Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
CHAPTER LXIV.
1757 words | Chapter 225
TREATING OF THE ADVENTURE WHICH GAVE DON QUIXOTE MORE UNHAPPINESS THAN
ALL THAT HAD HITHERTO BEFALLEN HIM
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The wife of Don Antonio Moreno, so the history says, was extremely
happy to see Ana Felix in her house. She welcomed her with great
kindness, charmed as well by her beauty as by her intelligence; for in
both respects the fair Morisco was richly endowed, and all the people
of the city flocked to see her as though they had been summoned by the
ringing of the bells.
Don Quixote told Don Antonio that the plan adopted for releasing Don
Gregorio was not a good one, for its risks were greater than its
advantages, and that it would be better to land himself with his arms
and horse in Barbary; for he would carry him off in spite of the whole
Moorish host, as Don Gaiferos carried off his wife Melisendra.
“Remember, your worship,” observed Sancho on hearing him say so, “Señor
Don Gaiferos carried off his wife from the mainland, and took her to
France by land; but in this case, if by chance we carry off Don
Gregorio, we have no way of bringing him to Spain, for there’s the sea
between.”
“There’s a remedy for everything except death,” said Don Quixote; “if
they bring the vessel close to the shore we shall be able to get on
board though all the world strive to prevent us.”
“Your worship hits it off mighty well and mighty easy,” said Sancho;
“but ‘it’s a long step from saying to doing;’ and I hold to the
renegade, for he seems to me an honest good-hearted fellow.”
Don Antonio then said that if the renegade did not prove successful,
the expedient of the great Don Quixote’s expedition to Barbary should
be adopted. Two days afterwards the renegade put to sea in a light
vessel of six oars a-side manned by a stout crew, and two days later
the galleys made sail eastward, the general having begged the viceroy
to let him know all about the release of Don Gregorio and about Ana
Felix, and the viceroy promised to do as he requested.
One morning as Don Quixote went out for a stroll along the beach,
arrayed in full armour (for, as he often said, that was “his only gear,
his only rest the fray,” and he never was without it for a moment), he
saw coming towards him a knight, also in full armour, with a shining
moon painted on his shield, who, on approaching sufficiently near to be
heard, said in a loud voice, addressing himself to Don Quixote,
“Illustrious knight, and never sufficiently extolled Don Quixote of La
Mancha, I am the Knight of the White Moon, whose unheard-of
achievements will perhaps have recalled him to thy memory. I come to do
battle with thee and prove the might of thy arm, to the end that I make
thee acknowledge and confess that my lady, let her be who she may, is
incomparably fairer than thy Dulcinea del Toboso. If thou dost
acknowledge this fairly and openly, thou shalt escape death and save me
the trouble of inflicting it upon thee; if thou fightest and I vanquish
thee, I demand no other satisfaction than that, laying aside arms and
abstaining from going in quest of adventures, thou withdraw and betake
thyself to thine own village for the space of a year, and live there
without putting hand to sword, in peace and quiet and beneficial
repose, the same being needful for the increase of thy substance and
the salvation of thy soul; and if thou dost vanquish me, my head shall
be at thy disposal, my arms and horse thy spoils, and the renown of my
deeds transferred and added to thine. Consider which will be thy best
course, and give me thy answer speedily, for this day is all the time I
have for the despatch of this business.”
Don Quixote was amazed and astonished, as well at the Knight of the
White Moon’s arrogance, as at his reason for delivering the defiance,
and with calm dignity he answered him, “Knight of the White Moon, of
whose achievements I have never heard until now, I will venture to
swear you have never seen the illustrious Dulcinea; for had you seen
her I know you would have taken care not to venture yourself upon this
issue, because the sight would have removed all doubt from your mind
that there ever has been or can be a beauty to be compared with hers;
and so, not saying you lie, but merely that you are not correct in what
you state, I accept your challenge, with the conditions you have
proposed, and at once, that the day you have fixed may not expire; and
from your conditions I except only that of the renown of your
achievements being transferred to me, for I know not of what sort they
are nor what they may amount to; I am satisfied with my own, such as
they be. Take, therefore, the side of the field you choose, and I will
do the same; and to whom God shall give it may Saint Peter add his
blessing.”
