Read it Live

Epilogue

“Look here!” exclaims one, “Has no one opened this cupboard in years?”

“The room has been unoccupied for quite a while,” replies two, “I’ve only been ordered to move in and clear up today. See what’s in the cupboard.”

She opens the rickety doors, grabs a packet of papers lying atop a pile of registers, historic and dust-covered. She blows the dust off the papers, revealing faded letters on the cover page.

“A True History of Don Quixote de la Mancha?” one exclaims, the wonderment in her voice resting in a question.

All look at the books in their hands: DON QUIXOTE they say.

“But why is this copy lying in the cupboard?” two asks.

“It seems different. See, it says ‘The True History,’” three replies.

“Oh this could be the work of that fake author!” four surmises.

“No, I don’t think so. The historian’s the same,” says one, scrutinizing the fainting letters. “No, wait, not the same…but, almost the same, Sid Halmet Bean and Jelly.”

The five of them look at each other with stupendous surprise. There has been a discovery, time stops, an uncovering of history.

“Show it to me,” speaks the man, not distinguished in any way from the others but somehow looking like the leader.

He carefully opens the cover page for the sheets of parchment, loosely bound together, are falling to pieces. He sits down and everyone pulls up a chair, all pouring over their discovery in a neat little circle.

***

“But,” one says, raising her head from the circle when the reading of the new history is completed, “where are Sancho’s illustrations?”

Chapter VII

Chapter in which the Reader will find that Which He can only find in the Perusal of it

“Reality and fiction says your worship?” Sancho inquired. “Yes Sancho,” replied the knight, “for fiction is always the better, the nearer it resembles the truth.” “But what composition and distinction of status will thy new history achieve if it is merely a resemblance of truth and not the truth in flesh?” “All truth must only be a semblance Sancho,” replied Don Quixote, “for who can claim to be honest in memory when memory itself is a chimerical observation so vulnerable to the ravages of time and inchantments of the devil. This is where you must aid me, for two weak recollections make for a true one. As of right now, I require you to remind me how many demons blanketed your carcass at the inn?” “Demons they were not your lordship, for I paid heed to them talking in our tongue and addressing each other with names of mortals. And four they were in number, for each securely held the corner of the blanket that made me cut capers through air.” “The number recalled to your imagination seems as flawed as the identity of those brethren, for I recall only two devils jesting at thy helpless flying peg. But, friends Sancho, in such cases, let us satisfy and settle for a moderate path, and let it go not as four or two in the truest history, but as three demons of the inn.”

“It is this very custard of truth and lies that merit the accusation that books of chivalry are fictions, fables and lying dreams,” declaimed Sancho, “for if learned persons like the priest and canon damn them to the hellfire after reading but a few pages, how will your history secure a distinction?” “My true history will not be based on falsehood, for falsehood is a crime committed against a person and I, committing any variation in the account, do not hurt a soul but myself, and no one but you and I can testify to the truth of our ventures. How canst thou, Sancho, a squire I feel sufficiently enriched by the chivalric tradition, talk like a harried pretender of letters! How can these books be false when they have been printed with the license of kings and approbation of those who are appointed to examine them; and alleged fictitious when they divert so much attention to detail, mentioning father, mother, country, relations, conditions, birth place. Take the trouble of reading those books, and you will see what effectual antidotes they are against melancholy and how they improve the disposition when it is bad.”

“Not a sea of encyclopedias of chivalry can improve mine disposition right now,” said Sancho is the most piteous voice, “for I find no use for myself in your ventures of the pen now.” “Ye must possess some scholarly talent that could prove of service Sancho” said Don Quixote, “for your memory and judgment seems hazed and the truth needs rest on a compromise between the two.” “I have grown up an unlettered peasant to the very day till I joined the order of squireship,” said Sancho. “That, being in my knowledge,” replied the knight, “made me perceive that thou must have another talent, for the fields often produce great scientists and the deserts, worthy mathematicians.” “If science and math be fields of knowledge,” said Sancho “I possess one that might serve your worship in some oblique way, for as boy Sancho, while ploughing fields and watering wells, I would often take to resting for long periods of time, meanwhile drawing in the mud with broken twigs.” “Even though drawing qualifies not as a field of Science, barely making it to the lowest ranks of Arts,” said Don Quixote, “I think this happy talent might be put to good use in this recording of history, for there are events and instances I feel slipping through a scholar’s words that might happily be stroked by an artist brush.” “Oh heaven grant thee more of such events,” cried Sancho with delight, “for this farmer discovers yet another talent God hath granted him.”

