agreed.  Who knows but behind some bush we may find the Lady Donna Dulcinea disenchanted, as fine a sight as there is to be seen?  If it is that you will die of vexation at being conquered, lay the blame upon me, and say that through my not girting Rozinante well, they overthrew him.  Especially as you will have seen in your books of chivalry that it is a common thing for one knight to overthrow another, and for him who is conquered to-day to be conqueror to-morrow.”—­“It is so,” said Samson, “and honest Sancho is very much to the point in these matters.”—­“Soft and fair, gentlemen,” said Don Quixote; “never look for birds of this year in the nests of the last:  I was mad, and now I am in my senses; I was Don Quixote de la Mancha, and I am now (as I said before) Alonso Quixano the Good; may my repentance and my truth restore me to the same esteem you had for me before; and so let master scrivener go on.

“Item, I bequeath all my estate without reserve to Antonia Quixana, my niece here present, having first deducted from such of it as is best in condition what shall be necessary to discharge the bequests that I have made; and the first payment that she makes I desire to be that of the salary due to my housekeeper, for the time that she has served me, with twenty ducats more for a dress.  I appoint Master Curate and Master Bachelor Samson Carrasco, here present, to be my executors.

“Item, it is my will that if my niece Antonia Quixana be inclined to marry, she marry a man of whom she shall first have evidence that he does not know what books of chivalry are; and in case it shall appear that he does know, and nevertheless my niece shall wish to marry him and does so marry, she is to forfeit all that I have bequeathed to her, which my executors are empowered to dispose of in pious works, as they shall think proper.

“Item, I entreat the said gentlemen, my executors, that if by good fortune they come to know the author who is said to have composed a story which goes by the title of “The Second Part of the Achievements of Don Quixote de la Mancha,” they most heartily beg his pardon from me, for being undesignedly the occasion of his writing so many and such great follies as he has written in it; for I quit this life with regret for having given him a motive for writing them.”

Herewith finished the will, and, falling into a swoon, he lay at full length in the bed.  They were all alarmed, and ran to his assistance; and for the space of three days that he lived after he had made his will he fainted continually.

The whole family was in confusion; and yet, for all that, the niece ate, the housekeeper drank, and Sancho Panza cheered himself; for this matter of inheriting somewhat effaces or alleviates in the inheritor the thought of sorrow that it is natural for a dead man to leave behind.