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By Root 1034 0

trick more amusing than harmful; and very happily they waited for the night, which came as quickly as the day, which the duke and duchess spent in delightful conversation with Don Quixote. And that same day, the duchess really and truly dispatched a page—the one who had played the enchanted figure of Dulcinea in the forest—to Teresa Panza, with the letter from her husband, Sancho Panza, and the bundle of clothing he had left behind so that it could be sent to her, and she charged him to bring back a good accounting of everything that passed between them.

Later, when it was eleven o’clock, Don Quixote found a vihuela in his room. He tested it, opened the jalousied window, and heard people walking in the garden; turning the pegs of the vihuela and tuning it the best he knew how, he spat and cleared his throat, and then, in a voice that was husky but in tune, he sang the following ballad, which he had composed that day:

Often the power of love

can madden a maiden’s soul,

using as its means, its instrument,

an unthinking leisure and ease.

Fine sewing and needlework,

constant devotion to labor,

can be the cure, the antidote,

to the poison of love’s disease.

For sheltered and modest

maidens who aspire to be married,

chastity is the best dowry,

the best voice to sing their praises.

Knights errant who seek adventures

and those knights who stay at court,

woo the free and easy damsels;

they marry the modest maids.

Love can arise in the east,

and be confirmed between guests,

and sink quickly in the west,

because departure is its end.

Love that is recent and new,

that comes today and goes the next,

leaves no image, makes no mark

that endures deep in the soul.

A picture over a picture

is not disclosed nor is it shown;

and where a first beauty exists,

a second won’t win the game.

Dulcinea of Toboso:

she is painted on my soul’s

tabula rasa, and never

can she ever be erased.

Firm constancy in lovers is

a most precious attribute,

for whose sake Love works miracles

when he raises them on high.

Don Quixote had reached this point in his song, to which the duke and the duchess, Altisidora, and almost all the people in the castle were listening, when suddenly, from a gallery that was directly above Don Quixote’s jalousied window, a cord was lowered with more than a hundred cowbells attached to it, and immediately after that a huge sack full of cats, with smaller bells tied to their tails, was emptied out. The clanging of the bells and the yowling of the cats was so loud that even though the duke and duchess had contrived the joke, it still startled them, and Don Quixote was struck dumb with fear. As luck would have it, two or three of the cats came in the window of his room, and as they raced from one side to the other, it seemed as if a legion of devils had been set loose in the chamber. They made the candles that were burning in the room go out as they looked for a means of escape. The raising and lowering of the cord with the large cowbells on it did not stop; most of the people in the castle, who did not know the truth of what had happened, were amazed and astonished.

Don Quixote rose to his feet, took his sword in hand, and began to thrust it through the jalousy, shouting:

“Away, evil enchanters! Away, base wizards! For I am Don Quixote of La Mancha, against whom your wicked intentions are powerless and of little use!”

And turning to the cats that were racing around the room, he directed many thrusts against them; they ran to the window and went out, although one of them, finding himself so hounded by Don Quixote’s sword thrusts, leaped at his face and sank his claws and teeth into his nose, and the pain was so great that Don Quixote began to shout as loudly as he could. The duke and duchess heard this, and considering what it might be, they quickly hurried to his room, and opening the door with a master key, they saw the poor knight struggling with all his might to remove the cat from his face. They came in with lights and saw the unequal battle; the duke attempted to separate them, and Don Quixote