The night of the fulling hammers

What you will learn

• Say how something is done using adverbs in -mente.
• Build an adverb from any adjective you already know.
• Talk about fear and about noises in the dark.

Before you read

The story in easy Spanish

Era de noche y los dos amigos tenían mucha sed.

It was night and the two friends were very thirsty.

Buscaban agua entre los árboles, completamente a oscuras.

They were looking for water among the trees, completely in the dark.

De pronto oyeron un ruido grande de agua que caía.

Suddenly they heard the loud noise of falling water.

Se alegraron mucho. Allí cerca había una fuente o un arroyo.

They were delighted. There was a spring or a stream nearby.

Pero enseguida llegó otro ruido y el contento se acabó.

But at once another noise arrived and the joy was over.

Eran unos golpes fuertes y regulares, siempre iguales.

They were loud, regular blows, always the same.

Con los golpes sonaba un crujir de hierros y de cadenas.

Along with the blows there was a creaking of iron and chains.

El viento movía suavemente las hojas de los árboles altos.

The wind was gently moving the leaves of the tall trees.

La soledad, la oscuridad y el estruendo daban mucho miedo.

The loneliness, the darkness and the din were terrifying.

Sancho temblaba y se agarraba a las piernas de su amo.

Sancho was shaking and clinging to his master’s legs.

Don Quijote no temblaba. Hablaba tranquilamente de su destino.

Don Quixote was not shaking. He spoke calmly about his destiny.

«Yo nací para resucitar la edad de oro», dijo muy serio.

"I was born to bring back the golden age," he said, very serious.

«Aprieta las cinchas a Rocinante y espérame aquí tres días.»

"Tighten Rocinante’s girths and wait for me here for three days."

Sancho empezó a llorar amargamente y le pidió otra cosa.

Sancho began to weep bitterly and asked him for something else.

«Es de noche y nadie nos ve. Nadie nos llamará cobardes.»

"It is night and nobody can see us. Nobody will call us cowards."

Luego ató las patas de Rocinante secretamente con el cabestro del asno.

Then he secretly tied Rocinante’s legs with the donkey’s halter.

El caballo quiso andar y no pudo. Solo daba saltos cortos.

The horse tried to walk and could not. It only made small hops.

Don Quijote esperó pacientemente la luz de la mañana.

Don Quixote waited patiently for the morning light.

Pasaron la noche juntos, sin dormir, oyendo aquellos golpes.

They spent the night together, without sleeping, listening to those blows.

Al amanecer siguieron el ruido lentamente entre las peñas.

At dawn they followed the noise slowly among the rocks.

Debajo de una cascada grande había unas casas viejas y feas.

Below a great waterfall there were some old, ugly buildings.

Dentro había seis mazos de batán que golpeaban el paño.

Inside there were six fulling hammers beating woollen cloth.

Aquellos mazos hacían todo el ruido terrible de la noche.

Those hammers were making all the terrible noise of the night.

Don Quijote se quedó mudo y bajó la cabeza al pecho.

Don Quixote went silent and dropped his head onto his chest.

Sancho lo miró y no pudo aguantar la risa.

Sancho looked at him and could not hold back his laughter.

Se reía tan fuerte que se apretaba los costados con los puños.

He laughed so hard that he held his sides with his fists.

Luego repitió burlonamente las palabras solemnes de su amo.

Then he mockingly repeated his master’s solemn words.

Don Quijote se enfadó y le dio dos palos en las espaldas.

Don Quixote lost his temper and gave him two blows across the back.

«Ya no diré nada más», contestó Sancho muy bajito.

"I will not say another word," Sancho answered very quietly.

Fue la primera vez que el escudero se rió del caballero.

It was the first time the squire laughed at the knight.

