Don Quixote_ Translation by Edith Grossman (HarperCollins) - Miguel De Cervantes Saavedra [101]
“You will look fine,” said Don Quixote, “but it will be necessary for you to shave your beard often; yours is so heavy, tangled, and unkempt that unless you shave with a razor at least every other day, people will see what you are from as far away as you can shoot a flintlock.”
“That’s easy,” said Sancho. “All I have to do is hire a barber and keep him in my house. And if I need to, I can have him follow along behind me, like a grandee’s groom.”
“But, how do you know,” asked Don Quixote, “that grandees have their grooms follow them?”
“I’ll tell you,” responded Sancho. “Years ago I spent a month not far from court, and there I saw a very small gentleman walking, and people said he was a grandee, and a man rode behind him no matter how many turns he made, and he looked like he was his tail. I asked why the man didn’t catch up but always came behind him. They told me he was the groom, and it was the custom of grandees to have their grooms follow behind. And since then I’ve know it so well that I’ve never forgotten it.”
“I say that you are correct,” said Don Quixote, “and in the same way you can have your barber follow behind you, for not all customs came into use or were invented at the same time, and you may be the first count to have his barber follow behind him, for you need greater confidence in the man who shaves you than in the one who saddles your horse.”
“Just leave the barber to me,” said Sancho, “and your grace can take care of becoming a king and making me a count.”
“That is what I shall do,” responded Don Quixote.
And looking up, he saw what will be recounted in the next chapter.
CHAPTER XXII
Regarding the liberty that Don Quixote gave to many unfortunate men who, against their wills, were being taken where they did not wish to go
It is recounted by Cide Hamete Benengeli, the Arabic and Manchegan author, in this most serious, high-sounding, detailed, sweet, and inventive history, that following the conversation between the famous Don Quixote of La Mancha and Sancho Panza, his squire, which is referred to at the end of chapter XXI, Don Quixote looked up and saw coming toward him on the same road he was traveling approximately twelve men on foot, strung together by their necks, like beads on a great iron chain, and all of them wearing manacles. Accompanying them were two men on horseback and two on foot; the ones on horseback had flintlocks, and those on foot carried javelins and swords; as soon as Sancho Panza saw them, he said:
“This is a chain of galley slaves, people forced by the king to go to the galleys.”
“What do you mean, forced?” asked Don Quixote. “Is it possible that the king forces anyone?”
“I’m not saying that,” responded Sancho, “but these are people who, because of their crimes, have been condemned to serve the king in the galleys, by force.”
“In short,” replied Don Quixote, “for whatever reason, these people are being taken by force and not of their own free will.”
“That’s right,” said Sancho.
“Well, in that case,” said his master, “here it is fitting to put into practice my profession: to right wrongs and come to the aid and assistance of the wretched.”
“Your grace shouldn’t forget,” said Sancho, “that justice, which is the king himself, does not force or do wrong to such people, but sentences them as punishment for their crimes.”
By now the chain of galley slaves had reached them, and Don Quixote, with very courteous speech, asked those who were guarding them to be so kind as to inform him and tell him the reason or reasons those people were being taken away in that fashion.
One of the mounted guards responded that they were galley slaves, His Majesty’s prisoners who were condemned to the galleys, and there was nothing more to say and nothing else