The cunning hidalgo Don Quixote of La Mancha. Domquixote construction company Dom quixote construction company official

Did you know that Cervantes originally conceived Don Quixote simply as a playful parody of his contemporary "tabloid" chivalric romances? And as a result, one of the greatest works of world literature turned out, which remains almost the most read to this day? How did it happen? And why did the mad knight Don Quixote and his squire Sancho Panza turn out to be so dear to millions of readers?

This is especially for "Thomas" said Viktor Simakov, candidate of philological sciences, teacher of literature.

Don Quixote: the story of an idealist or a madman?

Speaking of Don Quixote, one should separate the idea consciously formulated by the author, its final embodiment and the perception of the novel in subsequent centuries. Cervantes' original intention was to make fun of chivalric romances by creating a parody of the mad knight.

However, in the process of creating the novel, the idea has changed. Already in the first volume, the author, consciously or not, rewarded the comic hero - Don Quixote - with touching idealism and a sharp mind. The character is somewhat ambiguous. For example, he uttered a famous monologue about the bygone golden age, which he began with these words: “Blessed are the times and blessed is the age that the ancients called golden, and not because gold, which in our Iron Age is such a great value, in that a happy time was obtained for free, but because the people who lived then did not know two words: yours and mine. In those blessed times, everything was common.”

Monument to Don Quixote. Cuba

Having finished the first volume, Cervantes seemed to have finished the whole novel. The creation of the second volume was helped by a chance - the publication of a fake continuation of Don Quixote by the authorship of a certain Avellaneda.

This Avellaneda was not such an incompetent author as Cervantes declared him to be, but he perverted the characters of the characters and, logically, sent Don Quixote to a lunatic asylum. Cervantes, who previously felt the ambiguity of his hero, immediately takes up the second volume, where he not only emphasized the idealism, sacrifice and wisdom of Don Quixote, but also gave wisdom to the second comic hero, Sancho Panza, who previously looked very narrow-minded. That is, Cervantes ended the novel not at all the way he began it; as a writer, he evolved along with his heroes - the second volume came out deeper, sublime, perfect in form than the first.

Four centuries have passed since the creation of Don Quixote. All this time, the perception of Don Quixote has changed. Since the days of Romantic literature, for most readers, Don Quixote has been a tragic story about a great idealist who is not understood and accepted by the people around him. Dmitry Merezhkovsky wrote that Don Quixote turns everything he sees in front of him into a dream. He challenges the familiar, the ordinary, trying to live, guided by ideals in everything, moreover, he wants to turn back time, to the golden age.

Don Quixote. John Edward Gregory (1850-1909)

To the surrounding people, the hero seems strange, insane, somehow “not like that”; in him, their words and deeds cause pity, sadness or sincere indignation, which is paradoxically connected with humility. The novel really gives ground for such an interpretation, exposes and complicates this conflict. Don Quixote, despite any ridicule and mockery, continues to believe in people. He is ready to suffer for any person, ready to endure hardships - with confidence that a person can become better, that he will straighten up, jump above his head.

In general, the whole novel of Cervantes is built on paradoxes. Yes, Don Quixote is one of the first pathological images (that is, the image of a madman. – Note. ed.) in the history of fiction. And after Cervantes, there will be more and more of them every century, until, finally, in the 20th century, almost the majority of the main characters of novels will be crazy. However, this is not what is important, but the fact that as we read Don Quixote, we get the feeling that the author is slowly, not at once, showing the hero's wisdom through his madness. So in the second volume, the reader clearly faces the question: who is really insane here? Is Don Quixote Real? Aren't those just those who mock and laugh at the noble hidalgo who are insane? And it is not Don Quixote who is blinded and mad in his childhood dreams, but the people around him, unable to see the world as this knight sees it?

Who "blessed" Don Quixote for the feat?

It is important to understand, as Merezhkovsky writes, that Don Quixote is a person from that ancient era, when the values ​​of good and evil were formed not on the basis of personal experience, but with an eye to what authoritative people of the past, for example, Augustine, Boethius or Aristotle, said. . And any important life choice was made only with the support and an eye on the great, authoritative people of the past.

The same goes for Don Quixote. Authors of chivalric novels turned out to be authoritative for him. The ideals he read and assimilated from these books were accepted by him without hesitation. They, if you like, determined the "dogmatic content" of his faith. And the hero of the novel put all of himself into bringing these principles of the past into the present, "making it come true."

And even when Don Quixote says that he wants to achieve the glory of a sad feat of chivalry, then this glory is important to him precisely as an opportunity to become a conductor of these eternal ideals. He has no personal glory. Therefore, it can be said that the authors of chivalric novels themselves "authorized" him to this feat.

Did Cervantes mock his hero?

Cervantes is a man of the turn of the 16th-17th centuries, and the laughter of that time is rather rude. Let us recall Rabelais or comic scenes in Shakespeare's tragedies. Don Quixote was conceived as a comic book, and indeed it seemed comical to Cervantes' contemporaries. Already during the life of the writer, his heroes became, for example, the characters of Spanish carnivals. The hero is beaten, and the reader laughs.

Supposed portrait of Cervantes

It is precisely this inevitable coarseness of the author and his readers that Nabokov does not accept, who, in his Lecture on Don Quixote, was indignant at the fact that Cervantes mocked his hero so mercilessly. The emphasis on the tragic sound and philosophical problems of the novel is entirely the merit of the authors of the 19th century, romantics and realists. Their interpretation of Cervantes' novel has now overshadowed the original intention of the writer. Her comic side is for us in the background. And here is the big question: what is more significant for the history of culture - the thought of the writer himself or what we see behind it? Dmitry Merezhkovsky, anticipating Nabokov, wrote that the writer himself did not really understand what kind of masterpiece he had created.

