Read Online The Dialogue of the Dogs by Miguel de Cervantes - Free Book Online
Authors: Miguel de Cervantes
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touches him. The dog only did as he was told.”
Everyone understood, and without goodbyes I slipped away through a gap in the wall and into the countryside. Before dawn I got to Mairena, a town four leagues from Seville. There I had the good luck to find a company of soldiers who I heard were going to embark for Cartagena. Four of my most recent master’s ruffian friends numbered among them, and the drum major had been a constable himself—and,like so many of the best drummers, a great showoff. They all recognized me and talked at me, and asked me about my master as if I could actually respond. But the one who showed me the most affection was the drummer, and I determined to stay with him, if he would have me, and take ship with them even as far as Italy or Flanders. Though the saying goes that “If you’re stupid at home, you’ll be stupid in Rome,” I think, and you should agree, that traveling and meeting different people makes a man wise.
Scipio
: That’s so true. I remember hearing one of my masters, who was no fool, say that the famous Greek Ulysses earned his reputation for wisdom purely by traveling a lot and spending time with people from all over. So I agree with your decision to go wherever they took you.
Berganza
: It so happens the drummer, who now had the chance to show off more than ever, began to teach me to dance to his drum, and to do other tricks so difficult that no other dog could ever learn them.
Progress was intermittent, since we were almost out of the neighborhood where the soldiers had been press-ganged, and they had no martinet to keep them in line. The captain was young, but a very good horseman and a good Christian. The guardsman wasn’t many months removed from the royal scullery.
The sergeant was battle-tested and wise, and great at mustering the troops and harrying them from the barracks toward the docks.
On this company of scurrilous reprobates marched, insulting every place they passed, and making matters worse by cursing most the one person who least deserved it. Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown—or the sergeant’s chevrons—since some of his charges will always resent him for the privileges of the rest. He can’t dispel that dissension, even with the best will in the world, since almost everything in a war brings with it hardship, regimentation, and inconvenience.
Meantime, in less than a fortnight, thanks to my own innate ability and the tutelage of the fellow I’d taken as my patron, I learned to roll over for applause, instead of rolling drunks for a crooked constable. He taught me the curvets of a Neapolitan horse and to walk in circles like a mule around a gristmill, along with other things that, if I hadn’t taken care not to overdo it, would’ve called into question whether I wasn’t some sort of hellhound. He called me “The Learned Dog.” We’d scarcely arrive at an inn before he’d walk all around town banging his drum. He asked everybody if they wanted to come to this house, or that hospital, and see the marvelous talents and tricks of The Learned Dog, and all for eight maravedis—or even half that, if the town was small enough.
After flackery like this, the whole village turned out to see me, and they all went away rapt and happy for the privilege. My master was rolling in it now, and set up six of his friends like kings. Greed and envy awoke in the other scalawags a will to steal me, and they went around waiting for their chance.
This idea of making a living while doing nothing useful at all has a lot to recommend it. That’s why there are so many puppeteers in Spain, so many traveling shows and sellers of pins and sheet music, since all their wares, even if they sold the lot of them, wouldn’t be worth a day’s honest wages. Yet not one of these people budges from their chowhouses or taverns the whole year through, which tells me that the tidal wave of their alcohol intake must flow from some wellspring other than their work ethic. All
Everyone understood, and without goodbyes I slipped away through a gap in the wall and into the countryside. Before dawn I got to Mairena, a town four leagues from Seville. There I had the good luck to find a company of soldiers who I heard were going to embark for Cartagena. Four of my most recent master’s ruffian friends numbered among them, and the drum major had been a constable himself—and,like so many of the best drummers, a great showoff. They all recognized me and talked at me, and asked me about my master as if I could actually respond. But the one who showed me the most affection was the drummer, and I determined to stay with him, if he would have me, and take ship with them even as far as Italy or Flanders. Though the saying goes that “If you’re stupid at home, you’ll be stupid in Rome,” I think, and you should agree, that traveling and meeting different people makes a man wise.
Scipio
: That’s so true. I remember hearing one of my masters, who was no fool, say that the famous Greek Ulysses earned his reputation for wisdom purely by traveling a lot and spending time with people from all over. So I agree with your decision to go wherever they took you.
Berganza
: It so happens the drummer, who now had the chance to show off more than ever, began to teach me to dance to his drum, and to do other tricks so difficult that no other dog could ever learn them.
Progress was intermittent, since we were almost out of the neighborhood where the soldiers had been press-ganged, and they had no martinet to keep them in line. The captain was young, but a very good horseman and a good Christian. The guardsman wasn’t many months removed from the royal scullery.
The sergeant was battle-tested and wise, and great at mustering the troops and harrying them from the barracks toward the docks.
On this company of scurrilous reprobates marched, insulting every place they passed, and making matters worse by cursing most the one person who least deserved it. Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown—or the sergeant’s chevrons—since some of his charges will always resent him for the privileges of the rest. He can’t dispel that dissension, even with the best will in the world, since almost everything in a war brings with it hardship, regimentation, and inconvenience.
Meantime, in less than a fortnight, thanks to my own innate ability and the tutelage of the fellow I’d taken as my patron, I learned to roll over for applause, instead of rolling drunks for a crooked constable. He taught me the curvets of a Neapolitan horse and to walk in circles like a mule around a gristmill, along with other things that, if I hadn’t taken care not to overdo it, would’ve called into question whether I wasn’t some sort of hellhound. He called me “The Learned Dog.” We’d scarcely arrive at an inn before he’d walk all around town banging his drum. He asked everybody if they wanted to come to this house, or that hospital, and see the marvelous talents and tricks of The Learned Dog, and all for eight maravedis—or even half that, if the town was small enough.
After flackery like this, the whole village turned out to see me, and they all went away rapt and happy for the privilege. My master was rolling in it now, and set up six of his friends like kings. Greed and envy awoke in the other scalawags a will to steal me, and they went around waiting for their chance.
This idea of making a living while doing nothing useful at all has a lot to recommend it. That’s why there are so many puppeteers in Spain, so many traveling shows and sellers of pins and sheet music, since all their wares, even if they sold the lot of them, wouldn’t be worth a day’s honest wages. Yet not one of these people budges from their chowhouses or taverns the whole year through, which tells me that the tidal wave of their alcohol intake must flow from some wellspring other than their work ethic. All
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