WHICH FOLLOWS CHAPTER SIXTY-NINE AND DEALS WITH MATTERS
INDISPENSABLE FOR THE CLEAR COMPREHENSION OF THIS HISTORY
Sancho slept that night in the same chamber with Don Quixote. It was
some time before he went asleep, however, for the pain of the pinching
and smacking was quite evident. Don Quixote was inclined to talk, but
Sancho begged him to let him sleep in peace for the remainder of the
night, and at last both master and servant fell into slumber.
In the meantime it might be told how it came about that Don Quixote
came to visit the ducal castle again. The bachelor Samson Carrasco,
having learned as much as he could from the page that carried the
letter to Teresa Panza of the whereabouts of the hero, decided that
the time had come for another combat with him. Thus he procured a new
suit of armor and a fresh horse and set out to find the Duke's castle.
Having reached it, he had a long conversation with the Duke, wherein
he told him it was his great desire to bring Don Quixote back to his
village and his friends, hoping that if he could defeat him in battle
Don Quixote could be made to return of his own free will and in time
be cured of his strange affliction. He then followed him to Saragossa,
for which city he had set out when he left the Duke's castle, but
finally traced him to Barcelona, where the bachelor encountered him
with the result that he promised to return to his village and give up
knight-errantry for a year.
On his way home, the bachelor, at the Duke's request, had stopped at
the castle to inform him of the outcome of the combat, and it was then
that the Duke decided to play the knight and his squire another joke.
The Duke had his men stationed everywhere on the road that led from
Barcelona, and it was thus that they were able to bring in Don Quixote
in the manner and at the hour that they did.
When daylight arrived the morning after Altisidora's coming to life,
Don Quixote awoke and found her in his presence; and the instant he
saw her he showed his modesty and his confusion by pulling the sheet
over his head. But while Don Quixote was not inclined to converse with
a maiden so early in the morning, Sancho showed no aversion to it
whatever, for he bombarded Altisidora with all kinds of impertinent
questions as to what was going on in Hell when she was there. Of
course Altisidora denied having any intimate knowledge of this place,
for in spite of her immodesty she had only got as far as the gates,
she said.
Don Quixote now entered into the conversation and asked why the fair
Altisidora had been so persistent in her love, when she knew that he
would never change or give up his beloved Dulcinea, to whom he
maintained he was born to belong. When she heard Don Quixote talk in
this manner, Altisidora grew very angry with him, and exclaimed:
"God's life! Don Stockfish, soul of a mortar, stone of a date, more
obstinate and obdurate than a clown asked a favor when he has his
mind made up! If I fall upon you I shall tear your eyes out! Do you
fancy, then, Don Vanquished, Don Cudgeled, that I died for _your_
sake? All that you have seen to-night has been make believe; I am not
the woman to let the black of my nail suffer for such a camel, much
less die!"
Sancho interrupted her here and said he could well believe that; then
he added: "All that about lovers pining to death is absurd. They may
talk of it, but as far as doing it--Judas may believe that!"
Now the Duke and the Duchess entered, and after an animated conversation
during which Sancho's amusing sayings as usual captivated his
distinguished friends, Don Quixote begged leave to be on his way to his
village. They granted him his request, and then they asked him whether he
had forgiven Altisidora for having tried to capture his love. He replied
saying that this lady's lack of virtue had its root in her idleness, and
he recommended that the Duchess see to it that Altisidora was put to
making lace or given some other employment. Sancho approved of his
master's advice, and remarked sagely that he never had seen any lacemaker
die for love; and he further illustrated the truth of Don Quixote's
remark by his own experience on that score: when he was digging, he
vowed, he never bothered with the thought of his old woman. The testimony
of two such staunch friends of hers as Don Quixote and Sancho made the
Duchess promise that hereafter she would keep the fair Altisidora
employed so that no foolish thoughts might take her away from the path of
virtue. As soon as the fair maiden heard her mistress speak thus,
however, she assured her that there was no longer any need of her being
worked to death in order to divert her thought from the person of our
knight errant, for his cruelty to her had been such that the very thought
of that had now blotted him out of her memory forever. And, pretending to
wipe a tear from her eye, she made a curtsy to the Duchess and left the
chamber.
It was now time for dinner, and soon afterward Don Quixote, having
dined with the Duke and the Duchess, made his departure from the
castle with Sancho, and started again for his home.