Thus Don Quixote took to the pen and Sancho to the brush, toiling for days on end. The housekeeper lamented outside till one day there were heard no more laments. No curate, barber, doctor, batchelor, mother, devil, giant or inchanter was allowed to visit the great scholar and his attending artist. The little light, shining from their window in dark and lonely nights, and the diminishing neighing of Rozinante, became the North Star for young knights who now tried their fates in the meadows of la Mancha.

Chapter VI

Where the Sage Conversation between Don Quixote and Sancho Continues,

With Other Debates Happily Recorded

“May God in heaven or devil on earth keep thy wits intact!” exclaimed Sancho, “My master turned historian now. It would scarce astonish me if tomorrow you professed brick-laying. What experience hast thou of history and writing?” “O foe to that respect which is due to royalty!” bellowed Don Quixote, “thou foul-mouthed knave! Have you no apprehension that this fearless knight is the repository of history; for who in la Mancha knows every knight like the back of his own two feet and every malicious evil-doer like the nape of his own neck? Has that knowledge not rooted out of a careful perusal of the great histories of olden times?”

Sancho, perceiving his master furious, cursed his tongue for its fluidity, and assuming a submissive posture, a little bent, a little shaken, addressed the knight in the following words: “O body of my father! I seek forgiveness on behalf of my reckless tongue, for its flawed communication with my brain causes me much stress and distress. I merely meant to inquire how thy worship plans to execute this endeavor, for it is new and unfamiliar ground to my untrained feet, while yours, worthy and tested, have tread this path for many a years.”

“Son Sancho,” Don Quixote replied regaining his composure, “The composition of history does not trouble me much, for I am acquainted with knight-errantry, the mother of all knowledge, and he who knows the mother, will bear the children.” “Does your worship not require the award or confirmation of a scholar to be dubbed a historian?” inquired Sancho. “People foreign to the occupation of knight-errantry; commonfolk, rustics and rulers require permission. But I, being a knight, have found enough verification in the Moor’s history to deem myself a worthy historian, for in multitudinous instances Mr. Bean-and-Jelly has acceded to my sound and logical discourse, my gift for talking like fifty barristers and resolving fights better with my arguments than my threats; though I agree not with the last clause for I find in it the suggestion that I should become a clergyman and ascend the pulpit.”

“A thought still plagues me Signor Quixote,” said Sancho, not paying attention to the knight’s recent declamation but drifting back from a former thought. “Plague not thy mind by withholding anything, worthy squire,” said Don Quixote, “for mischief in the mind causes mischief in the bowels, a circumstance I am not well-equipped to handle as my abode does not provide for a place of relieving oneself.” “The fact that confounds my understanding,” continued Sancho, “is the mysterious change of the Moor who hath proven himself an honest fellow for much of the writing of this history.” “The alteration in his constitution has me much vexed and perplexed too,” replied Don Quixote, “however the conjecture I make from my studies is that recording the truth; our detainment from sallying forth a third time and impediment from further venturing, would not have bode well for his own fame; for when an author attempts to entertain the ignorant and the learned, the plebian and the scholar alike, he succumbs to the folly of fulfilling public demand and not remaining true to the history.”

“Does your worship consider instruction or entertainment as the ultimate aim of a history?” Sancho questioned, “For if it is entertainment, why does the poet not become a historian, a career more favorable to his name and earning, and if it be instruction then the curate needs be the biggest historian.” “You have inquired like a true scholar Sancho,” replied the knight, effulgent at the growing seeds of intelligence in his deputy’s brain, “it requires great judgment and ripe understanding to compose histories, for history, being that select branch of scholarship which comprises both entertainment and instruction, requires the raillery of a fool and the earnestness of a priest.” “From what your scholarship speaks of it, history seems to be the pinnacle of all arts and sciences; surely the most arduous order of learning,” reflected Sancho, awe-struck. “It is the very fine line between truth and falsehood, thought and remembrance, that renders the vocation of a historian so perilous; for a poet and clergyman both may rehearse things not as they are but as they ought to be, but a historian must transmit them not as they ought to be but as they are; and historians who falter and propagate anything by adding or subtracting from the truth should be burnt, along with their books, like false coiners.” “That afears me master Quixote,” replied Sancho, “for you are recorded, throughout your escapades, as having incessantly mistaken black for white: windmills for giants, sheep for armies, penitents for abductors and I could quote a list here that ought to put the most accredited mathematician in la Mancha recount his numbers.” “Try not to exceed thy intelligence with me Sancho, for this is what the Moor records, but he remains ignorant of the spell the sage inchanter hath cast upon thy delusional master. The inchantment now withdrawn by the grace of heaven and my mistress Dulcinea, memory and imagination will follow a pleasant combination, for I find within my person a piece of a poet and a chunk of an historian. An agreeable story must needs emerge; the translation of this methodical madness into a harmonious medley of fiction and reality.”

