The Second Book
The interaction of different layers of creation in the Quixote gives it a place in literary history as not only the first modern novel, but also as the first post-modern novel. In our century, nothing is innovative about the technique whereby Bugs Bunny suddenly turns to the camera and says "You ever get the feeling you was being watched?" Quixote, especially in the Shelton translation, is thrilling because of innovation and newness contrasted with oldness and that it is a commentary on even older books. The interaction is never complete, though, even in the twists of the second book. However, as early as the First Book, we have had strong hints of it. Cardenio says of the Don:
"It is so strange and rare that I do not know whether anyone trying to invent such a character in fiction would have the genius to succeed." 32
In the immortal words of the immoral Joan Rea in reference to Borges:
It's like the Morton Salt box with a picture of a little girl holding a Morton Salt box with a picture of a little girl holding a Morton Salt box, and after a while, you have to ask, "Who's holding my box?" 33
Like the image of the mirror of a mirror, the infinite is implied and evoked. Borges comes to mind more than once in this labyrinth. Borges and his obsession with the Quixote, leading us back to the Quixote . . . .
After a decade, Cervantes produces the second book, in which another layer of Morton salt-box is added. Sancho tells Quixote "last night Bartholomew Carrasco's sonne arrived, that comes from study from Salamanca, and hath proceeded Bachelour . . . . [H]e told me that your History was in print . . . ." 34 They learn that they are famous from the publication of the First Book.
Quixote realizes the author could "extoll him for the most remarkable of any Knight Errant," or to "annihilate . . . um beneath the basest and meanest that ever were mentioned of any inferior Squire." 35 Quixote is therefore curious to know,
" . . .which of my exploits are most highly praised in this history?"/ "About that," replied the Bachelor, "there are different opinions . . . Some favor the adventure of the wind-mills which seemed to your worship Briareuses and giants. Others . . . for the description of the two armies, which proved afterwards to be two flocks of sheep . . . ." 36
He will have all the fame he could have imagined at the expense of people knowing the truth of his folly. We begin to encounter the contradiction: if he is a great Knight he must have an honest chronicler, if the chronicle is honest, he will not seem great but ridiculous.
After Sancho has been questioned by Carrasco about things left unclear in the First Book: who stole his ass, what he did with the money, Sancho tires of being questioned.
"if you'l know any more of me, here I am, that will answer the King himself in person; and let no body intermeddle to know . . . ." 37
Carrasco's response depends on which translation you use. Shelton translates it:
"[T]he Author of the History . . . if he should print it again . . . shall not forget what Sancho has said, which shall make it twice as good as it was." 38
The Penguin translation gives a different translation.
"I will take care . . . to warn the author of this history not to forget what Sancho has said should he print it again . . . ." 39
This is a most relevant distinction. Carrasco is implying either that he knows the author and can bring him a message from his character, or that Benengeli automatically hears everything that Quixote and Sancho say. Regardless, a two-way communication between author and characters is implied.
All the magic in the First Book was in Quixote's head. Now, for the first time, something objectively magical has occurred. Sancho is at a loss to explain how "the Historian that wrote them, could come to knowledge of them." 40 The idea that Quixote is mad is shattered. If he has a chronicler, then he is what he always has said he is, a knight. But, the characters continue to condescend to play along with Quixote, hoping to cure him, ignoring this new tangible evidence. Carrasco, the first actor we encounter who has read of Quixote's knighthood, acknowledges him only mockingly. Like others who have played along with Quixote, Carrasco is described as one with
a malicious disposition, and a friend to conceits and merriment, as he shewed it when he saw Don Quixote; for he fell upon his knees before him, saying Good Mr. Don Quixote, give me your Greatnesse his hand, for by the habit of St. Peter, which I weare, you are one of the most complete Knights Errant, that hath ever been, or shall be upon the roundnesse of the earth. 41
Characters like Carrasco, the Duke, and the Duchess therefore fall strangely between layers and are a new phenomenon in the second book. They are somewhere between characters in a book and readers of the book. Real people, or real-seeming characters, would be surprised to meet someone that they had read about as a fictional, but these characters accept it immediately. The characters in the First Book seemed real, and were motivated by human forces: Hunger, jealousy, greed, lust, mockery or generosity. Even given that these new characters have obtained supernatural information, they still act strangely. We are left with a sense of not knowing what they want from Quixote. They should realize he is famous, and they are not. They should realize that he is a literary figure, at least, if not a real knight. Whatever they do will end up in a scathingly honest book, so they should be on their best behavior.
