A Night at the Inn

What you will learn

• Say how you feel about what somebody else does.
• Use alegrarse de que, sentir que, temer que and me extraña que.
• Understand why the subjunctive turns up even when the fact is perfectly true.

Before you read

The story in easy Spanish

El grupo llegó a la venta al caer la tarde, la misma donde habían manteado a Sancho.

The party reached the inn as evening fell, the same inn where Sancho had been tossed in a blanket.

El pobre escudero la miró con muy poco cariño.

The poor squire looked at it with very little affection.

«Me alegro de que tengamos techo esta noche», dijo, «pero no me alegro nada de que sea este.»

"I am glad we have a roof tonight," he said, "but I am not at all glad that it is this one."

El ventero, en cambio, estaba contentísimo aquella tarde.

The innkeeper, on the other hand, was thoroughly pleased that evening.

«Me encanta que lleguen viajeros con dinero», pensaba, y aquella tarde llegaban muchos con mulas y maletas.

"I love it when travellers with money turn up," he was thinking, and that evening plenty were arriving with mules and bags.

Don Quijote venía cansado del camino, así que pidió una cama y se retiró a un cuarto pequeño.

Don Quixote came in tired from the road, so he asked for a bed and withdrew to a small room.

Allí el ventero guardaba varios cueros de vino tinto.

That was where the innkeeper kept several skins of red wine.

«Siento que se acueste tan pronto», dijo el cura, «pero me alegro de que descanse y no ataque a nadie.»

"I am sorry he is going to bed so early," said the priest, "but I am glad he is resting and attacking nobody."

Los demás se quedaron junto al fuego de la sala, y alguien sacó unos papeles de una maleta vieja.

The others stayed by the fire in the main room, and somebody pulled some papers out of an old travelling bag.

Eran una novela entera, escrita a mano por un desconocido.

They were a whole novella, written by hand by somebody unknown.

El cura la leyó en voz alta durante casi dos horas.

The priest read it aloud for nearly two hours.

«Me gusta que la leas despacio», le pidió Dorotea, que seguía vestida de princesa junto al fuego.

"I like you reading it slowly," Dorotea asked him, still dressed as a princess and sitting by the fire.

«Me extraña que este engaño funcione tan bien», pensaba, «y temo que alguien se eche a reír.»

"I find it strange that this trick is working so well," she was thinking, "and I am afraid someone will burst out laughing."

Nadie se rio, porque todos fingían muy bien aquella noche.

Nobody laughed, because everyone was pretending very well that night.

Arriba, en el cuarto oscuro, don Quijote dormía con los ojos abiertos.

Upstairs, in the dark room, Don Quixote slept with his eyes open.

Los cueros de vino colgaban de la pared, gordos y redondos, muy quietos y sin molestar a nadie.

The wineskins hung on the wall, fat and round, perfectly still and bothering nobody at all.

«Me alegro de que la noche esté tan tranquila», dijo el ventero.

"I am glad the night is so quiet," said the innkeeper.

«Me da pena que se acabe tan pronto la novela», añadió Cardenio.

"It saddens me that the novella is ending so soon," Cardenio added.

Fuera empezaba a llover y el viento movía la puerta.

Outside it was starting to rain and the wind was moving the door.

El cura cerró los papeles y miró hacia la escalera.

The priest closed the papers and looked towards the staircase.

«Me temo que esta noche no vamos a dormir nada», dijo.

"I am afraid we are not going to sleep at all tonight," he said.

«Ojalá te equivoques», contestó Dorotea sin mucha convicción.

"Let us hope you are wrong," Dorotea replied without much conviction.

Arriba, en la oscuridad, algo empezó a moverse muy despacio.

Upstairs, in the dark, something began to move very slowly.

Vocabulary

Feelings

alegrarse de que

to be glad that

sentir que

to be sorry that

lamentar que

to regret that

temer que

to fear that

tener miedo de que

to be afraid that

dar pena que

to be sad that

extrañar que

to find it strange that

molestar que

to be annoyed that

Inside the inn

el cuero de vino

the wineskin

el techo

the roof

la escalera

the staircase

la sala

the main room

la maleta

the travelling bag

colgar

to hang

retirarse

to go off to bed

Reading aloud

la novela

the novella, the story

los papeles

the papers, the manuscript

escrito a mano

written by hand

en voz alta

aloud

el desconocido

the stranger

quieto

still

redondo

round

The subjunctive of emotion: me alegro de que

Me alegro de que tengamos techo esta noche.