Why did a buffoonish parody become a great novel?

The secret of such popularity and significance of Don Quixote is due to the fact that the book constantly provokes more and more new questions. Trying to deal with this text, we will never put an end to it. The novel does not give us any definitive answers. On the contrary, he constantly eludes any completed interpretations, flirts with the reader, provokes him to dive deeper and deeper into the semantic composition. Moreover, the reading of this text for each will be "their own", very personal, subjective.

This is a novel miraculously evolving with the author before our very eyes. Cervantes deepens his idea not only from the first volume to the second, but also from chapter to chapter. Jorge Luis Borges, it seems to me, rightly wrote that reading the first volume when there is a second one is, in general, no longer necessary. That is, "Don Quixote" is a unique case when the "sequel" turned out to be much better than the "original". And the reader, rushing further into the depths of the text, feels an amazing immersion and an ever greater sympathy for the hero.

Monument to Cervantes and his heroes in Madrid

The work opened and still opens with new facets and dimensions that were not noticeable to previous generations. The book took on a life of its own. "Don Quixote" came into the spotlight in the 17th century, then influenced many authors during the Enlightenment (including Henry Fielding, one of the creators of the modern type of novel), then aroused success successively among romantics, realists, modernists, postmodernists.

Interestingly, the image of Don Quixote turned out to be very close to the Russian world outlook. Our writers often turned to him. For example, Prince Myshkin, the hero of Dostoevsky's novel, is both the "prince-Christ" and at the same time Don Quixote; Cervantes' book is specifically mentioned in the novel. Turgenev wrote a brilliant article in which he compared Don Quixote and Hamlet. The writer formulated the difference between two outwardly seemingly similar heroes who put on a mask of madness. For Turgenev, Don Quixote is a kind of extrovert who gives himself entirely to other people, who is completely open to the world, while Hamlet, on the contrary, is an introvert who is closed on himself, fundamentally fenced off from the world.

What do Sancho Panza and King Solomon have in common?

Sancho Panza is a paradoxical hero. Of course, he is comical, but it is in his mouth that Cervantes sometimes puts amazing words that suddenly reveal the wisdom and wit of this squire. This is especially noticeable towards the end of the novel.

At the beginning of the novel, Sancho Panza is the embodiment of the image of a rogue, traditional for the then Spanish literature. But the rogue from Sancho Panza is no good. All his cheating comes down to successful finds of someone's things, some petty theft, and even then they catch him by the hand. And then it turns out that this hero is talented in a completely different way. Already closer to the end of the second volume, Sancho Panza becomes the governor of a fake island. And here he acts as a prudent and intelligent judge, so one involuntarily wants to compare him with the wise Old Testament king Solomon.

So at first the stupid and ignorant Sancho Panza turns out to be completely different by the end of the novel. When Don Quixote finally refuses further chivalrous exploits, Sancho begs him not to despair, not to deviate from the chosen path and move on - to new exploits and adventures. It turns out that there is no less adventurism in it than in Don Quixote.

According to Heinrich Heine, Don Quixote and Sancho Panza are inseparable from each other and form a single whole. When we imagine Don Quixote, we immediately imagine Sancho next to us. One hero in two faces. And if you count Rocinante and the donkey Sancho - in four.

What kind of chivalric romances did Cervantes make fun of?

Initially, the genre of chivalric romances originated in the 12th century. At the time of real knights, these books embodied current ideals and ideas - courtly (rules of good manners, good manners, which later formed the basis of knightly behavior. - Note. ed.) literary, religious. However, Cervantes did not parody them at all.

The "new" chivalric novels appeared after the introduction of printing technology. Then, in the 16th century, for a wide, already literate public, they began to create light, entertaining reading material about knightly deeds. In fact, this was the first experience of creating book "blockbusters", the purpose of which was very simple - to save people from boredom. In the time of Cervantes, chivalric romances no longer had any relation to reality or current intellectual thought, but their popularity did not fade away.

It must be said that Cervantes did not consider Don Quixote his best work at all. Having conceived "Don Quixote" as a playful parody of chivalric novels, which were then written for the entertainment of the reading public, he then undertook to create a real, genuine chivalric novel - "The Wanderings of Persiles and Sichismunda." Cervantes naively believed that this was his best work. But time has shown that he was wrong. This, by the way, often happened in the history of world culture, when the writer considered some works to be the most successful and important, and subsequent generations chose completely different ones for themselves.

Title page of the Spanish edition of Amadis, 1533

And something amazing happened with Don Quixote. It turned out that this novel is not only a parody that survived the original. It was thanks to Cervantes that these "tabloid" chivalric romances were immortalized. We would not know anything about who Amadis of Gali, Belianis the Greek or Tyrant the White were, if it were not for Don Quixote. This happens when a text that is important and significant for many generations pulls up entire layers of culture behind it.

Who is Don Quixote compared to?

The image of Don Quixote is somewhat reminiscent of an Orthodox holy fool. And here it must be said that Cervantes himself, towards the end of his life, gravitated more and more towards Franciscanism (a Catholic mendicant monastic order founded by St. Francis of Assisi. - Note. ed.). And the image of Francis of Assisi, as well as his followers, the Franciscans, in some way echoes the Orthodox holy fools. Both those and others consciously chose a poor lifestyle, wore rags, walked barefoot, constantly wandered. Quite a few works have been written about Franciscan motives in Don Quixote.

