Don Quixote (295 of 454)

295 —of — 454 Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes A Message from DailyLit Buy this book--or others--from Amazon and help support DailyLit SHARING We encourage sharing--forward to a friend! CHAPTER XXIII: OF THE WONDERFUL THINGS THE INCOMPARABLE DON QUIXOTE SAID HE SAW IN THE PROFOUND CAVE OF MONTESINOS, THE IMPOSSIBILITY AND MAGNITUDE OF WHICH CAUSE THIS ADVENTURE TO BE DEEMED APOCRYPHAL. (CONT'D) "My master must be right," replied Sancho; "for as everything that has happened to him is by enchantment, maybe what seems to us an hour would seem three days and nights there." "That's it," said Don Quixote. "And did your worship eat anything all that time, senor?" asked the cousin. "I never touched a morsel," answered Don Quixote, "nor did I feel hunger, or think of it." "And do the enchanted eat?" said the cousin. "They neither eat," said Don Quixote; "nor are they subject to the greater excrements, though it is thought that their nails, beards, and hair grow." "And do the enchanted sleep, now, senor?" asked Sancho. "Certainly not," replied Don Quixote; "at least, during those three days I was with them not one of them closed an eye, nor did I either." "The proverb, 'Tell me what company thou keepest and I'll tell thee what thou art,' is to the point here," said Sancho; "your worship keeps company with enchanted people that are always fasting and watching; what wonder is it, then, that you neither eat nor sleep while you are with them? But forgive me, senor, if I say that of all this you have told us now, may God take me--I was just going to say the devil--if I believe a single particle." "What!" said the cousin, "has Senor Don Quixote, then, been lying? Why, even if he wished it he has not had time to imagine and put together such a host of lies." "I don't believe my master lies," said Sancho. "If not, what dost thou believe?" asked Don Quixote. "I believe," replied Sancho, "that this Merlin, or those enchanters who enchanted the whole crew your worship says you saw and discoursed with down there, stuffed your imagination or your mind with all this rigmarole you have been treating us to, and all that is still to come." "All that might be, Sancho," replied Don Quixote; "but it is not so, for everything that I have told you I saw with my own eyes, and touched with my own hands. But what will you say when I tell you now how, among the countless other marvellous things Montesinos showed me (of which at leisure and at the proper time I will give thee an account in the course of our journey, for they would not be all in place here), he showed me three country girls who went skipping and capering like goats over the pleasant fields there, and the instant I beheld them I knew one to be the peerless Dulcinea del Toboso, and the other two those same country girls that were with her and that we spoke to on the road from El Toboso! I asked Montesinos if he knew them, and he told me he did not, but he thought they must be some enchanted ladies of distinction, for it was only a few days before that they had made their appearance in those meadows; but I was not to be surprised at that, because there were a great many other ladies there of times past and present, enchanted in various strange shapes, and among them he had recognised Queen Guinevere and her dame Quintanona, she who poured out the wine for Lancelot when he came from Britain." A Message from DailyLit Buy this book--or others--from Amazon and help support DailyLit Message from DailyLit Share the DailyLit experience. Click here to invite friends to read with you. Want more? Get the next installment right now. Ideas or questions? Discuss in our forums Need a break? Suspend delivery of this book. Want to adjust your reading schedule or make other changes? Manage all your settings.