Don Quixote - Part I

They gazed at one another without speaking, Dorothea at Don Fernando, Don

Fernando at Cardenio, Cardenio at Luscinda, and Luscinda at Cardenio. The

first to break silence was Luscinda, who thus addressed Don Fernando:

"Leave me, Senor Don Fernando, for the sake of what you owe to yourself;

if no other reason will induce you, leave me to cling to the wall of

which I am the ivy, to the support from which neither your importunities,

nor your threats, nor your promises, nor your gifts have been able to

detach me. See how Heaven, by ways strange and hidden from our sight, has

brought me face to face with my true husband; and well you know by

dear-bought experience that death alone will be able to efface him from

my memory. May this plain declaration, then, lead you, as you can do

nothing else, to turn your love into rage, your affection into

resentment, and so to take my life; for if I yield it up in the presence

of my beloved husband I count it well bestowed; it may be by my death he

will be convinced that I kept my faith to him to the last moment of

life."

Meanwhile Dorothea had come to herself, and had heard Luscinda's words,

by means of which she divined who she was; but seeing that Don Fernando

did not yet release her or reply to her, summoning up her resolution as

well as she could she rose and knelt at his feet, and with a flood of

bright and touching tears addressed him thus:

"If, my lord, the beams of that sun that thou holdest eclipsed in thine

arms did not dazzle and rob thine eyes of sight thou wouldst have seen by

this time that she who kneels at thy feet is, so long as thou wilt have

it so, the unhappy and unfortunate Dorothea. I am that lowly peasant girl

whom thou in thy goodness or for thy pleasure wouldst raise high enough

to call herself thine; I am she who in the seclusion of innocence led a

contented life until at the voice of thy importunity, and thy true and

tender passion, as it seemed, she opened the gates of her modesty and

surrendered to thee the keys of her liberty; a gift received by thee but

thanklessly, as is clearly shown by my forced retreat to the place where

thou dost find me, and by thy appearance under the circumstances in which

I see thee. Nevertheless, I would not have thee suppose that I have come

here driven by my shame; it is only grief and sorrow at seeing myself

forgotten by thee that have led me. It was thy will to make me thine, and

thou didst so follow thy will, that now, even though thou repentest, thou

canst not help being mine. Bethink thee, my lord, the unsurpassable

affection I bear thee may compensate for the beauty and noble birth for

which thou wouldst desert me. Thou canst not be the fair Luscinda's

because thou art mine, nor can she be thine because she is Cardenio's;

and it will be easier, remember, to bend thy will to love one who adores

thee, than to lead one to love thee who abhors thee now. Thou didst

address thyself to my simplicity, thou didst lay siege to my virtue, thou

wert not ignorant of my station, well dost thou know how I yielded wholly

to thy will; there is no ground or reason for thee to plead deception,

and if it be so, as it is, and if thou art a Christian as thou art a

gentleman, why dost thou by such subterfuges put off making me as happy

at last as thou didst at first? And if thou wilt not have me for what I

am, thy true and lawful wife, at least take and accept me as thy slave,

for so long as I am thine I will count myself happy and fortunate. Do not

by deserting me let my shame become the talk of the gossips in the

streets; make not the old age of my parents miserable; for the loyal

services they as faithful vassals have ever rendered thine are not

deserving of such a return; and if thou thinkest it will debase thy blood

to mingle it with mine, reflect that there is little or no nobility in

the world that has not travelled the same road, and that in illustrious

lineages it is not the woman's blood that is of account; and, moreover,

that true nobility consists in virtue, and if thou art wanting in that,

refusing me what in justice thou owest me, then even I have higher claims

to nobility than thine. To make an end, senor, these are my last words to

thee: whether thou wilt, or wilt not, I am thy wife; witness thy words,

which must not and ought not to be false, if thou dost pride thyself on

that for want of which thou scornest me; witness the pledge which thou

didst give me, and witness Heaven, which thou thyself didst call to

witness the promise thou hadst made me; and if all this fail, thy own

conscience will not fail to lift up its silent voice in the midst of all

thy gaiety, and vindicate the truth of what I say and mar thy highest

pleasure and enjoyment."