OF WHAT HAPPENED TO DON QUIXOTE IN THE INN WHICH HE IMAGINED TO BE A CASTLE.

Looking at Don Quixote laid across the ass, the innkeeper inquired of Sancho what ailed him. Sancho answered him that it was nothing but a fall from the rock, by which his ribs were somewhat bruised. The innkeeper had a wife of a disposition uncommon among those of the like occupation, for she was naturally charitable, and felt for the misfortunes of her neighbors; so that she immediately prepared to relieve Don Quixote, and made her daughter, a very comely young maiden, assist in the cure of her guest. There was also a servant at the inn, an Asturian wench, broad-faced, flat-headed, with a little nose, one eye squinting, and the other not much better. It is true, the elegance of her form made amends for other defects. She was not seven hands high and her shoulders, which burdened her a little too much, made her look down to the ground more than she would willingly have done. This agreeable lass now assisted the damsel to prepare for Don Quixote a very sorry bed in a garret, which gave evident tokens of having formerly served many years as a hay-loft. In this room lodged also a carrier, whose bed was a little distance from that of our knight; and though it was composed of panels, and other trappings of his mules, it had much the advantage over that of Don Quixote, which consisted of four not very smooth boards upon two unequal trestles, and a mattress no thicker than a quilt, and full of knots, which from their hardness might have been taken for peb

"Not a

In this wretched bed was Don Quixote laid; after which the hostess and her daughter plastered him from head to foot, Maritornes (for so the Asturian wench was called) at the same time holding the light. And as the hostess was thus employed, perceiving Don Quixote to be mauled in every part, she said that his bruises seemed the effect of hard drubbing, rather than of a fall. drubbing," said Sancho, "but the knobs and sharp points of the rock, every one of which has left its mark. And now I think of it," added he, "pray contrive to spare a morsel of that tow, as somebody may find it useful-indeed, I suspect that my sides would be glad of a little of it." "What, you have had a fall too, have you?" said the hostess. "No," replied Sancho, "not a fall, but a fright on seeing my master tumble, which so affected my whole body that I feel as if I had received a thousand blows myself." "That may very well be," said the damsel; "for I have often dreamed that I was falling down from some high tower, and could never come to the ground; and when I have awoke, I have found myself as much bruised and battered as if I had really fallen.' "But here is the point, mistress," answered Sancho Panza," that I, without dreaming at all, and more awake than I am now, find myself with almost as many bruises as my master, Don Quixote." "What do you say is the name of this gentleman?" quoth the Asturian. "Don Quixote de la Mancha," answered Sancho Panza: he is a knight-errant, and one of the best and most valiant that has been seen for this long time in the world." "What is a knight-errant?" said the wench. "Are you such a novice as not to know that?" answered Sancho Panza. "You must know, then, that a knighterrant is a thing that, in two words, is cudgelled and made an emperor: to-day he is the most unfortunate wretch in the world, and to-morrow will have two or three crowns of kingdoms to give to his squire.' "How comes it then to pass that you, being squire to this worthy gentleman," said the hostess, "have not yet, as it seems, got so much as an earldom?

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"It is early days yet," answered Sancho, for it is but a month since we set out in quest of adventures, and hitherto we have met with none that deserve the name. And sometimes we look for one thing and find another. But the truth is, if my master Don Quixote recovers of this wound or fall, and I am not disabled thereby, I would not truck my hopes for the best title in Spain.".

To all this conversation Don Quixote had listened very attentively; and now, raising himself up in the bed as well as he could, and taking the hand of his hostess, he said to her, “Believe me, beauteous lady, you may esteem yourself fortunate in having entertained me in this your castle, being such a person, that, if I say little of myself it is because, as the proverb declares, self-praise depreciates; but my squire will inform you who I am. I only say that I shall retain the service you have done me eternally engraven on my memory, and be grateful to you as long as my life shall endure. And, had it pleased the high heavens that Love had not held me so enthralled and subject to his laws, and to the cycs of that beautiful ingrate, whose name I silently pronounce, those of this lovely virgin had become enslavers of my liberty."

The hostess, her daughter, and the good Maritornes stood confounded at this harangue of our knight-errant, which they understood just as much as if he had spoken Greek, although they guessed that it all tended to compliments and offers of service; and not being accustomed to such kind of language, they gazed at him with surprise, and thought him another sort of man than those now in fashion; and, after thanking him in their inn-like phrase for his offers, they left him. The Asturian Maritornes doctored Sancho, who stood in no less need of plasters than his master. The carrier and she, it appeared, had agreed to sup that night together; and she had given him her word that, when the guests were all quiet and her master and mistress asleep, she would repair to him. And it is said of the honest Maritornes that she never made a promise but she performed it, even though she had made it on a mountain, without any witness; for she valued herself upon her gentility, and thought it no disgrace to be employed in service at an inn, since misfortunes and unhappy accidents, as

she affirmed, had brought her to that state.

