A miracle alone a cure can give.
"There is nothing to be learned from that rhyme," said Sancho,
"unless by that clue there's in it, one may draw out the ball of the
whole matter."
"What clue is there?" said Don Quixote.
"I thought your worship spoke of a clue in it," said Sancho.
"I only said Chloe," replied Don Quixote; "and that no doubt, is the
name of the lady of whom the author of the sonnet complains; and,
faith, he must be a tolerable poet, or I know little of the craft."
"Then your worship understands rhyming too?"
"And better than thou thinkest," replied Don Quixote, "as thou shalt
see when thou carriest a letter written in verse from beginning to end
to my lady Dulcinea del Toboso, for I would have thee know, Sancho,
that all or most of the knights-errant in days of yore were great
troubadours and great musicians, for both of these accomplishments, or
more properly speaking gifts, are the peculiar property of
lovers-errant: true it is that the verses of the knights of old have
more spirit than neatness in them."
"Read more, your worship," said Sancho, "and you will find something
that will enlighten us."
Don Quixote turned the page and said, "This is prose and seems to be
a letter."
"A correspondence letter, senor?"
"From the beginning it seems to be a love letter," replied Don
Quixote.
"Then let your worship read it aloud," said Sancho, "for I am very
fond of love matters."
"With all my heart," said Don Quixote, and reading it aloud as
Sancho had requested him, he found it ran thus:
Thy false promise and my sure misforutne carry me to a place
whence the news of my death will reach thy ears before the words of my
complaint. Ungrateful one, thou hast rejected me for one more wealthy,
but not more worthy; but if virtue were esteemed wealth I should
neither envy the fortunes of others nor weep for misfortunes of my
own. What thy beauty raised up thy deeds have laid low; by it I
believed thee to be an angel, by them I know thou art a woman. Peace
be with thee who hast sent war to me, and Heaven grant that the deceit
of thy husband be ever hidden from thee, so that thou repent not of
what thou hast done, and I reap not a revenge I would not have.
When he had finished the letter, Don Quixote said, "There is less to
be gathered from this than from the verses, except that he who wrote
it is some rejected lover;" and turning over nearly all the pages of
the book he found more verses and letters, some of which he could
read, while others he could not; but they were all made up of
complaints, laments, misgivings, desires and aversions, favours and
rejections, some rapturous, some doleful. While Don Quixote examined
the book, Sancho examined the valise, not leaving a corner in the
whole of it or in the pad that he did not search, peer into, and
explore, or seam that he did not rip, or tuft of wool that he did
not pick to pieces, lest anything should escape for want of care and
pains; so keen was the covetousness excited in him by the discovery of
the crowns, which amounted to near a hundred; and though he found no
more booty, he held the blanket flights, balsam vomits, stake
benedictions, carriers' fisticuffs, missing alforjas, stolen coat, and
all the hunger, thirst, and weariness he had endured in the service of
his good master, cheap at the price; as he considered himself more
than fully indemnified for all by the payment he received in the
gift of the treasure-trove.
The Knight of the Rueful Countenance was still very anxious to
find out who the owner of the valise could be, conjecturing from the
sonnet and letter, from the money in gold, and from the fineness of
the shirts, that he must be some lover of distinction whom the scorn
and cruelty of his lady had driven to some desperate course; but as in
that uninhabited and rugged spot there was no one to be seen of whom
he could inquire, he saw nothing else for it but to push on, taking
whatever road Rocinante chose--which was where he could make his
way--firmly persuaded that among these wilds he could not fail to meet
some rare adventure. As he went along, then, occupied with these
thoughts, he perceived on the summit of a height that rose before
their eyes a man who went springing from rock to rock and from tussock
to tussock with marvellous agility. As well as he could make out he
was unclad, with a thick black beard, long tangled hair, and bare legs
and feet, his thighs were covered by breeches apparently of tawny
velvet but so ragged that they showed his skin in several places. He
was bareheaded, and notwithstanding the swiftness with which he passed
as has been described, the Knight of the Rueful Countenance observed
and noted all these trifles, and though he made the attempt, he was
unable to follow him, for it was not granted to the feebleness of
Rocinante to make way over such rough ground, he being, moreover,
slow-paced and sluggish by nature. Don Quixote at once came to the
conclusion that this was the owner of the saddle-pad and of the
valise, and made up his mind to go in search of him, even though he
should have to wander a year in those mountains before he found him,
and so he directed Sancho to take a short cut over one side of the
mountain, while he himself went by the other, and perhaps by this
means they might light upon this man who had passed so quickly out
of their sight.
