CHAPTER LXX
Which Follows Chapter Sixty-Nine and Deals with Matters Indispensable for the Clear Comprehension of This History
SANCHO slept that night in the same chamber with Don Quixote. It was some time before he went asleep, however, for the pain of the pinching and smacking was quite evident. Don Quixote was inclined to talk, but Sancho begged him to let him sleep in peace for the remainder of the night, and at last both master and servant fell into slumber.
In the meantime it might be told how it came about that Don Quixote came to visit the ducal castle again. The bachelor Samson Carrasco, having learned as much as he could from the page that carried the letter to Teresa Panza of the whereabouts of the hero, decided that the time had come for another combat with him. Thus he procured a new suit of armor and a fresh horse and set out to find the Duke's castle. Having reached it, he had a long conversation with the Duke, wherein he told him it was his great desire to bring Don Quixote back to his village and his friends, hoping that if he could defeat him in battle Don Quixote could be made to return of his own free will and in time be cured of his strange affliction. He then followed him to Saragossa, for which city he had set out when he left the Duke's castle, but finally traced him to Barcelona, where the bachelor encountered him with the result that he promised to return to his village and give up knight-errantry for a year.
On his way home, the bachelor, at the Duke's request, had stopped at the castle to inform him of the outcome of the combat, and it was then that the Duke decided to play the knight and his squire another joke. The Duke had his men stationed everywhere on the road that led from Barcelona, and it was thus that they were able to bring in Don Quixote in the manner and at the hour that they did.
When daylight arrived the morning after Altisidora's coming to life, Don Quixote awoke and found her in his presence; and the instant he saw her he showed his modesty and his confusion by pulling the sheet over his head. But while Don Quixote was not inclined to converse with a maiden so early in the morning, Sancho showed no aversion to it whatever, for he bombarded Altisidora with all kinds of impertinent questions as to what was going on in Hell when she was there. Of course Altisidora denied having any intimate knowledge of this place, for in spite of her immodesty she had only got as far as the gates, she said.
Don Quixote now entered into the conversation and asked why the fair Altisidora had been so persistent in her love, when she knew that he would never change or give up his beloved Dulcinea, to whom he maintained he was born to belong. When she heard Don Quixote talk in this manner, Altisidora grew very angry with him, and exclaimed: "God's life! Don Stockfish, soul of a mortar, stone of a date, more obstinate and obdurate than a clown asked a favor when he has his mind made up! If I fall upon you I shall tear your eyes out! Do you fancy, then, Don Vanquished, Don Cudgeled, that I died for your sake? All that you have seen to-night has been make believe; I am not the woman to let the black of my nail suffer for such a camel, much less die!"
Sancho interrupted her here and said he could well believe that; then he added: "All that about lovers pining to death is absurd. They may talk of it, but as far as doing it—Judas may believe that!"
Now the Duke and the Duchess entered, and after an animated conversation during which Sancho's amusing sayings as usual captivated his distinguished friends, Don Quixote begged leave to be on his way to his village. They granted him his request, and then they asked him whether he had forgiven Altisidora for having tried to capture his love. He replied saying that this lady's lack of virtue had its root in her idleness, and he recommended that the Duchess see to it that Altisidora was put to making lace or given some other employment. Sancho approved of his master's advice, and remarked sagely that he never had seen any lacemaker die for love; and he further illustrated the truth of Don Quixote's remark by his own experience on that score: when he was digging, he vowed, he never bothered with the thought of his old woman. The testimony of two such staunch friends of hers as Don Quixote and Sancho made the Duchess promise that hereafter she would keep the fair Altisidora employed so that no foolish thoughts might take her away from the path of virtue. As soon as the fair maiden heard her mistress speak thus, however, she assured her that there was no longer any need of her being worked to death in order to divert her thought from the person of our knight errant, for his cruelty to her had been such that the very thought of that had now blotted him out of her memory forever. And, pretending to wipe a tear from her eye, she made a curtsy to the Duchess and left the chamber.
It was now time for dinner, and soon afterward Don Quixote, having dined with the Duke and the Duchess, made his departure from the castle with Sancho, and started again for his home.