_What passed between Don Quixote, his Niece, and the Housekeeper;
being one of the most important chapters in the whole history._
While Sancho Panza and his wife Teresa Cascajo had the foregoing
dialogue, Don Quixote's niece and housekeeper were not idle, guessing
by a thousand signs that the knight intended a third sally. Therefore
they endeavoured by all possible means to divert him from his design;
but all in vain; for it was but preaching to a rock, and hammering
stubborn steel. "In short, sir," quoth the housekeeper, "if you will
not be ruled, but will needs run wandering over hill and dale, seeking
for mischief--for so I may well call the hopeful adventures which you
go about--I will never leave complaining to Heaven and the king, till
there is a stop put to it some way or other."
"What answer Heaven will vouchsafe to give thee, I know not," answered
Don Quixote; "neither can I tell what return his majesty will make to
thy petition. This I know, that were I king, I would excuse myself
from answering the infinite number of impertinent memorials that
disturb the repose of princes. I tell thee, woman, among the many
other fatigues which royalty sustains, it is one of the greatest to be
obliged to hear every one, and to give answer to all people.
Therefore, pray trouble not his majesty with anything concerning me."
"But pray, sir, tell me," replied she, "are there not amany knights in
the king's court?" "I must confess," said Don Quixote, "that, for the
ornament, the grandeur, and the pomp of royalty, many knights are and
ought to be maintained there." "Why, then," said the woman, "would it
not be better for your worship to be one of those brave knights who
serve the king their master on foot in his court?" "Hear me,
sweetheart," answered Don Quixote; "all knights cannot be courtiers,
nor can all courtiers be knights-errant. There must be of all sorts in
the world; and though we were all to agree in the common appellation
of knights, yet there would be a great difference between the one and
the other. For your courtiers, without so much as stirring out of the
shade and shelter of the court, can journey over all the universe in a
map, without the expense and fatigue of travelling, without suffering
the inconveniencies of heat, cold, hunger, and thirst; while we who
are the true knights-errant, exposed to all the inclemencies of
heaven, by night and day, on foot as well as on horseback, measure the
whole surface of the earth with our own feet. And further, the true
knight-errant, though he met ten giants, whose tall aspiring heads not
only touch but overtop the clouds, each of them stalking with
prodigious legs like huge towers, their sweeping arms like masts of
mighty ships, each eye as large as a mill-wheel, and more fiery than a
glass furnace; yet he is so far from being afraid to meet them, that
he must encounter them with a gentle countenance and an undaunted
courage,--assail them, close with them, and if possible vanquish and
destroy them all in an instant." "Ah, dear uncle," said the niece,
"have a care what you say; all the stories of knights-errant are
nothing but a pack of lies and fables, and deserve to be burnt, that
the world may know them to be wicked, and perverters of good manners."
"Wert thou not my own sister's daughter," cried the Don, "I would take
such revenge for the blasphemy thou hast uttered, as would resound
through the whole universe. Who ever heard of the like impudence? That
a young baggage, who scarce knows her bobbins from a bodkin, should
presume to put in her oar, and censure the histories of the
knights-errant! What would Sir Amadis have said, had he heard this? He
undoubtedly would have forgiven thee, for he was the most courteous
and complaisant knight of his time, especially to the fair sex, being
a great protector of damsels; but thy words might have reached the
ears of some that would have sacrificed thee to their indignation; for
all knights are not equally possessed of civility or good-nature;
neither are all those that assume the name of a disposition suitable
to the function. Some indeed are of the right stamp, but others are
either counterfeit, or of such an allay as cannot bear the touchstone,
though they deceive the sight. Inferior mortals there are who aim at
knighthood, and strain to reach the height of honour; and high-born
knights there are, who seem fond of grovelling in the dust, and being
lost in the crowd of inferior mortals: the first raise themselves by
ambition or by virtue; the last debase themselves by negligence or by
vice: so that there is need of a distinguishing understanding to judge
between these two sorts of knights, so nearly allied in name, and so
different in actions."--"Bless me, dear uncle," cried the niece, "that
you should know so much as to be able, if there was occasion, to get
up into a pulpit, or preach in the streets, and yet be so strangely
mistaken as to fancy a man of your years can be strong and
valiant,--that you can set every thing right, and force stubborn
malice to bend, when you yourself stoop beneath the burden of age; and
what is yet more odd, that you are a knight, when it is well known you
are none! For though some gentlemen may be knights, a poor gentleman
can hardly be so, because he cannot buy it."
"You say well, niece," answered Don Quixote; "and as to this last
observation, I could tell you things that you would admire at,
concerning families; but because I would not mix sacred things with
profane, I wave the discourse. However, listen both of you; and for
your farther instruction know, that all the lineages and descents of
mankind are reducible to these four heads: first, of those who, from a
very small and obscure beginning, have raised themselves to a
spreading and prodigious magnitude; secondly, of those who, deriving
their greatness from a noble spring, still preserve the dignity and
character of their original splendour; a third are those who, though
they had large foundations, have ended in a point, like a pyramid,
which by little and little dwindles as it were into nothing, or next
to nothing, in comparison of its basis. Others there are (and those
are the bulk of mankind) who have neither a good beginning, nor
rational continuance, and whose ending shall therefore be obscure:
such are the common people--the plebeian race. The Ottoman family is
an instance of the first sort, having derived their present greatness
from the poor beginning of a base-born shepherd. Of the second
sort----"
But here somebody knocked at the door; and being asked who it was,
Sancho answered it was he. Whereupon the housekeeper slipped out of
the way, not willing to see him, and the niece let him in. Don Quixote
received him with open arms; and locking themselves both in the
closet, they had another dialogue as pleasant as the former, the
result of which was, that they resolved at once to proceed in their
enterprise.
With the approbation of Signor Carrasco, who was now the knight's
oracle, it was decreed that they should set out at the expiration of
three days; in which time all necessaries should be provided,
especially a whole helmet, which Don Quixote said he was resolved by
all means to purchase. Samson offered him one which he knew he could
easily get of a friend, and which looked more dull with the mould and
rust, than bright with the lustre of the steel. The niece and the
housekeeper made a woful outcry, tore their hair, scratched their
faces, and howled like common mourners at funerals, lamenting the
knight's departure as it had been his real death, and abusing Carrasco
most unmercifully. In short, Don Quixote and his squire having got all
things in readiness--the one having pacified his wife, and the other
his niece and housekeeper--towards the evening, without being seen by
anybody but the bachelor, who would needs accompany them about half a
league from the village, they set forward for Toboso. The knight
mounted his Rozinante, and Sancho his trusty Dapple, his wallet well
stuffed with provisions, and his purse with money, which Don Quixote
gave him to defray expenses. At last Samson took his leave, desiring
the champion to give him, from time to time, an account of his
success, that, according to the laws of friendship, he might
sympathise in his good or evil fortune. Don Quixote made him a
promise, and then they parted; Samson went home, and the knight and
squire continued their journey for the great city of Toboso.