Our train did not pass very near, but the distance was not bad for
them; it kept them sixty or sixty-five years back in the past where they
belonged, and in its dimness I could the more distinctly see Don
Quixote careering against them, and Sancho Panza vainly warning, vainly
imploring him, and then in his rage and despair, “giving himself to the
devil,” as he had so often to do in that master’s service; I do not
know now that I would have gone nearer them if I could. Sometimes in the
desolate plains where the windmills stood so well aloof men were lazily,
or at least leisurely, plowing with their prehistoric crooked sticks.
Here and there the clean levels were broken by shallow pools of water;
and we were at first much tormented by expanses, almost as great as
these pools, of a certain purple flower, which no curiosity of ours
could prevail with to yield up the secret of its name or nature. It
was one of the anomalies of this desert country that it was apparently
prosperous, if one might guess from the comfortable-looking farmsteads
scattered over it, inclosing house and stables in the courtyard framed
by their white walls. The houses stood at no great distances from one
another, but were nowhere grouped in villages. There were commonly no
towns near the stations, which were not always uncheerful; sometimes
there were flower-beds, unless my memory deceives me. Perhaps there
would be a passenger or two, and certainly a loafer or two, and always
of the sex which in town life does the loafing; in the background
or through the windows the other sex could be seen in its domestic
activities. Only once did we see three girls of such as stay for the
coming and going of trains the world over; they waited arm in arm, and
we were obliged to own they were plain, poor things.
Their whitewash saves the distant towns from the effect of sinking into
the earth, or irregularly rising from it, as in Old Castile, and the
landscape cheered up more and more as we ran farther south. We passed
through the country of the Valdepenas wine, which it is said would so
willingly be better than it is; there was even a station of that name,
which looked much more of a station than most, and had, I think I
remember, buildings necessary to the wine industry about it. Murray,
indeed, emboldens me in this halting conjecture with the declaration
that the neighboring town of Valdepenas is “completely undermined by
wine-cellars of very ancient date” where the wine is “kept in caves in
huge earthen jars,” and when removed is put into goat or pig skins in
the right Don Quixote fashion.
The whole region begins to reek of Cervantean memories. Ten miles from
the station of Argamasilla is the village where he imagined, and the
inhabitants believe, Don Quixote to have been born. Somewhere among
these little towns Cervantes himself was thrown into prison for
presuming to attempt collecting their rents when the people did not want
to pay them. This is what I seem to remember having read, but heaven
knows where, or if. What is certain is that almost before I was aware
we were leaving the neighborhood of Valdepenas, where we saw men with
donkeys gathering grapes and letting the donkeys browse on the vine
leaves. Then we were mounting among the foothills of the Sierra Morena,
not without much besetting trouble of mind because of those certain
circles and squares of stone on the nearer and farther slopes which we
have since somehow determined were sheep-folds. They abounded almost to
the very scene of those capers which Don Quixote cut on the mountainside
to testify his love for Dulcinea del Toboso, to the great scandal of
Sancho Panza riding away to give his letter to the lady, but unable to
bear the sight of the knight skipping on the rocks in a single garment.