On a memorable page of El pensamiento de Cervantes, Américo Castro evokes this hushed introit and its theatrical (one might almost say congregational) effect: «¿Asistimos a una representación de 'La Chauve-souris'?» Of Monipodio's entrance, he says: «Todo esto es profundamente espectacular, y están sabiamente dispuestos los efectos de primero y último término». Castro observes that Cervantes handles Rinconete and Cortadillo «como figuras de retablo», interesting because they are «espectacularmente tratados» See El pensamiento de Cervantes (Barcelona: Noguer, 1972), 232-33.

Castro then cites the passage in Cipión y Berganza where Cipión distinguishes between plot and style in the short story: some stories are inherently engaging and need little stylistic embellishment; others, less plotworthy, require a more graphic and gesticulatory style to make them pleasurable.

One way or the other, Cervantes felt that every story needs a dose of theatrics. Here, I believe, is the point of contact between the two categories of story mentioned in Cipión y Berganza (and later glossed by Ortega y Gasset in Meditaciones del Quijote). Plot and style fail if they do not make us see. The artist, of course, must arrange for us to see certain things in certain ways. Castro is incredulous that anyone could take Rinconete y Cortadillo for a mere copy of reality, a slice of life arbitrarily transposed to paper. Cervantes was anything but arbitrary. He was fully conscious of what he wanted to achieve in Rinconete y Cortadillo. In his revision of the first draft of the story, he unerringly struck an episode that clashed with the rest: the physical testing of Rinconete's courage by a smack on the face. The smack might happen in «real life», but is jarring in the context of Rinconete y Cortadillo. Rinconete's superiority is intellectual, not physical. The patio's violence is an attitude and a posture, not a documentary truth. Monipodio's tribal rites are based on verbal diplomacy and conciliation rather than brute force. Finally, the surprise blow on Rinconete's face is melodramatic and unplayable: theater of the wrong kind.

Casalduero has also observed a theatrical air in certain passages of Rinconete y Cortadillo: see Sentido y forma, 105, 110-11 and 112.

Aden W. Hayes has written very persuasively about Monipodio's creation of a personal reality through linguistic means. See his «Narrative 'Errors' in Rinconete y Cortadillo». BHS, LVIII (1981), 13-20.

Law and friendship are also paired in La Gitanilla. During his initiation into the gypsy world, don Juan de Cárcamo/Andrés Caballero is informed of his obligations by an elder statesman of the gypsy band. Foremost among these is obedience to the law of friendship: «Nosotros guardamos inviolablemente la ley de la amistad: ninguno solicita la prenda del otro; libres vivimos de la amarga pestilencia de los celos. Entre nosotros, aunque hay muchos incestos, no hay ningún adulterio; y cuando le hay en la mujer propia, o alguna bellaquería en la amiga, no vamos a la justicia a pedir castigo: nosotros somos los jueces y los verdugos de nuestras esposas o amigas...». Whether or not we endorse this law or the consequences of its subversion is immaterial: in the gypsy society of La Gitanilla, freedom could not survive promiscuity. Anarchic lust would threaten the collective security of the tribe. Once again, nature must be disciplined in order to protect an ethos whose cast is primarily aesthetic. To Andrés' professed ignorance of the arts of thievery, the old gypsy says: «-Calla, hijo... que aquí te industriaremos de manera que salgas un águila en el oficio; y cuando le sepas, has de gustar dél de modo que te comas las manos tras él. ¡Ya es cosa de burla salir vacío por la mañana y volver cargado a la noche al rancho!» This delight and pride in a job well done could easily have been expressed by Monipodio himself. Indeed, the gypsy tribe as a whole has much in common with Monipodio's. It too is a «cofradía» which offers an alternative to the rancid and inhibiting «Iglesia, o mar, o casa real». It too values secrecy, excels in revelry, ritual, and misdemeanor. The fifteen-year-old Preciosa is the feminine counterpart of Rinconete and Cortadillo. She is precocious, dazzlingly verbal, and full of self-confidence and self-knowledge. Note too that Preciosa's artistry bespeaks aristocratic birth. Her «natural» genius for balladry and dance is awarded sacramental dignity by the author, who marries her off to a fellow aristocrat.

The meridian variation has Repolido make his peace with Chiquiznaque and Maniferro. Says Repolido:

«-Nunca los amigos han de dar enojo a los amigos, ni hacer burla de los amigos, y más cuando veen que se enojan los amigos.

-No hay aquí amigo -respondió Maniferro- que quiera enojar ni hacer burla de otro amigo; y pues todos somos amigos, dense las manos los amigos. A esto dijo Monipodio: -Todos voacedes han hablado como buenos amigos, y como tales amigos, se den las manos de amigos». (p. 33).

The manic beat of «amigos» gives to this passage an incantatory or catechistic flavor. The tribal dance and songfest that follows is a joyful taking of communion.

On Don Quixote as creator of himself and his story, see E. C. Riley, Cervantes's Theory of the Novel (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1962) 37-39 and 64-67. See also Juan Bautista Avalle-Arce, «Don Quijote, o la vida como obra de arte». Cuadernos Hispanoamericanos, 242 (February, 1970), 247-80, and Ruth El Saffar, Distance and Control in «Don Quixote», North Carolina Studies in Romance Languages and Literatures (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1975).

It is curious to note that in his relationship to Cortadillo, Rinconete is more often than not the observer rather than the agent of chicanery. This is true of the packsaddle, purse and handkerchief incidents. It is as if Rinconete were, like Monipodio, the guiding spirit behind the enterprise, and Cortadillo its executor.

The fuzzy line between «law» and «lawlessness», at least with regard to morals, was by no means unique to Seville. Describing law enforcement in Holland during its Golden Age, Simon Schama refers to a «moral pluralism in which inconsistencies of principle were set aside... for the sake of effective social management». Schama brilliantly demonstrates how «the world of virtue and vice lived in practice in a kind of symbiotic interdependence -at least in port cities like Amsterdam and Rotterdam». See The Embarrassment of Riches. An Interpretation of Dutch Culture in the Golden Age (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1987), 468 and passim.

Agustín G. de Amezúa y Mayo, Cervantes, creador de la novela corta española (Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, 1958), 3,105.

Ramón Pérez de Ayala saw a connection between the two works in an article published in ABC, Madrid, May 6, 1956. The piece is summarized in Anales cervantinos, 6 (Madrid, 1957), 375.

See Leo Spitzer, «Perspectivismo lingüístico en el Quijote», in Lingüística e historia literaria (Madrid: Gredos, 1961), 179.