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"Tut, you fool," said Sancho; "it will be only to practise it fortwo or three years; and then dignity and decorum will fit her aseasily as a glove; and if not, what matter? Let her he 'my lady,'and never mind what happens."

"Keep to your own station, Sancho," replied Teresa; "don't try toraise yourself higher, and bear in mind the proverb that says, 'wipethe nose of your neigbbour's son, and take him into your house.' Afine thing it would be, indeed, to marry our Maria to some great countor grand gentleman, who, when the humour took him, would abuse her andcall her clown-bred and clodhopper's daughter and spinning wench. Ihave not been bringing up my daughter for that all this time, I cantell you, husband. Do you bring home money, Sancho, and leave marryingher to my care; there is Lope Tocho, Juan Tocho's son, a stout, sturdyyoung fellow that we know, and I can see he does not look sour atthe girl; and with him, one of our own sort, she will be well married,and we shall have her always under our eyes, and be all one family,parents and children, grandchildren and sons-in-law, and the peace andblessing of God will dwell among us; so don't you go marrying her inthose courts and grand palaces where they won't know what to make ofher, or she what to make of herself."

"Why, you idiot and wife for Barabbas," said Sancho, "what do youmean by trying, without why or wherefore, to keep me from marryingmy daughter to one who will give me grandchildren that will becalled 'your lordship'? Look ye, Teresa, I have always heard my elderssay that he who does not know how to take advantage of luck when itcomes to him, has no right to complain if it gives him the go-by;and now that it is knocking at our door, it will not do to shut itout; let us go with the favouring breeze that blows upon us."

It is this sort of talk, and what Sancho says lower down, thatmade the translator of the history say he considered this chapterapocryphal.

"Don't you see, you animal," continued Sancho, "that it will be wellfor me to drop into some profitable government that will lift us outof the mire, and marry Mari-Sancha to whom I like; and you yourselfwill find yourself called 'Dona Teresa Panza,' and sitting in churchon a fine carpet and cushions and draperies, in spite and indefiance of all the born ladies of the town? No, stay as you are,growing neither greater nor less, like a tapestry figure- Let us sayno more about it, for Sanchica shall be a countess, say what youwill."

"Are you sure of all you say, husband?" replied Teresa. "Well, forall that, I am afraid this rank of countess for my daughter will beher ruin. You do as you like, make a duchess or a princess of her, butI can tell you it will not be with my will and consent. I was always alover of equality, brother, and I can't bear to see people givethemselves airs without any right. They called me Teresa at mybaptism, a plain, simple name, without any additions or tags orfringes of Dons or Donas; Cascajo was my father's name, and as I amyour wife, I am called Teresa Panza, though by right I ought to hecalled Teresa Cascajo; but 'kings go where laws like,' and I amcontent with this name without having the 'Don' put on top of it tomake it so heavy that I cannot carry it; and I don't want to makepeople talk about me when they see me go dressed like a countess orgovernor's wife; for they will say at once, 'See what airs the slutgives herself! Only yesterday she was always spinning flax, and usedto go to mass with the tail of her petticoat over her head insteadof a mantle, and there she goes to-day in a hooped gown with herbroaches and airs, as if we didn't know her!' If God keeps me in myseven senses, or five, or whatever number I have, I am not going tobring myself to such a pass; go you, brother, and be a government oran island man, and swagger as much as you like; for by the soul ofmy mother, neither my daughter nor I are going to stir a step from ourvillage; a respectable woman should have a broken leg and keep athome; and to he busy at something is a virtuous damsel's holiday; beoff to your adventures along with your Don Quixote, and leave us toour misadventures, for God will mend them for us according as wedeserve it. I don't know, I'm sure, who fixed the 'Don' to him, whatneither his father nor grandfather ever had."