Don Quixote's hard, scanty, beggarly, crazy bed, stood first in the middle of the cock-loft; and close by it Sancho had placed his own, which consisted only of a rush mat, and a rug that seemed to be rather of beaten hemp than of wool. Next to the squire's stood that of the carrier, made up, as has been said, of panels, and the whole furniture of two of his best mules; for he possessed twelve in number, sleek, fat, and stately-being one of the richest carriers of Arevalo, according to the author of this history, who makes particular mention of this carrier, for he knew him well: nay, some go so far as to say he was related to him. Besides, Cid Hamet Benengeli was a very minute and very accurate historian in all things; and this is very evident from the circumstances already related, which, though apparently mean and trivial, he would not pass over unnoticed. This may serve as an example to those grave historians who relate facts so briefly and succinctly that we have scarcely a taste of them: omitting, either through neglect, malice, or ignorance, things the most pithy and substantial. A thousand blessings upon the author of Tablante, of Ricamonte, and on him who wrote the exploits of the Count de Tomilas! With what punctuality do they describe everything!

I say, then, that after the carrier had visited his mules, and given them their second course, he laid himself down upon his panels, in expectation of his most punctual Maritornes. Sancho was already plastered and in bed; and, though he endeavored to sleep, the pain of his ribs would not allow him; and Don Quixote, from the same cause, kept his eyes as wide open as those of a hare. The whole inn was in profound silence, and contained no other light than what proceeded from a lamp which hung in the middle of the entry. This marvellous stillness, and the thoughts of our knight, which incessantly recurred to those adventures so common in the annals of chivalry, brought to his imagination one of the strangest whims that can well be conceived; for he imag ined that he was now in some famous castle, and that the daughter of its lord, captivated by his fine appearance, had become enamoured of him, and had promised to steal that night privately to him, and

pass some time with him. Then taking all this chimera formed by himself for reality, he began to feel some alarm, reflecting on the dangerous trial to which his fidelity was on the point of being exposed; but resolved in his heart not to commit disloyalty against his lady Dulcinea del Toboso, though Queen Guinevra herself, with the Lady Quintaniana, should present themselves before him.'

Whilst his thoughts were occupied by these extravagances, the hour-an unlucky one to him-arrived when the gentle Asturian, mindful of her promise, entered the room, and, with silent and cautious step, advanced towards the couch of the carrier. But scarcely had she passed the threshold of the door when Don Quixote heard her; and sitting up in his bed, in spite of plasters and the pain of his ribs, stretched out his arms to receive his beauteous damsel, who, crouching, and holding her breath as she went, with hands extended feeling for her lover, encountered the arms of Don Quixote, who caught first hold of her by the wrist, and drawing her towards him (she not daring to speak a word), made her sit down on the bed. On touching her garment, though it was of canvas, it seemed to him to be of the finest and softest lawn; the glass beads that encircled her wrists to his fancy were precious oriental pearls; her hairs, not unlike those of a horse's mane, he tock for threads of the brightest gold of Arabia, whose splendor obscures that of the sun itself; and though her breath, doubtless, smelt powerfully of the last night's stale salt fish, he fancied himself inhaling a delicious and aromatic odor. In short, his imagination painted her to him in the very form and manner of some princess described in his books, who comes thus adorned to visit the wounded knight with whom she is in love; and so great was the poor gentleman's infatuation, that neither the touch, nor the breath, nor other things she had about her, could undeceive him. So far from this, he imagined he had the goddess of beauty in his arms; and, clasping her fast, in a low and amorous voice he said to her, "Oh, that I were in a state, beautiful and exalted lady, to return so vast a favor as this you confer upon me by your charming presence! but fortune, never weary of persecuting the good, is pleased to lay me on this bed, so bruised and disabled that,

how much soever I may be inclined to convince you of my devotion, it is impossible; to which is added another still greater impossibility-the plighted faith I have sworn to the peerless Dulcinea del Toboso, sole mistress of my most recondite thoughts! Had not these articles intervened, I should not have been so insensible a knight as to let slip the happy opportunity with which your great goodness has favored me."

