CHAPTER XXIV.

IN WHICH IS CONTINUED THE ADVENTURE OF THE SIERRA MORENA


The history relates that it was with the greatest attention Don Quixote
listened to the ragged knight of the Sierra, who began by saying:

"Of a surety, senor, whoever you are, for I know you not, I thank you for
the proofs of kindness and courtesy you have shown me, and would I were
in a condition to requite with something more than good-will that which
you have displayed towards me in the cordial reception you have given me;
but my fate does not afford me any other means of returning kindnesses
done me save the hearty desire to repay them."

"Mine," replied Don Quixote, "is to be of service to you, so much so that
I had resolved not to quit these mountains until I had found you, and
learned of you whether there is any kind of relief to be found for that
sorrow under which from the strangeness of your life you seem to labour;
and to search for you with all possible diligence, if search had been
necessary. And if your misfortune should prove to be one of those that
refuse admission to any sort of consolation, it was my purpose to join
you in lamenting and mourning over it, so far as I could; for it is still
some comfort in misfortune to find one who can feel for it. And if my
good intentions deserve to be acknowledged with any kind of courtesy, I
entreat you, senor, by that which I perceive you possess in so high a
degree, and likewise conjure you by whatever you love or have loved best
in life, to tell me who you are and the cause that has brought you to
live or die in these solitudes like a brute beast, dwelling among them in
a manner so foreign to your condition as your garb and appearance show.
And I swear," added Don Quixote, "by the order of knighthood which I have
received, and by my vocation of knight-errant, if you gratify me in this,
to serve you with all the zeal my calling demands of me, either in
relieving your misfortune if it admits of relief, or in joining you in
lamenting it as I promised to do."

The Knight of the Thicket, hearing him of the Rueful Countenance talk in
this strain, did nothing but stare at him, and stare at him again, and
again survey him from head to foot; and when he had thoroughly examined
him, he said to him:

"If you have anything to give me to eat, for God's sake give it me, and
after I have eaten I will do all you ask in acknowledgment of the
goodwill you have displayed towards me."

Sancho from his sack, and the goatherd from his pouch, furnished the
Ragged One with the means of appeasing his hunger, and what they gave him
he ate like a half-witted being, so hastily that he took no time between
mouthfuls, gorging rather than swallowing; and while he ate neither he
nor they who observed him uttered a word. As soon as he had done he made
signs to them to follow him, which they did, and he led them to a green
plot which lay a little farther off round the corner of a rock. On
reaching it he stretched himself upon the grass, and the others did the
same, all keeping silence, until the Ragged One, settling himself in his
place, said:

"If it is your wish, sirs, that I should disclose in a few words the
surpassing extent of my misfortunes, you must promise not to break the
thread of my sad story with any question or other interruption, for the
instant you do so the tale I tell will come to an end."

These words of the Ragged One reminded Don Quixote of the tale his squire
had told him, when he failed to keep count of the goats that had crossed
the river and the story remained unfinished; but to return to the Ragged
One, he went on to say:

"I give you this warning because I wish to pass briefly over the story of
my misfortunes, for recalling them to memory only serves to add fresh
ones, and the less you question me the sooner shall I make an end of the
recital, though I shall not omit to relate anything of importance in
order fully to satisfy your curiosity."

Don Quixote gave the promise for himself and the others, and with this
assurance he began as follows:

