Don Quixote Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra (mobile ebook reader .txt) 📖

the promise I have given. Forward then, Sancho my friend, let us go to keep the year of the novitiate in our own country, and in that seclusion we shall pick up fresh strength to return to the by me never-forgotten calling of arms.”

“Señor,” returned Sancho, “travelling on foot is not such a pleasant thing that it makes me feel disposed or tempted to make long marches. Let us leave this armour hung up on some tree, instead of someone that has been hanged; and then with me on Dapple’s back and my feet off the ground we will arrange the stages as your worship pleases to measure them out; but to suppose that I am going to travel on foot, and make long ones, is to suppose nonsense.”

“Thou sayest well, Sancho,” said Don Quixote; “let my armour be hung up for a trophy, and under it or round it we will carve on the trees what was inscribed on the trophy of Roland’s armour⁠—

“These let none move
Who dareth not his might with Roland prove.”

“That’s the very thing,” said Sancho; “and if it was not that we should feel the want of Rocinante on the road, it would be as well to leave him hung up too.”

“And yet, I had rather not have either him or the armour hung up,” said Don Quixote, “that it may not be said, ‘for good service a bad return.’ ”951

“Your worship is right,” said Sancho; “for, as sensible people hold, ‘the fault of the ass must not be laid on the packsaddle;’952 and, as in this affair the fault is your worship’s, punish yourself and don’t let your anger break out against the already battered and bloody armour, or the meekness of Rocinante, or the tenderness of my feet, trying to make them travel more than is reasonable.”

In converse of this sort the whole of that day went by, as did the four succeeding ones, without anything occurring to interrupt their journey, but on the fifth as they entered a village they found a great number of people at the door of an inn enjoying themselves, as it was a holiday. Upon Don Quixote’s approach a peasant called out, “One of these two gentlemen who come here, and who don’t know the parties, will tell us what we ought to do about our wager.”

“That I will, certainly,” said Don Quixote, “and according to the rights of the case, if I can manage to understand it.”

“Well, here it is, worthy sir,” said the peasant; “a man of this village who is so fat that he weighs twenty stone challenged another, a neighbour of his, who does not weigh more than nine, to run a race. The agreement was that they were to run a distance of a hundred paces with equal weights; and when the challenger was asked how the weights were to be equalised he said that the other, as he weighed nine stone, should put eleven in iron on his back, and that in this way the twenty stone of the thin man would equal the twenty stone of the fat one.”

“Not at all,” exclaimed Sancho at once, before Don Quixote could answer; “it’s for me, that only a few days ago left off being a governor and a judge, as all the world knows, to settle these doubtful questions and give an opinion in disputes of all sorts.”

“Answer in God’s name, Sancho my friend,” said Don Quixote, “for I am not fit to give crumbs to a cat, my wits are so confused and upset.”

With this permission Sancho said to the peasants who stood clustered round him, waiting with open mouths for the decision to come from his, “Brothers, what the fat man requires is not in reason, nor has it a shadow of justice in it; because, if it be true, as they say, that the challenged may choose the weapons, the other has no right to choose such as will prevent and keep him from winning. My decision, therefore, is that the fat challenger prune, peel, thin, trim and correct himself, and take eleven stone of his flesh off his body, here or there, as he pleases, and as suits him best; and being in this way reduced to nine stone weight, he will make himself equal and even with nine stone of his opponent, and they will be able to run on equal terms.”953

“By all that’s good,” said one of the peasants as he heard Sancho’s decision, “but the gentleman has spoken like a saint, and given judgment like a canon! But I’ll be bound the fat man won’t part with an ounce of his flesh, not to say eleven stone.”

“The best plan will be for them not to run,” said another, “so that neither the thin man break down under the weight, nor the fat one strip himself of his flesh; let half the wager be spent in wine, and let’s take these gentlemen to the tavern where there’s the best, and ‘over me be the cloak when it rains.’ ”954

“I thank you, sirs,” said Don Quixote; “but I cannot stop for an instant, for sad thoughts and unhappy circumstances force me to seem discourteous and to travel apace;” and spurring Rocinante he pushed on, leaving them wondering at what they had seen and heard, at his own strange figure and at the shrewdness of his servant, for such they took Sancho to be; and another of them observed, “If the servant is so clever, what must the master be? I’ll bet, if they are going to Salamanca to study, they’ll come to be alcaldes of the Court in a trice; for it’s a mere joke⁠—only to read and read, and have interest and good luck; and before a man knows where he is he finds himself with a staff in his hand or a mitre on his head.”

That night master and man passed out in the