Maritornes was in the utmost vexation at being thus confined by Don Quixote; and, not hearing or attending to what he said, she struggled, without speaking a word, to release herself. The good carrier, whom busy thoughts had kept awake, having heard his fair one from the first moment she entered the door, listened attentively to all that Don Quixote said; and suspecting that the Asturian nymph had played false with him, he advanced towards Don Quixote's bed, and stood still, in order to discover the tendency of his discourse, which, however, he could not understand; but seeing that she struggled to get from him, and that Don Quixote labored to hold her, and also not liking the jest, he lifted up his arm, and discharged so terrible a blow on the lantern jaws of the enamoured knight, that his mouth was bathed in blood; and, not content with this, he mounted upon his ribs, and paced them somewhat above a trot from one end to the other. The bed, which was crazy, and its foundations none of the strongest, being unable to bear the additional weight of the carrier, came down to the ground with such a crash that the innkeeper awoke; and having called aloud to Maritornes without receiving an answer, he immediately conjectured it was an affair in which she was concerned. With this suspicion he arose, and lighting a candle, went to the place where he had heard the bustle. The Asturian, seeing her master coming, and knowing his furious disposition, retreated in terror to Sancho Panza's bed, who was now asleep, and there rolled herself into a ball.

The innkeeper entered, calling out, "Where are you, Maritornes? for these are some of your doings. Sancho was now disturbed, and feeling such a mass upon him, fancied he had got the nightmare, and began to lay about him on every side; and not a few of his blows

light, but could not find one, for the innkeeper had purposely extinguished the lamp when he retired to his chamber; and therefore he was obliged to have recourse to the chimney, where, after much time and trouble, he lighted another lamp.

light of the host's candle how it fared with her, quitted Don Quixote and ran to her assistance. The landlord followed him, but with a different intention; for it was to chastise the wench, concluding that she was the sole occasion of all this harmony. And so, as the proverb says, the cat to the rat, the rat to the rope, the rope to the post; the carrier belabored Sancho, Sancho Maritornes, Maritornes Sancho, and the innkeeper Maritornes; all redoubling their blows without intermission; and the best of it was, the landlord's candle went out; when, being left in the dark, they indiscriminately thrashed each other, and with so little mercy that every blow left its mark.

It happened that there lodged that night at the inn, an officer belonging to the Holy Brotherhood of Toledo; who, hear ing the strange noise of the scuffle, seized his wand and the tin box which held his commission, and entered the room in the dark, calling out, "Forbear, in the name of justice; forbear, in the name of the Holy Brotherhood." And the first he encountered was the battered Don Quixote, who lay senseless on his demolished bed, stretched his back; and, laying hold upon of his beard as he was groping about, he cried out repeatedly, I charge you to aid and assist me; but finding that the person whom he held was motionless, he concluded that he was dead, and that the people in the room were his murderers. Upon which he raised his voice still louder, crying, "Shut the inn-door, and let none escape, for here is a man murdered! These words startled them all, and the conflict instantly ceased. The landlord withdrew to his chamber, the carrier to his panels, and the lass to her straw: the unfortunate Don Quixote and Sancho alone were incapable of moving. The officer now let go the beard of Don Quixote, and, in order to search after and secure the delinquents, he went out for a

ABLE DISASTERS THAT BEFELL THE BRAVE DON QUIXOTE AND HIS GOOD SQUIRE SANCHO PANZA IN THE INN WHICH HE UNHAPPILY TOOK FOR A CASTLE.

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Yes, I swear, answered

Don Quixote by this time had come to himself, and in the same dolorous tone in which the day before he had called to his squire, when he lay extended in the valley of pack-staves, he now called to him, saying, "Sancho, friend, art thou asleep? art thou asleep, friend Sancho?" "How should I sleep? woe is me!" answered Sancho, full of trouble and vexation; "for I think all the devils in hell have been with me to-night." "Well mayest thou believe so," answered Don Quixote; "for either I know nothing, or this castle is enchanted. Listen to me, Sancho-but what I am now going to disclose thou must swear to keep secret until after my death.' Sancho. "I require this," said Don Quixote, 'because I would not injure_the reputation of any one. "I tell you I do swear," replied Sancho, "and will keep it secret until your worship's death: and Heaven grant I may discover it to-morrow. Have I done thee so much evil, Sancho," answered Don Quixote, "that thou shouldst wish for my decease so very soon?" "It is not for that," answered Sancho; "but I am an enemy to holding things long, and would not have them rot in my keeping.' 'Be it for what it will," said Don Quixote, "I confide in thy love and courtesy, and therefore I inform thee that this night a most extraordinary adventure has befallen me; and, to tell it briefly, thou must know that, a little while since, I was visited by the daughter of the lord of this castle, who is the most accomplished and beautiful damsel to be found over a great part of the habitable earth. How I could describe the graces of her person, the sprightliness of her wit, and the many

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