"I declare thou hast a devil of some sort in thy body!" said Sancho."God help thee, what a lot of things thou hast strung together, oneafter the other, without head or tail! What have Cascajo, and thebroaches and the proverbs and the airs, to do with what I say? Lookhere, fool and dolt (for so I may call you, when you don'tunderstand my words, and run away from good fortune), if I had saidthat my daughter was to throw herself down from a tower, or go roamingthe world, as the Infanta Dona Urraca wanted to do, you would be rightin not giving way to my will; but if in an instant, in less than thetwinkling of an eye, I put the 'Don' and 'my lady' on her back, andtake her out of the stubble, and place her under a canopy, on adais, and on a couch, with more velvet cushions than all the Almohadesof Morocco ever had in their family, why won't you consent and fall inwith my wishes?"

"Do you know why, husband?" replied Teresa; "because of theproverb that says 'who covers thee, discovers thee.' At the poor manpeople only throw a hasty glance; on the rich man they fix their eyes;and if the said rich man was once on a time poor, it is then thereis the sneering and the tattle and spite of backbiters; and in thestreets here they swarm as thick as bees."

"Look here, Teresa," said Sancho, "and listen to what I am now goingto say to you; maybe you never heard it in all your life; and I do notgive my own notions, for what I am about to say are the opinions ofhis reverence the preacher, who preached in this town last Lent, andwho said, if I remember rightly, that all things present that our eyesbehold, bring themselves before us, and remain and fix themselves onour memory much better and more forcibly than things past."

These observations which Sancho makes here are the other ones onaccount of which the translator says he regards this chapter asapocryphal, inasmuch as they are beyond Sancho's capacity.

"Whence it arises," he continued, "that when we see any personwell dressed and making a figure with rich garments and retinue ofservants, it seems to lead and impel us perforce to respect him,though memory may at the same moment recall to us some lowly conditionin which we have seen him, but which, whether it may have been povertyor low birth, being now a thing of the past, has no existence; whilethe only thing that has any existence is what we see before us; and ifthis person whom fortune has raised from his original lowly state(these were the very words the padre used) to his present height ofprosperity, be well bred, generous, courteous to all, withoutseeking to vie with those whose nobility is of ancient date, dependupon it, Teresa, no one will remember what he was, and everyone willrespect what he is, except indeed the envious, from whom no fairfortune is safe."

"I do not understand you, husband," replied Teresa; "do as you like,and don't break my head with any more speechifying and rethoric; andif you have revolved to do what you say-"

"Resolved, you should say, woman," said Sancho, "not revolved."

"Don't set yourself to wrangle with me, husband," said Teresa; "Ispeak as God pleases, and don't deal in out-of-the-way phrases; andI say if you are bent upon having a government, take your son Sanchowith you, and teach him from this time on how to hold a government;for sons ought to inherit and learn the trades of their fathers."

"As soon as I have the government," said Sancho, "I will send forhim by post, and I will send thee money, of which I shall have nolack, for there is never any want of people to lend it to governorswhen they have not got it; and do thou dress him so as to hide what heis and make him look what he is to be."

"You send the money," said Teresa, "and I'll dress him up for you asfine as you please."

"Then we are agreed that our daughter is to be a countess," saidSancho.

"The day that I see her a countess," replied Teresa, "it will be thesame to me as if I was burying her; but once more I say do as youplease, for we women are born to this burden of being obedient toour husbands, though they be dogs;" and with this she began to weep inearnest, as if she already saw Sanchica dead and buried.

Sancho consoled her by saying that though he must make her acountess, he would put it off as long as possible. Here theirconversation came to an end, and Sancho went back to see DonQuixote, and make arrangements for their departure.

CHAPTER VI

OF WHAT TOOK PLACE BETWEEN DON QUIXOTE AND HIS NIECE ANDHOUSEKEEPER; ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT CHAPTERS IN THE WHOLE HISTORY

WHILE Sancho Panza and his wife, Teresa Cascajo, held the aboveirrelevant conversation, Don Quixote's niece and housekeeper werenot idle, for by a thousand signs they began to perceive that theiruncle and master meant to give them the slip the third time, andonce more betake himself to his, for them, ill-errant chivalry. Theystrove by all the means in their power to divert him from such anunlucky scheme; but it was all preaching in the desert and hammeringcold iron. Nevertheless, among many other representations made to him,the housekeeper said to him, "In truth, master, if you do not keepstill and stay quiet at home, and give over roaming mountains andvalleys like a troubled spirit, looking for what they say are calledadventures, but what I call misfortunes, I shall have to makecomplaint to God and the king with loud supplication to send someremedy."