In general, there are quite a lot of parallels between the plot of the novel and the gospel narrative, as well as hagiographic stories. The Spanish philosopher José Ortega y Gasset wrote that Don Quixote is "the Gothic Christ, dried up by the newest longing, the ridiculous Christ of our outskirts." Miguel de Unamuno, another Spanish thinker, titled his commentary on Cervantes' book The Life of Don Quixote and Sancho. Unamuno stylized his book as the life of a saint. He writes about Don Quixote as a "new Christ", who, despised and reviled by everyone, walks through the Spanish hinterland. In this book, the famous phrase was re-formulated that if Christ reappeared on this earth, we would crucify him again (it was first recorded by one of the German romantic writers, and later it is repeated by Andrei Tarkovsky in The Passion for Andrei) .

By the way, the title of Unamuno's book will later become the title of a film by Georgian director Rezo Chkheidze. Parallels between the plot of the novel and the gospel story were drawn even by Vladimir Nabokov in Lectures on Don Quixote, although it is difficult to suspect anyone but Nabokov of a special interest in religious topics.

Indeed, Don Quixote, together with his squire Sancho Panza, especially in the second part of the novel, very much resembles Christ and his apostle. For example, this is noticeable in the scene when, in one city, local residents begin to throw stones at Don Quixote and laugh at him, and then even hang a sign on him for fun with the inscription “Don Quixote of La Mancha”, which is very reminiscent of another famous inscription - “Jesus the Nazarene”. , King of the Jews.

How is the image of Christ reflected in world literature?

Even Blessed Augustine considered becoming like Christ the goal of Christian life and a means of overcoming original sin. If we take the Western tradition, St. Thomas of Kempis wrote about this, St. Francis of Assisi proceeded from this idea. Naturally, this was also reflected in literature, for example, in the "Flowers of Francis of Assisi", a biography of a saint so valued, including by Cervantes.

There is a "Little Prince" with a hero who came to earth to save, if not all people, but at least one person (that's why he is small). There is an amazing play by Kai Munch "The Word", recently published in the journal "Foreign Literature", but long ago known to cinephiles from the brilliant adaptation of Carl Theodor Dreyer. There is a novel by Nikas Kazantzakis "Christ is crucified again". There are also texts with rather shocking images - from a traditional religious point of view. All this indicates that the gospel history is one of the foundations of European culture. And judging by the new and new variations on the themes of the gospel images (whatever strange transformations they have undergone), this foundation is quite strong.

Judging by Don Quixote, gospel motifs can appear in literature implicitly, implicitly, even imperceptibly for the author himself, simply because of his natural religiosity. It must be understood that if the author of the 17th century had deliberately introduced religious motifs into the text, he would have emphasized them much more noticeably. The literature of that time most often openly demonstrates techniques, does not hide them; Cervantes thinks the same way. Accordingly, speaking of religious motives in the novel, we independently build a complete picture of the writer's worldview, conjecture what he outlined with only a few timid strokes. The novel makes it possible. And this is also his true modern life.

So after 8 months, and it was promised under the contract 6, our construction was completed. The builders left, leaving behind heaps of garbage, cigarette butts, nails, screws. The snow melted and everything became visible at once. And now, in order: they were built in the company Dom Quixote. We signed an agreement on August 29, 2018 and within 3 days we paid 1m 200 thousand. (first installment), and the construction actually began in 1.5 months. The money was paid, and the foreman Alexei fed him with promises ... The money was in the bank, respectively, they did not receive interest and there was no construction. After each part of the payment, we waited for the start of the next stage of work 1-1.5 (we were losing our money on this). Architect Daniil Vasyukov, apparently due to his youth and inexperience, did not pay close attention to many of the nuances in our project: the opening of the balcony door to the veranda turned out to be very narrow (we were told that all customers were satisfied); the garage was designed in height without our participation; the porch was designed without our consent, and we saw all this already during the construction, when everything was built. When we drew attention to these moments, we were told that we had signed everything and nothing could be changed. Be careful when signing projects, you can be deceived in order to surprise the project, and in fact take more money. This also happened with windows. Our windows should all be tilt-and-turn, but in fact two of our windows are simply tilt-and-turn windows. In response to all our requests for windows, the architect said that he would fix everything and redo it, but nothing was done and the money was not returned. After you have paid the first installment under the contract, the office communicates with you differently: they promise, but do nothing. Foreman Aleksey Andreev is extremely incompetent in many matters, it seems that he has no construction education. He imposed additional work and offered to pay for them not through the office, but directly to the construction team, and from this he had his own percentage. The foreman tried to hide from us the shortcomings of the construction, when we discovered them, pointing it out to him, he said that it was okay and that would do! Constantly supervise the work of the brigade !!! Now about the construction teams. This company does not have its own builders in the state: the foreman is looking for builders on the side! Accordingly, they have no experience in building frame houses. They did it all for the first time! Crews are not paid money for the work done and therefore they either run away from the facility or will beg for money from the customer. We have changed 5 brigades .. We did not think that the construction would drag on for 8 months and so many nerves and hemorrhoids! ! If we did not control all the construction, then everything would be much worse! After signing the act of acceptance - transfer of the house, we saw more hidden imperfections and turned to the company with a request to eliminate these imperfections under a guarantee that we were promised for 15 years. The company informed us that they would consider our complaint and asked us not to write bad reviews and not to sue, but there was no answer ... After talking with this company, there was a negative aftertaste and a bunch of damaged nerves. The staff of the company with whom we communicated is: Timur - manager, Daniil Vasyukov - architect, Alexey Andreeev - foreman, Khraputsky Ivan - manager, when they talked with us, they promised that everything would be fine, but in fact she was full of nerves and frustration ... We advise Do not contact this company. We wrote this review not by order, our contract number is 1808-070, 08/29/2018. We have experienced all this ourselves, think again before entering into an agreement with this company. And we collect documents for filing a lawsuit.

