Fernando Takes Luscinda and the Lovers Reunite

Don Fernando’s taking of Luscinda from a convent sets in motion an unexpected reunion with Cardenio and a reckoning with the promise Don Fernando made to Dorothea. At the inn, voices and faces expose the connections between the four travelers; the moment that begins in confusion ends with the lovers restored to one another and Don Fernando accepting Dorothea’s claim. The scene makes recognition consequential: private histories, once separated by distance and concealment, must now be answered for in public.

From the convent to the inn

After months of searching, Don Fernando learned that Luscinda had entered a convent and intended to remain there unless she could share her life with Cardenio. He went there with three companions. Avoiding an open approach that might lead to tighter precautions, he waited until the porter’s lodge was open, left two men to guard the gate, and entered with another. They found Luscinda in the cloisters talking with a nun and took her away before she could resist. The convent stood at a considerable distance from the city, and Don Fernando’s party was able to leave with her and make their preparations beyond it.

Luscinda did not speak during the journey. Don Fernando later told those at the inn that she lost consciousness when she found herself in his power, and, after recovering, continued in silence and tears. He described the inn as a destination that felt like reaching heaven, because he believed that the misfortunes preceding it had at last ended. That account gives the reunion its immediate tension: Luscinda has been removed from the place she chose, while Don Fernando has mistaken arrival at the inn for the close of the story rather than the point at which its hidden claims will be confronted.

Recognition in the inn

The turning point begins when Luscinda answers a charge that she is untruthful. Cardenio, close by in Don Quixote’s room, recognizes her voice and calls out in astonishment. Luscinda turns toward the sound and tries to enter the room, but Don Fernando holds her back. In the sudden movement, the silk covering her face falls away. Dorothea, who has been attending to Luscinda, sees the face of the man restraining her and recognizes Don Fernando as her husband by promise and pledge. She faints; the barber catches her before she falls, and the curate brings water to revive her.

The recognition is mutual and arrives in quick succession. Luscinda has identified Cardenio by his voice; he has identified her by hers. Hearing Dorothea’s cry, Cardenio rushes out, believing at first that Luscinda is in distress. He sees her in Don Fernando’s arms, and Don Fernando recognizes him as well. The four stand facing one another in silence, each person’s attention fixed on another: Dorothea on Don Fernando, Don Fernando on Cardenio, Cardenio on Luscinda, and Luscinda on Cardenio. The arrangement makes the tangled history legible without explanation: the woman Don Fernando has taken is bound to Cardenio, while the woman who has fainted is the one to whom Don Fernando owes his own pledge.

Vows tested and restored

Luscinda asks Don Fernando to release her and insists that threats, persuasion, promises, and gifts have not detached her from Cardenio. She presents their meeting as a sign that she has been brought face to face with her true husband, and declares that no one but death can erase him from her memory. Her resolve makes clear that Don Fernando’s possession of her has not altered her allegiance. She would rather die than yield it, and she asks him to understand that her fidelity has endured to the last moment.

Dorothea, recovered from her faint, kneels before Don Fernando and reminds him of their history. She says that she had lived in innocence and contentment before his appeals led her to trust him and surrender her freedom to his promise. His abandonment drove her from home, she explains, but grief at being forgotten—not shame—brought her to the place where he now stands. She argues that he cannot claim Luscinda, who loves Cardenio, and that he has no honest ground to deny the pledge he gave her. Her appeal joins personal testimony to an argument about responsibility: Don Fernando knew her station and cannot say he was deceived about the commitment he made.

Don Fernando listens without answering while Dorothea speaks. Her distress moves those present, including his own companions, and Luscinda watches her with compassion and admiration. When Don Fernando releases Luscinda, Cardenio steps forward to support her. Luscinda recognizes him by his voice and then by sight, embraces him, and affirms her attachment. The reunion nearly becomes a new confrontation: Dorothea sees Don Fernando put his hand to his sword and immediately restrains him by clasping his knees. She asks him not to turn the lovers’ reunion into an occasion for anger, but to let them live in peace. Cardenio, meanwhile, remains alert to Don Fernando’s movements, prepared to defend himself if attacked.

Don Fernando’s companions, the curate, the barber, and Sancho Panza join Dorothea in urging restraint. The curate argues that Luscinda and Cardenio cannot be separated except by death, and that Don Fernando should honor his pledged word and accept a generous resolution rather than impose his passion on the reunited pair. Their entreaties turn the scene away from violence. Don Fernando yields, embraces Dorothea, and asks her not to reproach him for his wrongdoing. He presents his earlier resistance as a struggle against the same force that had led him to claim her, then wishes Luscinda and Cardenio a peaceful life together. Cardenio and Luscinda thank him, and he raises them and embraces them with courtesy.

The history behind the reunion

Once the immediate crisis has passed, Don Fernando asks how Dorothea reached so far from home. She recounts the misfortunes she had already related to Cardenio. Don Fernando then explains why he had pursued Luscinda: after finding a paper in her bosom declaring that she was Cardenio’s wife and could never be his, he had intended to kill her, but her parents prevented him. He left in anger and shame, resolved to seek revenge later. The account reveals that his taking of Luscinda was not an isolated encounter but the continuation of a pursuit begun after he learned of her bond to Cardenio.

Don Fernando says that he later discovered Luscinda in the convent and removed her from it in the manner he has described. Her silence on the journey and his mistaken sense that the inn marked an end to misfortune sharpen the contrast between possession and consent, and between the conclusion he expected and the truths that emerge before him. The reunion resolves the immediate separation without erasing the harm that preceded it: Luscinda returns to Cardenio, and Don Fernando acknowledges Dorothea, while the story’s decisive change comes through recognition, testimony, and the choice to restrain force.