Don Quixote_ Translation by Edith Grossman (HarperCollins) - Miguel De Cervantes Saavedra [348]
“By my faith, she isn’t dressed like a peasant girl but like an elegant lady. By God, as far as I can tell, the medallions1 she’s supposed to be wearing are made of fine coral, and her green cloth from Cuenca is thirty-pile velvet!2 And are the edgings strips of linen? I’d swear they’re made of satin! And then, just look at her hands adorned with jet rings! Damn me if they’re not rings of gold, and really good gold, and set with pearl as white as curds, each one worth an eye at least. And damn me again for a whoreson, but what hair! If it’s not a wig, I’ve never seen hair longer or blonder in my whole life! No, nobody can say anything about her grace and form except to compare her to a swaying palm tree loaded down with dates, which is just what the jewels look like hanging from her hair and throat! I swear she’s a fine, rosy-cheeked girl who can pass through the banks of Flanders.”3
Don Quixote laughed at Sancho Panza’s rustic praise, though it seemed to him that aside from his lady Dulcinea of Toboso, he had never seen a more beautiful woman. Fair Quiteria seemed somewhat pale, and it must have been because of the sleepless night that brides always experience as they prepare for their wedding on the following day. The wedding party was approaching a stage on one side of the meadow, adorned with carpets and bouquets of flowers, where the marriage would take place and from which they would watch the dances and dramatic inventions, and as they reached this spot, they heard shouts behind them, and one voice cried out, saying:
“Wait a little, you who are as thoughtless as you are hasty.”
At these shouts and words, everyone turned around and saw that the one who had called out was a man dressed, apparently, in a black cassock decorated with fiery red strips of cloth. He was crowned—as they later saw—with a wreath of funereal cypress, and in his hands he held a large staff. As he came closer, everyone recognized the gallant Basilio, and everyone was in suspense, waiting to see the outcome of his shouts and his words and fearing the worst from his appearing at that time.
At last he stopped, tired and breathless, before the bride and groom and thrust his staff, which had a steel tip at one end, into the ground; his color changed, he fixed his eyes on Quiteria, and in a hoarse, trembling voice he said:
“You know very well, O forgetful Quiteria, that according to the holy laws which we profess, as long as I am alive you cannot take a husband; and you are not unaware that, as I waited for time and my diligence to improve my fortune, I have not failed to maintain the decorum that your honor demanded; but you, turning your back on all the obligations you owe to my honest desires, wish to make another the lord and master of what is mine, for his riches bring him not only good fortune but even greater happiness. And so, to fill his cup of joy to the brim, not because I think he deserves it but because heaven wishes to grant it to him, I, with my own hands, will take down the obstacle or impediment that may hinder him by removing myself from the scene. Long live rich Camacho, and with the thankless Quiteria may he live many long and happy years, and death, death to poor Basilio, whose poverty cut the wings of his contentment and sent him to the grave!”
And saying this, he seized the staff that he had thrust into the ground, and leaving half of it in the earth, he showed that it served as a sheath for a medium-size sword that was hidden inside; and after placing what could be called the hilt in the ground, with swift agility and