"My name is Cardenio, my birthplace one of the best cities of this
Andalusia, my family noble, my parents rich, my misfortune so great that
my parents must have wept and my family grieved over it without being
able by their wealth to lighten it; for the gifts of fortune can do
little to relieve reverses sent by Heaven. In that same country there was
a heaven in which love had placed all the glory I could desire; such was
the beauty of Luscinda, a damsel as noble and as rich as I, but of
happier fortunes, and of less firmness than was due to so worthy a
passion as mine. This Luscinda I loved, worshipped, and adored from my
earliest and tenderest years, and she loved me in all the innocence and
sincerity of childhood. Our parents were aware of our feelings, and were
not sorry to perceive them, for they saw clearly that as they ripened
they must lead at last to a marriage between us, a thing that seemed
almost prearranged by the equality of our families and wealth. We grew
up, and with our growth grew the love between us, so that the father of
Luscinda felt bound for propriety's sake to refuse me admission to his
house, in this perhaps imitating the parents of that Thisbe so celebrated
by the poets, and this refusal but added love to love and flame to flame;
for though they enforced silence upon our tongues they could not impose
it upon our pens, which can make known the heart's secrets to a loved one
more freely than tongues; for many a time the presence of the object of
love shakes the firmest will and strikes dumb the boldest tongue. Ah
heavens! how many letters did I write her, and how many dainty modest
replies did I receive! how many ditties and love-songs did I compose in
which my heart declared and made known its feelings, described its ardent
longings, revelled in its recollections and dallied with its desires! At
length growing impatient and feeling my heart languishing with longing to
see her, I resolved to put into execution and carry out what seemed to me
the best mode of winning my desired and merited reward, to ask her of her
father for my lawful wife, which I did. To this his answer was that he
thanked me for the disposition I showed to do honour to him and to regard
myself as honoured by the bestowal of his treasure; but that as my father
was alive it was his by right to make this demand, for if it were not in
accordance with his full will and pleasure, Luscinda was not to be taken
or given by stealth. I thanked him for his kindness, reflecting that
there was reason in what he said, and that my father would assent to it
as soon as I should tell him, and with that view I went the very same
instant to let him know what my desires were. When I entered the room
where he was I found him with an open letter in his hand, which, before I
could utter a word, he gave me, saying, 'By this letter thou wilt see,
Cardenio, the disposition the Duke Ricardo has to serve thee.' This Duke
Ricardo, as you, sirs, probably know already, is a grandee of Spain who
has his seat in the best part of this Andalusia. I took and read the
letter, which was couched in terms so flattering that even I myself felt
it would be wrong in my father not to comply with the request the duke
made in it, which was that he would send me immediately to him, as he
wished me to become the companion, not servant, of his eldest son, and
would take upon himself the charge of placing me in a position
corresponding to the esteem in which he held me. On reading the letter my
voice failed me, and still more when I heard my father say, 'Two days
hence thou wilt depart, Cardenio, in accordance with the duke's wish, and
give thanks to God who is opening a road to thee by which thou mayest
attain what I know thou dost deserve; and to these words he added others
of fatherly counsel. The time for my departure arrived; I spoke one night
to Luscinda, I told her all that had occurred, as I did also to her
father, entreating him to allow some delay, and to defer the disposal of
her hand until I should see what the Duke Ricardo sought of me: he gave
me the promise, and she confirmed it with vows and swoonings unnumbered.
Finally, I presented myself to the duke, and was received and treated by
him so kindly that very soon envy began to do its work, the old servants
growing envious of me, and regarding the duke's inclination to show me
favour as an injury to themselves. But the one to whom my arrival gave
the greatest pleasure was the duke's second son, Fernando by name, a
gallant youth, of noble, generous, and amorous disposition, who very soon
made so intimate a friend of me that it was remarked by everybody; for
though the elder was attached to me, and showed me kindness, he did not
carry his affectionate treatment to the same length as Don Fernando. It
so happened, then, that as between friends no secret remains unshared,
and as the favour I enjoyed with Don Fernando had grown into friendship,
he made all his thoughts known to me, and in particular a love affair
which troubled his mind a little. He was deeply in love with a peasant
girl, a vassal of his father's, the daughter of wealthy parents, and
herself so beautiful, modest, discreet, and virtuous, that no one who
knew her was able to decide in which of these respects she was most
highly gifted or most excelled. The attractions of the fair peasant
raised the passion of Don Fernando to such a point that, in order to gain
his object and overcome her virtuous resolutions, he determined to pledge
his word to her to become her husband, for to attempt it in any other way
was to attempt an impossibility. Bound to him as I was by friendship, I
strove by the best arguments and the most forcible examples I could think
of to restrain and dissuade him from such a course; but perceiving I
produced no effect I resolved to make the Duke Ricardo, his father,
acquainted with the matter; but Don Fernando, being sharp-witted and
shrewd, foresaw and apprehended this, perceiving that by my duty as a
good servant I was bound not to keep concealed a thing so much opposed to
the honour of my lord the duke; and so, to mislead and deceive me, he
told me he could find no better way of effacing from his mind the beauty
that so enslaved him than by absenting himself for some months, and that
he wished the absence to be effected by our going, both of us, to my
father's house under the pretence, which he would make to the duke, of
going to see and buy some fine horses that there were in my city, which
produces the best in the world. When I heard him say so, even if his
resolution had not been so good a one I should have hailed it as one of
the happiest that could be imagined, prompted by my affection, seeing
what a favourable chance and opportunity it offered me of returning to
see my Luscinda. With this thought and wish I commended his idea and
encouraged his design, advising him to put it into execution as quickly
as possible, as, in truth, absence produced its effect in spite of the
most deeply rooted feelings. But, as afterwards appeared, when he said
this to me he had already enjoyed the peasant girl under the title of
husband, and was waiting for an opportunity of making it known with
safety to himself, being in dread of what his father the duke would do
when he came to know of his folly. It happened, then, that as with young
men love is for the most part nothing more than appetite, which, as its
final object is enjoyment, comes to an end on obtaining it, and that
which seemed to be love takes to flight, as it cannot pass the limit
fixed by nature, which fixes no limit to true love--what I mean is that
after Don Fernando had enjoyed this peasant girl his passion subsided and
his eagerness cooled, and if at first he feigned a wish to absent himself
in order to cure his love, he was now in reality anxious to go to avoid
keeping his promise.