Eager to remake the world. There are contradictions in the pages of the book. What the world really is and how the protagonist sees it are two different things. Romanticization played a cruel joke on the old nobleman, and his aspirations turned out to be useless. Meanwhile, Cervantes' novel had a huge impact on the development of world culture.

Character Creation History

Spaniard Miguel de Cervantes decided to ridicule chivalric literature after reading the book Interludes of Romances. Notably, Cervantes' seminal work was written in prison. In 1597, the author went to jail on charges of embezzlement of public funds.

The work of Miguel de Cervantes consists of two volumes. The first - "The Cunning Hidalgo Don Quixote of La Mancha" - was seen by bookworms in 1605, and the next novel, entitled "The Second Part of the Genius Knight Don Quixote of La Mancha", was published ten years later. Year of writing - 1615th.

The writer Germán Arsinegas used to say that the Spanish conquistador Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada served as a possible prototype for Don Quixote. This man traveled a lot and became the first seeker of the mysterious El Dorado.

Biography and image of Don Quixote

The biography of the popular literary hero is shrouded in a halo of mystery. The author himself wrote that one can only guess about the real name of the character, but, presumably, the name of the rider is Alonso Kehana. Although some believe that his last name is Quijada or Quesada.

The most daring interpretation of the novel is Don Quixote. The American classic started working in 1957 and has been filming for 15 years. But Jesus Franco and Patsy Yrigoyen completed what they started. They restored the footage in 1992. The film received mixed reviews from critics.

• Miguel Cervantes planned his book as a parody, and the hero Don Quixote himself was invented to ridicule. But the eminent philosopher noted that the meaning of the novel is the most bitter of all in the history of mankind.
• The theater and film actor received an award from the Soviet Union for his lead role in the musical The Man from La Mancha.

• On June 25, 1994, the audience saw a ballet called Don Quixote, or Fantasies of a Madman. The libretto was written by .
• Although the book by Miguel de Cervantes became a world bestseller, one could only sympathize with the financial situation of the author.

Quotes

Don't get angry if someone says something unpleasant to you. Live in harmony with your conscience, and let people say to themselves what they please. It is as impossible to bind the tongue of a blasphemous person as to close the field with a gate.

“Now you can see an inexperienced adventurer,” said Don Quixote. - These are giants. And if you are afraid, then move aside and pray, and in the meantime I will enter into a cruel and unequal battle with them.

If ever the rod of justice bends in your hands, then let it happen not under the weight of gifts, but under the pressure of compassion.

When noble women or modest maidens sacrifice their honor and allow their lips to cross all boundaries of decency and divulge the cherished secrets of their hearts, this means that they are brought to an extreme.

Ingratitude is the daughter of pride and one of the greatest sins in the world.

Be moderate in your drinking, for the reason that a person who has drunk too much does not keep secrets and does not fulfill promises.

Bibliography

• 1605 - "The cunning hidalgo Don Quixote of La Mancha"
• 1615 - "The second part of the ingenious knight Don Quixote of La Mancha"

Filmography

• 1903 - Don Quixote (France)
• 1909 - Don Quixote (USA)
• 1915 - Don Quixote (USA)
• 1923 - Don Quixote (UK)
• 1933 - Don Quixote (France, Germany, Great Britain)
• 1947 - Don Quixote from La Mancha (Spain)
• 1957 - Don Quixote (USSR)
• 1961 - Don Quixote (Yugoslavia) (cartoon)
• 1962 - Don Quixote (Finland)
• 1964 - Dulcinea Toboso (France, Spain, Germany)
• 1972 - Man from Lamancha (USA, Italy)
• 1973 - Don Quixote is on the road again (Spain, Mexico)
• 1997 - Don Quixote returns (Russia, Bulgaria)
• 1999 - Chained Knights (Russia, Georgia)
• 2000 - The Last Knight (USA)

Frame from the film "Don Quixote" (1957)

In a certain village of La Mancha, there lived a hidalgo, whose property consisted of a family spear, an ancient shield, a skinny nag and a greyhound dog. His surname was either Kehana or Quesada, it is not known exactly, and it does not matter. He was about fifty years old, his body was lean, his face was thin and he read chivalric novels for days on end, which made his mind completely upset, and he decided to become a knight-errant. He polished the armor that belonged to his ancestors, attached a cardboard visor to the shishak, gave his old horse the sonorous name Rocinante, and renamed himself Don Quixote of La Mancha. Since a knight-errant must be in love, the hidalgo, on reflection, chose a lady of his heart: Aldonsa Lorenzo and named her Dulcinea of ​​Toboso, because she was from Toboso. Dressed in his armor, Don Quixote set off, imagining himself the hero of a chivalric romance. After driving all day, he got tired and went to the inn, mistaking it for a castle. The unsightly appearance of the hidalgo and his lofty speeches made everyone laugh, but the good-natured host fed and watered him, although it was not easy: Don Quixote would never take off his helmet, which prevented him from eating and drinking. Don Quixote asked the owner of the castle, i.e. inn, to knight him, and before that he decided to spend the night in vigil over the weapon, putting it on the watering trough. The owner asked if Don Quixote had money, but Don Quixote never read about money in any novel and took it with him. The owner explained to him that although such simple and necessary things as money or clean shirts are not mentioned in the novels, this does not mean at all that the knights did not have either. At night, one driver wanted to water the mules and removed Don Quixote's armor from the watering trough, for which he was hit with a spear, so the owner, who considered Don Quixote crazy, decided to knight him as soon as possible in order to get rid of such an uncomfortable guest. He assured him that the initiation rite consisted of a slap on the back of the head and a blow with a sword on the back, and after Don Quixote's departure, he joyfully delivered a speech no less grandiloquent, although not so lengthy, than the newly-made knight.

