declaration before the alcalde of this village that you never in all your
life saw me until now, and that neither am I the Don Quixote in print in
the Second Part, nor this Sancho Panza, my squire, the one your worship
knew."

"That I will do most willingly," replied Don Alvaro; "though it amazes me
to find two Don Quixotes and two Sancho Panzas at once, as much alike in
name as they differ in demeanour; and again I say and declare that what I
saw I cannot have seen, and that what happened me cannot have happened."

"No doubt your worship is enchanted, like my lady Dulcinea del Toboso,"
said Sancho; "and would to heaven your disenchantment rested on my giving
myself another three thousand and odd lashes like what I'm giving myself
for her, for I'd lay them on without looking for anything."

"I don't understand that about the lashes," said Don Alvaro. Sancho
replied that it was a long story to tell, but he would tell him if they
happened to be going the same road.

By this dinner-time arrived, and Don Quixote and Don Alvaro dined
together. The alcalde of the village came by chance into the inn together
with a notary, and Don Quixote laid a petition before him, showing that
it was requisite for his rights that Don Alvaro Tarfe, the gentleman
there present, should make a declaration before him that he did not know
Don Quixote of La Mancha, also there present, and that he was not the one
that was in print in a history entitled "Second Part of Don Quixote of La
Mancha, by one Avellaneda of Tordesillas." The alcalde finally put it in
legal form, and the declaration was made with all the formalities
required in such cases, at which Don Quixote and Sancho were in high
delight, as if a declaration of the sort was of any great importance to
them, and as if their words and deeds did not plainly show the difference
between the two Don Quixotes and the two Sanchos. Many civilities and
offers of service were exchanged by Don Alvaro and Don Quixote, in the
course of which the great Manchegan displayed such good taste that he
disabused Don Alvaro of the error he was under; and he, on his part, felt
convinced he must have been enchanted, now that he had been brought in
contact with two such opposite Don Quixotes.

Evening came, they set out from the village, and after about half a
league two roads branched off, one leading to Don Quixote's village, the
other the road Don Alvaro was to follow. In this short interval Don
Quixote told him of his unfortunate defeat, and of Dulcinea's enchantment
and the remedy, all which threw Don Alvaro into fresh amazement, and
embracing Don Quixote and Sancho he went his way, and Don Quixote went
his. That night he passed among trees again in order to give Sancho an
opportunity of working out his penance, which he did in the same fashion
as the night before, at the expense of the bark of the beech trees much
more than of his back, of which he took such good care that the lashes
would not have knocked off a fly had there been one there. The duped Don
Quixote did not miss a single stroke of the count, and he found that
together with those of the night before they made up three thousand and
twenty-nine. The sun apparently had got up early to witness the
sacrifice, and with his light they resumed their journey, discussing the
deception practised on Don Alvaro, and saying how well done it was to
have taken his declaration before a magistrate in such an unimpeachable
form. That day and night they travelled on, nor did anything worth
mention happen them, unless it was that in the course of the night Sancho
finished off his task, whereat Don Quixote was beyond measure joyful. He
watched for daylight, to see if along the road he should fall in with his
already disenchanted lady Dulcinea; and as he pursued his journey there
was no woman he met that he did not go up to, to see if she was Dulcinea
del Toboso, as he held it absolutely certain that Merlin's promises could
not lie. Full of these thoughts and anxieties, they ascended a rising
ground wherefrom they descried their own village, at the sight of which
Sancho fell on his knees exclaiming, "Open thine eyes, longed-for home,
and see how thy son Sancho Panza comes back to thee, if not very rich,
very well whipped! Open thine arms and receive, too, thy son Don Quixote,
who, if he comes vanquished by the arm of another, comes victor over
himself, which, as he himself has told me, is the greatest victory anyone
can desire. I'm bringing back money, for if I was well whipped, I went
mounted like a gentleman."

"Have done with these fooleries," said Don Quixote; "let us push on
straight and get to our own place, where we will give free range to our
fancies, and settle our plans for our future pastoral life."

With this they descended the slope and directed their steps to their
village.