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By Root 1148 0

of legitimate reproof, which is based more on gentleness than on asperity, nor is it just, having no knowledge of the sin that is being rebuked, so thoughtlessly to call the sinner a simpleton and a fool. Otherwise tell me, your grace: for which of the inanities that you have seen in me do you condemn and revile me, and order me to return to my house and tend to it and my wife and my children, not knowing if I have one or the other? Or is it enough for clerics simply to enter other people’s houses willy-nilly to guide the owners, even though some have been brought up in the narrow confines of a boarding school and never have seen more of the world than the twenty or thirty leagues of their district, and then suddenly decide to dictate laws to chivalry and make judgments concerning knights errant? Is it by chance frivolous, or is the time wasted that is spent wandering the world, not seeking its rewards but the asperities by which the virtuous rise to the seat of immortality?

If knights, and the great, the generous, and the highborn considered me a fool, I would take it as an irreparable affront; but that I am thought a simpleton by students who never walked or followed the paths of chivalry does not concern me in the least: a knight I am, and a knight I shall die, if it pleases the Almighty. Some men walk the broad fields of haughty ambition, or base and servile adulation, or deceptive hypocrisy, and some take the road of true religion; but I, influenced by my star, follow the narrow path of knight errantry, and because I profess it I despise wealth but not honor. I have redressed grievances, righted wrongs, punished insolence, vanquished giants, and trampled monsters; I am in love, simply because it is obligatory for knights errant to be so; and being so, I am not a dissolute lover, but one who is chaste and platonic. I always direct my intentions to virtuous ends, which are to do good to all and evil to none; if the man who understands this, and acts on this, and desires this, deserves to be called a fool, then your highnesses, most excellent Duke and Duchess, should say so.”

“By God, that’s wonderful!” said Sancho. “My lord and master, your grace should say no more on your own behalf, because there’s nothing more to say, or to think, or to insist on in this world. Besides, since this gentleman is denying, and has denied, that there ever were knights errant in the world, or that there are any now, is it any wonder he doesn’t know any of the things he’s talked about?”

“By any chance, brother,” said the ecclesiastic, “are you the Sancho Panza to whom, they say, your master has promised an ínsula?”

“I am,” responded Sancho, “and I’m the one who deserves it as much as anybody else; I’m a ‘Stay close to good men and become one’; and I’m a ‘Birds of a feather flock together’; and a ‘Lean against a sturdy trunk if you want good shade.’ I have leaned against a good master, and traveled with him for many months, and I’ll become just like him, God willing; long life to him and to me, and there’ll be no lack of empires for him to rule or ínsulas for me to govern.”

“No, certainly not, Sancho my friend,” said the duke, “for I, in the name of Señor Don Quixote, promise you the governorship of a spare one that I own, which is of no small quality.”

“Down on your knees, Sancho,” said Don Quixote, “and kiss the feet of His Excellency for the great favor he has done you.”

Sancho did so, and when the ecclesiastic saw this he rose from the table in a fury, saying:

“By the habit I wear, I must say that Your Excellency is as much a simpleton as these sinners. Consider that of course they must be mad, since the sane applaud their madness! Stay with them, Your Excellency, and for as long as they are in this house, I shall be in mine, and I exempt myself from reproving what I cannot remedy.”

And without saying another word or eating another mouthful, he left, and the pleas of the duke and duchess did nothing to stop him, although the duke was prevented from saying very much by the laughter the ecclesiastic’s importunate anger had caused