From: Cervantes: Bulletin of the Cervantes Society of America
4.2 (1984): 89-108.
Copyright © 1984, The Cervantes Society of America
Unveiling Dorotea Or the Reader as
Voyeur1
EEP IN THE
Sierra Morena, in Don Quijote I, the curate, the barber and Cardenio
discover Dorotea, a creature of amazing beauty and grace, who charms them
entirely as she will Don Quijote later and as she has charmed all readers
of the novel. In contrast to Cardenio's wild unpredictability and his
self-defeating despair, she shines forth in loveliness and intelligent courage.
Such was Madariaga's evaluation of the two forsaken lovers, when in his
Guía del lector del “Quijote” he entitled the chapters
dealing with them “Dorotea o la listeza” and “Cardenio o la
cobardía.”2 The emergence of Dorotea
is orchestrated with great care. In the following remarks I consider the
principal stages of this event with special attention to the narrative and
1 A version
of the first part of this paper was read at the Cincinnati Cervantes Symposium,
held on February 25, 1983, at the University of Cincinnati.
2 Salvador de
Madariaga, Guía del lector del “Quijote,” Buenos
Aires, Sudamericana: 1972 (reprint from the original that appeared in the
Buenos Aires newspaper La Nación between 1923 and 1925); he
calls Dorotea “La persona más lista de todo el orbe
quijotesco,” p. 7. Also on Dorotea see: Francisco Márquez Villanueva,
Personajes y temas del “Quijote,” Madrid, Taurus: 1975.
He recasts his comments therein on Dorotea as “Dorotea la muchacha de
Osuna,” in Archivo Hispalense, Nos. 141-146, (1976), pp. 147-163.
On the topic of women disguised as men see Melveena McKendrick, Women
and Society in the Spanish Drama of the Golden Age, Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1973.
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descriptive strategies that set it forth and to the impact of the episode's
underlying eroticism. I expect these questions to lead us to some of the
fundamental issues raised by Cervantes' text.
I
The end of Cardenio's story, as he relates
it to the curate and the barber in the Sierra Morena, is also the end of
Chapter XXVII and of the third “subpart” of Don Quijote
I.3 The
“editor”4 and discoverer of the
manuscript left by Cide Hamete Benengeli brings this section to a close by
reestablishing the dialogue with the reader as he creates the bridge to the
“Cuarta parte,” last “subpart” of Don Quijote I.
The coda to the episode refers to four levels of the text: 1) Cardenio's
tale (innermost level); 2) the curate and the barber belonging to the
andanzas of Don Quijote; 3) Cide Hamete Benengeli; 4) the
“voice” that presents the whole to the reader (outermost level).
The pattern is repeated at the beginning of
the “Cuarta parte” (Chapter 28), where the same editorial
voice5 proclaims anew the interest of the
book and our good fortune at being thus entertained, This voice introduces
1) cuentos y episodios —Cardenio's before, now Dorotea's; 2)
curate and barber; 3) the verdadera historia; 4)
“editor.”
One effect of this redrawn
multi-layering6 is to relegate Cardenio to
the curate / barber narrative level —which is properly speaking that
of Don Quijote. It is from this level that the young man will
3 El
ingenioso hidalgo don Quijote de la Mancha I, ed. by Luis Andrés
Murillo, Madrid: Castalia, 1978. All further references are to this edition.
On the topic of “subparts” see his note 1, I, p. 139. For the most
cogent explanation to date of Cervantes' seemingly haphazard division of
his material into “partes,” see R. M. Flores, “Cervantes at
Work: The Writing of Don Quixote, Part I”: JHP, 3 (1978),
135-60.
4 On the topic
of the various “authors,” or narrative voices in Don Quijote,
see G. Haley, “The Narrator in Don Quixote: Maese Pedro's Puppet
Show,” MLN 81 (1966), 164-77; Ruth El Saffar, Distance and
Control in Don Quixote, Chapel Hill: North Carolina Studies in the Romance
Languages and Literatures, 1975. Also the very perceptive little book by
Mia Gerhardt, Don Quichotte, la vie et les livres, Amsterdam: N. V.
Noord-Hollandsche Uitgeers Maatschappij, 1955.
5 For a theoretical
study of problems adjacent to this topic of narrative levels see the various
studies of Gerald Prince, in particular: “Introduction to the Study
of the Narratee” in Jan D. Tompkins, ed., Reader-Response
Criticism, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins U. P., 1980, also “Understanding
Narrative,” STCL, VI, Nos. 1, 2, pp. 37-50.
6 If we schernatize
the levels of narration that are implied at the end of Chapter 27, the image
that comes to mind is one of “surfacing.” In effect,
[p. 91] as we proceed from Cardenio's tale to
the “editor's” directives (“lo que se
dirá . . .”), we are drawn up from the innermost
level —“episodio”— to the most immediate, the closest
to us as readers, or narratees. On the other hand, the beginning of 28 plunges
us back, from the same plane, to that deepest level now constituted by Dorotea's
voice (anticipating her tale —another “episodio”). R. M. Flores'
contention that Cervantes abandoned the regular division in “partes”
(originally eight chapters each) when he began to rearrange his material
(Marcela / Grisóstomo episode; interpolated tales; Sierra Morena sequence)
and that he abandoned this idea with the “Cuarta parte,” does not
affect my argument. The fact that Cervantes added, according to Flores, the
introductory page to the Dorotea episode confirms my contention that he wanted
the reader to become aware of the special structural features of his arrangement:
“What probably happened is that after the major interpolations and the
displacement of the pastoral interlude [Grisóstomo / Marcela], Cervantes
must have felt very proud of the overall results. Thus, he wrote a new, one-page
long passage for the beginning of Part Four to boast about his resourcefulness
and praise the newly interpolated ‘cuentos y episodios’” (Flores,
p. 142).
