• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

“In short,” said Don Quixote, “it seems clear, Sancho, that you are a peasant, the kind who shouts, ‘Long live whoever wins!’”

“I don’t know what kind I am,” responded Sancho, “but I do know that I’d never get such fine skimmings from Basilio’s pots as I’ve gotten from Camacho’s.”

And he showed him the pot full of geese and chickens, and seizing one of them, he began to eat with great verve and enthusiasm, saying:

“To hell with Basilio’s talents! You’re worth what you have, and what you have is what you’re worth. There are only two lineages in the world, as my grandmother used to say, and that’s the haves and the have-nots, though she was on the side of having; nowadays, Señor Don Quixote, wealth is better than wisdom: an ass covered in gold seems better than a saddled horse. And so I say again that I’m on the side of Camacho, whose pots are overflowing with geese and chickens, hares and rabbits, while Basilio’s, if they ever show up, and even if they don’t, won’t hold anything but watered wine.”

“Have you finished your harangue, Sancho?” said Don Quixote.

“I must have,” responded Sancho, “because I see that your grace is bothered by it; if you hadn’t cut this one short, I could have gone on for another three days.”

“May it please God, Sancho,” replied Don Quixote, “that I see you mute before I die.”

“At the rate we’re going,” responded Sancho, “before your grace dies I’ll be chewing on mud, and then maybe I’ll be so mute I won’t say a word till the end of the world or, at least, until Judgment Day.”

“Oh, Sancho, even if that should happen,” responded Don Quixote, “your silence will never match all that you have said, are saying, and will say in your lifetime! Furthermore, it seems likely in the natural course of events that the day of my death will arrive before yours, and so I think I shall never see you mute, not even when you are drinking, or sleeping, which is what I earnestly desire.”

“By my faith, Señor,” responded Sancho, “you mustn’t trust in the fleshless woman, I mean Death, who devours lamb as well as mutton; I’ve heard our priest say that she tramples the high towers of kings as well as the humble huts of the poor. This lady is more powerful than finicky; nothing disgusts her, she eats everything, and she does everything, and she crams her pack with all kinds and ages and ranks of people. She’s not a reaper who takes naps; she reaps constantly and cuts the dry grass along with the green, and she doesn’t seem to chew her food but wolfs it down and swallows everything that’s put in front of her, because she’s as hungry as a dog and is never satisfied; and though she has no belly, it’s clear that she has dropsy and is always thirsty and ready to drink down the lives of everyone living, like somebody drinking a pitcher of cold water.”

“Enough, Sancho,” said Don Quixote at this point. “Stop now before you fall, for the truth is that what you have said about death, in your rustic terms, is what a good preacher might say. I tell you, Sancho, with your natural wit and intelligence, you could mount a pulpit and go around preaching some very nice things.”

“Being a good preacher means living a good life,” responded Sancho, “and I don’t know any other theologies.”

“You do not need them,” said Don Quixote, “but I cannot understand or comprehend how, since the beginning of wisdom is the fear of God, you, who fear a lizard more than you fear Him, can know so much.”

“Señor, your grace should pass judgment on your chivalries,” responded Sancho, “and not start judging other people’s fear or bravery, because I fear God as much as the next man. And your grace should let me eat up these skimmings; all the rest is idle words, and we’ll have to account for those in the next world.”

And saying this, he resumed the assault on his pot with so much gusto that he awoke the appetite of Don Quixote, who no doubt would have helped him if he had not been hindered by what must be recounted below.

CHAPTER XXI

Which continues the account of the wedding of Camacho, along with other agreeable events

While Don Quixote