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By Root 1029 0

Don Juan wanted Don Quixote to read more of the book in order to hear his comments, he would not be persuaded, saying he considered that he had read it, and confirmed that all of it was foolish, and if it happened to come to the attention of the author that he had held it in his hands, he did not want him to celebrate the idea that Don Quixote had read it, for one’s thoughts must eschew obscene and indecent things, as must one’s eyes. They asked him where he had decided to travel. He responded to Zaragoza, to take part in the jousts for the suit of armor that are held in the city every year. Don Juan told him that in the new history, the account of how Don Quixote, or whoever he was, ran at the ring7 was lacking in invention, poor in letters,8 and very poor in liveries,9 though rich in stupidities.

“For this very reason,” responded Don Quixote, “I shall not set foot in Zaragoza, and in this way I shall proclaim the lies of this modern historian to the world, and then people will see that I am not the Don Quixote he says I am.”

“That would be very wise,” said Don Jerónimo. “There are other jousts in Barcelona, where Señor Don Quixote will be able to prove his valor.”

“I intend to do that,” said Don Quixote, “and if your graces will permit me, it is time for me to go to bed, and I hope you will consider and count me among your greatest friends and servants.”

“And me too,” said Sancho. “Maybe I’ll be good for something.”

With this they took their leave, and Don Quixote and Sancho withdrew to their room, leaving Don Juan and Don Jerónimo astonished by the mixture of intelligence and madness they had seen and convinced that these were the true Don Quixote and Sancho, not the ones described by the Aragonese author.

Don Quixote awoke at dawn, and knocking on the wall of their room, he said goodbye to his supper hosts. Sancho paid the innkeeper very generously and advised him to praise the provisions of his inn a little less or to keep it better supplied.

CHAPTER LX

Concerning what befell Don Quixote on his way to Barcelona

The morning was cool, and it showed signs of remaining cool for the rest of the day when Don Quixote left the inn, first having learned the most direct road to Barcelona that avoided Zaragoza, so great was his desire to prove that the new historian, who, they said, had so maligned him, was a liar.

As it happened, in more than six days nothing occurred that was worth recording, but then, at the end of that time, when he had wandered away from the road, night overtook him in a thick stand of oak or cork trees; in this instance, Cide Hamete does not honor the exactitude he usually observes in such matters.

Master and servant climbed down from their mounts, and leaning against the tree trunks, Sancho, who had eaten that afternoon, allowed himself to rush headlong through the doors of sleep, but Don Quixote, whose imagination kept him awake much more than hunger did, could not close his eyes; instead, his thoughts wandered back and forth through a thousand different places. Now he seemed to find himself in the Cave of Montesinos; then he saw Dulcinea, transformed into a peasant, leaping onto the back of her donkey; next the words of the wise Merlin resounded in his ears, telling him the conditions that had to be met and the tasks that had to be completed in order to disenchant Dulcinea. He despaired to see the carelessness and lack of charity in Sancho his squire, who, he believed, had given himself only five lashes, a painfully small quantity considering the infinite number he still had to administer, and this caused him so much grief and anger that he reasoned in this fashion:

“If Alexander the Great cut the Gordian knot, saying: ‘It does not matter if it is cut or untied,’ and that did not keep him from being the universal lord of all Asia, then in the disenchantment of Dulcinea it might not matter if I whip Sancho against his will, for if the condition of this remedy is that Sancho receive some three thousand lashes, what difference does it make to me if he administers them himself or if another