Chapter V

Of what has been Recorded in History Without the Happening

“But,” retorted Sancho, “what demon hath come upon your lordship that you attempt to secure fame that is already safely stored in your granary of possession through the history recorded by Mr. Moor Bean-and-Jelly? Did not Mr. Batchelor himself affirm that there are twelve thousand copies of your worship’s adventures, on this day, copiously swallowed whole by man, woman and child alike? Why must thou divert thy career when every horse not just in la Mancha but every land that the account is read in, is Rozinante and every ass a Dapple?” “Ideot that you are Sancho, your ignorance of letters results in insipid argumentation,” replied Don Quixote; “a Moor is never to be trusted with the truth for they are, by their very nature, false, deceitful and chimerical.” “Has the historian then not produced a sublime and punctual history?” inquired a confounded Sancho, for all his knowledge of the book, which had for its reservoir a hundred people in la Mancha, made concrete that nothing had escaped the pen of the sage author, a circumstance that had caused Sancho much unease for even his most secret thoughts and intimate conversations were documented in that history. “My suspicion of the historian made a skeptic of me in my perusal of the book Sancho, but the Moor hath been an honest man, recording everything in the right to the minutest detail, until I reached a diabolical chapter from whereon, there is not only innovation in history but a stupendous and illegitimate crafting of it!” “God deliver my soul from the devil!” cried an incredulous Sancho, “crafting of history your lordship says?” “That very thing, as real as the mother that bore you Sancho,” replied the knight; “the Moor records our first two sallies with scrupulous detail, so much so as to make me wish he had overlooked a few drubbings which do not amount to any significance; a condition that happily inspired faith that this Moor was not fraudulent. But then the historian records a ‘third sally,’ a venturing of knight and squire out for expeditions a third time!” “But that has not happened!” cried Sancho, “you and I sit in this room in very body and spirit, with our bags packed and our steeds nickering.” “That is the very nut of the matter Sancho,” explained Don Quixote, “The Moor has produced hundreds of sheets of parchment of proceedings that have not occurred yet, and with the course of action heaven directs me to follow, are not likely to either.”

“What opinion does the author of the history express of us?” inquired Sancho. “A most excellent opinion Sancho, for on innumerable occasions he pronounces me the most valiant knight in history and you the most noble and obedient squire that ever served a knight-errant. Nevertheless a constant reiteration causes me much distress for the author pronounces my wits diseased and imagination disordered in multitudinous languages in innumerable occurrences.” “That must be due to the carelessness of the translator,” said Sancho, “for a sage historian would consider repetition a mark of a bad tale. What does he write about our third sally?” “Some fallacious and blasphemous event about our journey to my handsome mistress’ land and an atrociously erroneous account of that resplendent sun of beauty not recognizing this valiant knight,” replied Don Quixote, much distressed at having to restate the author’s folly. “Has he nothing creditable to say about your lordship’s valiance?” “I did not read further Sancho, for if history, which is a sacred subject, because the soul of it is truth and where truth is, there the divinity resides; is based on a lie it can produce nothing but more prevarications and it offends a knight’s integrity to dabble in falsehood.”

