Don Quixote_ Translation by Edith Grossman (HarperCollins) - Miguel De Cervantes Saavedra [295]
And at this the housekeeper left, and the bachelor went immediately to find the priest, in order to communicate to him what will be related in due course.
While Don Quixote and Sancho were shut away together, they had a conversation that is recounted in the history with a good deal of accuracy and attention to detail.
Sancho said to his master:
“Señor, I’ve already conveyanced my wife to let me go with your grace wherever you want to take me.”
“Convinced is what you mean, Sancho,” said Don Quixote, “not conveyanced.”
“Once or twice,” responded Sancho, “if I remember correctly, I’ve asked your grace not to correct my words if you understand what I mean by them, and when you don’t understand, to say: ‘Sancho, you devil, I don’t understand you,’ and if I can’t explain, then you can correct me; I’m so plaint….”
“I do not understand you, Sancho,” said Don Quixote, “because I do not know what I am so plaint means.”
“So plaint means,” responded Sancho, “That’s just the way I am.”
“Now I understand you even less,” replied Don Quixote.
“Well, if you can’t understand me,” responded Sancho, “I don’t know any other way to say it; that’s all I know, and may God protect me.”
“Oh, now I have it,” responded Don Quixote. “You mean to say that you are so pliant, so docile and softhearted, that you will accept what I tell you and learn what I teach you.”
“I’ll bet,” said Sancho, “you knew what I was saying and understood me from the beginning, but wanted to mix me up so you could hear me make another two hundred mistakes.”
“That may be,” replied Don Quixote. “Tell me, then, what does Teresa say?”
“Teresa says,” said Sancho, “that I should keep a sharp eye on you, and there’s no arguing against written proof, because if you cut the deck you don’t deal, and a bird in hand is worth two in the bush. And I say that a woman’s advice is no jewel, and the man who doesn’t take it is a fool.”
“And I say that as well,” responded Don Quixote. “Continue, Sancho my friend, go on, for today you are speaking pearls.”
“The fact is,” responded Sancho, “that as your grace knows very well, we’re all subject to death, here today and gone tomorrow, and the lamb goes as quickly as the sheep, and nobody can promise himself more hours of life in this world than the ones God wants to give him, because death is silent, and when she comes knocking at the door of our life, she’s always in a hurry, and nothing will stop her, not prayers or struggles or scepters or miters, and that’s something that everybody hears, something they tell us from the pulpit.”
“All of that is true,” said Don Quixote, “but I do not know where it is taking you.”
“It’s taking me to this,” said Sancho. “Your grace should tell me exactly what salary you’ll give me for each month I serve you, and this salary should be paid to me from your estate; I don’t want to depend on anybody’s favors, which come late, or badly, or never; may God help me to tend to my own business. The point is, I want to know what I’m earning, whether it’s a lot or a little; a hen sits on her egg, and a lot of littles make a lot, and as long as you’re earning you don’t lose a thing. And if it should happen, and I don’t believe or expect that it will, that your grace gives me the ínsula you promised, I’m not such an ingrate, and not such a pennypincher, that I won’t want the rent from the ínsula to be added up and deducted from my salary pro rat.”
“Sancho my friend,” responded Don Quixote, “sometimes a rat is as good as a rata.”
“I understand,” said Sancho. “I’ll bet I should have said rata and not rat, but it doesn’t matter at all, because your grace understood me.”
“And understood you so well,” responded Don Quixote, “that I have penetrated to your most hidden thoughts, and I know the target you are trying to hit with the countless arrows of your proverbs. Look, Sancho: I certainly should have specified a salary for you if I had found in