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VOLUME[ PART 2  ]  

CHAPTER[ V. OF THE SHREWD AND DROLL CONVERSATION THAT PASSED BETWEEN SANCHO PANZA AND

HIS WIFE TERESA PANZA, AND OTHER MATTERS WORTHY OF BEING DULY RECORDED

The translator of this history, when he comes to write this fifth

chapter, says that he considers it apocryphal, because in it Sancho Panza

speaks in a style unlike that which might have been expected from his

limited intelligence, and says things so subtle that he does not think it

possible he could have conceived them; however, desirous of doing what

his task imposed upon him, he was unwilling to leave it untranslated, and

therefore he went on to say:

Sancho came home in such glee and spirits that his wife noticed his

happiness a bowshot off, so much so that it made her ask him, "What have

you got, Sancho friend, that you are so glad?"

To which he replied, "Wife, if it were God's will, I should be very glad

not to be so well pleased as I show myself."

"I don't understand you, husband," said she, "and I don't know what you

mean by saying you would be glad, if it were God's will, not to be well

pleased; for, fool as I am, I don't know how one can find pleasure in not

having it."

"Hark ye, Teresa," replied Sancho, "I am glad because I have made up my

mind to go back to the service of my master Don Quixote, who means to go

out a third time to seek for adventures; and I am going with him again,

for my necessities will have it so, and also the hope that cheers me with

the thought that I may find another hundred crowns like those we have

spent; though it makes me sad to have to leave thee and the children; and

if God would be pleased to let me have my daily bread, dry-shod and at

home, without taking me out into the byways and cross-roads--and he could

do it at small cost by merely willing it--it is clear my happiness would

be more solid and lasting, for the happiness I have is mingled with

sorrow at leaving thee; so that I was right in saying I would be glad, if

it were God's will, not to be well pleased."

"Look here, Sancho," said Teresa; "ever since you joined on to a

knight-errant you talk in such a roundabout way that there is no

understanding you."

"It is enough that God understands me, wife," replied Sancho; "for he is

the understander of all things; that will do; but mind, sister, you must

look to Dapple carefully for the next three days, so that he may be fit

to take arms; double his feed, and see to the pack-saddle and other

harness, for it is not to a wedding we are bound, but to go round the

world, and play at give and take with giants and dragons and monsters,

and hear hissings and roarings and bellowings and howlings; and even all

this would be lavender, if we had not to reckon with Yanguesans and

enchanted Moors."

"I know well enough, husband," said Teresa, "that squires-errant don't

eat their bread for nothing, and so I will be always praying to our Lord

to deliver you speedily from all that hard fortune."

"I can tell you, wife," said Sancho, "if I did not expect to see myself

governor of an island before long, I would drop down dead on the spot."

"Nay, then, husband," said Teresa; "let the hen live, though it be with

her pip, live, and let the devil take all the governments in the world;

you came out of your mother's womb without a government, you have lived

until now without a government, and when it is God's will you will go, or

be carried, to your grave without a government. How many there are in the

world who live without a government, and continue to live all the same,

and are reckoned in the number of the people. The best sauce in the world

is hunger, and as the poor are never without that, they always eat with a

relish. But mind, Sancho, if by good luck you should find yourself with

some government, don't forget me and your children. Remember that

Sanchico is now full fifteen, and it is right he should go to school, if

his uncle the abbot has a mind to have him trained for the Church.

Consider, too, that your daughter Mari-Sancha will not die of grief if we

marry her; for I have my suspicions that she is as eager to get a husband

as you to get a government; and, after all, a daughter looks better ill

married than well whored."

"By my faith," replied Sancho, "if God brings me to get any sort of a

government, I intend, wife, to make such a high match for Mari-Sancha

that there will be no approaching her without calling her 'my lady."

"Nay, Sancho," returned Teresa; "marry her to her equal, that is the

safest plan; for if you put her out of wooden clogs into high-heeled

shoes, out of her grey flannel petticoat into hoops and silk gowns, out

of the plain 'Marica' and 'thou,' into 'Dona So-and-so' and 'my lady,'

the girl won't know where she is, and at every turn she will fall into a

thousand blunders that will show the thread of her coarse homespun

stuff."

"Tut, you fool," said Sancho; "it will be only to practise it for two or

three years; and then dignity and decorum will fit her as easily 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 to raise

yourself higher, and bear in mind the proverb that says, 'wipe the nose

of your neigbbour's son, and take him into your house.' A fine thing it

would be, indeed, to marry our Maria to some great count or grand

gentleman, who, when the humour took him, would abuse her and call her

clown-bred and clodhopper's daughter and spinning wench. I have not been

bringing up my daughter for that all this time, I can tell you, husband.

Do you bring home money, Sancho, and leave marrying her to my care; there

is Lope Tocho, Juan Tocho's son, a stout, sturdy young fellow that we

know, and I can see he does not look sour at the 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 and blessing of God will

dwell among us; so don't you go marrying her in those courts and grand

palaces where they won't know what to make of her, or she what to make of

herself."

"Why, you idiot and wife for Barabbas," said Sancho, "what do you mean by

trying, without why or wherefore, to keep me from marrying my daughter to

one who will give me grandchildren that will be called 'your lordship'?