“But,” said Sancho after a deliberate pause, “does the Moorish history not bring us fame and renown? Mr. Batchelor Simpson quoted some thousand volumes in print just this day.” “You must say Sampson Sancho, for Simpson refers to not that honored batchelor of Salamanca but a fat bellied, bean and jellied, yellow looking, bald man.” “The difference is quite insignificant Signor Don Quixote,” replied the squire, “for be it Simpson or Sampson, the Moor has promised us everlasting renown in his book, a direct means to the attainment of that blessed island.” “You are correct in your conjecture Sancho,” replied the knight, “but this fame comes riding on the back of dishonesty, for many of the feats the historian accredits us with have never been undertaken, wherefore any island you beget by falsehood will be an island of devils, increasingly hard to govern.” “Let Brother Devil be my associate in government!” retorted Sancho, “but I must become the Earl of an island before your worship will extract one more service out of my pate.” “Hasten not in thy haste Sancho,” replied the knight, “and listen carefully: I have, all these days, locked my doors to all devils and witches and deliberated upon history, concluding that those who write books about the gallantry of valiant knights amass more riches than the heroes, for the heroes are confined to the very pages of the books and the proceeds, which people make out of good will and as recompense for the entertainment they receive from these books, go to the author, while the hero benefits not a farthing.”

“I have therefore, friend Sancho, to redress this wrong, taken to the pen to compose a true account of Don Quixote de la Mancha, who took to the sword twice to battle with the evil-doers and the pen the third time to rewrite history!”

Chapter IV

Of Rozinante and Sancho’s Last Persual,

with Other Diverting Accounts

Scarce had Don Quixote finished his discourse that a tapping on the window reclaimed his attention. Turning around the knight and squire witnessed Rozinante, his ludicrous leanness and exaggerated, skeletal aspect now a little cushioned with flesh, his grizzled mane smoother and his coat of a skin missing any bruises. He stood outside the window, looking in at his master, wondering at the metamorphosis the valiant knight had undergone.

“O mine companion of valor and misfortune, thou flower and mirrour of steeds, my trusty Rozinante!” exclaimed the knight in a most piteous voice, “Dost thou now roam the fields of la Mancha without the agreeable burden of thy master? Dost thou tread God’s earth looking for adventure under every fallen leaf and every ragged crack? For I see symptoms of sorrow on your worthy countenance that cleave my heart in twain. O my unrivalled steed, cursed be the happenstance that has reduced thy valiant master to a clerk and thyself to a farming mule!”

Rozinante, as if understanding Don Quixote’s lamentous address fondly rubbed his nose against the cold glass pane and neighed softly. Following suit, braying tenderly, Dapple ran to the window and unable to reach it, being considerably shorter in height, raised his forefeet in the air, placed them on Rozinante’s ribs and raised himself up to peer inside at the marvel that so eagerly engaged his taller companion.

Seeing Dapple appear so suddenly Sancho exclaimed, “O ass of my life, lost to me and returned to my bosom twice. O carrier of the panel that caused me so much distress in its obtainment, bask in the company of Rozinante, for the beasts of the knights-errant and the squires are as close as the persons themselves. See, Signor Don Quixote, how Dapple, being infected by the humor of chivalry, prances about with the blood of adventure running in his veins. O valiant and inchanted knight, let us try our fate once more, in quest of adventures, for I find it the most pleasant occupation in the world to always be in expectation of escapades, crossing huge mountains, searching woods, climbing rocks, visiting inns. And if they do not turn out to our expectation, it will be time enough to return to this cage in which I promise, on the faith of a true and loyal squire, to shut myself up with your worship.”

“The demon of knight-errantry cannot possess you more wholly than it occupies my body and soul,” explained the knight, trying to mollify his impassioned squire, “but the sage inchanter has set another path for my vocation, no less honorable but much more stagnant. Son Sancho, it is a maxim amongst us knights-errant that when we prove an adventure, without success, we conclude it is reserved for another, and wherefore think it unnecessary to make a second trial. However, the maxim is rather inapplicable to me, for I have succeeded in most adventures I have conducted, so I flex with considerable ease the truth that always bends but never breaks, for all knights must regulate circumstances a little for survival; and I employ it to leave space for other knights-errant to prove their gallantry in the domain of chivalry and not selfishly secure all adventures and renown for myself.”