Things are getting a bit shaky here, suggesting that literary characters had better be polite, realizing they are going to be in a book. But, that is what happens when a text undermines the traditional author / character / reader relationship. You never know when someone is going to slip out of their proper place and say hey reader, how you doing? What are you thinking as you read this sentence?
Perhaps Cervantes found it acceptable to shake Quixote a bit, but considered it rude to fully wake him from the dream. So he backed off without seeing the paradox all the way through. That's why, no matter how much Quixote hears about it, he never gets a hold of a copy of the First Book, and why Cervantes fails to make his characters as plausible as those in the First Book. But nonetheless, readers are rewarded with a new dimension. We come to participate more in Quixote's state of mind, and in feeling that we're in an impossible dream. If Cervantes isn't careful, we might be awakened.
Carrasco encourages Don Quixote to head out again, planning dress up as The Knight of the Mirrors and defeat Quixote. It is part of the plan.
[T]he Bachelor Sampson Carrasco . . . had held a conference with the priest and the barber to decide on a means of inducing the knight to stay quietly and safely at home, without exciting himself with his wretched quests for adventures. At this consultation it was decided by unanimous vote, and with the particular approval of Carrasco, that they should let Don Quixote set out, since it seemed impossible to keep him back, and that Sampson should take the road as a knight errant and join battle with him -- a pretext would not be lacking -- and so vanquish him -- which they reckoned an easy matter -- and there should be a covenant and agreement between them that the vanquished should be at the mercy of the victor. So that, Don Quixote being thus overthrown, the Bachelor Knight could command him to return home to his village, and not to leave it for two years, or until he should be commanded otherwise. 42
Carrasco creates for himself a knight in Quixote's image, complete with squire and mistress and in full costume. In a wonderful passage, the two knights and squires pair off and talk of the ups and downs of their professions, "in peace and comradeship, as if they had not to break each other's heads at break of day." 43 The readers know it is only Carrasco embarked on this masquerade, although Sancho and Quixote are both left in the dark.
Luckily though, Carrasco fails, leaving his squire, Thomas Cecial to make fun of him.
Don Quixote mad, we wise, but hee is gone away sound and merry, you are heere bruised and sorrowfull. Let us know then who is the greatest mad-man, hee that is so and cannot doe withall, or hee that is so for his pleasure? To which (quoth Samson) The difference between these madde men is that hee that of necessity is so, will alwaies remaine so, and he that accidentally is so, may leave it when he will. Since it is so (said Thomas Cecial) I that for my pleasure was madde, when I would needes be your Squire; for the same reason I will leave the office, and returne home to my owne house. Tis fit you should (said Samson) yet to thinke that I will doe so, till I have soundly banged Don Quixote, is vaine, and now I goe not about to restore him to wits, but to revenge my selfe on him: for the intolerable paine I feele in my ribbes, will not permit mee a more charitable discourse. 44
In the First Book, Sancho learned to deceive his master, when he was sent to deliver Quixote's letter to Dulcinea. In the Second Book, they go together to Toboso. When Quixote instructs Sancho to lead the way to her door, Sancho must rise to the occasion with a more drastic deception. Sancho ruminates:
" [T]his master of mine is a raving lunatic who ought to be tied up . . ., and it's the kind of madness that generally mistakes one thing for another . . . . So it won't be very difficult to make him believe that the first peasant girl I run across about here is the lady Dulcinea. If he doesn't believe it I'll swear . . . perhaps he'll think, as I fancy he will, that one of those wicked enchanters who, he says, have a grudge against him, has changed her shape to vex and spite him." 45
Sancho's plan works perfectly. He describes some peasant girls as
one blaze of gold, all ropes of pearls, all diamonds, all rubies, all brocade of more than ten gold strands; their hair loose on their shoulders, like so many sunrays sporting in the wind . . . . 46
Quixote's disbelief is met with Sancho's reassurance, and eventually yields to Sancho and his 'enchanters.'
