Of the laughable conversation
that passed between Don Quixote,
Sancho Panza, and the bachelor
Samson Carrasco
Don Quixote remained very deep in thought, waiting
for the bachelor Carrasco, from whom he was to hear
how he himself had been put into a book as Sancho
said; and he could not persuade himself that any such
history could be in existence, for the blood of the
enemies he had slain was not yet dry on the blade
of his sword, and now they wanted to make out that
his mighty achievements were going about in print.
For all that, he fancied some sage, either a friend
or an enemy, might, by the aid of magic, have given
them to the press; if a friend, in order to magnify
and exalt them above the most famous ever achieved
by any knight-errant; if an enemy, to bring them to
naught and degrade them below the meanest ever recorded
of any low squire, though as he said to himself, the
achievements of squires never were recorded. If,
however, it were the fact that such a history were
in existence, it must necessarily, being the story
of a knight-errant, be grandiloquent, lofty, imposing,
grand and true. With this he comforted himself
somewhat, though it made him uncomfortable to think
that the author was a Moor, judging by the title of
“Cide;” and that no truth was to be looked
for from Moors, as they are all impostors, cheats,
and schemers. He was afraid he might have dealt
with his love affairs in some indecorous fashion, that
might tend to the discredit and prejudice of the purity
of his lady Dulcinea del Toboso; he would have had
him set forth the fidelity and respect he had always
observed towards her, spurning queens, empresses, and
damsels of all sorts, and keeping in check the impetuosity
of his natural impulses. Absorbed and wrapped
up in these and divers other cogitations, he was found
by Sancho and Carrasco, whom Don Quixote received with
great courtesy.
The bachelor, though he was called Samson, was of
no great bodily size, but he was a very great wag;
he was of a sallow complexion, but very sharp-witted,
somewhere about four-and-twenty years of age, with
a round face, a flat nose, and a large mouth, all
indications of a mischievous disposition and a love
of fun and jokes; and of this he gave a sample as
soon as he saw Don Quixote, by falling on his knees
before him and saying, “Let me kiss your mightiness’s
hand, Senor Don Quixote of La Mancha, for, by the
habit of St. Peter that I wear, though I have no more
than the first four orders, your worship is one of
the most famous knights-errant that have ever been,
or will be, all the world over. A blessing on
Cide Hamete Benengeli, who has written the history
of your great deeds, and a double blessing on that
connoisseur who took the trouble of having it translated
out of the Arabic into our Castilian vulgar tongue
for the universal entertainment of the people!”