Seeing his master’s disordered imagination set so hard upon scholarship, and that madness prevailing over all other considerations, Sancho resolved to quit further pursuit and sat in amazing silence for a few moments. “Thou hast no more use for an unlettered peasant, master Quixote,” he spoke at last. “O fate! The charmer of dreamers, the hope of poor squires, the enticer of future governors, damned be the day when it pulled me out of my quiet vegetation in La Mancha and set me upon promises of damsels and islands, and all such abominable expeditions!” “Be not so aggrieved my valiant squire, and return to the bosom of discretion. You and I are like members of the same body and a dismembered body is as unstable as Rozinante with his hooves tied.” “Verily it was a long and hard night, with the formidable throbbing of the fulling-hammers and the inchanter of the mountain playing a smart trick on your worthy steed,” Sancho said immediately, amazed and afraid of his master discovering his ploy. “It was no mountainous inchanter, Sancho, for I have read in our sage history that it was you who tied Rozinante’s legs, making two of them four, to impede me from accosting the fulling-hammers with my valiant sword. But pay no attention to that, squire Dappler, for the concern at hand forces me to focus on other aspects of your person. As members of the same body we must undergo all strokes of luck and sufferings together, for did you not yourself hear the curate say about us, “the one without the other would not be worth a farthing.”

“But my training lies in the field,” replied Sancho, “not within the confines of these walls where I can fathom no reason for your worship to require my assistance, for the biggest adventured in this room can be a pen pricking your finger and drawing a drop of blood. When there are no giants to slay, no phantoms to fight, no princesses to rescue and no evil doers to chastise, whence would my master call upon my arms?” “Your unlettered upbringing impedes your understanding Sancho. Remember ye were a simple pork-feeder, raised to the rank of the squire of the most valiant knight ever in the history of La Mancha; and raised again further, on several occasions in my mind, to the rank of a dubbed knight only second to mine own self.” “I get not the connection your lordship establishes between my squirely valor and my current reduced station as a squarely onlooker. On the contrary, your worship seems to support my very argument.” “Hold your faulty logic’s horses Sancho,” replied the knight, “the end and aim of my conversation is to apprize you of your destiny that started as a coarse drudge but ends at being a scholar; an end I can already feel approaching, for your service and stay with me has lent to your discourse the smell of intelligence. Batchelor Simpson himself acknowledged only yesterday that you spoke like a professor.”

“The aim and end of my toils, is not to bleed my eyes on ten font letters, Signor Quixote. If I did not expect to see myself in a little time governor of an island, I should drop down dead on the spot.” “If the end of your labors is the possession of that island and it is the only worry that troubles you, I hereby promise you a pair. Sancho, you cannot fathom the honor and riches that are in store for us when humanity discovers our adventures. Imagine knights-errant of the future finding the true history we compose, in the lining of a portmanteau at a castle, or in an abandoned Gladstone bag by the brook-side. Sancho, imagine our history being read in a circle to famous knights like an impertinently curious novel. Imagine a young knight, descending onto the battlefield, doubtful of his own abilities, reading the valorous escapades of the valiant Don Quixote and Sancho Panza, and finding in himself the courage to overcome all impediments in his way. Sancho, the honor and wealth that the composition of history promises us can fetch you an army of islands, and you pine away for but one!”

Chapter III

In which is the Phantastical Explanation of the Knight’s Conversion

“I fell asleep one night,” proceeded the knight, “after having been delivered to my abode in the inchanted cage, to the bickering of my niece arguing with the curate about me: “His worship, being so learned, might even mount the pulpit, or go a preaching in the streets, and yet remains in such woeful blindness, and palpable folly, as to persuade the world that he is a valiant knight, and vigorous righter of wrongs, when he is old, feeble, and almost crippled with age.” This declamation thrust me in the steepest abysm of confusion, thus heaven that assists the righteous intent of the simple while it confounds the wicked aims of the cunning, ordained me to see one of those dreams that often shine upon knights-errant as headlights in this path of sacred altruism; I was revealed to, a complex stratagem that the world operates on: the principle that hardness and rigidity yield to flexibility and malleability. Wherefore, I concluded that if rock and paper are locked in battle, the paper would engulf the rock, the letters writ upon it swallowing the mineral whole.” “Your worship mistakes a children’s game for a precept of the cosmos,” replied Sancho, “I only left Sanchica and Mary Sancha playing rock, paper, scissors as many minutes ago as the fingers on my hands.” “Your simplicity and plebian breeding have deluded you friend Sancho,” Don Quixote proceeded, “for are not the most important principles of life needled into tales that your mother read to you in the cradle?” “There is truth in what your worship says, Signor Don Quixote,” Sancho acceded, “though I cannot fathom how this flower of chivalry, on the mere whim of a dream, chooses to take a wrong turn on this critical juncture, following the ink drops of the scholar, instead of treading the path strewn by footprints of former knights.” “You have been led astray again Sancho, for am I not abandoning knight-errantry, and it is for no mortal man but only the professor of this holy order to understand the transmission of heaven’s will through this chimeral phantasy.”