Vocabulary

Fear

el miedo

fear

el espanto

dread, terror

temblar

to tremble

asustarse

to get frightened

valiente

brave

cobarde

coward, cowardly

atreverse

to dare

Noises

el ruido

the noise

el estruendo

the din, the roar

el golpe

the blow, the bang

sonar

to sound, to ring

crujir

to creak

el silencio

the silence

gritar

to shout

How things are done

lentamente

slowly

rápidamente

quickly

tranquilamente

calmly

suavemente

gently, softly

fácilmente

easily

completamente

completely

despacio

slowly

Adverbs in -mente

Buscaban agua completamente a oscuras.

Hablaba tranquilamente de su destino.

Sancho empezó a llorar amargamente.

This is one of the tidiest rules in the language, and once you have it you can build hundreds of words on your own. Take an adjective. Put it in the feminine singular. Add -mente. That is the whole operation.

Adjectives with no feminine form just keep going

Plenty of adjectives end in -e or in a consonant and have one form for both genders. Nothing happens to them. You add -mente to what you already have.

The accent never moves and never disappears

An adverb in -mente is really two words glued together, and each half keeps its own stress. So rápido gives rápidamente and fácil gives fácilmente, tilde and all. This is the single most common spelling slip with these words. If the adjective carried a written accent, the adverb carries it too, in exactly the same place.

Two adverbs in a row, one -mente

When you string two of them together, Spanish drops the ending on all but the last one and leaves the bare feminine adjective in front: habló lenta y tristemente, lo hizo rápida y silenciosamente. It looks odd the first time. It is correct and it is what everybody writes.

Use them, but do not overuse them

Spanish finds a long chain of -mente words heavy, and in speech it very often reaches for something shorter instead:

The pattern con plus a noun, and de manera plus an adjective, will get you out of trouble whenever the -mente word feels too long or you cannot remember it.

Fulling mills, the loudest machine in Castile

A fulling mill is a water mill with a very specific job. Freshly woven woollen cloth comes off the loom loose and open, and it has to be soaked and then pounded for hours by heavy wooden hammers until the fibres lock together. That is what makes wool into cloth you can cut a cloak from. The hammers fall in rotation, driven by the river, and they do not stop.

The result is a slow, heavy, perfectly regular thumping, mixed with the creak of the wooden gearing and the roar of the water on the wheel. It carries for a long way at night. Fulling mills were always built out of town, beside fast water, which is exactly why our two travellers meet one in the dark in the middle of nowhere.

Here is the point of the joke. Every reader in 1605 knew that sound. Wool was the national industry, and a fulling mill was as ordinary as a bus depot. The one person in Spain who does not recognise it is the gentleman who has spent his life indoors reading about giants. Cervantes never explains this. He simply tells us there were six hammers and lets the reader work out how long they have been holding their breath over laundry equipment.

The scene mattered enough to enter the language. Los batanes de Sancho became a byword for a terror that turns out to be nothing, and Cervantes has Don Quixote threaten to batanear his squire’s soul, which is roughly to beat it like cloth.

One last thing worth noticing. This is the first time Sancho openly mocks his master, and he pays for it immediately with two blows from the lance. From here on the relationship between the two men has an edge it did not have before.

Cervantes in the original

Digo que oyeron que daban unos golpes a compás, con un cierto crujir de hierros y cadenas, que, acompañados del furioso estruendo del agua, que pusieran pavor a cualquier otro corazón que no fuera el de don Quijote.

I say that they heard blows falling in a steady rhythm, with a certain creaking of iron and chains which, together with the furious roar of the water, would have struck fear into any heart other than Don Quixote’s.

Look at how the fear is built. There is not one visual detail in the sentence, because there is nothing to see: the night is pitch black. Cervantes gives you three sounds and nothing else, the rhythmic blows, the creak of iron and chains, and the roar of the water, and lets your ear do the work. The phrase a compás means in time, at a steady beat, and it is the clue hidden in plain sight. Nothing alive keeps perfect time. A machine does. Cervantes has told you the answer in the second line of the adventure and you still do not see it coming, which is why the reveal lands. Note also the old spellings you will meet all through this chapter, escuridad for oscuridad and pavor, a word for dread that has since gone literary.