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And then, turning to the housekeeper, he said, "Mistress housekeeper may just as well give over saying the prayer of Santa Apollonia, for I know it is the positive determination of the spheres that Senor Don Quixote shall proceed to put into execution his new and lofty designs; and I should lay a heavy burden on my conscience did I not urge and persuade this knight not to keep the might of his strong arm and the virtue of his valiant spirit any longer curbed and checked, for by his inactivity he is defrauding the world of the redress of wrongs, of the protection of orphans, of the honour of virgins, of the aid of widows, and of the support of wives, and other matters of this kind appertaining, belonging, proper and peculiar to the order of knight-errantry.
"Certainly, these cannot be books of knight-errantry, they are too small; you'll find they are only poets," the supplication of the niece that the singers should not be spared, lest her uncle, when cured of his knight-errantry, should read them, become a shepherd, and wander through forests and fields, "nay, and what is more to be dreaded, turn poet, which is said to be a disease absolutely incurable."
Don Quixote was sad because he had been forced to give up the glories of knight-errantry and chivalry; Sancho because Altisidora had not kept her word when she promised to give him the smocks.
This scheme being defeated by their parents, they sought to be hermits in the garden which belonged to their house, playing the part of monks and nuns. At eleven, Theresa lost her mother, and took to reading romances, which, it seems, were books of knight-errantry, at the close of the chivalric period.
This I say, Sancho, that thou attribute not the favour thou hast received to thine own merits, but give thanks to heaven that disposes matters beneficently, and secondly thanks to the great power the profession of knight-errantry contains in itself.
"Captain Crowe," said he, "you are then determined to proceed in the course of knight-errantry?"
Now I believe the first quarrel arose from the absurdist thing possible, as your father says; but Roland was exceedingly touchy on all things connected with his ancestors. He was always poring over the old pedigree, or wandering amongst the ruins, or reading books of knight-errantry.
"Senor," replied Sancho, "if the truth is to be told, I cannot persuade myself that the whipping of my backside has anything to do with the disenchantment of the enchanted; it is like saying, 'If your head aches rub ointment on your knees; at any rate I'll make bold to swear that in all the histories dealing with knight-errantry that your worship has read you have never come across anybody disenchanted by whipping; but whether or no I'll whip myself when I have a fancy for it, and the opportunity serves for scourging myself comfortably."
Don Quixote listened with the greatest attention to the canon's words, and when he found he had finished, after regarding him for some time, he replied to him: "It appears to me, gentle sir, that your worship's discourse is intended to persuade me that there never were any knights-errant in the world, and that all the books of chivalry are false, lying, mischievous and useless to the State, and that I have done wrong in reading them, and worse in believing them, and still worse in imitating them, when I undertook to follow the arduous calling of knight-errantry which they set forth; for you deny that there ever were Amadises of Gaul or of Greece, or any other of the knights of whom the books are full."
Truly there was no more for me to say. I dared not let him believe that his movements were either watched or under the slightest shadow of restraint. I knew it was useless to urge on him the desirability of inaction until the army moved. Be might perhaps have understood me and listened to me, were the warfare he was now engaged in only the red knight-errantry of an Indian seeking glory.
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