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By Root 779 0

to faint onto the bloody bosom of Don Vicente, who was shaken by a mortal paroxysm. Roque was bewildered and did not know what to do. The servants hurried to find water to sprinkle on the lovers’ faces, and they brought some and bathed their faces with it. Claudia recovered from her swoon, but not Don Vicente from his paroxysm, because his life had ended. Seeing this, Claudia realized that her sweet husband was no longer alive, and she pierced the air with sighs, wounded the heavens with lamentations, tore her hair and threw it into the wind, scratched her face with her own hands, and showed all the signs of sorrow and grief that could be imagined in a wounded heart.

“O cruel and thoughtless woman,” she said, “how easily you were moved to act upon so evil a thought! O raging power of jealousy, to what a desperate end you led one who sheltered you in her bosom! O husband of mine, because you were loved by me, your unfortunate fate has brought you from the nuptial bed to the grave!”

Claudia’s lamentations were so sad that they brought tears to Roque’s eyes, which were not accustomed to shed them under any circumstances. The servants wept, Claudia fainted over and over again, and the area around them seemed to be a field of sorrow and a place of misfortune. Finally Roque Guinart ordered the servants to carry Don Vicente’s body to his father’s house, which was nearby, for burial. Claudia told Roque that she wanted to go to a convent where an aunt of hers was abbess, and there she intended to end her days in the company of a better, and an eternal, husband. Roque praised her good intention and offered to accompany her wherever she wished and to defend her father against Don Vicente’s kin, and anyone else, if they tried to injure him. On no account did Claudia wish his company, and after thanking him for his offers with the best words she knew, she took her leave of him in tears. Don Vicente’s servants carried away his body, and Roque returned to his people, and so ended the love story of Claudia Jerónima. But what other ending could it have if the threads of her pitiable tale were woven by the invincible and cruel forces of jealousy?

Roque Guinart found his squires in the place where he had ordered them to wait; Don Quixote was with them, mounted on Rocinante and speaking to them in an attempt to persuade them to abandon a mode of life so dangerous for both the soul and the body, but since most of them were Gascons,9 a crude and unruly people, they were not particularly influenced by Don Quixote’s discourse. When Roque arrived, he asked Sancho Panza if his men had returned and restored to him the gems and jewels they had taken from the gray. Sancho responded that they had, but he was missing three nightcaps that were worth three cities.

“Man, what are you saying?” said one of the outlaws. “I have them, and they’re not worth three reales.”

“That is true,” said Don Quixote, “but my squire values them in the manner he has said because of the person who gave them to me.”

Roque Guinart commanded that they be returned immediately, and after ordering his men into a line, he said that all the clothing, jewels, and money, everything they had stolen since the last distribution, should be placed in front of them; and after quickly making an estimate and setting aside what could not be divided and reducing it to money,10 he distributed goods to his entire company with so much equity and prudence that he adhered absolutely to distributive justice and gave no one too much or too little. When this had been concluded, and everyone was content, satisfied, and well-paid, Roque said to Don Quixote:

“If one were not scrupulous with these men, there would be no way to live with them.”

To which Sancho said:

“According to what I’ve seen here, justice is so great a good that it’s necessary to use it even among thieves.”

One of the squires heard this, and he raised the butt of a harquebus and undoubtedly would have used it to crack open Sancho’s skull if Roque Guinart had not shouted at him to stop. Sancho was terrified, and he resolved not