Don Quixote turned back home to stock up on money and shirts. On the way, he saw a burly villager beating a shepherd boy. The knight stood up for the shepherd girl, and the villager promised him not to offend the boy and pay him everything he owes. Don Quixote, delighted with his beneficence, rode on, and the villager, as soon as the defender of the offended disappeared from his eyes, beat the shepherd boy to a pulp. The oncoming merchants, whom Don Quixote forced to recognize Dulcinea of ​​Toboso as the most beautiful lady in the world, began to mock him, and when he rushed at them with a spear, they bludgeoned him, so that he arrived home beaten and exhausted. The priest and the barber, fellow villagers of Don Quixote, with whom he often argued about chivalric romances, decided to burn the pernicious books, from which he was damaged in his mind. They looked through the library of Don Quixote and left almost nothing of it, except for "Amadis of Gaul" and a few other books. Don Quixote offered one farmer - Sancho Panse - to become his squire and told him so much and promised that he agreed. And then one night, Don Quixote mounted Rocinante, Sancho, who dreamed of becoming the governor of the island, mounted a donkey, and they secretly left the village. On the way they saw windmills, which Don Quixote mistook for giants. When he rushed to the mill with a spear, its wing turned and smashed the spear to pieces, and Don Quixote was thrown to the ground.

At the inn where they stopped to spend the night, the maid began to make her way in the dark to the driver, with whom she agreed to meet, but by mistake she stumbled upon Don Quixote, who decided that this was the daughter of the owner of the castle in love with him. A commotion arose, a fight ensued, and Don Quixote, and especially the innocent Sancho Panza, got it great. When Don Quixote, and after him Sancho, refused to pay for the lodging, several people who happened to be there pulled Sancho off the donkey and began to toss him on a blanket, like a dog during a carnival.

When Don Quixote and Sancho rode on, the knight mistook a flock of sheep for an enemy army and began to crush the enemies to the right and left, and only a hail of stones that the shepherds brought down on him stopped him. Looking at the sad face of Don Quixote, Sancho came up with a nickname for him: the Knight of the Sorrowful Image. One night, Don Quixote and Sancho heard an ominous knock, but when dawn broke, it turned out that they were fulling hammers. The knight was embarrassed, and his thirst for exploits remained this time unsatisfied. Don Quixote mistook the barber, who put a copper basin on his head in the rain, for a knight in the helmet of Mambrina, and since Don Quixote took an oath to take possession of this helmet, he took away the basin from the barber and was very proud of his feat. Then he freed the convicts, who were led to the galleys, and demanded that they go to Dulcinea and give her greetings from her faithful knight, but the convicts did not want to, and when Don Quixote began to insist, they stoned him.

In the Sierra Morena, one of the convicts - Gines de Pasamonte - stole a donkey from Sancho, and Don Quixote promised to give Sancho three of the five donkeys that he had on his estate. In the mountains they found a suitcase containing some linen and a bunch of gold coins, as well as a book of poems. Don Quixote gave the money to Sancho and took the book for himself. The owner of the suitcase turned out to be Cardeno, a half-mad youth who began to tell Don Quixote the story of his unhappy love, but did not tell it because they quarreled because Cardeno spoke ill of Queen Madasima in passing. Don Quixote wrote a love letter to Dulcinea and a note to his niece, where he asked her to give the “bearer of the first donkey bill” three donkeys, and, going mad for decency, that is, taking off his pants and turning somersaults several times, sent Sancho to take the letters. Left alone, Don Quixote surrendered to repentance. He began to think about what better to imitate: the violent insanity of Roland or the melancholy insanity of Amadis. Deciding that Amadis was closer to him, he began to compose poems dedicated to the beautiful Dulcinea. On the way home, Sancho Panza met a priest and a barber - his fellow villagers, and they asked him to show them Don Quixote's letter to Dulcinea, but it turned out that the knight forgot to give him the letters, and Sancho began to quote the letter by heart, twisting the text so that instead of "impassionate señora”, he got a “failsafe señora”, etc. The priest and the barber began to invent a means to lure Don Quixote out of Poor Rapids, where he indulged in repentance, and deliver him to his native village in order to cure him of insanity there. They asked Sancho to tell Don Quixote that Dulcinea had ordered him to come to her immediately. They assured Sancho that this whole undertaking would help Don Quixote become, if not emperor, then at least a king, and Sancho, in anticipation of favors, willingly agreed to help them. Sancho went to Don Quixote, and the priest and the barber remained waiting for him in the forest, but suddenly they heard verses - it was Cardeno, who told them his sad story from beginning to end: the treacherous friend Fernando kidnapped his beloved Lucinda and married her. When Cardeno finished the story, a sad voice was heard and a beautiful girl appeared, dressed in a man's dress. It turned out to be Dorothea, seduced by Fernando, who promised to marry her, but left her for Lucinda. Dorothea said that Lucinda, after being engaged to Fernando, was going to commit suicide, because she considered herself Cardeno's wife and agreed to marry Fernando only at the insistence of her parents. Dorothea, learning that he did not marry Lucinda, had the hope of returning him, but she could not find him anywhere. Cardeno revealed to Dorothea that he was Lucinda's true husband, and they decided together to seek the return of "what is rightfully theirs." Cardeno promised Dorothea that if Fernando did not return to her, he would challenge him to a duel.