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participate in the action. Another consequence is to create in the reader
an initial distancing from the upcoming scene while setting it in relation
to the narrative structure of the novel as a whole. The reader's recovery
of his most self-aware stance, toward reflection on the work —at the
limits of the distance from its story-telling center— is further reinforced
by the temporal “layering” of the opening frame to Chapter 28:
“editor's” present, time of the action, time of imitated action,
i.e., of libros de caballerías, present of reader.
Let us now hear the voz (Dorotea's)
that interrupted the curate as he was about to console Cardenio:
—¡Ay Dios! ¡Si será posible
que he ya hallado lugar que pueda servir de escondida sepultura a la carga
pesada deste cuerpo, que tan contra mi voluntad sostengo! Sí será,
si la soledad que prometen estas sierras no me miente. ¡Ay, desdichada,
y cuán más agradable compañía harán estos
riscos y malezas a mi intención, pues me darán lugar para que
con quejas comunique mi desgracia al cielo, que no la de ningún hombre
humano, pues no hay ninguno en la tierra de quien se pueda esperar consejo
en las dudas, alivio en las quejas, ni remedio en los males! (p. 344)
These words, heard by the curate, the barber, and Cardenio and
“overheard” by the reader, are framed first by the wider textual
references that have been reintroduced in the bridging of “Tercera”
and “Cuarta Parte”; we may speak of this widest frame as the
“reader-oriented” frame. The utterance itself creates suspense
and mystery at the level also of the “adventure” by 1) interrupting
the
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flow of events; 2) eliciting the curiosity of the three men —and our
own.
A double focus of attention is thus suggested:
the one required by the events, in which we submit willingly to the story's
impetus and identify with its characters, and the one required by the text
proper. The mysterious lament is also the opening move in a veiling / unveiling
strategy to which the tableau that follows will conform. From this standpoint,
while the utterance expresses the wish to hide, the wish is negated by the
situation —three people, no less, overhear and will discover the speaker.
Furthermore, curiosity is already aroused also about this “cuerpo, que
tan contra mi voluntad sostengo.” It is curiosity about a bodily
form, which later events will only gradually satisfy for what the three men
—and the reader— discover is a disguised form. Beyond that, this
disguised form (Dorotea) is the repository, the embodiment of another
tale, the mirror image of Cardenio's, though not entirely congruent
with it, as we shall see.
My purpose is now to attend mainly to this
strategy as it involves the reader-oriented activity of the text. But to
do this I must summarize the same process at the level of the
“historia,” with regard to the actions and attitudes of
the curate, the barber and Cardenio.
Let me begin by suggesting that they assume
immediately the attitudes of voyeurs, as becomes plain in reading this most
fascinating passage:
Todas estas razones oyeron y percibieron el
cura y los que con él estaban, y por parecerles, como ello era, que
allí junto las decían, se levantaron a buscar el dueño,
y no hubieron andado veinte pasos, cuando detrás de un peñasco
vieron sentado al pie de un fresno a un mozo vestido como labrador, al cual
por tener inclinado el rostro, a causa de que se lavaba los pies en el arroyo
que por allí corría, no se le pudieron ver por entonces; y
ellos llegaron con tanto silencio, que dél no fueron sentidos, ni
él estaba a otra cosa atento que a lavarse los pies, que eran tales,
que no parecían sino dos pedazos de blanco cristal que entre las otras
piedras del arroyo se habían nacido. Suspendióles la blancura
y belleza de los pies, pareciéndoles que no estaban hechos a pisar
terrones, ni a andar tras el arado y los bueyes, como mostraba el hábito
de su dueño, y así, viendo que no habían sido sentidos,
el cura, que iba delante, hizo señas a los otros dos que se agazapasen
o escondiesen detrás de unos pedazos de peña que allí
había, y así lo hicieron todos, mirando con atención
lo que el mozo hacía; el cual traía puesto un capotillo pardo
de dos haldas, muy ceñido al cuerpo con una toalla blanca. Traía,
ansimesmo, unos calzones y
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polainas de paño pardo, y en la cabeza una montera parda. Tenía
las polainas levantadas hasta la mitad de la pierna, que, sin duda alguna,
de blanco alabastro parecía. Acabóse de lavar los hermosos
pies, y luego, con un paño de tocar, que sacó debajo de la
montera, se los limpió; y al querer quitársele, alzó
el rostro, y tuvieron lugar los que mirándole estaban de ver una hermosura
incomparable, tal, que Cardenio dijo al cura, con voz baja:
—Ésta, ya que no es Luscinda, no
es persona humana, sino divina.
El mozo se quitó la montera y, sacudiendo
la cabeza a una y a otra parte, se comenzaron a descoger y desparcir unos
cabellos, que pudieran los del sol tenerles envidia. Con esto conocieron
que el que parecía labrador era mujer . . . (pp. 344-45).
Almost immediately the tableau is set:
“detrás de un penasco . . . vieron . . .
a un mozo vestido como labrador, al cual por tener inclinado
el rostro . . . no se le pudieron ver por entonces” —notice
the multiple screens and feints that precede the description proper. Subsequent
to this, all the verbs describing the actions of the three men refer 1) to
sight or emotions elicited by sight; 2) to hiding, or furtive behavior. The
object of this voyeuristic attention is first of all the
feet7 of the, “young man,” mentioned
directly no fewer than four times and once metaphorically as “pedazos
de blanco cristal.” It seems evident that the curate's and his companions'
curiosity was aroused because they anticipated that such feet belied the
appearance of their owner and that in fact they were looking at a woman.
The voyeur's interest depends as much on what he sees as on what he anticipates
seeing, and this presupposes that he knows what he will see.
7 A. David
Kossoff, in “El pie desnudo: Cervantes y Lope,” Homenaje a Wm.