“For two days and nights Sancho, I have perused the landscapes of the books of chivalry, from Amadis to this contemporary history written by the knavish Moor, and I have found to the satisfaction of the heart that resides within this valiant breast, that the sole aim of arms and letters is to convince the world of its error, establish peace and secure everlasting renown. And Son Sancho, there are two paths that lead to wealth and honor; one is that of learning, the other of arms and the more I study both, the more I am convinced these two converge at the summit; approaching it from different tracks. Had your mind been cultivated with the knowledge of chivalry and watered with the teachings of the sage inchanter, you would perceive that knight-errantry operates on two principles; offending and defending, both equally desirable in the practices of these pen-holders.”

“But I again beseech your worship to consider: if the scholars drudge away, night and day, to produce histories, why must thou, resplendent sun of arms, abandon thy steed and lance and take to their toils when you have already secured a perfect reputation as the knight of the rueful countenance?” “As the age of gold turns to brass good squire,” said Don Quixote, “without letters, the profession of arms cannot be supported. There are laws to which war itself is subject; and all laws fall within the province of learning and learned men.” “There is a sapling of truth in what your worship suggests, for those robbers licensed by the holy brotherhood did not care a farthing that your worship was the valiant and inchanted knight, Don Quixote de la Mancha, and pressed only upon capturing you in obedience of the orders of their superiors.” “Though you are mistaken in the instance,” Don Quixote replied, “you are not in the principle. Everything in that castle is carried out by inchantment, and under its influence the troopers did not recognize by my countenance or confabulation, that I was a Professor of the order of knight-errantry. But ye are in the right Sancho; the world does not understand that a knight’s own sword is his law and to redress this very mischievous grievance, the law needs be rewritten, and history recultivated.”

“Sinner that I am,” replied Sancho, cautiously, “may I unbridle the harness that impedes the movement of my tongue, and express a concern that surfaces in my bosom?” “Be frank in saying what you think, worthy squire. It is common knowledge that our relationship has always been one of utter candour.” “I fear,” said Sancho, “that your worship makes this decision on account of your old age and fear of death, for the discommodments caused in these perilous adventures are too troubling for thy body now.” “There is brashness in thy thought and speech Sancho. I would rather you shut the door of your cupboard of folly” answered Don Quixote, “had it been anyone but you, I would chop off his head in one neat stroke and prove the valor that still lies in this arm that you call old and feeble. But I must admit to you Sancho, as knights have been proved in punctual histories to share their innermost thoughts with worthy squires, and you have proven to be one; not death itself but the fear of dying in a frivolous cause, one unworthy of mention or record in the journals of history, has kept me awake many nights. And, trusted knight of my aching body, the diabolical invention of artillery puts me at a greater discomfort, for it gives an infamous coward the power to deprive the most valiant cavalier of life, before he has had a chance of proving to the world his mettle in warship; this consideration sometimes makes me penitent for choosing this profession in this detestable age.”

Chapter II

An Account of Sancho’s Incredulous Response to

the Change in the Valiant Knight’s Constitution

There was a profound silence after the knight uttered this statement, a silence unbroken by the housekeeper’s laments, the knight’s blabbering or Sancho’s harangue; the stretch then punctuated with the faint sound of Rozinante’s familiar neighing.

“Oh Devil take hold of my soul!” cried Sancho, “It was better I had never known the mother that bore me, than face thy valiant knight so changed in constitution! O Flower of knight-errantry, so withered and defoiled by this age spent away from the battlefield, not righting wrongs and redressing grievances. O cursed curate and shaver, canon and batchelor who have infected thy soft mind with the pestilence of letters! Sancho, who was born to become a squire and die an Earl, what will become of thee in this dead and static world of words; no giants to slay, no monsters to fight, no islands to beget! O thou wretched inchanter who hath usurped the sound faculties of my master’s brain and replaced therein fighting with writing. How can this Glory of La Mancha give up the very purpose of his existence when he has stood like a giant in front of the many winds the mills have blown his way!”