Look ye, Teresa, I have always heard my elders say that he who does not

know how to take advantage of luck when it comes 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 it out; let us go with the favouring breeze

that blows upon us."

It is this sort of talk, and what Sancho says lower down, that made the

translator of the history say he considered this chapter apocryphal.

"Don't you see, you animal," continued Sancho, "that it will be well for

me to drop into some profitable government that will lift us out of the

mire, and marry Mari-Sancha to whom I like; and you yourself will find

yourself called 'Dona Teresa Panza,' and sitting in church on a fine

carpet and cushions and draperies, in spite and in defiance of all the

born ladies of the town? No, stay as you are, growing neither greater nor

less, like a tapestry figure--Let us say no more about it, for Sanchica

shall be a countess, say what you will."

"Are you sure of all you say, husband?" replied Teresa. "Well, for all

that, I am afraid this rank of countess for my daughter will be her ruin.

You do as you like, make a duchess or a princess of her, but I can tell

you it will not be with my will and consent. I was always a lover of

equality, brother, and I can't bear to see people give themselves airs

without any right. They called me Teresa at my baptism, a plain, simple

name, without any additions or tags or fringes of Dons or Donas; Cascajo

was my father's name, and as I am your wife, I am called Teresa Panza,

though by right I ought to be called Teresa Cascajo; but 'kings go where

laws like,' and I am content with this name without having the 'Don' put

on top of it to make it so heavy that I cannot carry it; and I don't want

to make people talk about me when they see me go dressed like a countess

or governor's wife; for they will say at once, 'See what airs the slut

gives herself! Only yesterday she was always spinning flax, and used to

go to mass with the tail of her petticoat over her head instead of a

mantle, and there she goes to-day in a hooped gown with her broaches and

airs, as if we didn't know her!' If God keeps me in my seven senses, or

five, or whatever number I have, I am not going to bring myself to such a

pass; go you, brother, and be a government or an island man, and swagger

as much as you like; for by the soul of my mother, neither my daughter

nor I are going to stir a step from our village; a respectable woman

should have a broken leg and keep at home; and to be busy at something is

a virtuous damsel's holiday; be off to your adventures along with your

Don Quixote, and leave us to our misadventures, for God will mend them

for us according as we deserve it. I don't know, I'm sure, who fixed the

'Don' to him, what neither 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, one after the

other, without head or tail! What have Cascajo, and the broaches and the

proverbs and the airs, to do with what I say? Look here, fool and dolt

(for so I may call you, when you don't understand my words, and run away

from good fortune), if I had said that my daughter was to throw herself

down from a tower, or go roaming the world, as the Infanta Dona Urraca

wanted to do, you would be right in not giving way to my will; but if in

an instant, in less than the twinkling of an eye, I put the 'Don' and 'my

lady' on her back, and take her out of the stubble, and place her under a

canopy, on a dais, and on a couch, with more velvet cushions than all the

Almohades of Morocco ever had in their family, why won't you consent and

fall in with my wishes?"

"Do you know why, husband?" replied Teresa; "because of the proverb that

says 'who covers thee, discovers thee.' At the poor man people 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 there is the sneering and the

tattle and spite of backbiters; and in the streets here they swarm as

thick as bees."

"Look here, Teresa," said Sancho, "and listen to what I am now going to

say to you; maybe you never heard it in all your life; and I do not give

my own notions, for what I am about to say are the opinions of his

reverence the preacher, who preached in this town last Lent, and who

said, if I remember rightly, that all things present that our eyes

behold, bring themselves before us, and remain and fix themselves on our

memory much better and more forcibly than things past."

These observations which Sancho makes here are the other ones on account

of which the translator says he regards this chapter as apocryphal,

inasmuch as they are beyond Sancho's capacity.

"Whence it arises," he continued, "that when we see any person well

dressed and making a figure with rich garments and retinue of servants,

it seems to lead and impel us perforce to respect him, though memory may

at the same moment recall to us some lowly condition in which we have

seen him, but which, whether it may have been poverty or low birth, being

now a thing of the past, has no existence; while the only thing that has

any existence is what we see before us; and if this person whom fortune

has raised from his original lowly state (these were the very words the

padre used) to his present height of prosperity, be well bred, generous,

courteous to all, without seeking to vie with those whose nobility is of

ancient date, depend upon it, Teresa, no one will remember what he was,

and everyone will respect what he is, except indeed the envious, from

whom no fair fortune 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; and if 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; "I speak

as God pleases, and don't deal in out-of-the-way phrases; and I say if

you are bent upon having a government, take your son Sancho with 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 for him by

post, and I will send thee money, of which I shall have no lack, for

there is never any want of people to lend it to governors when they have

not got it; and do thou dress him so as to hide what he is and make him

look what he is to be."

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

as you please."

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

"The day that I see her a countess," replied Teresa, "it will be the same

to me as if I was burying her; but once more I say do as you please, for

we women are born to this burden of being obedient to our husbands,

though they be dogs;" and with this she began to weep in earnest, as if

she already saw Sanchica dead and buried.

Sancho consoled her by saying that though he must make her a countess, he

would put it off as long as possible. Here their conversation came to an

end, and Sancho went back to see Don Quixote, and make arrangements for

their departure.

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