L. Fichter, (Madrid: Castalia, 1971), pp. 381-86, studies the erotic
connotations of the naked foot whose sight enthralls the trio. Also Louis
Combet, Cervantès ou les incertitudes du désir, Lyon:
Presses Universitaires de Lyon, 1980. Both Kossoff and Combet point out
—Combet uses practically the same documentation as Kossoff— the
great erotic importance given to the feet of ladies in Golden Age Spain;
this idiosyncracy was thought most curious by foreigners (the correspondence
of Mme. d'Aulnoy is mentioned), who felt that it approached foot fetishism
—all this expressed, of course in the language of the times. Louis Combet
brings to bear depth psychology and erotic symbolism in his analysis. Javier
Herrero, in “The Beheading of the Giant: An Obscene Metaphor in Don
Quijote,” RHM, 39, No. 4, (1976-77), pp. 141-49, also examines
the significance of erotic symbolism linked to Dorotea, and pursues it into
the adventure of the wineskins at the Inn of Juan Palomeque.
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Besides the carefully
staged8 approach of the three men that sets
them in the role of voyeurs, everything else in the description contributes
to the intensification of erotic / voyeuristic effects. The very gradual
revelations: feet; disguised body with a hint of the feminine, “un capotillo
pardo de dos haldas, muy ceñido al
cuerpo . . .;” leg, in terms of its uncovering
(“las polainas levantadas hasta la mitad de la
pierna . . .”); face, also discovered as the result of
a movement, that is, teasingly surrendered (“al querer
quitársele, alzó el rostro . . .”).
Add to this the proximity of water which maintains as background all the
erotic connotations that are traditionally linked to it, and the suggestion
of bathing in it which the flowing hair offers as a metaphor. The flowing
hair covers —and uncovers— the body, as the flowing water bathed
and revealed the feet.
Let us now retreat from this luminous scene
to an instant before the three men disclose their presence. It is in reflecting
upon our role as readers that the full, extraordinary impact of the passage
makes itself felt. For the veiling / unveiling strategy that establishes
the voyeuristic attitude of the trio becomes even clearer as it elicits the
same interest in the reader. Dorotea hides from us also behind multiple screens.
She is first seen “detrás de un peñasco”; the three
men hide, “detrás de unos pedazos de peña”; Dorotea
is hiding in men's clothing, as a woman, and beyond that her true nature,
the story that she embodies, is further contained within her. We, as readers,
are in a sense behind the three observing men, and we see no more of her
beautiful form than they see, nor do we have more information on the situation
than they have.9 This reticence of the text,
metaphorically suggested by the screens —rocks, clothing— already
makes of us willing, or unwilling, voyeurs. We now realize that we have become
embedded in the text, implicated in
it.10
The curiosity created in the three men through
hearing —the voice first heard— and seeing, that seeks first sensorial
satisfaction, and later intellectual satisfaction, functions equally well
for us as
8 I was
reminded of the highly theatrical aspect of the tableau by Professor
J. J. Allen.
9 Chapter 20,
the adventure of the batanes (“fulling mills”) is another
instance where the reader's information is as limited as that of the
protagonists. See my “Boccaccio and Cervantes: The Frame As Formal
Contrast,” forthcoming in Comparative Literature.
10 The erotic
charge of the text, though wholly implicit, is nevertheless remarkably
intense.
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readers precisely because we can only see and hear what they can see
and hear. And as we retreat to the surface of the text, we note that the
strategy of reticence and denial has been incorporated into it, so that we
are voyeurs not only because we see with their eyes, but also as we read
with ours, for the text feigns to labor under the same misapprehensions:
it discovers that the young person is a woman at the same time as do the
curate, the barber and Cardenio.
As soon as we see the feet, of course, we too
know that we have before us a woman. But the pleasure is not in knowing,
rather in the veiling and unveiling game, the anticipation of every tantalizing
confirmation of what we guess. The text now assumes the masculinity of this
person who becomes naturally “he”; the text, in fact, commits itself
to the same posture as that of the three voyeurs —and commits us also—
until the evidence becomes incontrovertible. It creates a
complicity11 in the reader. All pronouns
are masculine. The next noun referring to the young person is
“dueño,” now specifically masculine, though retaining some
ambiguity since its masculinity is put in question by the “blancura.”
Of course, we are still dealing with mere appearances. The beautiful feet
seem inappropriate to the activities denoted by the “hábito de
su dueño.”
The game of appearances continues, however:
“mirando . . . lo que el mozo
hacía . . .” The surmise that this is a
“mozo” is immediately undermined by what follows. In effect, although
it is entirely possible for a young man to wear his “capotillo ‘muy
ceñido al cuerpo,’” our anticipation, on which the text's
game depends, that this is a woman makes this a feminine detail: we imagine
the pleasantly rounded forms barely hinted at by the cloth. The next details
of clothing, which seem quite masculine, are equally qualified, for the
“polainas” are pulled up to show a leg “que . . .
de blanco alabastro parecía.” Again, no masculine detail is allowed
to remain unambiguous. We are close to the final revelation, and it is necessary
to reintroduce that first image of the bathing feet in its erotic context.
Now we see the
11 Roland
Barthes, S / Z, Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1970, comments on such
complicity: “le lecteur est complice, non de tel ou tel personnage,
mais du discours lui-même en ce qu'il joue la division de 1'écoute,
l'impureté de la communication: le discours, et non tel ou tel de
ses personnages, est le seul héros positif de l'histoire”
(p. 151). Cervantes already used grammatical means to suggest referential
and perspectival ambiguity in the episode of Mambrino's helmet:
“Mandó a Sancho que alzase el yelmo, el cual,
tomándola en las manos, dijo . . .” (p. 254,
Murillo, my italics; la, in “tomándola,” refers to
“bacía”).
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face: “alzó el rostro y tuvieron lugar los que
mirándole estaban de ver una hermosura
incomparable . . .” Still, we are not told that this
is a woman's face, which is now quite evident. To the contrary, the indirect
article le is still masculine, it refers to “el rostro”
and is grammatically correct, but plays its role as well in the game.
