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Updated: June 7, 2025
"Thou art right, Sancho my friend," said Don Quixote, "and Altisidora has behaved very badly in not giving thee the smocks she promised; and although that virtue of thine is gratis data as it has cost thee no study whatever, any more than such study as thy personal sufferings may be I can say for myself that if thou wouldst have payment for the lashes on account of the disenchant of Dulcinea, I would have given it to thee freely ere this.
May I die if the enchanters that persecute me are not trying to entangle me in them and delay my journey, by way of revenge for my obduracy towards Altisidora.
It should be mentioned that Sancho had thrown, by way of a sumpter-cloth, over Dapple and over the bundle of armour, the buckram robe painted with flames which they had put upon him at the duke's castle the night Altisidora came back to life. He had also fixed the mitre on Dapple's head, the oddest transformation and decoration that ever ass in the world underwent.
They did meet him, and sent word to the duke, who, having already settled what was to be done, as soon as he heard of his arrival, ordered the torches and lamps in the court to be lit and Altisidora to be placed on the catafalque with all the pomp and ceremony that has been described, the whole affair being so well arranged and acted that it differed but little from reality.
"Bear in mind, Sancho," said Don Quixote, "that love is influenced by no consideration, recognises no restraints of reason, and is of the same nature as death, that assails alike the lofty palaces of kings and the humble cabins of shepherds; and when it takes entire possession of a heart, the first thing it does is to banish fear and shame from it; and so without shame Altisidora declared her passion, which excited in my mind embarrassment rather than commiseration."
No sooner had Minos the fellow judge of Rhadamanthus said this, than Rhadamanthus rising up said: "Ho, officials of this house, high and low, great and small, make haste hither one and all, and print on Sancho's face four-and-twenty smacks, and give him twelve pinches and six pin thrusts in the back and arms; for upon this ceremony depends the restoration of Altisidora."
When she heard Don Quixote talk in this manner, Altisidora grew very angry with him, and exclaimed: "God's life! Don Stockfish, soul of a mortar, stone of a date, more obstinate and obdurate than a clown asked a favor when he has his mind made up! If I fall upon you I shall tear your eyes out! Do you fancy, then, Don Vanquished, Don Cudgeled, that I died for your sake?
Don Quixote was left with a face as full of holes as a sieve and a nose not in very good condition, and greatly vexed that they did not let him finish the battle he had been so stoutly fighting with that villain of an enchanter. They sent for some oil of John's wort, and Altisidora herself with her own fair hands bandaged all the wounded parts; and as she did so she said to him in a low voice.
Now the Duke and the Duchess entered, and after an animated conversation during which Sancho's amusing sayings as usual captivated his distinguished friends, Don Quixote begged leave to be on his way to his village. They granted him his request, and then they asked him whether he had forgiven Altisidora for having tried to capture his love.
Sancho went along anything but cheerful, for it grieved him that Altisidora had not kept her promise of giving him the smocks; and turning this over in his mind he said to his master, "Surely, senor, I'm the most unlucky doctor in the world; there's many a physician that, after killing the sick man he had to cure, requires to be paid for his work, though it is only signing a bit of a list of medicines, that the apothecary and not he makes up, and, there, his labour is over; but with me though to cure somebody else costs me drops of blood, smacks, pinches, pinproddings, and whippings, nobody gives me a farthing.
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