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CHAPTER XXVIII

Regarding matters that Benengeli says will be known to the reader if he reads with attention

When the brave man flees, trickery is revealed, and the prudent man waits for a better opportunity. This truth was proved in Don Quixote, who yielded to the fury of the village and the evil intent of the enraged squadron and fled, not thinking of Sancho or the danger in which he left him, and rode the distance he thought sufficient to ensure his safety. Sancho followed, lying across his donkey, as has been related. When he had regained consciousness he overtook Don Quixote, and when he did, Sancho dropped off the donkey at Rocinante’s feet, perturbed, bruised, and battered. Don Quixote dismounted to tend to the squire’s wounds, but since he found him sound from head to foot, with some anger he said:

“It was an evil hour when you learned how to bray, Sancho!1 And when did you decide it would be a good idea to mention rope in the house of the hanged man? When braying is the music, what counterpoint can there be except a beating? Give thanks to God, Sancho, that even though they made the sign of the cross over you with a stick, they did not cut a per signum crucis2 on your face.”

“I’m not about to respond,” responded Sancho, “because it seems to me I’m talking with my back. Let’s mount and leave this place, and I’ll silence my braying, but I won’t stop saying that knights errant run away and leave their good squires beaten to a pulp or ground up like grain and in the power of their enemies.”

“Withdrawal is not flight,” responded Don Quixote, “because you should know, Sancho, that valor not founded on the base of prudence is called recklessness, and the deeds of the reckless are attributed more to good fortune than to courage. And so I confess that I withdrew, but not that I fled, and in this I have imitated many valiant men who have waited for a better moment; the histories are full of such cases, but since they would not be to your advantage or my taste, I shall not recount them to you now.”

By now Sancho had mounted his donkey, with the assistance of Don Quixote, who then mounted Rocinante, and slowly they rode toward a stand of poplars that appeared about a quarter of a league distant. From time to time Sancho heaved some very deep sighs and mournful groans, and when Don Quixote asked the cause of such bitter feeling, he responded that from the base of his spine to the back of his neck he was in so much pain that it was driving him mad.

“The cause of this pain no doubt must be,” said Don Quixote, “that since the staff they used to beat you was long and tall, it hit the length of your back, which is where the parts that pain you are located; if it had hit more of you, more of you would be in pain.”

“By God,” said Sancho, “your grace has cleared up a great doubt, and said it so nicely, too! Lord save us! Was the cause of my pain so hidden that you had to tell me I hurt where the staff hit me? If my ankles hurt, there might be a reason to try and guess why, but guessing that I hurt where I was beaten isn’t much of a guess. By my faith, Señor Master, other people’s troubles don’t matter very much, and every day I learn something else about how little I can expect from being in your grace’s company, because if you let them beat me this time, then a hundred more times we’ll be back to the old tossings in a blanket and other tricks like that, and if it was my back now, the next time it’ll be my eyes. I’d be much better off, but I’m an idiot and will never do anything right in my life, but I’d be much better off, and I’ll say it again, if I went back home to my wife and children and supported her and brought them up with whatever it pleased God to give me, instead of following after your grace on roads that have no destination, and byways and highways that lead nowhere, drinking badly and eating worse. And sleeping! Brother squire, you can count on seven feet of ground, and if you want more, take another seven, for it’s all up