Don Quixote_ Translation by Edith Grossman (HarperCollins) - Miguel De Cervantes Saavedra [454]
“That is true,” responded the maiden, “and I’m that daughter, and you, Señores, can say now if the rumor about my beauty is false or not, for you have seen me.”
And then she began to weep most piteously; seeing this, the secretary leaned toward the butler’s ear and said very quietly:
“There can be no doubt that something important has happened to this poor maiden, because in these clothes, and at this hour, and being a gentlewoman, she’s not in her house.”
“No doubt about it,” responded the butler, “and her tears confirm your suspicion.”
Sancho consoled her with the best words he knew and asked her to have no fear and tell them what had happened to her, and all of them would attempt very earnestly to remedy it in every way possible.
“The fact is, Señores,” she responded, “that my father has kept me secluded for ten years, the same amount of time my mother has been in the ground. At home Mass is said in a magnificent oratory, and in all this time I have not seen more than the sun in the sky during the day, and the moon and stars at night, and I don’t know what streets or squares or temples or even men look like, except for my father and a brother of mine, and Pedro Pérez, the tax collector, and because he normally comes to my house, I had the idea of saying he was my father in order not to reveal who mine really is. This seclusion, and my father’s refusal to allow me to leave the house, not even to go to church, have made me very unhappy for many long days and months; I would like to see the world, or, at least, the village where I was born, and it seemed to me that this desire did not go against the decorum that wellborn maidens ought to observe. When I heard that people had bullfights and cane fights4 and put on plays, I asked my brother, who is a year younger than I am, to tell me what those things were, as well as many other things I had not seen; he told me in the best way he could, but this only inflamed my desire to see them. Finally, to shorten the tale of my perdition, I’ll say that I begged and pleaded with my brother, and I wish I never had begged and pleaded for anything….”
And she began to cry again. The steward said to her:
“Your grace should continue, Señora, and finish telling us what has happened, for your words and your tears have us all in suspense.”
“I have few words left to say,” responded the maiden, “but many tears to weep, because badly placed desires cannot bring any reduction,5 only more of the same.”
The maiden’s beauty had left its mark in the butler’s soul, and once more he raised his lantern in order to see her again, and it seemed to him she was shedding not tears but seed pearls or the dew on the meadows, and he exalted them even higher and compared them to Oriental pearls, and he hoped her misfortune was not as great as her tears and sighs seemed to indicate. The governor was becoming impatient at the length of time it took the girl to tell her history, and he told her not to keep them in suspense any longer, for it was late and they still had a good part of the town to patrol. She, between interrupted sobs and broken sighs, said:
“My misfortune and my misery are simply that I asked my brother to let me dress as a man in some of his clothes, and to take me out one night to see the village while our father was sleeping; he, besieged by my pleas, agreed, and he gave me these clothes, and dressed himself in some of mine, which suited him as if he had been born to them because he doesn’t have a beard yet and looks exactly like a very beautiful maiden; and tonight, about an hour ago, more or less, we left the house, and guided by our young and foolish thoughts we walked all around the village; when we wanted to return home we saw a great crowd of people coming toward us, and my brother said to me: ‘Sister, this must be the patrol: put wings on your feet and run with me so they won’t recognize us, for that will not