WHEREIN IS RELATED THE GRAND ADVENTURE OF THE CAVE OF
MONTESINOS IN THE HEART OF LA MANCHA, WHICH THE VALIANT DON
QUIXOTE BROUGHT TO A HAPPY TERMINATION
Don Quixote and Sancho remained at the home of the newly married
couple for three days. Before the knight took leave of Basilio and
Quiteria, he discoursed at length on love and matrimony: a discourse
that Sancho seemed to take more to heart than they did, for when his
master had finished he was heard muttering that he wished he had had
such advice before marrying his wife.
"Is thy Teresa so bad then, Sancho?" asked Don Quixote.
"She is not very bad," replied the downtrodden squire, "but she is not
very good; at least she is not as good as I could wish."
"Thou dost wrong, Sancho, to speak ill of thy wife," admonished his
master; "for after all she is the mother of thy children."
And to this the squire answered: "We are quits, for she speaks ill of
me whenever she takes it into her head, especially when she is
jealous; and Satan himself could not put up with her then."
Having exchanged these thoughts with his squire, Don Quixote decided
it was time to take to the open again, and he begged one of the
students who had invited him to the wedding to find him a guide to
take him to the cave of Montesinos. The student provided him with a
cousin of his own, a young scholar who was very much interested in
tales of chivalry; and, followed by the earnest prayers of those they
left behind, the three set out for the famous cave.
Don Quixote wanted the scholar to tell him all about himself, and when
he learned, he had had books printed which were inscribed to princes,
he wanted to know what kind of books they were. When he mentioned that
he was writing one now that was to deal with the invention of customs
and things, Sancho became interested and thrust this question at him,
which he answered himself: "Tell me, Senor--and God give you luck in
printing your books!--who was the first man that scratched his head?
For to my thinking it must have been our father Adam."
Glad to have had his supposition corroborated by so great an authority
as an author of books, Sancho was encouraged to ask numerous other
questions of the same caliber; and this helped to make the time seem
short. When night fell they had reached a little village, from where
it was only a very short distance to the cave.
As Don Quixote was intent on discovering the cave's inmost secrets, he
provided himself with a hundred fathoms of rope, and the following
afternoon he was at the cavern, ready for the hazardous undertaking.
Don Quixote was tied to the end of the rope, and all the while Sancho
was admonishing him not to bury himself alive in the bottomless pit,
telling him that he had no business being an explorer anyway. Before
being lowered into the depths, Don Quixote commended himself to his
Lady Dulcinea and sent up a prayer to Heaven on bended knees.
In order to enter the cave, he had to cut his way through the brush, and
as he commenced to swing his sword, a whole city of crows and bats flew
against him and knocked him to the ground. Sancho crossed himself and
kept up his vigilance over his master to the last. Finally he saw him
disappear in the coal-black depths, and then he called on all the saints
he knew by name to protect the flower and cream of knight-errantry, the
dare-devil of the earth, the heart of steel and the arm of brass.
At last Sancho and the scholar had given Don Quixote all the hundred
fathoms of the rope, and then they got no more replies to their calls.
They waited for half an hour, and then they were afraid that the
knight was dead and decided to haul him up, Sancho weeping bitterly
all the while. But when Sancho saw his master coming up, he could not
restrain himself from being hopeful of a miracle, and he called out
gleefully: "Welcome back, Senor, for we had begun to think you were
going to stop there to found a family."
Don Quixote did not move, however, and they laid him on the ground and
found he was fast asleep. When he came to, he was in an exalted state.
He raised his eyes toward Heaven, and asked God to forgive them for
having taken him away from such a glorious and spectacular pleasure.
But Sancho was curious to know what he had seen down there in Hell,
and he interrupted and asked the question.
"Hell!" cried Don Quixote. "Call it by no such name, for it does not
deserve it."
Then he asked for something to eat, and Sancho put before him an
abundance of food, since he said he was very hungry. When he had
eaten, he asked them to sit still and listen to his story.