“Hold!” said he, “for I am badly
wounded through my horse’s fault; carry me to
bed, and if possible send for the wise Urganda to cure
and see to my wounds.”
“See there! plague on it!” cried the housekeeper
at this: “did not my heart tell the truth
as to which foot my master went lame of? To bed
with your worship at once, and we will contrive to
cure you here without fetching that Hurgada.
A curse I say once more, and a hundred times more,
on those books of chivalry that have brought your worship
to such a pass.”
They carried him to bed at once, and after searching
for his wounds could find none, but he said they were
all bruises from having had a severe fall with his
horse Rocinante when in combat with ten giants, the
biggest and the boldest to be found on earth.
“So, so!” said the curate, “are
there giants in the dance? By the sign of the
Cross I will burn them to-morrow before the day over.”
They put a host of questions to Don Quixote, but his
only answer to all was—give him something
to eat, and leave him to sleep, for that was what
he needed most. They did so, and the curate questioned
the peasant at great length as to how he had found
Don Quixote. He told him, and the nonsense he
had talked when found and on the way home, all which
made the licentiate the more eager to do what he did
the next day, which was to summon his friend the barber,
Master Nicholas, and go with him to Don Quixote’s
house.
OF THE DIVERTING AND IMPORTANT SCRUTINY WHICH THE CURATE AND THE BARBER
MADE IN THE LIBRARY OF OUR INGENIOUS GENTLEMAN
He was still sleeping; so the curate asked the niece
for the keys of the room where the books, the authors
of all the mischief, were, and right willingly she
gave them. They all went in, the housekeeper with
them, and found more than a hundred volumes of big
books very well bound, and some other small ones.
The moment the housekeeper saw them she turned about
and ran out of the room, and came back immediately
with a saucer of holy water and a sprinkler, saying,
“Here, your worship, senor licentiate, sprinkle
this room; don’t leave any magician of the many
there are in these books to bewitch us in revenge
for our design of banishing them from the world.”
The simplicity of the housekeeper made the licentiate
laugh, and he directed the barber to give him the
books one by one to see what they were about, as there
might be some to be found among them that did not
deserve the penalty of fire.
“No,” said the niece, “there is
no reason for showing mercy to any of them; they have
every one of them done mischief; better fling them
out of the window into the court and make a pile of
them and set fire to them; or else carry them into
the yard, and there a bonfire can be made without
the smoke giving any annoyance.” The housekeeper
said the same, so eager were they both for the slaughter
of those innocents, but the curate would not agree
to it without first reading at any rate the titles.
