_What befell Don Quixote and his company at the inn._
When they had eaten plentifully they left that place, and travelled
all that day and the next without meeting anything worth notice, till
they came to the inn, which was so frightful a sight to poor Sancho,
that he would willingly not have gone in, but could by no means avoid
it. The innkeeper, the hostess, her daughter, and Maritornes, met Don
Quixote and his squire with a very hearty welcome. The knight received
them with a face of gravity and approbation, bidding them prepare him
a better bed than their last entertainment afforded him. "Sir," said
the hostess, "pay us better than you did then, and you shall have a
bed for a prince." And upon the knight's promise that he would, she
promised him a tolerable bed in the large room where he lay before. He
presently undressed, and being heartily crazed in body as well as in
mind, he went to bed. He was scarcely got to his chamber, when the
hostess flew suddenly at the barber, and catching him by the beard,
"On my life," said she, "you shall use my tail no longer for a beard;
pray, sir, give me my tail; my husband wants it to stick his comb
into; and my tail I will have, sir." The barber surrendered the
hostess her tail, with the other trinkets which he had borrowed to
decoy Don Quixote out of the desert. Dorothea's beauty and Cardenio's
handsome shape surprised every body. The curate bespoke supper; and
the host, being pretty secure of his reckoning, soon got them a
tolerable entertainment. They would not disturb the knight, who slept
very soundly, for his distemper wanted rest more than meat; but they
diverted themselves with the hostess's account of his encounter with
the carriers, and of Sancho's being tossed in a blanket. Don Quixote's
unaccountable madness was the principal subject of their discourse;
upon which the curate insisting and arguing that it proceeded from his
reading romances, the innkeeper took him up.
"Sir," said he, "you cannot make me of your opinion; for, in my mind,
it is the pleasantest reading that ever was. I have now in the house
two or three books of that kind, and some other pieces that really
have kept me and many others alive. In harvest-time, a great many of
the reapers come to drink here in the heat of the day, and he that can
read best among us takes up one of these books, and all the rest of
us, sometimes thirty or more, sit round about him and listen with such
pleasure that we think neither of sorrow nor care. As for my own part,
when I hear the mighty blows and dreadful battles of those
knights-errant, I have half a mind to be one myself, and am raised to
such a life and briskness that I could frighten away old age. I could
sit and hear them from morning till night." "I wish you would,
husband," said the hostess; "for then we should have some rest; for at
all other times you are so out of humour and so snappish that we lead
a sad life with you." "And what think you of this matter, young miss?"
said the curate to the innkeeper's daughter. "Alack-a-day, sir," said
she, "I do not understand those things, and yet I love to hear them;
but I do not like that frightful ugly fighting that so pleases my
father. Indeed, the sad lamentations of the poor knights for the loss
of their mistresses sometimes makes me cry like any thing." "I
suppose, then, young gentlewoman," said Dorothea, "you will be
tender-hearted, and will never let a lover die for you." "I do not
know what may happen as to that," said the girl; "but this I know,
that I will never give any body reason to call me tigress and lioness,
and I do not know how many other ugly names, as those ladies are often
called; and I think they deserve yet worse, so they do; for they can
never have soul nor conscience to let such fine gentlemen die or run
mad for a sight of them. What signifies all their fiddling and
coyness? If they are civil women, why do not they marry them; for that
is all their knights would be at?" "Hold your prating, mistress," said
the hostess, "how came you to know all this? It is not for such as you
to talk of these matters." "The gentleman only asked me a question,"
said she, "and it would be uncivil not to answer him." "Well," said
the curate, "do me the favour, good landlord, to bring out these books
that I may have a sight of them."
"With all my heart," said the innkeeper; and with that, stepping to
his chamber, he opened a little portmanteau that shut with a chain,
and took out three large volumes, with a parcel of manuscripts in a
fair legible letter. The title of the first was Don Cirongilio of
Thrace; the second Felixmarte of Hircania; and the third was the
History of the great Captain Goncalo Hernandes de Corduba, and the
Life of Diego Garcia de Paredes, bound together.[7] The curate,
reading the title, turned to the barber, and told him they wanted now
Don Quixote's housekeeper and his niece. "I shall do as well with the
books," said the barber; "for I can find the way to the back-yard, or
to the chimney; there is a good fire that will do their business."
"Business!" said the innkeeper, "I hope you would not burn my books?"