In the Cave of the Montesinos, Don Quixote tells a supernatural tale with such clarity that one could almost believe it. But Sancho is used to this kind of stuff and says,
"But Pardon me if I say, your worship, that of all you have said, God help me - I was going to say the Devil - if I believe one word." 47
A scholar who has accompanied them asks: "Why would Don Quixote lie?" 48 Sancho claims he doesn't believe his master is lying, but rather,
"that this Merlin or these enchanters, who bewitched that whole crowd your worship tells us you saw and talked with down below, crammed all that rigmarole you've told us into your head, and what remains to be told as well." 49
The idea that memories might not be experienced, but "crammed" into our heads, makes a leap to Cartesian cognitive concepts. Only a couple of years after Quixote was published, Descartes, who perhaps read the early French translation of the Quixote and learned much from Sancho, wrote "I think, therefore I am." Now, of course, with Descartes long dead, we can reflect that Descartes thought therefore he was, but Sancho was written, therefore he still is.
The terribly malicious Duke and Duchess go to the greatest lengths to play along with and make fun of Quixote.
[B]oth of them having read the first part, and understood by it his besotted humour, attended him, with much pleasure and desire to know him, with a purpose to follow his humour, and to give way to al he should say, and to treat with him as a Knight Errant, as long as he should be with them, with all the accustomed ceremonies in bookes of Knight Errantry, which they had read . . . . 50
With the budget to pull this off properly, they pamper Don Quixote.
And this was the first time that he was positively certain of being a true and no imaginary knight errant, since he found himself treated just as he had read these knights were treated in past ages. 51
Also staying at the Duke's manor is a priest who has heard the Duke mention reading the Quixote. Again we are confused by a character who isn't surprised that a literary character has come to life. However, he is a spokesperson for the ill effects of the complicity of others in Quixote's madness.
"This Don Quixote, or Don Fool, or whatever you call him, cannot be such an idiot, I imagine, as your Excellency would have him be, seeing the opportunities you put in his way of carrying on his fooleries and nonsense." 52
The priest presents an echo of Thomas Cecial's "who is the greatest mad-man?" speech,
" [Y]our Excellency is as stupid as these two sinners. They may well be mad if the sane sanction their insanity." 53
When Sancho arranged for his master to believe the peasant girl was the enchanted Dulcinea, he knew that nothing is really the way that Quixote imagines it. He again explains himself, this time to the Duchess:
"I reckon my master Don Quixote's stark crazy, although sometimes he will talk in a way which, to my thinking and in the opinion of all who hear him, is so wise and leads down so good a track that Satan himself could not speak better." 54
So, even if Quixote is insane, his squire is at least beginning to figure things out. But the Duchess will not allow this to happen and she convinces Sancho that,
" the peasant girl who skipped on to the she-ass really and truly was and is Dulcinea del Toboso, and that it was the good Sancho who was deceived, though he may think he is the deceiver . . . ." 55
Sancho, is convinced into again believing in his master's delusions, and into falling for his own trick. Quixote, however, can deny material evidence without anyone helping to confuse him. In the schemes devised by the Duke to exaggerate Quixote's madness, he uses the same steward to play two different roles and Sancho notices. He points this out to Quixote, who answers:
" [T]he Afflicted One's face is just like the steward's. Yet for all that, the steward is not the Afflicted One, for that would imply a very palpable contradiction. But this is no time to make these investigations, for that would be to plunge ourselves into inextricable labyrinths." 56
This is only one of many labyrinths which Quixote, Cervantes, and the other actors must essentially ignore, in order to keep moving and get along. Here, we actually are presented with the image of the labyrinth for the first time.