"The duke gave him permission, and ordered me to accompany him; we
arrived at my city, and my father gave him the reception due to his rank;
I saw Luscinda without delay, and, though it had not been dead or
deadened, my love gathered fresh life. To my sorrow I told the story of
it to Don Fernando, for I thought that in virtue of the great friendship
he bore me I was bound to conceal nothing from him. I extolled her
beauty, her gaiety, her wit, so warmly, that my praises excited in him a
desire to see a damsel adorned by such attractions. To my misfortune I
yielded to it, showing her to him one night by the light of a taper at a
window where we used to talk to one another. As she appeared to him in
her dressing-gown, she drove all the beauties he had seen until then out
of his recollection; speech failed him, his head turned, he was
spell-bound, and in the end love-smitten, as you will see in the course
of the story of my misfortune; and to inflame still further his passion,
which he hid from me and revealed to Heaven alone, it so happened that
one day he found a note of hers entreating me to demand her of her father
in marriage, so delicate, so modest, and so tender, that on reading it he
told me that in Luscinda alone were combined all the charms of beauty and
understanding that were distributed among all the other women in the
world. It is true, and I own it now, that though I knew what good cause
Don Fernando had to praise Luscinda, it gave me uneasiness to hear these
praises from his mouth, and I began to fear, and with reason to feel
distrust of him, for there was no moment when he was not ready to talk of
Luscinda, and he would start the subject himself even though he dragged
it in unseasonably, a circumstance that aroused in me a certain amount of
jealousy; not that I feared any change in the constancy or faith of
Luscinda; but still my fate led me to forebode what she assured me
against. Don Fernando contrived always to read the letters I sent to
Luscinda and her answers to me, under the pretence that he enjoyed the
wit and sense of both. It so happened, then, that Luscinda having begged
of me a book of chivalry to read, one that she was very fond of, Amadis
of Gaul-"

Don Quixote no sooner heard a book of chivalry mentioned, than he said:

"Had your worship told me at the beginning of your story that the Lady
Luscinda was fond of books of chivalry, no other laudation would have
been requisite to impress upon me the superiority of her understanding,
for it could not have been of the excellence you describe had a taste for
such delightful reading been wanting; so, as far as I am concerned, you
need waste no more words in describing her beauty, worth, and
intelligence; for, on merely hearing what her taste was, I declare her to
be the most beautiful and the most intelligent woman in the world; and I
wish your worship had, along with Amadis of Gaul, sent her the worthy Don
Rugel of Greece, for I know the Lady Luscinda would greatly relish
Daraida and Garaya, and the shrewd sayings of the shepherd Darinel, and
the admirable verses of his bucolics, sung and delivered by him with such
sprightliness, wit, and ease; but a time may come when this omission can
be remedied, and to rectify it nothing more is needed than for your
worship to be so good as to come with me to my village, for there I can
give you more than three hundred books which are the delight of my soul
and the entertainment of my life;--though it occurs to me that I have not
got one of them now, thanks to the spite of wicked and envious
enchanters;--but pardon me for having broken the promise we made not to
interrupt your discourse; for when I hear chivalry or knights-errant
mentioned, I can no more help talking about them than the rays of the sun
can help giving heat, or those of the moon moisture; pardon me,
therefore, and proceed, for that is more to the purpose now."

While Don Quixote was saying this, Cardenio allowed his head to fall upon
his breast, and seemed plunged in deep thought; and though twice Don
Quixote bade him go on with his story, he neither looked up nor uttered a
word in reply; but after some time he raised his head and said, "I cannot
get rid of the idea, nor will anyone in the world remove it, or make me
think otherwise--and he would be a blockhead who would hold or believe
anything else than that that arrant knave Master Elisabad made free with
Queen Madasima."

"That is not true, by all that's good," said Don Quixote in high wrath,
turning upon him angrily, as his way was; "and it is a very great
slander, or rather villainy. Queen Madasima was a very illustrious lady,
and it is not to be supposed that so exalted a princess would have made
free with a quack; and whoever maintains the contrary lies like a great
scoundrel, and I will give him to know it, on foot or on horseback, armed
or unarmed, by night or by day, or as he likes best."

Cardenio was looking at him steadily, and his mad fit having now come
upon him, he had no disposition to go on with his story, nor would Don
Quixote have listened to it, so much had what he had heard about Madasima
disgusted him. Strange to say, he stood up for her as if she were in
earnest his veritable born lady; to such a pass had his unholy books
brought him. Cardenio, then, being, as I said, now mad, when he heard
himself given the lie, and called a scoundrel and other insulting names,
not relishing the jest, snatched up a stone that he found near him, and
with it delivered such a blow on Don Quixote's breast that he laid him on
his back. Sancho Panza, seeing his master treated in this fashion,
attacked the madman with his closed fist; but the Ragged One received him
in such a way that with a blow of his fist he stretched him at his feet,
and then mounting upon him crushed his ribs to his own satisfaction; the
goatherd, who came to the rescue, shared the same fate; and having beaten
and pummelled them all he left them and quietly withdrew to his
hiding-place on the mountain. Sancho rose, and with the rage he felt at
finding himself so belaboured without deserving it, ran to take vengeance
on the goatherd, accusing him of not giving them warning that this man
was at times taken with a mad fit, for if they had known it they would
have been on their guard to protect themselves. The goatherd replied that
he had said so, and that if he had not heard him, that was no fault of
his. Sancho retorted, and the goatherd rejoined, and the altercation
ended in their seizing each other by the beard, and exchanging such
fisticuffs that if Don Quixote had not made peace between them, they
would have knocked one another to pieces.

"Leave me alone, Sir Knight of the Rueful Countenance," said Sancho,
grappling with the goatherd, "for of this fellow, who is a clown like
myself, and no dubbed knight, I can safely take satisfaction for the
affront he has offered me, fighting with him hand to hand like an honest
man."

"That is true," said Don Quixote, "but I know that he is not to blame for
what has happened."

With this he pacified them, and again asked the goatherd if it would be
possible to find Cardenio, as he felt the greatest anxiety to know the
end of his story. The goatherd told him, as he had told him before, that
there was no knowing of a certainty where his lair was; but that if he
wandered about much in that neighbourhood he could not fail to fall in
with him either in or out of his senses.