Siento que se acueste tan pronto.

Me extraña que este engaño funcione tan bien.

If you have been carrying around the idea that the subjunctive is the mood of doubt, this is the lesson that has to break it. Every sentence in this story is true and every one of them takes a subjunctive. The priest is glad Don Quixote is resting, and Don Quixote is definitely resting. Sancho is glad they have a roof, and the roof is over his head as he speaks.

1. What the subjunctive is actually for

Spanish uses the indicative when the point of the sentence is the information itself, and the subjunctive when the information is old news and something else is the point. In Tenemos techo the news is the roof. In Me alegro de que tengamos techo the roof is taken as read and the news is how the speaker feels about it. The subjunctive is Spanish quietly saying: this part is not what I am telling you.

That single idea covers wanting in lesson 43, ordering in lesson 44, feeling here, and doubting next lesson. Four uses, one principle.

2. The expressions

Half of them behave like gustar, which you have known since lesson 14: the feeling lands on a person through me, te, le, and the thing felt about is what follows. Me extraña, me molesta, me da pena, me encanta. That is why the person feeling it never appears as a subject.

3. One person or two, the rule that never changes

Same subject on both sides, infinitive and no que. Two subjects, que and a subjunctive. It has been true in all three subjunctive lessons so far and it stays true to the end of the course.

4. Two small things that trip people up

The preposition. Some of these verbs carry a de and it does not disappear when que arrives: alegrarse de que, tener miedo de que, estar contento de que. Others take nothing: sentir que, temer que, lamentar que. Learn each one with its preposition attached, the way you learned gustar with its pronoun.

Me temo que. Spanish has one useful exception. Temer que with a subjunctive is real fear: temo que se caiga, I am afraid he might fall. But me temo que with the reflexive pronoun and an indicative means something closer to I regret to say, and it introduces bad news you are certain of: me temo que no vamos a dormir. The priest uses that one at the end of the story, and he is right.

A novella inside the novel

The papers pulled out of that old bag are a complete short novel called El curioso impertinente, The Ill Advised Curiosity, and it runs for three solid chapters in the middle of Part One. It has nothing whatever to do with Don Quixote, who spends the whole of it asleep upstairs. A character finds a manuscript in a suitcase at an inn, reads it aloud to whoever is by the fire, and for forty pages the book you are holding becomes a different book.

Reading aloud in a group was not a quaint custom, it was how most people met most books. Printed volumes were expensive, a large part of the population could not read at all, and one literate person with a manuscript could hold a room for an evening. Cervantes builds the scene out of that reality and adds the detail that makes it plausible: the manuscript is not the innkeeper’s and he has no idea what it says. Travellers left things behind. Inns accumulated paper.

Plenty of readers disliked the interruption, and said so. Cervantes heard them. Ten years later, in the opening chapters of Part Two, he has his characters discuss the complaint openly and concede the point, and the second part contains no inserted novellas at all. It is one of the earliest cases in European literature of a novelist publicly revising his method because his readers objected, and it happens inside the novel itself, which is very much this book’s way of doing things.

Meanwhile, look at what the chapter is doing with your attention. Everyone downstairs is absorbed in a made up story. Upstairs a man is asleep inside a made up story of his own, with a sword within reach and the innkeeper’s entire stock of wine hanging on the wall beside him. Cervantes lets that sit for a page and a half before he uses it.

Cervantes in the original

Sosegados todos, el cura quiso acabar de leer la novela, porque vio que faltaba poco.

Once everyone had settled down, the priest wanted to finish reading the novella, because he saw that little of it was left.

Thirteen words that hold the whole scene of this lesson: a room gone quiet, a priest with a bundle of papers, and a story nearly over. It is also a useful piece of evidence for the grammar point, because there is not a single subjunctive in it. Vio que faltaba poco is straight information, so it takes the indicative, exactly as it would in English. Set it beside me da pena que se acabe la novela from the story above. The fact is identical in both, the novella is ending, but the second sentence is not there to tell you that. It is there to tell you how somebody feels about it, and Spanish marks the difference in the verb. Notice too the opening, sosegados todos, two words doing the work of a whole clause. Cervantes uses this compressed construction constantly, and it is one of the things that makes his sentences feel faster than their length suggests. And notice the small human detail that Cervantes never bothers to explain: the priest wants to finish because there is not much left. Anyone who has ever read a book aloud to a room knows exactly what that means.