Avellaneda
The next salt-box is the Avellaneda Quixote. Though as literature, it is relevant only as a curiosity to Quixotists, it doubtless wounded Cervantes deeply. No secondary sources are necessary to know of his anger. The text becomes soaked in it. From the first sentence of the Second Book, we are alerted of a mockery of Quixote, that would have otherwise been long forgotten:
[H]ow earnestly must thou needs by this time expect this Prologue, supposing that thou must find in it nothing but revenge, brawling, and rayling upon the second [Avellaneda] 'Don Quixote,' . . . . 57
No Cervantes, earnestly by this time, as in yours, your imitator is forgotten and would be eclipsed, had you not lent it immortality. But the author is too tormented to let go of his own Enchanter. Like one who's marriage has been intruded upon by infidelity, he cannot play it off like everything is cool. He has been hurt. Even his farewell speech to the character he loved is poisoned with bitterness:
Don Quixote was born for me alone, and I had my birth onely for him . . . . To be short, He and I are but one selfe-same thing, Maugre and in despite of the fabulous Scribler de Tordesillas, who hath rashly and malapertly dared with an Estridge course and bungling pen, to write the prowesse and high Feates of Armes of my valorous Knight. 58
In the introduction to the Tudor Shelton translation, Fitzmaurice Kelly suggests that we have Avellaneda to thank for hurrying Cervantes, who otherwise might not have finished the Second Book before his death. However, as Sancho says when considering the possibility of a second book: "[H]asty work is never well performed." 59 Cervantes becomes obsessed with disproving Avellaneda. In fact, Cervantes is in quite a rush to have Quixote die, to fulfill his pledge to deliver Quixote "dead and buried, so that no man presume to raise any farther reports of him . . . ." 60 Cervantes hurries Quixote's downfall, and misses much opportunity.
Where have all the interactions between layers gone? Actors that had utilized channels of communication seem deprived of such channels when the the book needs them most. Perhaps Cervantes didn't imagine analytical readers of the Quixote. He did not worry about the rules of such connections, because he did not take most of the book too seriously. But this humour changes after he reads Avellaneda and becomes serious, perhaps feeling threatened that someone has tried to usurp his characters. Had he more fully explored the potential of the new narrative devices, Cervantes could have beaten Avellaneda at his own game. But, alas, he was too jealous to channel his energies constructively.
I imagine profound experiments with layers. For example, Quixote could see the First Book. He has heard of it enough times. But putting a copy in his hands would truly call reality into question. Instead, he twice finds the Avellaneda Quixote, once at the inn, and once at the Barcelona book printer. Quixote says on these occasions:
" . . . this author . . . stupidly wanders from the truth . . . ." 61
and
"I thought before now, it had beene burnt and turned to ashes for an idle Pamphlet," 62
Cervantes, obsessed, fails to realize that Quixote picking up and denouncing the false Second Book doesn't make for good fiction. How petty and flat these reactions seem compared to the ones he would have had to the true book! He would read not only that he is delusional, but that certain events have been set up for him by his friends. He would find out that even his Chronicler makes fun of him.