Cardenio cannot but remark on such beauty.
The effect of this interruption is to retard further the revelation —it
also anticipates Cardenio's later interruptions of Dorotea's tale and of
the second uncovering that it represents. As we approach even closer to the
confirmation of our knowledge, to the discovery that this lovely person is
a woman, we have one of the most striking details of indirection yet, or
of playfulness, for although all the words uttered by Cardenio are feminine,
they do not yet point to a feminine presence. To return to Cardenio's
remark, “Ésta” refers to “persona,” but we want
to replace “persona” with “mujer” and have done with
it. Not so. For the next reference is again to “El mozo.” The rest
of the sentence, describing the marvelously feminine gesture
—“sacudiendo . . .”— and the exquisite
hair, absolutely negate all masculine content to “mozo.” No more
evasions are possible. “Con esto conocieron que el que parecía
labrador era mujer . . . .” This
“parecía” gathers within itself all its previous uses (four
forms of “parecer” to this point) and maintains for a moment the
tension of ambiguity that has controlled the description, before an avalanche
of feminine beauty overcomes it: “. . . mujer, y delicada,
y aun la más hermosa que hasta entonces los ojos de los dos habían
visto, y aun los de Cardenio, si no hubieran mirado y conocido a Luscinda;
que después afirmó que sola la belleza de Luscinda podía
contender con aquélla. Los luengos y rubios cabellos no sólo
la cubrieron las espaldas, mas toda en torno la escondieron debajo de ellos,
que si no eran los pies, ninguna otra cosa de su cuerpo se parecía:
tales y tantos eran. En esto, les sirvió de peine unas manos, que
si los pies en el agua habían parecido pedazos de cristal, las manos
en los cabellos semejaban pedazos de apretada nieve” (pp. 345-346).
The long hair reveals the young man to be a beautiful woman, but only that,
a mere problematic appearance; with the erotic charge that has been accumulated
to this moment, we contemplate this beauty bathed in golden hair. And yet,
the hair, like water, covers her in erotic mystery, and we want to know more:
“todo lo cual, en más admiración y en más deseo
de saber quién era ponía a los tres que la miraban”
(p. 346).
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The curiosity we seek to satisfy now was elicited
by the young woman's own words; we recall the suggestion of a fault, or sin,
perhaps even an amorous misadventure. The young woman tries to flee but she
falls, betrayed again by her beautiful, delicate feet: “no hubo dado
seis pasos cuando, no pudiendo sufrir los delicados pies la aspereza de las
piedras, dio consigo en el suelo” (p. 346). Certainly this is a
“fortunate” fall and prefigures the fall that her story will recount
as a betrayal of the body. At the same time it underlines the erotic connotation
of the beautiful feet. The curate helps her, also prefiguring the later recovery
of her self-esteem, of her beloved, that is to say, Dorotea's ultimate
redemption.
Now, however, we are far from this, and we
await her story. Whatever ambiguities of gender had been suggested by the
text are further resolved by Dorotea's beautiful gesture: “y
apartándose los cabellos de delante de los ojos con entrambas manos
miró los que el ruido hacían” (p. 346). The sense of hearing
is again preeminent, preparing us for the tale to come and closing the visual
circle that it had opened, that is to say, her overheard lament. The curate
then reassures the young woman and says: “contadnos vuestra buena o
mala suerte . . .” (p. 346).
We prepare then to hear a tale that no doubt
will prove as fascinating as that of Cardenio —now a listener—
another of those “cuentos y episodios . . . que, en parte,
no son menos agradables y artificiosos y verdaderos que la misma historia”
(p. 344). In retrospect, the elaborate introduction to this striking tableau
effectively recalls us to our condition as readers. The distancing
from the heart of the text that takes place at the chapter's opening has
a two-fold effect: it focuses our attention on the text qua text,
on its strategies and presentation, on its reticences, keeping present to
our mind the various fictional levels at work; it creates an effect of funneling
in, increasing the “voyeuristic” tension by multiplying the screens
through which we discover the scene, the trio of voyeurs, the beautiful Dorotea.
The special care with which the tableau is elaborated, with its multiple
narrative and temporal levels, keeps us firmly anchored to our situation
as readers and renews our “jouissance du
texte.”12 We look forward to the final
satisfaction of our curiosity at this very moment, just before Dorotea begins
her tale, a curiosity not only erotic —or esthetic— but also
intellectual.
12 In
Le Plaisir du texte, Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1975, Roland Barthes
proposes as a texte de plaisir one that allows for a pleasant, easily
accessible [p. 98] reading and a texte de
jouissance (tr. as “text of bliss” by Richard Miller), or orgasmic
pleasure, the demanding, interrupted, disturbing text. Don
Quijote responds to both readings.
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II
Before proceeding to Dorotea's self-revelations,
to the gradual unfolding of her story, it will be useful to recall the principal
moments of her discovery by the male trio and by the reader. The
“scene” subdivides according to points of interference between
the two principal narrative levels now in force, that is to say, the historia
or Don Quijote's andanzas; the curate, the barber, and now Cardenio
are part of this central strand. Within it originates the incipient
episodio,13 Dorotea's tale.
The first moment of Dorotea's unveiling, the
lament heard by the three men, interferes with the curate's intention to
offer solace to Cardenio who has just ended his
tale.14 It seems appropriate that this initial
disclosure should come about through hearing, since it announces, is in fact
the preamble to, Dorotea's “confession.” Hearing is replaced by
sight and silence in the second moment, the description of the “mozo”
which we have just examined. It ends when Cardenio cannot but whisper his
admiration of this as yet ambiguous beauty to the curate, comparing
“him” to Luscinda.15 The third
moment marks
13 These
interferences may range from the introduction of a new narrative line —as
when the trio hear Dorotea's initial lament— to the interruption of
narration —as when Don Quijote interrupts Cardenio's tale— to the
drastic cessation of the historia —as in the
vizcaíno episode, Chapters 8 and 9, when the very progress
of the narrative base as well as its transmission are
“endangered.”
