In the face of all these disadvantages and troubles the great work of his genius was being conceived and written, and in 1605 the first part of “Don Quixote” appeared. Although it was an immediate success with the people, the Church of course expressed strong disapproval, and literary men criticized it, Lope de Vega wrote: “No poet is as bad as Cervantes nor so foolish as to praise ‘Don Quixote.’”
The books people read most of all in those days were romances of chivalry, recording absurd adventures of wonderful knights-errant who wandered about capturing princesses from castles and performing great deeds of prowess—all written quite seriously. Cervantes wanted to ridicule this sort of literature and show up its absurdity. But so fertile was his imagination and so varied had been his own experiences that at the same time, as I have already said, he succeeded in giving a wonderfully graphic picture of Spanish life, bringing in all classes of society and also recording many of his own adventures as a soldier.
Don Quixote himself, though a ridiculous figure in a way, is depicted as a delightful gentleman filled with generous and high-minded sentiments, courteous and kindly, a champion of the downtrodden, and a protector of the weak. The word “quixotic,” which is used in every language in the civilized world, conveys precisely the knight’s character. It means a man with impossibly extravagant romantic and chivalrous notions, but a man with high ambitions who is a champion and reformer at heart. The book was not the work of a learned scholar or professor; it was the outcome of natural genius which appealed directly to all classes and all ages. The saying at the time was that “Children turn its leaves, young people read it, grown men understand it, old folks praise it.” The English were among the first to appreciate the wonderful book of adventures and it was translated in 1612.
About the second part of “Don Quixote” there is a curious story. While Cervantes was at work at it, some one who called himself Avellaneda (some think it was his old enemy, Blanco de Paz) wrote and published a second part, which was a sort of imitation rather cleverly done, but, of course, without any of the merits of the original. It contains an ill-natured prologue referring to the author of the first part as a cripple, a backbiter, a malefactor, and a jailbird, and reproaching him for having more tongue than hands (a reference to his maimed left hand). Cervantes was naturally indignant at this attempt to spoil his book. He hastened to issue his own second part, and thus completed his great work, which, throughout, is of the same high quality. It is possible that had it not been for the intrusion of this impertinent interloper the second part of “Don Quixote” might never have been finished.
The whole book was written at a time when the poor unfortunate author was struggling sometimes actually for bread. But nowhere in it can be found any trace of malice or bitterness. The second part was finished as he was approaching the seventieth year of a life of toil, privation, and disappointment. But his unfailing cheerfulness and good-humor never left him. This is very remarkable, because so many authors who have written satire have been unable to resist spiteful digs at other people.
It is a great pity there is no proper portrait of Cervantes. Velasquez, the greatest Spanish painter, lived just a little too late, but his master and father-in-law, Pacheco, painted a picture representing the release of captives from Algiers, and a boatman in that picture is supposed to represent Cervantes. There is also a doubtful portrait by a painter called Jaurequi. But many portraits came out, one of which is reproduced here, which were made up from his own description of himself:
He whom you see here of aquiline features with chestnut hair, a smooth, unruffled forehead, with sparkling eyes and a nose arched though well proportioned—a beard of silver which not twenty years since was of gold—great mustaches, a small mouth, the teeth of no account, for he has but six of them, and they in bad condition and worse arranged, for they do not hold correspondence with one another; the body between two extremes, neither great nor little; the complexion bright, rather white than brown; somewhat heavy in the shoulders—this, I say, is the aspect of the author of “Don Quixote de la Mancha.”
He also tells us he had an infirmity of speech and was nearsighted.
The Archbishop of Toledo, who was one of the few people who befriended him, was once questioned by some French visitors about him. “I found myself compelled to say,” he confesses, “that he was an old man, a soldier, a gentleman, and poor.” “If it is necessity that compels him to write,” replied one of the strangers, “may God send he may never have abundance, so that, poor himself, he may make the whole world rich.”
Cervantes lived for some years in a very poor part of Valladolid. The family, consisting of his wife, his daughter, his sister, a niece, and a cousin, were more or less dependent on him, though the women by their needlework helped to keep the household going. The sidelights cast by scraps of evidence which have been collected about members of his family do not give at all an attractive impression of his domestic life. It was altogether rather squalid and wretched: he lived cooped up in hugger-mugger fashion, doing odds and ends of work for business men into whose characters he could not afford to pry too curiously. But Cervantes’ mind was in no way poisoned by his surroundings.