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

to take his departure that same day, inasmuch as for a vanquished knight like himself it was fitter he should live in a pigsty than in a royal palace. They gave it very readily, and the duchess asked him if Altisidora was in his good graces.

He replied, “Señora, let me tell your ladyship that this damsel’s ailment comes entirely of idleness, and the cure for it is honest and constant employment. She herself has told me that lace is worn in hell; and as she must know how to make it, let it never be out of her hands; for when she is occupied in shifting the bobbins to and fro, the image or images of what she loves will not shift to and fro in her thoughts; this is the truth, this is my opinion, and this is my advice.”

“And mine,” added Sancho; “for I never in all my life saw a lace-maker that died for love; when damsels are at work their minds are more set on finishing their tasks than on thinking of their loves. I speak from my own experience; for when I’m digging I never think of my old woman; I mean my Teresa Panza, whom I love better than my own eyelids.”

“You say well, Sancho,” said the duchess, “and I will take care that my Altisidora employs herself henceforward in needlework of some sort; for she is extremely expert at it.”

“There is no occasion to have recourse to that remedy, señora,” said Altisidora; “for the mere thought of the cruelty with which this vagabond villain has treated me will suffice to blot him out of my memory without any other device; with your highness’s leave I will retire, not to have before my eyes, I won’t say his rueful countenance, but his abominable, ugly looks.”

“That reminds me of the common saying, that ‘he that rails is ready to forgive,’ ”977 said the duke.

Altisidora then, pretending to wipe away her tears with a handkerchief, made an obeisance to her master and mistress and quitted the room.

“Ill luck betide thee, poor damsel,” said Sancho, “ill luck betide thee! Thou hast fallen in with a soul as dry as a rush and a heart as hard as oak; had it been me, i’faith ‘another cock would have crowed to thee.’ ”

So the conversation came to an end, and Don Quixote dressed himself and dined with the duke and duchess, and set out the same evening.

LXXI

Of what passed between Don Quixote and his squire Sancho on the way to their village.

The vanquished and afflicted Don Quixote went along very downcast in one respect and very happy in another. His sadness arose from his defeat, and his satisfaction from the thought of the virtue that lay in Sancho, as had been proved by the resurrection of Altisidora; though it was with difficulty he could persuade himself that the love-smitten damsel had been really dead. Sancho went along anything but cheerful, for it grieved him that Altisidora had not kept her promise of giving him the smocks; and turning this over in his mind he said to his master, “Surely, señor, I’m the most unlucky doctor in the world; there’s many a physician that, after killing the sick man he had to cure, requires to be paid for his work, though it is only signing a bit of a list of medicines, that the apothecary and not he makes up, and, there, his labour is over; but with me though to cure somebody else costs me drops of blood, smacks, pinches, pinproddings, and whippings, nobody gives me a farthing. Well, I swear by all that’s good if they put another patient into my hands, they’ll have to grease them for me before I cure him; for, as they say, ‘it’s by his singing the abbot gets his dinner,’978 and I’m not going to believe that heaven has bestowed upon me the virtue I have, that I should be dealing it out to others all for nothing.”

“Thou art right, Sancho my friend,” said Don Quixote, “and Altisidora has behaved very badly in not giving thee the smocks she promised; and although that virtue of thine is gratis data⁠—as it has cost thee no study whatever, any more than such study as thy personal sufferings may be⁠—I can say for myself that if thou wouldst have payment for the lashes on account of the disenchant of Dulcinea, I would have given it to thee freely ere this. I am not sure, however, whether payment will comport with the cure, and I would not have the reward interfere with the medicine. I think there will be nothing lost by trying it; consider how much thou wouldst have, Sancho, and whip thyself at once, and pay thyself down with thine own hand, as thou hast money of mine.”

At this proposal Sancho opened his eyes and his ears a palm’s breadth wide, and in his heart very readily acquiesced in whipping himself, and said he to his master, “Very well then, señor, I’ll hold myself in readiness to gratify your worship’s wishes if I’m to profit by it; for the love of my wife and children forces me to seem grasping. Let your worship say how much you will pay me for each lash I give myself.”

“If Sancho,” replied Don Quixote, “I were to requite thee as the importance and nature of the cure deserves, the treasures of Venice, the mines of Potosi, would be insufficient to pay thee. See what thou hast of mine, and put a price on each lash.”

“Of them,” said Sancho, “there are three thousand three hundred and odd; of these I have given myself five, the rest remain; let the five go for the odd ones, and let us take the three thousand three hundred, which at a quarter real apiece (for I will not take less though the whole world should bid me) make three thousand three hundred