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“Coming from the direction of that bower, if I’m not mistaken, there’s an aroma that smells much more like a roasted side of bacon than reeds and thyme: by my faith, weddings that begin with smells like this must be plentiful and generous.”

“Enough, you glutton,” said Don Quixote. “Come, we shall go to this ceremony to see what the scorned Basilio will do.”

“No matter what he does, what he’d like,” responded Sancho, “is not to be poor and to marry Quiteria. He doesn’t have a cuarto and he wants to rise up above the clouds? By my faith, Señor, I think a poor man should be content with whatever he finds and not go asking for the moon. I bet an arm that Camacho can bury Basilio in reales, and if that’s true, as it must be, Quiteria would be a fool to give up the fine gifts and jewels that Camacho must have given her already, and still can give her, for the way Basilio hurls the bar and fences. A good throw and some nice swordplay won’t get you a half-liter of wine at the tavern. Talents and skills that can’t be sold are fine for Count Dirlos,1 but when those talents fall to somebody who has good money, then that’s the life I’d like to have. With a good foundation you can build a good building, and the best foundation and groundwork in the world is money.”

“For the love of God, Sancho,” said Don Quixote, “that’s enough of your harangue. I really believe that if you were allowed to go on with the ones you are constantly beginning, you would not have time to eat or sleep: you would spend all of it talking.”

“If your grace had a good memory,” replied Sancho, “you’d remember the provisions of our agreement before we left home this last time: one of them was that you’d have to let me talk all I wanted as long as I didn’t say anything against my neighbor or your grace’s authority, and so far it seems to me I haven’t disobeyed that provision.”

“I do not remember, Sancho,” responded Don Quixote, “any such provision, and since that is so, I want you to be quiet and come along now; the instruments we heard last night again gladden the valleys, and no doubt the wedding will be celebrated in the coolness of the morning, not in the heat of the afternoon.”

Sancho did as his master commanded and placed the saddle on Rocinante and the packsaddle on the donkey; the two men mounted, and at an unhurried pace, they rode under the bower.

The first thing that appeared before Sancho’s eyes was an entire steer on a roasting spit made of an entire elm; and in the fire where it was to roast, a fair-size mountain of wood was burning, and six pots that were placed around the fire were not made in the common mold of other pots, because these were six huge cauldrons, each one large enough to hold the contents of an entire slaughterhouse: they contained and enclosed entire sheep, which sank out of view as if they were doves; the hares without their skins and the chickens without their feathers that were hanging from the trees, waiting to be buried in the cauldrons, were without number; the various kinds of fowl and game hanging from the trees to cool in the breeze were infinite.

Sancho counted more than sixty wineskins, each one holding more than two arrobas,2 and all of them filled, as was subsequently proven, with excellent wines; there were also mounds of snowy white loaves of bread, heaped up like piles of wheat on the threshing floor; cheeses, crisscrossed like bricks, formed a wall; and two kettles of oil larger than a dyer’s vats were used to fry rounds of dough, which were then removed with two strong paddles and plunged into another kettle filled with honey that stood nearby.

The cooks, male and female, numbered more than fifty, all of them devoted, diligent, and contented. Twelve small, tender suckling pigs were sewn into the expanded belly of the steer to give it flavor and make it tender. The various spices seemed to have been bought not by the pound but by the arroba, and all of them were clearly visible in a large chest. In short, the provisions for the wedding were rustic, but so abundant they could