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

quarter reals; the three thousand are one thousand five hundred half reals, which make seven hundred and fifty reals; and the three hundred make a hundred and fifty half reals, which come to seventy-five reals, which added to the seven hundred and fifty make eight hundred and twenty-five reals in all. These I will stop out of what I have belonging to your worship, and I’ll return home rich and content, though well whipped, for ‘there’s no taking trout’979⁠—but I say no more.”

“O blessed Sancho! O dear Sancho!” said Don Quixote; “how we shall be bound to serve thee, Dulcinea and I, all the days of our lives that heaven may grant us! If she returns to her lost shape (and it cannot be but that she will) her misfortune will have been good fortune, and my defeat a most happy triumph. But look here, Sancho; when wilt thou begin the scourging? For if thou wilt make short work of it, I will give thee a hundred reals over and above.”

“When?” said Sancho; “this night without fail. Let your worship order it so that we pass it out of doors and in the open air, and I’ll scarify myself.”

Night, longed for by Don Quixote with the greatest anxiety in the world, came at last, though it seemed to him that the wheels of Apollo’s car had broken down, and that the day was drawing itself out longer than usual, just as is the case with lovers, who never make the reckoning of their desires agree with time. They made their way at length in among some pleasant trees that stood a little distance from the road, and there vacating Rocinante’s saddle and Dapple’s packsaddle, they stretched themselves on the green grass and made their supper off Sancho’s stores, and he making a powerful and flexible whip out of Dapple’s halter and headstall retreated about twenty paces from his master among some beech trees. Don Quixote seeing him march off with such resolution and spirit, said to him, “Take care, my friend, not to cut thyself to pieces; allow the lashes to wait for one another, and do not be in so great a hurry as to run thyself out of breath midway; I mean, do not lay on so strenuously as to make thy life fail thee before thou hast reached the desired number; and that thou mayest not lose by a card too much or too little, I will station myself apart and count on my rosary here the lashes thou givest thyself. May heaven help thee as thy good intention deserves.”

“ ‘Pledges don’t distress a good payer,’ ”980 said Sancho; “I mean to lay on in such a way as without killing myself to hurt myself, for in that, no doubt, lies the essence of this miracle.”

He then stripped himself from the waist upwards, and snatching up the rope he began to lay on and Don Quixote to count the lashes. He might have given himself six or eight when he began to think the joke no trifle, and its price very low; and holding his hand for a moment, he told his master that he cried off on the score of a blind bargain, for each of those lashes ought to be paid for at the rate of half a real instead of a quarter.

“Go on, Sancho my friend, and be not disheartened,” said Don Quixote; “for I double the stakes as to price.”

“In that case,” said Sancho, “in God’s hand be it, and let it rain lashes.” But the rogue no longer laid them on his shoulders, but laid on to the trees, with such groans every now and then, that one would have thought at each of them his soul was being plucked up by the roots. Don Quixote, touched to the heart, and fearing he might make an end of himself, and that through Sancho’s imprudence he might miss his own object, said to him, “As thou livest, my friend, let the matter rest where it is, for the remedy seems to me a very rough one, and it will be well to have patience; ‘Zamora was not won in an hour.’981 If I have not reckoned wrong thou hast given thyself over a thousand lashes; that is enough for the present; ‘for the ass,’ to put it in homely phrase, ‘bears the load, but not the overload.’ ”982

“No, no, señor,” replied Sancho; “it shall never be said of me, ‘The money paid, the arms broken;’983 go back a little further, your worship, and let me give myself at any rate a thousand lashes more; for in a couple of bouts like this we shall have finished off the lot, and there will be even cloth to spare.”

“As thou art in such a willing mood,” said Don Quixote, “may heaven aid thee; lay on and I’ll retire.”

Sancho returned to his task with so much resolution that he soon had the bark stripped off several trees, such was the severity with which he whipped himself; and one time, raising his voice, and giving a beech a tremendous lash, he cried out, “Here dies Samson, and all with him!”

At the sound of his piteous cry and of the stroke of the cruel lash, Don Quixote ran to him at once, and seizing the twisted halter that served him for a courbash, said to him, “Heaven forbid, Sancho my friend, that to please me thou shouldst lose thy life, which is needed for the support of thy wife and children; let Dulcinea wait for a better opportunity, and I will content myself with a hope soon to be realised, and have patience until thou hast gained fresh strength so as to finish off this business to the satisfaction of everybody.”

“As your worship will have it so, señor,” said Sancho, “so be it; but throw your cloak over my shoulders, for I’m sweating and I don’t