To which Don Quixote replied, "What answer God will give to yourcomplaints, housekeeper, I know not, nor what his Majesty willanswer either; I only know that if I were king I should decline toanswer the numberless silly petitions they present every day; forone of the greatest among the many troubles kings have is beingobliged to listen to all and answer all, and therefore I should besorry that any affairs of mine should worry him."

Whereupon the housekeeper said, "Tell us, senor, at his Majesty'scourt are there no knights?"

"There are," replied Don Quixote, "and plenty of them; and it isright there should be, to set off the dignity of the prince, and forthe greater glory of the king's majesty."

"Then might not your worship," said she, "be one of those that,without stirring a step, serve their king and lord in his court?"

"Recollect, my friend," said Don Quixote, "all knights cannot becourtiers, nor can all courtiers be knights-errant, nor need theybe. There must be all sorts in the world; and though we may be allknights, there is a great difference between one and another; forthe courtiers, without quitting their chambers, or the threshold ofthe court, range the world over by looking at a map, without itscosting them a farthing, and without suffering heat or cold, hunger orthirst; but we, the true knights-errant, measure the whole earthwith our own feet, exposed to the sun, to the cold, to the air, to theinclemencies of heaven, by day and night, on foot and on horseback;nor do we only know enemies in pictures, but in their own real shapes;and at all risks and on all occasions we attack them, without anyregard to childish points or rules of single combat, whether one hasor has not a shorter lance or sword, whether one carries relics or anysecret contrivance about him, whether or not the sun is to bedivided and portioned out, and other niceties of the sort that areobserved in set combats of man to man, that you know nothing about,but I do. And you must know besides, that the true knight-errant,though he may see ten giants, that not only touch the clouds withtheir heads but pierce them, and that go, each of them, on two talltowers by way of legs, and whose arms are like the masts of mightyships, and each eye like a great mill-wheel, and glowing brighter thana glass furnace, must not on any account be dismayed by them. On thecontrary, he must attack and fall upon them with a gallant bearing anda fearless heart, and, if possible, vanquish and destroy them, eventhough they have for armour the shells of a certain fish, that theysay are harder than diamonds, and in place of swords wield trenchantblades of Damascus steel, or clubs studded with spikes also ofsteel, such as I have more than once seen. All this I say,housekeeper, that you may see the difference there is between theone sort of knight and the other; and it would be well if there wereno prince who did not set a higher value on this second, or moreproperly speaking first, kind of knights-errant; for, as we read intheir histories, there have been some among them who have been thesalvation, not merely of one kingdom, but of many."

"Ah, senor," here exclaimed the niece, "remember that all this youare saying about knights-errant is fable and fiction; and theirhistories, if indeed they were not burned, would deserve, each ofthem, to have a sambenito put on it, or some mark by which it might beknown as infamous and a corrupter of good manners."

"By the God that gives me life," said Don Quixote, "if thou wert notmy full niece, being daughter of my own sister, I would inflict achastisement upon thee for the blasphemy thou hast uttered that allthe world should ring with. What! can it be that a young hussy thathardly knows how to handle a dozen lace-bobbins dares to wag hertongue and criticise the histories of knights-errant? What would SenorAmadis say if he heard of such a thing? He, however, no doubt wouldforgive thee, for he was the most humble-minded and courteous knightof his time, and moreover a great protector of damsels; but some thereare that might have heard thee, and it would not have been well forthee in that case; for they are not all courteous or mannerly; someare ill-conditioned scoundrels; nor is it everyone that callshimself a gentleman, that is so in all respects; some are gold, otherspinchbeck, and all look like gentlemen, but not all can stand thetouchstone of truth. There are men of low rank who strain themselvesto bursting to pass for gentlemen, and high gentlemen who, one wouldfancy, were dying to pass for men of low rank; the former raisethemselves by their ambition or by their virtues, the latter debasethemselves by their lack of spirit or by their vices; and one has needof experience and discernment to distinguish these two kinds ofgentlemen, so much alike in name and so different in conduct."