14 The instant
of this interruption and the curate's very gesture and intent are reiterated
almost verbatim: “y al tiempo que el cura se prevenía para decirle
algunas razones de consuelo, le suspendió una voz que llegó
a sus oídos, que en lastimados acentos . . .”
(end of Chapter 27, p. 343); “así como el cura comenzó
a prevenirse para consolar a Cardenio lo impidió una voz que llegó
a sus oídos, que, con tristes acentos . . .”
(beginning of Chapter 28, p. 344).
15 Cf.
“Triangular Desire,” first chapter of René Girard's Deceit,
Desire and the Novel, tr. by Yvonne Freccero, (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins
U. P., 1965), pp. 1-52. An aspect of the narrative interruption seems to
conform to a triangular pattern —akin to Girard's scheme, and pointed
out by Cesáreo Bandera, Mimesis conflictiva, (Madrid: Gredos,
1975), Chapter IV. In this instance we have Cardenio-Luscinda-Dorotea; other
comparable incidents, though of a more radical nature as interruptions, are
Don Quijote-Amadís-Cardenio and earlier Don Quijote-Cide
Hamete-vizcaíno (here I use Cide Hamete as representative of
the multiple persona of the text's transmitter —editor, translator,
Arab sage, “second author.” See note 4).
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the discovery of the true nature of this lovely apparition in a crescendo
of admiration. Her effort to flee is thwarted by her delicate, beautiful
feet, first “erotic” betrayers of her femininity and concrete image
of her vulnerability as a woman. It ends also as a voice, the curate's, breaks
the silence, entreating the young woman not to flee for, he observes, “ni
vuestros pies lo podrán sufrir ni nosotros consentir” (p. 346).
The fourth and final moment of this initial “discovery” begins
with a quick return to the young woman, still silent: “A todo esto,
ella no respondía palabra, atónita y confusa” (p. 346).
The curate encourages her to reveal her predicament
since her disguise is now transparent. In his appeal the curate concisely
recalls the essentials of the visual scene just past: “Lo que vuestro
traje, señora, nos niega, vuestros cabellos nos descubren: señales
claras que no deben de ser de poco momento las causas que han disfrazado
vuestra belleza en hábito tan indigno, y traídola a tanta soledad
como es ésta” (p. 346). He then tries to persuade the young woman
to confide those “causas.” The initial suspense concludes with
the fourth moment when sight finally gives way entirely to words. A last,
quick glance offers us Dorotea poised in uncertainty: “estaba la disfrazada
moza como embelesada, mirándolos a todos, sin mover labio ni decir
palabra alguna . . .” (p. 346). The disguise is again
mentioned (as such and through the simile) as references to “telling”
(“decía,” “sin mover labio ni decir palabra alguna,”
“decirle,” “dijo”), surrounded by departing references
to sight (“mirándolos,” “muestran,”
“vistas”), close the visual representation and her silence, which
she now breaks: “dando, ella un profundo suspiro,
dijo . . .” (p. 347), sight at last gives way to
language.
This gradual revelation is carefully elaborated
to suggest the difficulties of language to penetrate the real in two related
and fundamental topics of literature: the plumbing of a mystery and the
description of beauty. The disguise and the beauty it hides inextricably
unite these two interests. They are also conjoined in that beauty is in itself
an ultimately mysterious reality that resists the power of language. The
development of this passage obeys the requirements of intermittent revelation.
We witness a piecemeal unveiling, to maintain suspense, of course, and to
intensify also the erotic component of the scene until it allows final knowledge,
and our voyeuristic-esthetic desire becomes, when language replaces vision,
an intellectual-esthetic attention. Likewise, we read a disseminated
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description of loveliness because beauty can only be depicted by means of
its components.16 It is worth noting that
Dorotea is, so far, the first beautiful woman described directly by the text,
that is to say, without the intermediary of a character's language. The earlier
description of Marcela was limited to a general statement merely confirming
the opinion of those who had known her: “tan hermosa, que pasaba a su
fama su hermosura” (p. 185). As for Luscinda, we have simply Cardenio's
enthralled vision: “un cielo, donde puso el amor toda la gloria que
yo acertara a desearme: tal es la hermosura de Luscinda” (p. 292). Sancho's
description of Aldonza Lorenzo does not fall into the same category since,
as for La Torralba and Maritornes, plainness offers no resistance to language,
in fact, it invites its onslaught.
The text can only present a
“dismembered” description of Dorotea because she is disguised,
but this disguise is the very image, as well as the result, of an amorous
fault; that is why the passage is so erotically charged, and it is the erotic
charge that has “metamorphosed” the young woman and allows only
a dispersed description of her charms: feet, upper body —not seen but
suggested— ankles, face,
16 Cf.
Roland Barthes, S / Z: “La beauté ne . . . peut
vraiment s'expliquer: elle se dit, s'affirme, se répète en
chaque partie du corps mais ne se décrit pas. Telle un dieu (aussi
vide que lui), elle ne peut que dire: je suis celle qui suis. Il ne
reste plus alors au discours qu'à asserter la perfection de chaque
détail et à renvoyer 'le reste' au code qui fonde toute
beauté: l'Art.” (40); also: “Malice du langage: une fois
rassemblé, pour se dire, le corps total doit retourner à
la poussière des mots, à l'égrenage des détails,
à l'inventaire monotone des parties, à l'émiettement:
le langage défait le corps, le renvoie au fétiche. Ce retour
est codé sous le nom de blason. Le blason consiste à
prédiquer un sujet unique, la beauté d'un certain nombre
d'attributs anatomiques: elle était belle quant aux bras, quant
au cou, quant aux sourcils . . .” (120). Cervantes was
working here within the tradition of Petrarchism, which had a fundamental
impact on the Renaissance description of the female body. Cf. Nancy J. Vickers,
“Diana Described,” CI, 8, no. 2 (Winter 1981), 277, who
quotes as follows from Elizabeth Cropper, “On Beautiful Women, Parmigianino,
Petrarchismo, and the Vernacular Style,” Art Bulletin,
58 (1976), 376: “Petrarch's figuration of Laura informs a decisive stage
in the development of a code of beauty, a code that causes us to view the
fetishized body as a norm and encourages us to seek, or to seek to be, 'ideal
types, beautiful monsters composed of every individual perfection.' Petrarch's
text, of course, did not constitute the first example of particularizing
description, but it did popularize that strategy by coming into fashion during
the privileged early years of printing, the first century of the widespread
diffusion of words and images. It is in this context that Petrarch left us
his legacy of fragmentation” (p. 277).
