Don Quixote_ Translation by Edith Grossman (HarperCollins) - Miguel De Cervantes Saavedra [129]
They both derived no small pleasure from Sancho Panza’s good memory, and they praised him for it and asked him to repeat the letter two more times so that they too could commit it to memory and copy it at the proper time. Sancho repeated it three more times, and each time he said another three thousand pieces of nonsense. Following this, he recounted other things that had happened to his master but did not say a word about being tossed in the blanket in that same inn which he refused to enter. He also told them how his master, if he brought back a favorable reply promptly from the lady Dulcinea of Toboso, would set out to try to become an emperor, or at least a monarch; that’s what the two of them had agreed to, and it was an easy thing for his master to do, given the valor of his person and the strength of his arm; when he had done this, his master would arrange for him to marry, because by then he could not be anything but a widower, and Don Quixote would give him as his wife one of the ladies-in-waiting to the empress, and she would inherit a rich large estate on terra firma, without any insulars or ínsulas, because he didn’t want them anymore.
Sancho said this with so much serenity, wiping his nose from time to time, and so little rationality, that the two men were astonished again as they considered how powerful the madness of Don Quixote was, for it had pulled along after it the good sense of this poor man. They did not want to make the effort to disabuse him of the error in which he found himself, for it seemed to them that since it was not injurious to his conscience, it would be better to leave him where he was so that they would have the pleasure of hearing his foolishness. And so they told him to pray to God for the well-being of his master, for it was possible and even probable that with the passage of time he would become an emperor, as he said, or an archbishop, at the very least, or some other equivalent high office. To which Sancho responded:
“Señores, if fortune turns her wheel so that my master decides not to be an emperor but an archbishop, I’d like to know now: what do archbishops errant usually give their squires?”
“Usually,” responded the priest, “they give some benefice, a simple one or a parish, or they make him a sacristan, with a very nice fixed income, in addition to other fees that bring in more income.”
“For that it would be necessary,” replied Sancho, “for the squire not to be married, and to know at least how to assist at Mass, and if that’s true, then woe is me, for I’m married and don’t know the first letter of the alphabet! What will happen to me if my master decides to be an archbishop and not an emperor, which is the usage and custom of knights errant?”
“Don’t worry, friend Sancho,” said the barber, “for we’ll ask your master, and advise him, and even present it to him as a matter of conscience, that he should become an emperor and not an archbishop, which will be easier for him since he’s more soldier than student.”
“That’s what I think, too,” responded Sancho, “though I can say that he has a talent for everything. What I plan to do, for my part, is pray to Our Lord to put him in the place that’s best for him and where he can do the most favors for me.”
“You speak with good judgment,” said the priest, “and will act like a good Christian. But what has to be done now is to arrange to remove your master from that useless penance in which you say he is engaged; in order to think of the best way to do that, and to eat something, since it’s time for supper, it would be a good idea for us to go into this inn.”
Sancho said that they should go in and he would wait for them outside, and later he would tell them the reason he wasn’t going in and why it wouldn’t be a good idea if he did, but he asked them to bring out something hot for him to eat, as well as barley for Rocinante. They went inside