“Judge me not in the wrong dear friend,” uttered the knight, “and satisfy thyself; a knights-errant I will live and die.” “But your worship has abandoned the mountains and plains of La Mancha, deserted its inns and castles, forgone the adventures that lie in its every forest!” Sancho retorted, not comprehending how the wholesome understanding of his master, so steeped in the syrup of chivalry, so soaked in the detergent of the knight errantry, could like a sponge squeeze out the sweetness of adventure and imbibe the bitterness of scholarship. “There is truth in what you say brother Sancho, but depreciate not the value of the battlefield I take to now, for pens are more dangerous than swords and injury to the mind more detrimental than injury to the carcass.” “I understand not how, Signor Don Quixote, you can substitute in your faulty imagination the pen for a sword; for a sword can slice off the head of a giant in one backstroke and a pen, in a knight errant’s hand, can harm not even a meager ant.”

“O villainous, inconsiderate, indecent and ignorant peasant!” bellowed the valiant knight, “Do not proceed to call my understanding faulty when thy own lack of knowledge incommodes thy sense of understanding! I have perused every word of the scriptures of knight-errantry and the sage inchanter, lending me assistance in this hour of discombobulation, has made it manifest, like a revelation descending from the heavens itself, that the aims and ends of letters and arms are the same.” “Sinner that I am,” Sancho replied, cowered in a corner to protect himself from the curses his master flung at him, “pray be direct in your explanation; elaborate for this poor squire’s sake the sight and understanding the sage inchanter has bestowed upon you in this interim.”

The True History of

Don Quixote de la Mancha:

Twice Knighted, Thrice Scholared

Author: Sid Halmet Bean-and-Jelly

Published By: The Un-lying Presses

(Licensed by the Order of Knight Errantry, Strawberry Creek, La Bu Nancha)

Chapter I

Of the parallel possibility of existence

The heavy oak door was locked shut. The housekeeper sat outside it, at a distance, lamenting, “O thou accursed Dapple-Keeper! Folly of my master’s brain, the soundest in La Mancha, until thou enticed him to roam the highways for misventures and disventures. O thou swag bellied lurcher! I would heavens shower such madness upon thy seedlings and choke thy greedy throat with dead and rotten islands, you promontory of malice!”

On the other side of the wooden door, in a quiet room, Don Quixote sat at the writing table. The light from the small lamp illuminated the sheets of parchment in front of him. The hand that he had presented to the descreet duenna at the inn for a momentous observation of the swell of its nerves and the strong knit of its muscles, the hand that was the chastiser of evil doers, the hand that now held the pen, was considerably weak; a network of aged nerves slithering across a bony and lank structure.

The pen slowly scratched its way along the rough surface of the parchment. The sentence ended, the scratching coming to a halt, and Don Quixote turned around to see Sancho who had just taken a seat on the floor. “O trustee friend Sancho, the repository of squireship; mine eyes have sought you all this while in this lonely abyss that I have been caged in.” The squire kissed the knight’s hand and replied, “I have, all these days, toiled to reach your worship in this profound bosom of darkness, but that housekeeper of satan has kept me at bay, flinging curses in my direction and casting stones at my pate whenever my feet set this way.” “That has verily been the case son Sancho,” reflected the knight, “for I see that none other than the Devil himself ordains the affairs of this house.”

“Thus thou must not tarry here any longer,” suggested Sancho, “I have packed our portmanteaus and lined our bags with provisions for the belly as well as the mind.” “You talk in a wayward manner Sancho. What do you allude to by provisions for the mind?” “I have observed that on our sallies your worship lacks food for that which resides within the confines of the skull. Therefore, I have packed some of your favorite books of chivalry, Amadis being the first to find its snug place in the sack.” “That is very thoughtful of you Sancho, for verily in nights I have spent in penance, staring at the stars thinking of my Lady Dulcinea, I have often wanted Amadis to keep me company, not only for the want of companionship, for you snored and snorted dead on the nearby grassy earth, but to know the course of action the Great Knight took when his depository of laments and sighs ran dry of thoughts and exclamations for his beauteous lady.”

“But worry no more of that Sancho,” continued the knight, “the need for the preparations you have made has expired.” “Does your worship plan to set out without provisions this time?” inquired the half-wit squire, afraid for his belly; “that is not a sage decision, for remember the Wisdomous Knight at the inn held that knights-errant always carry clean linen and money, neglecting which is a violation of the code of chivalry, an act that is not worthy of your honor. And if to no end and means of your own, supply these provisions for a poor squire whose choler becomes very choleric when the place from where it rises is cold and empty.” “Hold your harangue, squire of my rueful life!” interjected Don Quixote, “I mean to undertake no such feat for that is a thing of olden, golden times and this Age of Brass requires something more from a knight than what the ages past have demanded.” “I comprehend not the meaning of your worship’s discourse,” babbled a confused Sancho, “Would it do a simple squire good if thy valiant knight would stop conversing in such a roundabout manner and set the talk straight for a simpleton.” “What I mean simply,” declared the knight of the rueful countenance, “is that I have taken to the pen, and my lance shall, for the rest of its days, hang in peace and honor in that corner of this quiet room.”