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finally, long golden hair. Dorotea herself will provide the final approach
to our central mystery, undertaking in her speech what seems to be the ultimate
unveiling of her nature, explaining the causes of her displacement —she
does not belong in the Sierra— and of her metamorphosis —her disguise
and also her plight as an abandoned woman. Her tale conforms as well to the
two patterns suggested above: a) it falls into a sequence of four moments
each marked by the interference of another level of narrative; b) Dorotea's
self-descriptions are piecemeal, selective, and ultimately call for our
reconstruction as did her initial aspect.
Dorotea begins her tale by mentioning that
her parents are vassals to a grande of Spain, whose second son she
accuses of betrayal and conduct unworthy of his rank. As she pursues her
story, we notice that she describes herself not in terms of what she
is, but in terms of how others see her, her parents in particular.
This first penetration of her disguise reveals her assumed self. To her parents
she is “el espejo en que se miraban, el báculo de su vejez, y
el sujeto a quien encaminaban, midiéndolos con el cielo, todos sus
deseos” (p. 348). Because of her intelligence and discretion she
administered the estate as “mayordoma y
señora.”17 After attending to
such business, the little time she had left was devoted to expected activities
of her condition: “los entretenía en ejercicios que son a las
doncellas tan lícitos como necesarios” (p.
349).18 She reads devout books, she plays
the harp, because “la experiencia me mostraba que la música compone
los ánimos descompuestos y alivia los trabajos que nacen del
espíritu” (p. 349) —a hint here, perhaps, that this equanimity
may have hidden inner turmoil. All in all, her activities are regulated by
outside expectations, either those of her parents or those of custom. But
this evasiveness will again be vulnerable to sight. That inner mystery hidden
by such formalized outward expression will be pierced by desire:
“Es, pues, el caso que, pasando mi vida . . . ,
sin ser vista, a mi parecer, de otra persona alguna que los criados
de casa, porque los
17 In
a private communication Ruth El Saffar has suggested to me that Dorotea may
anticipate Cervantes' later “androgynous” figures.
18 Dorotea's
other readings, which she does not admit at this point, were romances of
chivalry. This form of entertainment would be part of that not altogether
avowed, turbulent inner self of the young woman, hinted at when she admits
that she was not blind to Don Fernando's agreeable figure.
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días que iba a misa era . . . tan acompañada
. . . y yo tan cubierta y recatada que apenas vían
mis ojos más tierra de aquella donde ponía los pies, y con
todo esto, los del amor, o los de la ociosidad . . . a quien los
de lince no pueden igualarse, me vieron, puestos en la solicitud de
don Fernando, que éste es el nombre del hijo menor del duque que os
he contado.”19 (p. 349)
Here, Dorotea's story is interrupted as the
“surface” text interferes to describe the shock felt by Cardenio
at the mention of Don Fernando.
Dorotea's inner self has remained disguised
to us, as listeners / readers, hinted at perhaps, but eluded through a tactical
description in terms of expectations and assumed roles; but it is to this
inner, turbulent, erotic center that Don Fernando's gaze penetrates. Like
the opening lament overheard by the curate / barber / Cardenio, which revealed
the general condition of Dorotea and her presence, this first part of her
narrative also offers an exterior cover that sight will penetrate.
In the second moment Dorotea recounts Don
Fernando's maneuvers, and her resistance that merely increases his desire.
At last he finds his way into her chambers because Dorotea's maid betrays
her. Here again, once face to face with Don Fernando, sight renders her
powerless: “en la soledad deste silencio y encierro, me le hallé
delante; cuya vista me turbó de manera, que me quitó
la de mis ojos y me enmudeció la lengua” (p.
351).20 Don Fernando's pleas gradually have
their intended effect on the young woman, unaccustomed to such wiles, though
he is forced to promise marriage to her: “Si no reparas más que
en eso, bellísima Dorotea . . . ves aquí te doy la
mano . . . y sean testigos desta verdad los cielos, a quien ninguna
cosa se asconde, y esta imagen de Nuestra Señora que aquí
tienes.” (p. 352) There are here a number of “disclosures”
relentlessly building toward the final offer by the young man: a) the result
of Don Fernando's deviousness is his penetration into her rooms, at night,
the last refuge of her privacy; b) the discourse of love is dangerous to
Dorotea, who
19 Cf.
Herrero's article “The Beheading of the Giant: An Obscene Metaphor in
Don Quijote” (note 7, above). Professor Herrero points out that
Don Fernando is Pandafilando de la Fosca Vista. This identification is clearly
confirmed by our reading of the text with the emphasis on sight as
both the harbinger of Dorotea's erotic fault and the emblematic connotation
of the entire episode.
20 Cf. Herrero
once again.
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weakens under its impact; c) ultimately the last condition is reached; Don
Fernando seizes upon Dorotea's final defense and overcomes it easily; he
offers the secret betrothal. The promise of marriage deprives Dorotea of
any means of resistance. Dorotea's ultimate vulnerability is intrinsic to
her condition as a woman21 —and Don
Fernando's promise unveils it. Similarly, at the end of the second moment
of her discovery by the trio of men she was betrayed by an “hermosura
incomparable” that called for an immediate resolution of the ambiguity.
