SANCHO
I was some seven years into my life when my world was suddenly lit as ’twere by a Fire-work and I was dazzled awake, as when a sweet dream is ended abruptly. Every detail of the moment is branded upon my brain – due to its mix of joy…and violence, perhaps? It went thus… We had played the scenes of Panza meeting his Don and their arrangements concerning their long journey together etc., etc. And here we were in Act Four.
(He quickly grabs his cloak and cane, draping the former over his shoulder and putting the cane between his legs like a hobby horse. He is enjoying the memory immensely. Lighting resembles a candle-lit stage.)
My Quixote – already the worse for several glasses of port and a very large supper, enters on his steed… (Indicates cane.) a hobby horse from the nursery. (To a woman in the audience re: the cane.) It wasn’t that kind of play, madam… A great cheer goes up from the gathered throng – Their hero has entered yet again… He addresses me thus, (As a boozy old ham.) ‘Fortune is arranging matters for us better than we could have shaped our desires ourselves, for look there, friend Sancho Panza, where thirty or more monstrous giants present themselves, all of whom I mean to engage in battle and slay.’ (Sweetly, shyly, as his seven-year-old self.) ‘What giants?’ – quoth I. (As Quixote.) ‘Those thou seest there, with the long arms, and some have them nearly two leagues long.’ (Panza.) ‘Look, your worship, what we see there are not giants but… Windmills…and what seem to be their arms are the sails that turned by the wind make the millstone go’. (Quixote.) ‘It is easy to see that thou art not used to this business of adventures; those are giants; and if thou art afraid, away with thee out of this and betake thyself to prayer while I engage them in fierce and unequal combat.’ And with that, he tangles himself in a Gordian Knot of cloak, curtains – limbs and scenery… And though crowd and actor laughed fit to die, myself felt it keenly that he was mortal wounded. Genuine tears sprang to my eye and that silenced both spectator and actor… (Panza addressing the cane as if to Quixote in his arms.) ‘God bless me! Did I not tell your worship to mind what you were about, for they were only windmills? And no one could have made any mistake about it but one who had something of the same kind in his head.’ (Quixote, in earnest and to the cane as if to young Sancho.) ‘Hush, friend Sancho, the fortunes of war more than any other are liable to frequent fluctuations.’ (Panza.) ‘God order it as he may.’
(SANCHO takes a small bow.)
Well, the crowd erupted in genuine applause. Two strong gentlemen lifted me on to their shoulders and paraded me around that salon; transformed for me into the very stage at Drury Lane – Its soon to be resident, Davy Garrick raised his glass to me at that moment; though I was only afterwards told who he was – My three guardians…were content to be the centre of so much unexpected attention and compliments. They had bred me well was the general opinion.