Hello RIL-ers,

I don’t know who comes here how often now, but this place still exists for anyone who writes and wants to share his/her work. My personal study schedules have left me with no time in the past year to be updating here often, or even to write something worth posting; yes, a sad truth.

However, I am posting here what I have recently written and it needs a note of explanation. The story is about Don Quixote, Miguel de Cervantes’ famous character Don Quixote. I have been studying the novel at school and it’s a long read with several chapters and books. By the time the semester ended we had finished half of it. The second half starts with Don Quixote’s third sally out into the lands with his squire, Sanch Panza, for adventures.

Our course required us to submit one creative-aesthetic submission at the end, not necessarily about Don Quixote, but anything on the planet. As we had all been so engrossed in the text?? throughout the semester I thought of writing a story about Don Quixote, a story about a story.

The story is pretty long which is why I will post it in chapters. It takes an alternate route showing that Don Quixote, in the second half of the book gives up knight-errantry and becomes a scholar. For those of you who have not read the novel the story might not make sense. But then again, the mark of a good piece is that it should be able to stand alone

So judge away…

Chapter I

Chapter II

Chapter III

Chapter IV

Chapter V

Chapter VI

Chapter VII

Epilogue

Ex blows out. The stream of smoke is steady, wispy, seemingly endless. He exhales a decade and two years in one breath. It billows back at him in eddies. In this one sitting he sees everything he has done, seen, been – as vaporous and ephemeral as all he breathes out, seen to unseen. Hangs there, this smoke, flailing against the invisible whip lashing of the ceiling fan, clings to what it can; leaves its distinct unpleasant odor of existence and its whimsical ashes of having been, everywhere nowhere, all blown by and by. In between perpetual re-intakes of smoke, Ex takes in a little oxygen. A heady room, at his almost-Teak desk, two minutes to noon on a Jumayraat in May; smoking, barely breathing, thinking. Thinking, how long could there possibly be left to this, he takes up another cigarette, begins all over.

The landscape is contiguous, he cannot quite get over it. In his last class of the spring semester, in complete contrast to his first year at the Institute-which ran out of, over and beyond each semester-early in May, he disbands the circle of reading and writing together. Attendance is sparse, Ex takes up the podium and delivers a brief lecture, as he is rarely known to do. “Everyone here, aesthetically, seems irretrievably damned, somehow incriminated: culpable, for in all our tangible yet barely intelligible pasts, coming down as it were a menstrual stream of history, on the stark whole, we have all somehow managed to contribute to making everything ugly.

“Over the course of a year, I do not know if I have had anything old, new, important or even interesting to teach you; but inadvertently, if I have transferred anything, aside from a lyre or two of what I attempt not to turn into name-droppings, it may be threefold. One, Socrates’ oracular joke on wisdom holds, forever. Two, Borges is yet true too, and you yourselves are living proof, that there is yet too much beauty in the world. And three, I myself am sufficient substantiation of the ugly I posit, all around us, and the inevitable inability of beauty to overcome it.” Perhaps that makes of me a novel, he thinks. He decides not to broadcast this, concluding instead: “Where I fail, where I fall short, there you can begin. Perhaps you don’t have to fail, or fall short. Maybe you can all go beyond all this, make things beautiful – at least in literature, all other forms of art, and thought, till everything else reconfigures itself contingently.”

The podium stands tall, he looks down at it. An inverse italicized z, with a wide-enough-for-a-coffee-cup base, atop; the slanting floorboard for notes, perpendicular; and, the little jutting horizon line protruding below, to stop all lecture notes from sprawling everywhere. As Ex removes his thick dappled matt black notebook, curving up at the edges from rain, he notes graffiti all over it, the podium’s face. Perhaps not, a passing thought backtracks to his final remark; chairs clattered together in some disarrayed square circle, eyes lowered, he makes his way, awkwardly as always, out of the room.