Even more poorly conceptualized is Altisidora's tale of her descent to hell. In the final scheme of the Duke and Duchess, she is supposed to be an actress and describes "devils . . . playing at tennis . . . and what most astonished me was that instead of balls, they used what looked like books . . . ." 63 So, predictably, one of the books ends up being the Avellaneda Quixote, and even a devil knows to
"[t]hrow it into the pit of hell . . . ." "Is it so bad?" asked the other. "So bad," replied the first, "that if I were to set myself deliberately to make it worse I couldn't!" 64
Altisidora is just pretending to have gone to hell, so why the hell does she know so much about the Avellaneda book, and why would she be making this up? It certainly does not fit her character or the role she is playing in the Duke's games. The only explanation is that Cervantes is really stewing in his anger and cannot stop it from spilling over. He is lost in his labyrinth.
Another unrealized possibility for this section of the book would be Quixote meeting the false Quixote in battle -- perhaps losing. This alternate possible ending was suggested by Nabokov in his Harvard Lectures on Quixote. But, instead Samson Carrasco defeats Quixote. By this time, the idea of people from Quixote's village dressing up and playing along with his game to trick him into returning, has already been done. It is no longer relevant or interesting. The forces undermining Quixote and Cervantes at this point are no longer so familiar or simple.
If the false Quixote is a cheap reflection of Quixote, who is a reflection of Amadis, who is a reflection of all knights, and Carrasco is sometimes known as "The Knight of the Mirrors," we simply have too many mirrors to be satisfied with an ending that is non-reflective. Cervantes had even planted some seeds in the first meeting between The Knight of the Mirrors and Quixote that could have borne great harvest in light of the Avellaneda Quixote. In the prophetic passage, Carrasco attempts to increase Quixote's interest by claiming to have already defeated Quixote in battle. He describes Quixote in detail to Quixote. Quixote knows he has not been defeated, but plays it cool for a moment before declaring his identity. He pretends to just be a friend of Quixote and tells of himself in the second person:
"[H]e hath many Enchanters that be his enemies, especially one, that doth ordinarily persecute him, there be some one that hath taken his shape [my emphasis] on him, and suffered himselfe to be overcome, to defraud him of the glory which his noble chivalry hath gotten and layd up for him thorowout the whole earth." 65
To confirm the amazing coincidence that Cervantes wrote of an impostor before Avellaneda was published, it is important to check the sequence. The Avellaneda Quixote is first mentioned in Cervantes' prologue, but the prologue was clearly written last. Avellaneda must have seen some preliminary draft or heard from someone who had, to know that Quixote had plans to go to Saragossa. This puts us at chapter 52, the first mention of those plans. But that still does not tell us when Cervantes first read Avellaneda. According to Cohen "the publication of Avellaneda's attempt at a sequel . . . , from internal evidence, seems to have found Cervantes on his fifty-ninth chapter." 66 The internal evidence is Cervantes' first mention of the false book, and the onslaught of his vengeful reaction. I agree, that it is impossible to imagine him suppressing his reaction for more than a few pages. So, it seems he did not know about Avellaneda until chapter 59, but way back in chapter 14, he already has this idea of an imitator. It is strange that he forgets his idea when it could help him so much.
My imagined scenario become more real for me than Quixote's death scene. Carrasco fights the fake Quixote and defeats him, thinking he was fighting the real Quixote. This would be a mirror of the scene where Carrasco pretended for Don Quixote's sake that he had beaten a false Quixote. This time, he would think he was fighting the real Quixote. Quixote watches as Carrasco makes the fake Quixote pledge to give up knighthood for a year and return home. The fake Quixote agrees, returns to Quixote's village, takes Quixote's place as his former self, Alonso Quixano, and dies.
Quixote, freed from his familial obligations, goes to fulfill the hopes he told to Sancho:
"[W]ould it have been otherwise, that I might have gone into Barbary, and with the strength and vigour of this Arme, not onely have given liberty to Don Gregorio, but to all the Christian captives in Barbary." 67
While in the neighborhood of Barbary anyway, he might as well pay a visit to a certain Moor by the name of Benengeli. Quixote has perhaps taken offense at Benengeli's portrayal of himself or Dulcinea and ends up killing his chronicler, leaving us with no further source of his exploits.
the end