At that point Cardenio whispered to the curate that no one but Luscinda could
be as beautiful, anticipating thus the upcoming discovery of Dorotea's feminine
nature. In parallel manner, it is Cardenio who here interrupts the young
woman's tale, by intimating later revelations of his own that may shock
(“espanten”) Dorotea.
In the third segment of Dorotea's tale, Don
Fernando proceeds to the actual secret oath of betrothal. Dorotea considers
the situation through an internal debate, and cannot find sufficient reasons
to refuse, unable to resist in particular Don Fernando's repeated
juramento and his “dispusición y gentileza, que,
acompañada con tantas muestras de verdadero amor, pudieran rendir
a otro tan libre y recatado corazón como el mío” (p. 353).
She is vanquished, then, by her innocence and her credulity, because she
is unused to the language of love —and because she cannot believe that
someone of Don Fernando's class could so perjure himself— as well as
by the other aspect of her femininity: her erotic desire, heretofore repressed.
After calling in her maid —the same one who has just betrayed her—
as a witness to Don Fernando's oath, she surrenders: “y con volverse
a salir del aposento mi doncella, yo dejé de
serlo . . .” (p. 354). Don Fernando's passion quickly
wanes after this —he only sees her once again the next night— and
soon Dorotea learns that he has actually married the beautiful Luscinda.
Dorotea's fall into error and her betrayal —by her weakness and by her
lover, who was simply its instrument— recall precisely their prefigured
image in the third moment of her first “unveiling,” when her naked
feet prevented her flight.
21 Marriage
would be the aim and purpose of a woman of Dorotea's condition, though she
could never, under more normal circumstances, expect to marry someone of
Don Fernando's social class.
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This third installment of Dorotea's tale provides
another instance of the dispersing and metamorphic power of eros. In effect,
to Don Fernando's passionate demands Dorotea reacts by an inner duplication,
creating a division within herself and establishing a dialogue between the
two parts: “Yo, a esta sazón, hice un breve discurso conmigo,
y me dije a mí mesma” (p. 353). This scission is resolved later
into an anticipation of her disguise. After love-making she becomes
other, as is indicated by the discreet
zeugma22 with which she describes the event
“con . . . salir . . . mi doncella, yo dejé
de serlo . . .” It is this intimate transformation that
will necessitate the later disguise.
The intrusion that closes this part of the
story occurs with the mention of Luscinda. The tale is interrupted by a
description of Cardenio's reaction as he hears his beloved's name, a reaction
reminiscent of those that announced his bouts of madness, but whose intensity
now resolves itself into tears.
The last portion of Dorotea's tale begins with
her anger at the news of Don Fernando's marriage, her determination to seek
him out, and her disguise. This disguise is indispensable to her if she wants
to travel alone —only accompanied by a male servant— but it also
represents her new resolve, through which she overcomes her feminine
“weakness” and assumes a virile, decisive appearance. Cardenio,
on the other hand, simply allows his outward appearance to deteriorate, losing
the spirit and prerogatives of rank and nature as he reverts to
unreason.23 Now Dorotea's account begins
to merge with Cardenio's. While these stories complement and complete one
another, they are not exactly parallel in that Dorotea's reaction is the
very opposite of Cardenio's. Correspondingly, Don Fernando's own situation
is also reversed: he has betrayed Dorotea, but feels betrayed by Luscinda
when he discovers that she and Cardenio were secretly promised to one
another.24 The rest of Dorotea's tale confirms
the double nature that she has assumed, establishing it as a strength rather
than a weakness. Her servant, thinking only that she is a woman and unprotected,
compromised and therefore available,
22 Murillo
draws our attention to this figure of speech in his edition, p. 354, note
19.
23 Cf. Edward
Dudley, “The Wild Man Goes Baroque,” in The Wild Man Within,
ed. E. Dudley and M. E. Novak, (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press,
1972), pp. 115-139.
24 Cf. Ruth
El Saffar, Beyond Fiction: The Recovery of the Feminine in the Works of
Cervantes, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984.
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makes advances to her. Dorotea wards off his aggression, pushing him over
a precipice. A similar situation forces her to flee the herdsman with whom
she takes refuge, when he guesses her secret. In the Sierra she is finally
discovered by the curate, the barber and Cardenio. Through her vicissitudes
the inner scission that Dorotea underwent under the impact of desire adds
to her nature rather than weakening it, this growth then becomes a possibility
for transformation, an adaptability to the demands of events through which,
for instance, she will become Princess Micomicona in order to assist in returning
Don Quijote to his home.
At the conclusion of her tale, however, she
reaches the point of her escape into the Sierra disguised and almost defeated:
“donde . . . pudiese . . . rogar al cielo se duela
de mi desventura y me dé industria y favor para salir della”
(p. 358). The motif of this last part of the tale has been the disguise,
its uses and dangers. It answers quite neatly to the comments of the curate
in the same fourth moment of her initial discovery: “Lo que vuestro
traje, señora, nos niega, vuestros cabellos nos descubren: señales
claras que no deben de ser de poco momento las causas que han disfrazado
vuestra belleza” (p. 346). It also concludes this part of Dorotea's
story by completing a circular pattern initiated when we first hear her voice.
Still, we come to the end of Dorotea's revelation and find her disguised.
What is more, in the next chapter she immediately assumes the “role”
of doncella menesterosa in order to take part in the curate's plans
for Don Quijote's recovery from his madness. So that she has gone from one
disguise to the next with hardly a transition —merely the recognition
scene when Cardenio identifies himself.