Sancho told Don Quixote that Dulcinea was calling him to her, but he replied that he would not appear before her until he performed feats, "worthy of her mercy." Dorothea volunteered to help lure Don Quixote out of the forest and, calling herself the princess of Micomicon, said that she had come from a distant country, which had heard a rumor about the glorious knight Don Quixote, in order to ask for his intercession. Don Quixote could not refuse the lady and went to Mikomikon. They met a traveler on a donkey - it was Gines de Pasamonte, a convict who was freed by Don Quixote and who stole an ass from Sancho. Sancho took the donkey for himself, and everyone congratulated him on his good fortune. At the source they saw a boy - the same shepherd boy, for whom Don Quixote had recently stood up. The shepherd boy said that the intercession of the hidalgo had gone sideways for him, and cursed all the knights-errant on what the world was worth, which made Don Quixote furious and embarrassed.

Having reached the same inn where Sancho was tossed up on a blanket, the travelers stopped for the night. At night, a frightened Sancho Panza ran out of the closet where Don Quixote was resting: Don Quixote fought enemies in a dream and brandished his sword in all directions. Wineskins of wine hung over his head, and he, mistaking them for giants, flogged them and filled them all with wine, which Sancho, with fright, mistook for blood. Another company drove up to the inn: a lady in a mask and several men. The curious priest tried to ask the servant about who these people were, but the servant himself did not know, he only said that the lady, judging by her clothes, was a nun or was going to a monastery, but apparently not of her own free will, and she sighed and cried all the way. It turned out that this was Lucinda, who decided to retire to the monastery, since she could not connect with her husband Cardeno, but Fernando kidnapped her from there. Seeing Don Fernando, Dorothea threw herself at his feet and begged him to return to her. He heeded her prayers, while Lucinda rejoiced at being reunited with Cardeno, and only Sancho was upset, for he considered Dorothea the princess of Micomicon and hoped that she would shower his master with favors and also give him something. Don Quixote believed that everything was settled thanks to the fact that he defeated the giant, and when he was told about the perforated wineskin, he called it the spell of an evil wizard. The priest and the barber told everyone about Don Quixote's insanity, and Dorothea and Fernando decided not to leave him, but to take him to the village, which was no more than two days away. Dorothea told Don Quixote that she owed her happiness to him, and continued to play the part she had begun. A man and a Moorish woman drove up to the inn. The man turned out to be an infantry captain who had been taken prisoner during the Battle of Lepanto. A beautiful Moorish woman helped him escape and wanted to be baptized and become his wife. Following them, the judge appeared with his daughter, who turned out to be the captain's brother and was incredibly happy that the captain, from whom there had been no news for a long time, was alive. The judge was not embarrassed by his deplorable appearance, for the captain was robbed on the way by the French. At night, Dorothea heard the mule driver's song and woke up the judge's daughter Clara so that the girl would also listen to her, but it turned out that the singer was not a mule driver at all, but a disguised son of noble and wealthy parents named Louis, in love with Clara. She is not of very noble birth, so the lovers were afraid that his father would not give consent to their marriage. A new group of horsemen drove up to the inn: it was Louis's father who set out to chase his son. Luis, whom his father's servants wanted to escort home, refused to go with them and asked for Clara's hand in marriage.

Another barber arrived at the inn, the same one from whom Don Quixote had taken the "Mambrin's helmet", and began to demand the return of his pelvis. A skirmish began, and the priest quietly gave him eight reais for the pelvis in order to stop it. Meanwhile, one of the guards who happened to be at the inn recognized Don Quixote by signs, for he was wanted as a criminal because he freed the convicts, and the priest had to work hard to convince the guards not to arrest Don Quixote, because he was out of his mind. The priest and the barber made something like a comfortable cage out of sticks and agreed with a man who rode past on oxen that he would take Don Quixote to his native village. But then they released Don Quixote from the cage on parole, and he tried to take away the statue of the immaculate virgin from the worshipers, considering her a noble lady in need of protection. Finally, Don Quixote arrived home, where the housekeeper and niece put him to bed and began to look after him, and Sancho went to his wife, whom he promised that next time he would certainly return as a count or governor of the island, and not some seedy, but the best best wishes.

After the housekeeper and niece nursed Don Quixote for a month, the priest and the barber decided to visit him. His speeches were reasonable, and they thought that his insanity had passed, but as soon as the conversation remotely touched on chivalry, it became clear that Don Quixote was terminally ill. Sancho also visited Don Quixote and told him that the son of their neighbor, Bachelor Samson Carrasco, had returned from Salamanca, who said that the story of Don Quixote, written by Cid Ahmet Beninhali, was published, which describes all the adventures of him and Sancho Panza. Don Quixote invited Samson Carrasco to his place and asked him about the book. The bachelor listed all her advantages and disadvantages and said that everyone, young and old, is read by her, especially the servants love her. Don Quixote and Sancho Panza decided to set out on a new journey, and a few days later they secretly left the village. Samson saw them off and asked Don Quixote to report all his successes and failures. Don Quixote, on the advice of Samson, went to Zaragoza, where a jousting tournament was to take place, but first decided to call in Toboso to receive Dulcinea's blessing. Arriving in Toboso, Don Quixote asked Sancho where Dulcinea's palace was, but Sancho could not find it in the dark. He thought that Don Quixote knew this himself, but Don Quixote explained to him that he had never seen not only the palace of Dulcinea, but also her, for he had fallen in love with her according to rumors. Sancho replied that he had seen her and brought an answer to Don Quixote's letter, also according to rumors. So that the deceit would not surface, Sancho tried to take his master away from Toboso as soon as possible and persuaded him to wait in the forest while he, Sancho, went to the city to talk with Dulcinea. He realized that since Don Quixote had never seen Dulcinea, then any woman could be passed off as her, and, seeing three peasant women on donkeys, he told Don Quixote that Dulcinea was coming to him with court ladies. Don Quixote and Sancho fell on their knees before one of the peasant women, while the peasant woman shouted rudely at them. Don Quixote saw in this whole story the witchcraft of an evil wizard and was very saddened that instead of a beautiful señora he saw an ugly peasant woman.

