Don Quixote_ Translation by Edith Grossman (HarperCollins) - Miguel De Cervantes Saavedra [535]
“Señor Don Álvaro Tarfe, your grace can spend the hottest part of the day here: the inn seems clean and cool.”
Hearing this, Don Quixote said to Sancho:
“Look, Sancho: when I leafed through that book about the second part of my history, it seems to me I happened to run across this name of Don Álvaro Tarfe.”1
“That might be,” responded Sancho. “We’ll let him dismount, and then we can ask him about it.”
The gentleman dismounted, and the innkeeper gave him a room on the ground floor, across from Don Quixote’s lodging, which was hung with other tapestries like the ones in Don Quixote’s room. The newcomer, dressed in summer clothes, came out to the portico of the inn, which was spacious and cool, and seeing Don Quixote walking there, he asked:
“Señor, may I ask where your grace is traveling?”
And Don Quixote responded:
“To a nearby village, which is where I live. And your grace, where are you going?”
“I, Señor,” responded the gentleman, “am going to Granada, which is my home.”
“A fine home!” replied Don Quixote. “But would your grace please be so kind as to tell me your name, because I believe it will be more important for me to know it than I can ever tell you.”
“My name is Don Álvaro Tarfe,” responded the guest at the inn.
To which Don Quixote replied:
“I think beyond any doubt that your grace must be the Don Álvaro Tarfe whose name appears in the second part of the History of Don Quixote of La Mancha, recently published and brought into the light of the world by a modern author.”
“I am,” responded the gentleman, “and Don Quixote, the principal subject of this history, was a great friend of mine; I was the one who took him from his home, or, at least, persuaded him to come with me to the jousts being held in Zaragoza; and the truth of the matter is that I became very friendly with him and saved him more than once from tasting a whip on his back because of his insolence.”
“And, Señor Don Álvaro, can your grace tell me if I resemble in any way the Don Quixote you have mentioned?”
“No, certainly not,” responded the guest, “not at all.”
“And that Don Quixote,” said our Don Quixote, “did he have with him a squire named Sancho Panza?”
“He did,” responded Don Álvaro, “and though he was famous for being very amusing, I never heard him say any witticism that was.”
“I can believe that,” said Sancho at this point, “because saying amusing things is not for everybody, and the Sancho your grace is talking about, Señor, must be a great scoundrel, a dullard, and a thief all at the same time, because I’m the real Sancho Panza, and I have more amusing things to say than there are rainstorms; and if you don’t think so, your grace can put it to the test, and follow after me for at least a year, and then you’ll see whether or not amusing things drop off me at every step, so many of them that without my knowing what I’ve said most of the time, I make everybody who hears me laugh; and the real Don Quixote of La Mancha, the one who’s famous, valiant, intelligent, and enamored, the righter of wrongs, the defender of wards and orphans, the protector of widows, a ladykiller with maidens, the one whose only lady is the peerless Dulcinea of Toboso, he is this gentleman here present, my master; every other Don Quixote and any other Sancho Panza are a trick and a dream.”
“By God, I believe it!” responded Don Álvaro. “You have said more amusing things, my friend, in the few sentences you have spoken than the other Sancho Panza did in all the ones I heard him speak, and there were many! He was more gluttonous than well-spoken, and more foolish than amusing, and I believe beyond any doubt that the enchanters who pursue the good Don Quixote have wanted to pursue me along with the bad Don Quixote. But I don’t know what to say, because I would swear I left him in the