Don Quixote_ Translation by Edith Grossman (HarperCollins) - Miguel De Cervantes Saavedra [187]
“Strike me dead,” said the innkeeper, “if Don Quixote, or Don Devil, hasn’t slashed one of the skins of red wine hanging at the head of his bed; the spilled wine must be what this good man thinks is blood.”
And then he hurried into the room, and all the rest followed him, and they discovered Don Quixote in the strangest outfit in the world. He was in his shirt, which was not long enough in front to cover his thighs completely, and in back it was shorter by a span of six fingers; his legs were very long and thin, hairy, and not particularly clean; on his head he wore a red, greasy nightcap that belonged to the innkeeper; wrapped around his left arm was the blanket from the bed, toward which Sancho felt some animosity, for reasons he knew only too well; in his right hand he held his unsheathed sword and was slashing with it in all directions and shouting as if he really were fighting a giant. Best of all, his eyes were not open because he was sleeping and dreaming that he was doing battle with the giant, for his imagination of the adventure he was about to undertake was so intense that it made him dream he had already come to the kingdom of Micomicón and was already engaged in combat with his enemy. He had slashed the wineskins so many times with his sword, thinking he was slashing the giant, that the entire room was covered in wine. When he saw this, the innkeeper became so enraged that he threw himself on Don Quixote and began to give him so many blows with his fists that if Cardenio and the priest had not pulled him off, he alone would have ended the conflict with the giant; with it all, the poor knight did not awaken until the barber brought a large pot of cold water from the well and threw it at him all at once, which roused Don Quixote, but not enough for him to realize what he was doing.
Dorotea, who saw how scantily and tenuously he was dressed, did not wish to come in and watch the combat between her defender and her adversary.
Sancho looked everywhere on the floor for the giant’s head, and when he did not find it, he said:
“Now I know that everything in this house is enchantment; the last time I stood on the very spot where I’m standing now, I was punched and beaten and I never knew who was doing it, and I never could see anybody, and now the head is nowhere to be found, though I saw it cut off with my very own eyes, and the blood ran out of the body like water from a fountain.”
“What blood and what fountain are you talking about, you enemy of God and all his saints?” said the innkeeper. “Don’t you see, you thief, that the blood and the fountain are only these slashed wineskins and the red wine flooding this room? I’d like to see the soul of whoever slashed them drowning in the floods of hell!”
“All I know,” responded Sancho, “is that if I don’t find that head, my luck will turn and my countship will dissolve away like salt in water.”
Sancho awake was worse than his master asleep: such was the faith he had in the promises his master had made to him. The innkeeper despaired when he saw the slow wits of the squire and the damage done by the master, and he swore it would not be like the last time, when they left without paying; this time they could not claim the privileges of chivalry to keep from paying for both stays at the inn, including the cost of the patches he would have to put on the torn wineskins.
The priest was holding Don Quixote by the hands, and the knight, believing the adventure had been concluded and that he was before the Princess Micomicona, kneeled in front of the priest, saying:
“Now your highness, your noble and illustrious ladyship, may live in the certainty that from this day forth, this lowborn creature can do you no harm, and I, from this day forth, am released from the promise I