In the forest, Don Quixote and Sancho met the Knight of Mirrors, who was in love with Casildea Vandal, who boasted that he had defeated Don Quixote himself. Don Quixote was indignant and challenged the Knight of Mirrors to a duel, according to which the defeated had to surrender to the mercy of the winner. Before the Knight of Mirrors had time to prepare for battle, Don Quixote had already attacked him and almost killed him, but the Knight of Mirrors' squire yelled that his master was none other than Samson Carrasco, who hoped in such a cunning way to bring Don Quixote home. But alas, Samson was defeated, and Don Quixote, confident that the evil wizards had replaced the appearance of the Knight of Mirrors with the appearance of Samson Carrasco, again moved along the road to Zaragoza. On the way, Diego de Miranda overtook him, and the two hidalgos rode together. A wagon carrying lions rode towards them. Don Quixote demanded that the cage with the huge lion be opened, and was about to chop him to pieces. The frightened watchman opened the cage, but the lion did not come out of it, but the fearless Don Quixote from now on began to call himself the Knight of Lions. After staying with Don Diego, Don Quixote continued on his way and arrived at the village where the wedding of Kiteria the Beautiful and Camacho the Rich was being celebrated. Before the wedding, Basillo the Poor, Kiteria's neighbor, who had been in love with her since childhood, approached Kiteria and pierced his chest with a sword in front of everyone. He agreed to confess before his death only if the priest married him to Kiteria and he died as her husband. Everyone persuaded Kiteria to take pity on the sufferer - after all, he was about to give up his spirit, and Kiteria, having become a widow, would be able to marry Camacho. Kiteria gave Basillo her hand, but as soon as they were married, Basillo jumped to his feet alive and well - he arranged all this in order to marry his beloved, and she seemed to be in cahoots with him. Camacho, on sound reflection, considered it best not to be offended: why does he need a wife who loves another? After spending three days with the newlyweds, Don Quixote and Sancho moved on.

Don Quixote decided to go down to the cave of Montesinos. Sancho and the student guide tied him with a rope, and he began to descend. When all one hundred braces of the rope were unwound, they waited for half an hour and began to pull the rope, which turned out to be so easy, as if there was no load on it, and only the last twenty braces were hard to pull. When they removed Don Quixote, his eyes were closed and they managed with difficulty to push him aside. Don Quixote said that he saw many miracles in the cave, saw the heroes of the old romances of Montesinos and Durandart, as well as the bewitched Dulcinea, who even asked him for a loan of six reals. This time his story seemed implausible even to Sancho, who knew well what kind of magician had bewitched Dulcinea, but Don Quixote stood his ground. When they reached the inn, which Don Quixote, as usual, did not consider a castle, maese Pedro appeared there with a soothsayer monkey and a district. The monkey recognized Don Quixote and Sancho Panza and told everything about them, and when the performance began, Don Quixote, taking pity on the noble heroes, rushed with a sword at their pursuers and killed all the puppets. True, he then generously paid Pedro for the ruined raek, so that he was not offended. In fact, it was Gines de Pasamonte, who was hiding from the authorities and took up the craft of a raeshnik - therefore he knew everything about Don Quixote and Sancho, usually, before entering the village, he asked around about its inhabitants and for a small bribe "guessed" past.

Once, leaving at sunset on a green meadow, Don Quixote saw a crowd of people - it was the falconry of the duke and duchess. The Duchess had read a book about Don Quixote and was full of respect for him. She and the duke invited him to their castle and received him as an honored guest. They and their servants played many jokes with Don Quixote and Sancho and did not cease to marvel at the prudence and madness of Don Quixote, as well as the ingenuity and innocence of Sancho, who in the end believed that Dulcinea was bewitched, although he himself acted as a sorcerer and did all this himself. rigged. The magician Merlin arrived in a chariot to Don Quixote and announced that in order to disenchant Dulcinea, Sancho must voluntarily whip himself on his bare buttocks three thousand three hundred times. Sancho objected, but the duke promised him an island, and Sancho agreed, especially since the period of scourging was not limited and it could be done gradually. Countess Trifaldi, also known as Gorevana, arrived at the castle, the duenna of Princess Metonymia. The sorcerer Evilsteam turned the princess and her husband Trenbreno into statues, and the duenna Gorevana and twelve other duennas began to grow beards. Only the valiant knight Don Quixote could disenchant them all. Evilsteam promised to send a horse for Don Quixote, who would quickly drive him and Sancho to the kingdom of Kandaya, where the valiant knight would fight with Evilsteam. Don Quixote, determined to rid the duennas of their beards, sat down with Sancho blindfolded on a wooden horse and thought that they were flying through the air, while the duke's servants blew air from furs on them. "Flying" back to the Duke's garden, they found a message from Evil Flesh, where he wrote that Don Quixote had disenchanted everyone by the mere fact that he had ventured into this adventure. Sancho was impatient to look at the faces of the beardless duennas, but the entire band of duennas had already disappeared. Sancho began to prepare to manage the promised island, and Don Quixote gave him so many reasonable instructions that he struck the duke and duchess - in everything that did not concern chivalry, he "showed a clear and extensive mind."