What is, then, Dorotea's actual self? What
aspect of her mutable nature represents her truly? In the chapter that follows
(29) she is brought up to date on Don Quijote by the curate: her narrative,
that is, she herself, converges with the story of our knight, as had Cardenio
earlier. Immediately Sancho's voice is heard: “Saliéronle al
encuentro y, preguntándole por don Quijote, les dijo como le había
hallado desnudo en camisa, flaco, amarillo y muerto de hambre, y suspirando
por su señora Dulcinea” (p. 361). Thus, in one hidden part of
the Sierra, we have Don Quijote25 pursuing
his penance,
25 Cf.
Javier Herrero, “Arcadia's Inferno: Cervantes' Attack on Pastoral,”
BHS, 55, (1978), 289-99; also Edward Dudley, “Don Quijote as
Magus: The Rhetoric of Interpolation,” BHS, 49, (1972), 355-368,
and my own “The Sierra Morena as Labyrinth,” MLN, 99 (1984),
214-34.
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disguised —without his armor— following Roland / Cardenio's
madness.26 In another corner, equally secluded
—the three men must come out (“Salieron”) to meet Sancho—
we have found Dorotea, victim of a lover's betrayal, disguised also. Both
disguises are response to the power of eros. To some extent, Dorotea is a
counterpart of Don Quijote more than she is of Cardenio. Like our knight
she wills her condition; she transforms herself to achieve her ends and she
will also become, as Princess Micomicona, a part of Don Quijote's fantasy.
Like him also, she has been a source of fabulation. To a degree her nature
grows from an addition of fictions: she falls prey to Don Fernando's false
promise, she reinvents herself as a man, she turns easily into a princess.
When she takes the appropriate clothing out of her bags, she does not change
back from a “lad” into Dorotea, rather into
Dorotea-as-damsel-in-distress, in other words she is a damsel in distress
at the level of the historia, the narrative level of Don Quijote,
and she plays the role of a damsel in distress within the “imagined”
adventures —real for him— of Don Quijote. Similarly, Don Quijote
is doubly mad in his invented madness for Dulcinea, and says so himself
(“loco soy, loco he de ser . . .”).
Our unveiling of Dorotea's form left us with
a woman's body hidden in man's clothes, covered by golden hair that reaffirmed
her feminine nature but did not do away with the male disguise. Her
story repeats, moment by moment, the same stages of uncovering at the level
of her inner nature, and yet does not leave us a single, central being. Dorotea
becomes herself in her interaction with Don Quijote. She can never return
to her “prelapsarian” state, nor is she only a fallen woman, or
a fallen woman with the determination of the assumed male disguise. She is
all this together and Princess Micomicona as well. She grows into the complete
woman who will know how to assume the role that will also convince Don Fernando
and will regain her “social” integrity; she is, then, the sum of
all these aspects. Before her “odyssey” she saw herself in terms
of the expectations of rank and family. She suffered the dissociating impact
of eros and found her strength through anger and indignation. Thereafter
she no longer conformed to the image that others sought in her. Thus she
is an example of what woman can be, even within the strictures of a patriarchal
society that wants to make her the repository
26 Cf.
articles mentioned in preceding note, and also Marthe Robert, The Old
and the New, (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1977), pp.
12-22).
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of man's social covenant, the emblem of his
“honor.”27 This is not to say that
she is, a feminist avant la lettre. Her aim is to regain Don
Fernando and she understands her fulfillment in those terms. Nevertheless,
how Don Fernando and the other men around her, except for Don Quijote and
Sancho in their own realms, pale by comparison! She proclaims the possible
completeness of womanhood, and serves to point out to us the inadequacy of
reductive piecemeal understanding.
Dorotea's development into her full self has
grown out of our vision of parts. We participated in the
“voyeuristic” experience of her unveiling and the dispersing impact
of that erotic vision. No single part was sufficient. That is why the various
moments of her discovery, external and internal, voice, feet and hair, sin,
betrayal and disguise were shown as parallel discoveries, all necessary to
the final completion. Similarly, through their interaction with the
historia, the various narrative levels converged toward a completion,
an encompassing reading.
We indicated that Dorotea's figure gained clarity
as a counterpart to Don Quijote. The interruptions in her tale occurred at
moments of interference occasioned by Cardenio, either as his reactions were
described, or when he interjected comments himself. The reader in each instance
will recall the interruption of the young man's own tale by Don Quijote,
when the former's narrative intersected Don
Quijote's.28 Cardenio thus becomes a species
of intermediary of our knight. Half naked, still unkempt and emotional, he
is Don Quijote devoid of a dream. It is through this “atroso caballero
de la Sierra” (p. 290), a reduced copy of the “Caballero de la
Triste Figura,” that the echo of the latter reaches us now.
Don Quijote also, we have learned, escapes
any attempt at reduction. Our multiple vision of Dorotea is augmented by
the reverberations it receives from that of Don Quijote, reflected by the
willed, or suffered, self-limitations of Cardenio.
We began the chapter (28) with a reminder of
the narrative's multilayered depth. We then plunged into the highly restricted,
tantalizing uncovering of a veiled reality, brought face to face with
27 On
this vast theme of “honor” in Golden Age Spain, the literature
is enormous. I have found some very useful comments, though concerning another
area of interest, in Edwin Honig's Calderón and the Seizures of
Honor, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard UP. 1972.
28 Cf. note
26, Girard and Bandera.
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erotic mystery and drawn into a reductive stance. Gradually we emerged, bringing
these parts together, as we tried to solve the mystery. The mystery remains
elusive; it is together the sum and its components, the historia and
its episodes, the story and its telling. The text's complete nature is like
Dorotea's. We must make it whole out of its parts, as we did her. We surmised
“voyeuristically” Dorotea's beauty from its disparate aspects.
The task of reading is this “voyeuristic” completion of the text,
the pleasure of guessing and delaying an
outcome.29
| ILLINOIS WESLEYAN
UNIVERSITY |
29 I
want to thank Professor Ruth El Saffar for having kindly consented to read
an earlier draft of this paper and for her suggestions.