The Knight of the White Moon had been seen from the city, and it was
told the viceroy how he was in conversation with Don Quixote. The
viceroy, fancying it must be some fresh adventure got up by Don Antonio
Moreno or some other gentleman of the city, hurried out at once to the
beach accompanied by Don Antonio and several other gentlemen, just as
Don Quixote was wheeling Rocinante round in order to take up the
necessary distance. The viceroy upon this, seeing that the pair of them
were evidently preparing to come to the charge, put himself between
them, asking them what it was that led them to engage in combat all of
a sudden in this way. The Knight of the White Moon replied that it was
a question of precedence of beauty; and briefly told him what he had
said to Don Quixote, and how the conditions of the defiance agreed upon
on both sides had been accepted. The viceroy went over to Don Antonio,
and asked in a low voice did he know who the Knight of the White Moon
was, or was it some joke they were playing on Don Quixote. Don Antonio
replied that he neither knew who he was nor whether the defiance was in
joke or in earnest. This answer left the viceroy in a state of
perplexity, not knowing whether he ought to let the combat go on or
not; but unable to persuade himself that it was anything but a joke he
fell back, saying, “If there be no other way out of it, gallant
knights, except to confess or die, and Don Quixote is inflexible, and
your worship of the White Moon still more so, in God’s hand be it, and
fall on.”
He of the White Moon thanked the viceroy in courteous and well-chosen
words for the permission he gave them, and so did Don Quixote, who
then, commending himself with all his heart to heaven and to his
Dulcinea, as was his custom on the eve of any combat that awaited him,
proceeded to take a little more distance, as he saw his antagonist was
doing the same; then, without blast of trumpet or other warlike
instrument to give them the signal to charge, both at the same instant
wheeled their horses; and he of the White Moon, being the swifter, met
Don Quixote after having traversed two-thirds of the course, and there
encountered him with such violence that, without touching him with his
lance (for he held it high, to all appearance purposely), he hurled Don
Quixote and Rocinante to the earth, a perilous fall. He sprang upon him
at once, and placing the lance over his visor said to him, “You are
vanquished, sir knight, nay dead unless you admit the conditions of our
defiance.”
Don Quixote, bruised and stupefied, without raising his visor said in a
weak feeble voice as if he were speaking out of a tomb, “Dulcinea del
Toboso is the fairest woman in the world, and I the most unfortunate
knight on earth; it is not fitting that this truth should suffer by my
feebleness; drive your lance home, sir knight, and take my life, since
you have taken away my honour.”
“That will I not, in sooth,” said he of the White Moon; “live the fame
of the lady Dulcinea’s beauty undimmed as ever; all I require is that
the great Don Quixote retire to his own home for a year, or for so long
a time as shall by me be enjoined upon him, as we agreed before
engaging in this combat.”
The viceroy, Don Antonio, and several others who were present heard all
this, and heard too how Don Quixote replied that so long as nothing in
prejudice of Dulcinea was demanded of him, he would observe all the
rest like a true and loyal knight. The engagement given, he of the
White Moon wheeled about, and making obeisance to the viceroy with a
movement of the head, rode away into the city at a half gallop. The
viceroy bade Don Antonio hasten after him, and by some means or other
find out who he was. They raised Don Quixote up and uncovered his face,
and found him pale and bathed with sweat.
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Rocinante from the mere hard measure he had received lay unable to stir
for the present. Sancho, wholly dejected and woebegone, knew not what
to say or do. He fancied that all was a dream, that the whole business
was a piece of enchantment. Here was his master defeated, and bound not
to take up arms for a year. He saw the light of the glory of his
achievements obscured; the hopes of the promises lately made him swept
away like smoke before the wind; Rocinante, he feared, was crippled for
life, and his master’s bones out of joint; for if he were only shaken
out of his madness it would be no small luck. In the end they carried
him into the city in a hand-chair which the viceroy sent for, and
thither the viceroy himself returned, eager to ascertain who this
Knight of the White Moon was who had left Don Quixote in such a sad
plight.
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