The duke sent Sancho with a large retinue to a town that was supposed to pass for an island, for Sancho did not know that islands exist only in the sea and not on land. There he was solemnly handed the keys to the city and declared the life governor of the island of Barataria. To begin with, he had to resolve a lawsuit between a peasant and a tailor. The peasant brought the cloth to the tailor and asked if a cap would come out of it. Hearing that it would come out, he asked if two caps would come out, and when he heard that two would come out, he wanted to get three, then four, and settled on five. When he came to receive caps, they were just on his finger. He became angry and refused to pay the tailor for the work, and in addition began to demand back the cloth or money for it. Sancho thought and pronounced a verdict: do not pay the tailor for the work, do not return the cloth to the peasant, and donate the caps to the prisoners. Then two old men came to Sancho, one of whom had long ago borrowed ten pieces of gold from the other and claimed to have returned it, while the lender said that he had not received the money. Sancho made the debtor swear that he had repaid the debt, and he gave the lender a moment to hold his staff and swore. Seeing this, Sancho guessed that the money was hidden in the staff and returned it to the lender. Following them, a woman appeared, dragging by the hand the man who allegedly raped her. Sancho told the man to give the woman his wallet and let the woman go home. When she left, Sancho ordered the man to catch up with her and take away the purse, but the woman resisted so much that he did not succeed. Sancho immediately realized that the woman had slandered the man: if she had shown at least half the fearlessness with which she defended her wallet when she defended her honor, the man would not have been able to defeat her. Therefore, Sancho returned the purse to the man, and drove the woman off the island. Everyone marveled at the wisdom of Sancho and the justice of his sentences. When Sancho sat down at a table laden with food, he did not manage to eat anything: as soon as he stretched out his hand to any dish, Dr. Pedro Intolerable de Nauca ordered it to be removed, saying that it was unhealthy. Sancho wrote a letter to his wife Teresa, to which the duchess added a letter from herself and a string of coral, and the duke's page delivered letters and gifts to Teresa, alarming the whole village. Teresa was delighted and wrote very sensible answers, and also sent half a measure of the best acorns and cheese to the Duchess.

The enemy attacked Barataria, and Sancho had to defend the island with weapons in his hands. They brought him two shields and tied one in front and the other behind so tightly that he could not move. As soon as he tried to move, he fell and remained lying, sandwiched between two shields. They ran around him, he heard screams, the sound of weapons, they were furiously hacked at his shield with a sword, and finally there were shouts: “Victory! The enemy has been defeated!" Everyone began to congratulate Sancho on his victory, but as soon as he was raised, he saddled the donkey and went to Don Quixote, saying that ten days of governorship was enough for him, that he was not born either for battles or for wealth, and did not want to obey anyone. impudent doctor, no one else. Don Quixote began to be weary of the idle life he led with the duke, and left the castle with Sancho. At the inn where they stayed for the night, they met don Juan and don Jeronimo, who were reading the anonymous second part of Don Quixote, which Don Quixote and Sancho Panza considered a slander on themselves. It said that Don Quixote fell out of love with Dulcinea, while he loved her as before, the name of Sancho's wife was mixed up there and it was full of other inconsistencies. Upon learning that this book describes a tournament in Zaragoza with the participation of Don Quixote, replete with all sorts of nonsense. Don Quixote decided not to go to Zaragoza, but to Barcelona, ​​so that everyone could see that the Don Quixote depicted in the anonymous second part is not at all the one described by Sid Ahmet Beninhali.

In Barcelona, ​​Don Quixote fought the Knight of the White Moon and was defeated. The Knight of the White Moon, who was none other than Samson Carrasco, demanded that Don Quixote return to his village and not leave for a whole year, hoping that during this time his mind would return to him. On the way home, Don Quixote and Sancho had to revisit the ducal castle, for its owners were as obsessed with jokes and pranks as Don Quixote was with chivalric romances. In the castle stood a hearse with the body of the maid Altisidora, who allegedly died of unrequited love for Don Quixote. To resurrect her, Sancho had to endure twenty-four taps on his nose, twelve pinches, and six pin pricks. Sancho was very displeased; for some reason, in order to disenchant Dulcinea, and in order to revive Altisidora, it was he who had to suffer, who had nothing to do with them. But everyone persuaded him so much that he finally agreed and endured the torture. Seeing how Altisidora came to life, Don Quixote began to hasten Sancho with self-flagellation in order to dispel Dulcinea. When he promised Sancho generously to pay for each blow, he willingly began to whip himself with a whip, but quickly realizing that it was night and they were in the forest, he began to whip the trees. At the same time, he moaned so plaintively that Don Quixote allowed him to stop and continue the scourging the next night. At the inn they met Alvaro Tarfe, bred in the second part of the fake Don Quixote. Alvaro Tarfe admitted that he had never seen either Don Quixote or Sancho Panza who stood before him, but he had seen another Don Quixote and another Sancho Panza who were not at all like them. Returning to his native village, Don Quixote decided to become a shepherd for a year and invited the priest, the bachelor and Sancho Panza to follow his example. They approved of his idea and agreed to join him. Don Quixote had already begun to remake their names in a pastoral way, but soon fell ill. Before his death, his mind cleared up, and he no longer called himself Don Quixote, but Alonso Quijano. He cursed the romances of chivalry that clouded his mind, and died calmly and in a Christian way, as no knight-errant died.

retold