Read Online Don Quixote [Trans. by Edith Grossman] by Miguel de Cervantes - Free Book Online Page A

ground.
    Don Quixote had not gone very far when it seemed to him that from a dense wood on his right there emerged the sound of feeble cries, like those of a person in pain, and as soon as he heard them he said:
    “I give thanks to heaven for the great mercy it has shown in so quickly placing before me opportunities to fulfill what I owe to my profession, allowing me to gather the fruit of my virtuous desires. Thesecries, no doubt, belong to some gentleman or lady in need who requires my assistance and help.”
    And, pulling on the reins, he directed Rocinante toward where he thought the cries were coming from. And after he had taken a few steps into the wood, he saw a mare tied to an oak, and tied to another was a boy about fifteen years old, naked from the waist up, and it was he who was crying out, and not without cause, for with a leather strap a robust peasant was whipping him and accompanying each lash with a reprimand and a piece of advice. For he was saying:
    “Keep your tongue still and your eyes open.”
    And the boy replied:
    “I won’t do it again, Señor; by the Passion of Christ I won’t do it again, and I promise I’ll be more careful from now on with the flock.”
    And when Don Quixote saw this, he said in an angry voice:
    “Discourteous knight, it is not right for you to do battle with one who cannot defend himself; mount your horse and take up your lance”—for a lance was leaning against the oak where the mare was tied—“and I shall make you understand that what you are doing is the act of a coward.”
    The peasant, seeing a fully armed figure ready to attack and brandishing a lance in his face, considered himself a dead man, and with gentle words he replied:
    “Señor Knight, this boy I’m punishing is one of my servants, and his job is to watch over a flock of sheep I keep in this area, and he’s so careless that I lose one every day, and when I punish his carelessness, or villainy, he says I do it out of miserliness because I don’t want to pay him his wages, and by God and my immortal soul, he lies.”
    “You dare to say ‘He lies’ in my presence, base varlet?” 1 said Don Quixote. “By the sun that shines down on us, I am ready to run you through with this lance. Pay him now without another word; if you do not, by the God who rules us I shall exterminate and annihilate you here and now. Untie him immediately.”
    The peasant lowered his head and, without responding, he untied his servant, and Don Quixote asked the boy how much his master owed him. He said wages for nine months, at seven reales a month. Don Quixote calculated the sum and found that it amounted to seventy-three reales, 2 and he told the peasant to take that amount from his purse unlesshe wanted to die on their account. The terrified farmer replied that by the danger in which he found himself and the oath he had sworn—and so far he had sworn to nothing—the total was not so high, because from that amount one had to subtract and take into account three pairs of shoes that he had given his servant and a real for the two bloodlettings he had provided for him when he was sick.
    “All of that is fine,” said Don Quixote, “but the shoes and bloodlettings should compensate for the blows you have given him for no reason, for if he damaged the hide of the shoes you paid for, you have damaged the hide of his body, and if the barber drew blood when he was sick, you have drawn it when he was healthy; therefore, by this token, he owes you nothing.”
    “The difficulty, Señor Knight, is that I have no money here: let Andrés come with me to my house, and I’ll pay him all the reales he deserves.”
    “Me, go back with him?” said the boy. “Not me! No, Señor, don’t even think of it; as soon as we’re alone he’ll skin me alive, just like St. Bartholomew.”
    “No, he will not,” replied Don Quixote. “It is enough for me to command and he will respect me, and if he swears to me by the order of chivalry that he