"Only two of them," said the curate; "this same Don Cirongilio and his
friend Felixmarte." "I hope, sir," said the host, "they are neither
heretics nor flegmatics." "Schismatics, you mean," said the barber. "I
mean so," said the innkeeper; "and if you must burn any, let it be
this of Goncalo Hernandes and Diego Garcia; for you should sooner burn
one of my children than the others." "These books, honest friend,"
said the curate, "that you appear so concerned for are senseless
rhapsodies of falsehood and folly; and this which you so despise is a
true history, and contains a true account of two celebrated men. The
first by his bravery and courage purchased immortal fame, and the name
of the Great General, by the universal consent of mankind; and the
other, Diego Garcia de Paredes, was of noble extraction, and born in
Truxillo, a town of Estremadura, and was a man of singular courage,
and of such mighty strength, that with one of his hands he could stop
a mill-wheel in its most rapid motion, and with his single force
defended the passage of a bridge against an immense army. Several
other great actions are related in the memoirs of his life, but all
with so much modesty and unbiassed truth, that they easily pronounce
him his own historiographer; and had they been written by any one
else, with freedom and impartiality, they might have eclipsed your
Hectors, Achilles's, and Orlandos, with all their heroic exploits."
"That's a fine jest, truly," said the innkeeper; "my father could have
told you another tale, sir. Holding a mill-wheel! why, is that such a
mighty matter? Only do but turn over a leaf of Felixmarte there; you
will find how with one single back-stroke he cut five swinging giants
off by the middle, as if they had been so many bean-cods, of which the
children make little puppet-friars; and read how at another time he
charged a most mighty and powerful army of above a million and six
hundred thousand fighting men, all armed cap-a-pie, and routed them
all like so many sheep. And what can you say of the worthy Cirongilio
of Thrace? who, as you may read there, going by water one day, was
assaulted by a fiery serpent in the middle of the river; he presently
leaped nimbly upon her back, and, hanging by her scaly neck, grasped
her throat fast with both his arms, so that the serpent, finding
herself almost strangled, was forced to dive into the water to save
herself, and carried the knight, who would not quit his hold, to the
very bottom, where he found a stately palace and such pleasant gardens
that it was a wonder; and straight the serpent turned into a very old
man, and told him such things as were never heard nor spoken. Now, a
fig for your Great Captain and your Diego Garcia." Dorothea, hearing
this, said softly to Cardenio, that the host was capable of making a
second part to Don Quixote. "I think so too," cried Cardenio, "for it
is plain he believes every tittle contained in those books; nor can
all the Carthusian friars in the world persuade him otherwise." "I
tell thee, friend," said the curate, "there were never any such
persons as your books of chivalry mention upon the face of the earth;
your Felixmarte of Hircania and your Cirongilio of Thrace are all but
chimeras and fictions of idle and luxuriant wits, who wrote them for
the same reason that you read them, because they had nothing else to
do." "Sir," said the innkeeper, "you must angle with another bait, or
you will catch no fish; I know what's what as well as another; I can
tell where my own shoe pinches me; and you must not think, sir, to
catch old birds with chaff. A pleasant jest indeed, that you should
pretend to persuade me now that these notable books are lies and
stories! why, sir, are they not in print? Are they not published
according to order? licensed by authority from the privy council? And
do you think that they would permit so many untruths to be printed,
and such a number of battles and enchantments, to set us all
a-madding?" "I have told you already, friend," replied the curate,
"that this is licensed for our amusement in our idle hours: for the
same reason that tennis, billiards, chess, and other recreations are
tolerated, that men may find a pastime for those hours they cannot
find employment for. Neither could the government foresee this
inconvenience from such books that you urge, because they could not
reasonably suppose any rational person would believe their
absurdities. And were this a proper time, I could say a great deal in
favour of such writings; and how, with some regulations, they might be
made both instructive and diverting. But I design upon the first
opportunity to communicate my thoughts on this head to some that may
redress it. In the mean time, honest landlord, you may put up your
books, and believe them true if you please, and much good may they do
you. And I wish you may never halt on the same foot as your guest, Don
Quixote." "There's no fear of that," said the innkeeper; "for I never
design to turn knight-errant, because I find the customs that
supported the noble order are quite out of doors."
[7] These were not fabulous heroes, though romantic authors have added
much of fable to their true history.