The good Alonso Quixano went on with the dictation of his will and
bequeathed all his estate to Antonia Quixano, his niece, but imposing
it upon her, as a necessary condition of enjoying the bequest, that “if
she is desirous of marrying, she marry none but a man who, upon strict
inquiry, shall be found never to have read a book of knight-errantry in
his life; and in case it appears that he has been conversant with such
books, and that she persists in her resolution to marry him, she is
then to forfeit all that I have bequeathed her, which in such case my
executors shall dispose of to pious uses at their own discretion.”
How clearly Don Quixote recognized the violent mutual incompatibility
that exists between the office of husband and that of knight-errant!
And in dictating this clause, may not the good knight have been
thinking of his Aldonza and of how, had he but ventured to break
the seal of his too great love, he might have been spared all the
misfortunes of his knight-errantry and remained by his own fireside a
happy prisoner in the arms of his love?
Your will has been faithfully executed, Don Quixote, and the young
men of this your country have renounced all knight-errantry so that
they might enjoy the estates of your nieces--and among these must be
counted almost all the women of Spain--and enjoy the nieces themselves
too. In their arms all heroism is smothered. They tremble lest it
should strike their lovers and husbands with its rushing wind as it
struck their uncle. It is your niece, Don Quixote, it is your niece
who rules and governs Spain to-day--it is your niece, not Sancho. It
is the timorous, home-keeping, narrow-souled Antonia Quixano, she who
feared lest you should turn poet, “a catching and incurable disease”;
she who so zealously assisted the curate and the barber in burning your
books; she who presumed to tell you to your face that all stories of
knight-errantry were nothing but a pack of lies and fables--a maidenly
audacity which provoked you to exclaim: “By the God that sustains me,
wert thou not my proper niece, my own sister’s daughter, I would take
such revenge for the blasphemy thou hast uttered as would resound
through the whole world”; it is she, “the young baggage who scarce
knows how to manage a dozen lace-work bobbins,” and who presumed to put
in her oar and censure the histories of knights-errant, it is she who
manages and dangles and juggles with the sons of your Spain as if they
were puppets. It is not Dulcinea del Toboso, no. Neither is it Aldonza
Lorenzo, she for whom you sighed for twelve years without seeing her
more than four times and without ever confessing your love. It is
Antonia Quixano, she who scarce knew how to manage a dozen lace-work
bobbins, who controls your countrymen to-day.
It is Antonia Quixano, who, because she has a small soul and no belief
in her husband’s greatness, keeps him at home and hinders him from
going forth to seek heroic adventures which would win him glory and
an everlasting name. If it were only Dulcinea!... Dulcinea, yes, for
however strange it may seem, Dulcinea can make a man renounce all
glory, can make him choose the glory of renouncing glory. Dulcinea,
or let us rather call her Aldonza, the ideal Aldonza might say to
him: “Come, come to my arms and let all your wild longings melt away
in tears upon my breast. Come to me. Yes, I see you set up on a lofty
pinnacle for all time, I see all your brother men gazing up at you, I
see you acclaimed by generations yet unborn--but come to me, renounce
it all for my sake, and that will make you great, my Alonso, that will
make you greater still. Take my mouth and cover it with warm kisses in
silence, and renounce a cold eternity of fame in the mouths of those
whom you will never know. Will you hear them speaking of you when you
are dead? Bury all your love in my breast, and if it is a great love,
it is better that you should bury it in me than that you should lavish
it among men who easily forget and soon pass away. They are not worthy
of admiring you, my Alonso, they are not worthy of it. You will live
for me alone and so you will live more truly for all the universe and
for God. So living, your might and your heroism will seem to be lost,
but don’t mind that. Do you not know the infinite streams of life which
flow from a silent and heroic love, flowing out in wave after wave
beyond humanity to the orbit of the remotest of the stars? Do you not
know that the silent and triumphant love of a happy pair of lovers is
a fount of mysterious energy that irradiates a whole people and all
generations to come to the end of time? Do you not know what it is to
guard the sacred fire of life, fanning it to ever brighter flame in
simple and silent worship? Love, the simple act of loving, without
deeds, is itself a heroic deed. Come and renounce all your deeds in my
arms--the dim obscurity of your repose in my arms will be a seed-time
which will bear fruit in the deeds and glory of others to whom your
very name will be unknown. When even the echo of your name is no longer
borne upon the air, when there is no longer any air to bear the echo
of it, the embers of your love will warm the ruins of perished worlds.
Come and give yourself to me, Alonso, for though you should never ride
abroad redressing wrongs, your greatness will not be lost, for in my
heart nothing is lost. Come, rest your head upon my heart and I will
carry you thence to the rest that has no ending.”
With such words Aldonza might speak, and in renouncing all glory in her
arms Alonso would be truly great; but such words you can never speak,
Antonia. You do not believe that love is of more worth than glory; what
you believe is that neither love nor glory is worth as much as sleepy
fireside peace and quiet, that neither love nor glory is worth as much
as the certainty of the daily mess of pottage; you believe that those
who don’t sleep easily in their beds come to a bad end, and you don’t
know that love, like glory, never sleeps but watches.