"I could not do that," said Sancho, "for when I separate from your
worship fear at once lays hold of me, and assails me with all sorts of
panics and fancies; and let what I now say be a notice that from
this time forth I am not going to stir a finger's width from your
presence."
"It shall be so," said he of the Rueful Countenance, "and I am
very glad that thou art willing to rely on my courage, which will
never fail thee, even though the soul in thy body fail thee; so come
on now behind me slowly as well as thou canst, and make lanterns of
thine eyes; let us make the circuit of this ridge; perhaps we shall
light upon this man that we saw, who no doubt is no other than the
owner of what we found."
To which Sancho made answer, "Far better would it be not to look for
him, for, if we find him, and he happens to be the owner of the money,
it is plain I must restore it; it would be better, therefore, that
without taking this needless trouble, I should keep possession of it
until in some other less meddlesome and officious way the real owner
may be discovered; and perhaps that will be when I shall have spent
it, and then the king will hold me harmless."
"Thou art wrong there, Sancho," said Don Quixote, "for now that we
have a suspicion who the owner is, and have him almost before us, we
are bound to seek him and make restitution; and if we do not see
him, the strong suspicion we have as to his being the owner makes us
as guilty as if he were so; and so, friend Sancho, let not our
search for him give thee any uneasiness, for if we find him it will
relieve mine."
And so saying he gave Rocinante the spur, and Sancho followed him on
foot and loaded, and after having partly made the circuit of the
mountain they found lying in a ravine, dead and half devoured by
dogs and pecked by jackdaws, a mule saddled and bridled, all which
still further strengthened their suspicion that he who had fled was
the owner of the mule and the saddle-pad.
As they stood looking at it they heard a whistle like that of a
shepherd watching his flock, and suddenly on their left there appeared
a great number of goats and behind them on the summit of the
mountain the goatherd in charge of them, a man advanced in years.
Don Quixote called aloud to him and begged him to come down to where
they stood. He shouted in return, asking what had brought them to that
spot, seldom or never trodden except by the feet of goats, or of the
wolves and other wild beasts that roamed around. Sancho in return bade
him come down, and they would explain all to him.
The goatherd descended, and reaching the place where Don Quixote
stood, he said, "I will wager you are looking at that hack mule that
lies dead in the hollow there, and, faith, it has been lying there now
these six months; tell me, have you come upon its master about here?"
"We have come upon nobody," answered Don Quixote, "nor on anything
except a saddle-pad and a little valise that we found not far from
this."
"I found it too," said the goatherd, "but I would not lift it nor go
near it for fear of some ill-luck or being charged with theft, for the
devil is crafty, and things rise up under one's feet to make one
fall without knowing why or wherefore."
"That's exactly what I say," said Sancho; "I found it too, and I
would not go within a stone's throw of it; there I left it, and
there it lies just as it was, for I don't want a dog with a bell."
"Tell me, good man," said Don Quixote, "do you know who is the owner
of this property?"
"All I can tell you," said the goatherd, "is that about six months
ago, more or less, there arrived at a shepherd's hut three leagues,
perhaps, away from this, a youth of well-bred appearance and
manners, mounted on that same mule which lies dead here, and with
the same saddle-pad and valise which you say you found and did not
touch. He asked us what part of this sierra was the most rugged and
retired; we told him that it was where we now are; and so in truth
it is, for if you push on half a league farther, perhaps you will
not be able to find your way out; and I am wondering how you have
managed to come here, for there is no road or path that leads to
this spot. I say, then, that on hearing our answer the youth turned
about and made for the place we pointed out to him, leaving us all
charmed with his good looks, and wondering at his question and the
haste with which we saw him depart in the direction of the sierra; and
after that we saw him no more, until some days afterwards he crossed
the path of one of our shepherds, and without saying a word to him,
came up to him and gave him several cuffs and kicks, and then turned
to the ass with our provisions and took all the bread and cheese it
carried, and having done this made off back again into the sierra with
extraordinary swiftness. When some of us goatherds learned this we
went in search of him for about two days through the most remote
portion of this sierra, at the end of which we found him lodged in the
hollow of a large thick cork tree. He came out to meet us with great
gentleness, with his dress now torn and his face so disfigured and
burned by the sun, that we hardly recognised him but that his clothes,
though torn, convinced us, from the recollection we had of them,
that he was the person we were looking for. He saluted us courteously,
and in a few well-spoken words he told us not to wonder at seeing
him going about in this guise, as it was binding upon him in order
that he might work out a penance which for his many sins had been
imposed upon him. We asked him to tell us who he was, but we were
never able to find out from him: we begged of him too, when he was
in want of food, which he could not do without, to tell us where we
should find him, as we would bring it to him with all good-will and
readiness; or if this were not to his taste, at least to come and
ask it of us and not take it by force from the shepherds. He thanked
us for the offer, begged pardon for the late assault, and promised for
the future to ask it in God's name without offering violence to
anybody. As for fixed abode, he said he had no other than that which
chance offered wherever night might overtake him; and his words
ended in an outburst of weeping so bitter that we who listened to
him must have been very stones had we not joined him in it,
comparing what we saw of him the first time with what we saw now; for,
as I said, he was a graceful and gracious youth, and in his
courteous and polished language showed himself to be of good birth and
courtly breeding, and rustics as we were that listened to him, even to
our rusticity his gentle bearing sufficed to make it plain.
