• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

“I’m happy,” responded Corchuelo, “that I fell off my high horse, and that experience has shown me a truth I refused to acknowledge.”

And, standing up, he embraced the licentiate, and they were better friends than before; and not wanting to wait for the notary who had gone after the foil because it seemed it would take too long, they resolved to continue on their way in order to reach Quiteria’s village early, for that is where all of them were from.

For the rest of their journey the licentiate told them about the excellencies of the sword, with so many demonstrations and figures and mathematical proofs that all of them were well-informed regarding the virtues of the science, and Corchuelo’s obstinacy was overcome.

It was dusk, but before they arrived it seemed to everyone that the village sky was filled with innumerable brilliant stars. They also heard the sweet, confused sounds of various instruments, such as flutes, tambors, psalteries, flageolets, tambourines, and timbrels, and when they came close they saw that a bower of trees, erected at the entrance to the village, was filled with lights, which were not disturbed by the wind that was blowing so gently it did not have the strength to move the leaves on the trees. The musicians were the entertainers at the wedding, and in various bands they wandered around that pleasant spot, some of them dancing, others singing, and still others playing the variety of aforementioned instruments. In fact, it seemed that in the meadow joy was dancing and happiness leaping.

Many other people were busy raising platforms where, on the following day, plays and dances could be comfortably viewed when they were performed in that place dedicated to solemnizing the marriage of rich Camacho and the funeral rites of Basilio. Don Quixote did not want to enter the village, though both the peasant and the bachelor asked him to, but he gave as an excuse, which seemed more than sufficient to him, that it was the custom of knights errant to sleep in fields and forests rather than in towns, even under gilded ceilings; and saying this, he went a little way off the road, much against the will of Sancho, who remembered the fine accommodations he had enjoyed in the castle or house of Don Diego.

CHAPTER XX

Which recounts the wedding of rich Camacho, as well as what befell poor Basilio

No sooner had fair-complexioned dawn allowed bright Phoebus, with the ardor of his burning rays, to dry the liquid pearls of her golden tresses, than Don Quixote, shaking idleness from his limbs, rose to his feet and called to his squire, Sancho, who was still snoring; and Don Quixote saw this, and before he woke him he said:

“O thou, more fortunate than all those who live on the face of the earth, for thou dost not envy nor art thou envied, and thou sleepest with a tranquil spirit, and thou art not pursued by enchanters, nor art thou alarmed by enchantments! Thou sleepest, I say it again and shall say it a hundred times more, without jealousy of thy lady keeping thee continually awake, nor thoughts of how to pay the debts thou owest, nor what thou must do to feed thyself and thy small, anguished family for another day. Ambition doth not disturb thee, nor doth the vain pomp of the world trouble thee, for the limits of thy desires extendeth not beyond caring for thy donkey; thou hast placed care for thine own person on my shoulders, a weight and a burden that nature and custom hath given to masters. The servant sleepeth, and the master standeth watch, thinking of how he may sustain him, and improve him, and grant him favors. The anguish of seeing the sky turning to bronze and not giving succor to the earth with needed dew doth not afflict the servant but the master, who must sustain in barrenness and hunger the one who served in fertility and plenty.”

Sancho did not respond to any of this because he was asleep, and he would not have awakened very quickly if Don Quixote, with the blunt end of his lance, had not brought him back to consciousness. He awoke, finally, sleepy and lazy, and turning his