Don Quixote_ Translation by Edith Grossman (HarperCollins) - Miguel De Cervantes Saavedra [34]
“I know who I am,” replied Don Quixote, “and I know I can be not only those I have mentioned but the Twelve Peers of France3 as well, and even all the nine paragons of Fame,4 for my deeds will surpass all those they performed, together or singly.”
Having these exchanges and others like them, they reached the village as night was falling, but the farmer waited until it grew a little darker, so that no one would see what a poor knight the beaten gentleman was. When he thought the right time had come, he entered the village and came to Don Quixote’s house, which was in an uproar; the priest and barber, who were great friends of Don Quixote, were there, and in a loud voice his housekeeper was saying to them:
“What does your grace think, Señor Licentiate Pero Pérez”—for this was the priest’s name—“of my master’s misfortune? Three days and no sign of him, or his horse, or his shield, or his lance, or his armor. Woe is me! Now I know, and it’s as true as the death I owe God, that those accursed books of chivalry he’s always reading have driven him crazy; and now I remember hearing him say time and time again, when he was talking to himself, that he wanted to become a knight errant and go out in the wide world in search of adventures. Those books should go straight to Satan and Barrabas, for they have ruined the finest mind in all of La Mancha.”
His niece said the same and even added:
“You should know, Master Nicolás”—for this was the name of the barber—“that it often happened that my dear uncle would read these cruel books of adventures for two days and nights without stopping, and when he was finished he would toss away the book and pick up his sword and slash at the walls, and when he was very tired he would say that he had killed four giants as big as four towers, and the sweat dripping from him because of his exhaustion he would say was blood from the wounds he had received in battle, and then he would drink a whole pitcher of cold water and become cured and calm again, saying that the water was a precious drink brought to him by Esquife the Wise, a great wizard and a friend of his. But I am to blame for everything because I didn’t let your graces know about the foolishness of my dear uncle so that you could help him before it went this far, and burn all these wicked books, and he has many that deserve to be burned, just as if they belonged to heretics.”
“That is what I say, too,” said the priest, “and by my faith, no later than tomorrow we will have a public proceeding, and they will be condemned to the flames so that they do not give occasion to whoever reads them to do what my good friend must have done.”
The farmer and Don Quixote heard all of this, which allowed the farmer to understand finally what his neighbor’s sickness was, and so he called out:
“Your graces, open to Señor Valdovinos and to Señor Marquis of Mantua, who is badly wounded, and to Señor the Moor Abindarráez, captive of the valiant Rodrigo de Narváez, governor of Antequera.”
At the sound of his voice they all came out, and since some recognized their friend, and others their master and uncle, who had not yet dismounted from the donkey because he could not, they ran to embrace him, and he said:
“Stop, all of you, for I have been sorely wounded on account of my horse. Take me to my bed and call, if such is possible, Uganda the Wise, that she may heal and tend to my wounds.”
“Look, all of you,” said the housekeeper, “in what an evil hour my heart knew exactly what was wrong with my master. Your grace can go up and rest easy, because without that gander woman coming here, we’ll know how to cure you. And I say that these books of chivalry should be cursed another hundred times for bringing your grace to such a pass!”
They led him to his bed and looked for his wounds but could find none, and he said it was simple bruising because he had taken a great fall