"But in the midst of his conversation he stopped and became
silent, keeping his eyes fixed upon the ground for some time, during
which we stood still waiting anxiously to see what would come of
this abstraction; and with no little pity, for from his behaviour, now
staring at the ground with fixed gaze and eyes wide open without
moving an eyelid, again closing them, compressing his lips and raising
his eyebrows, we could perceive plainly that a fit of madness of
some kind had come upon him; and before long he showed that what we
imagined was the truth, for he arose in a fury from the ground where
he had thrown himself, and attacked the first he found near him with
such rage and fierceness that if we had not dragged him off him, he
would have beaten or bitten him to death, all the while exclaiming,
'Oh faithless Fernando, here, here shalt thou pay the penalty of the
wrong thou hast done me; these hands shall tear out that heart of
thine, abode and dwelling of all iniquity, but of deceit and fraud
above all; and to these he added other words all in effect
upbraiding this Fernando and charging him with treachery and
faithlessness.
"We forced him to release his hold with no little difficulty, and
without another word he left us, and rushing off plunged in among
these brakes and brambles, so as to make it impossible for us to
follow him; from this we suppose that madness comes upon him from time
to time, and that some one called Fernando must have done him a
wrong of a grievous nature such as the condition to which it had
brought him seemed to show. All this has been since then confirmed
on those occasions, and they have been many, on which he has crossed
our path, at one time to beg the shepherds to give him some of the
food they carry, at another to take it from them by force; for when
there is a fit of madness upon him, even though the shepherds offer it
freely, he will not accept it but snatches it from them by dint of
blows; but when he is in his senses he begs it for the love of God,
courteously and civilly, and receives it with many thanks and not a
few tears. And to tell you the truth, sirs," continued the goatherd,
"it was yesterday that we resolved, I and four of the lads, two of
them our servants, and the other two friends of mine, to go in
search of him until we find him, and when we do to take him, whether
by force or of his own consent, to the town of Almodovar, which is
eight leagues from this, and there strive to cure him (if indeed his
malady admits of a cure), or learn when he is in his senses who he is,
and if he has relatives to whom we may give notice of his
misfortune. This, sirs, is all I can say in answer to what you have
asked me; and be sure that the owner of the articles you found is he
whom you saw pass by with such nimbleness and so naked."
For Don Quixote had already described how he had seen the man go
bounding along the mountain side, and he was now filled with amazement
at what he heard from the goatherd, and more eager than ever to
discover who the unhappy madman was; and in his heart he resolved,
as he had done before, to search for him all over the mountain, not
leaving a corner or cave unexamined until he had found him. But chance
arranged matters better than he expected or hoped, for at that very
moment, in a gorge on the mountain that opened where they stood, the
youth he wished to find made his appearance, coming along talking to
himself in a way that would have been unintelligible near at hand,
much more at a distance. His garb was what has been described, save
that as he drew near, Don Quixote perceived that a tattered doublet
which he wore was amber-tanned, from which he concluded that one who
wore such garments could not be of very low rank.
Approaching them, the youth greeted them in a harsh and hoarse voice
but with great courtesy. Don Quixote returned his salutation with
equal politeness, and dismounting from Rocinante advanced with
well-bred bearing and grace to embrace him, and held him for some time
close in his arms as if he had known him for a long time. The other,
whom we may call the Ragged One of the Sorry Countenance, as Don
Quixote was of the Rueful, after submitting to the embrace pushed
him back a little and, placing his hands on Don Quixote's shoulders,
stood gazing at him as if seeking to see whether he knew him, not less
amazed, perhaps, at the sight of the face, figure, and armour of Don
Quixote than Don Quixote was at the sight of him. To be brief, the
first to speak after embracing was the Ragged One, and he said what
will be told farther on.
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Don Quixote
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