ADVENTURE, THAT HAPPENED DON QUIXOTE


A clear limpid spring which they discovered in a cool grove relieved Don
Quixote and Sancho of the dust and fatigue due to the unpolite behaviour
of the bulls, and by the side of this, having turned Dapple and Rocinante
loose without headstall or bridle, the forlorn pair, master and man,
seated themselves. Sancho had recourse to the larder of his alforjas and
took out of them what he called the prog; Don Quixote rinsed his mouth
and bathed his face, by which cooling process his flagging energies were
revived. Out of pure vexation he remained without eating, and out of pure
politeness Sancho did not venture to touch a morsel of what was before
him, but waited for his master to act as taster. Seeing, however, that,
absorbed in thought, he was forgetting to carry the bread to his mouth,
he said never a word, and trampling every sort of good breeding under
foot, began to stow away in his paunch the bread and cheese that came to
his hand.

"Eat, Sancho my friend," said Don Quixote; "support life, which is of
more consequence to thee than to me, and leave me to die under the pain
of my thoughts and pressure of my misfortunes. I was born, Sancho, to
live dying, and thou to die eating; and to prove the truth of what I say,
look at me, printed in histories, famed in arms, courteous in behaviour,
honoured by princes, courted by maidens; and after all, when I looked
forward to palms, triumphs, and crowns, won and earned by my valiant
deeds, I have this morning seen myself trampled on, kicked, and crushed
by the feet of unclean and filthy animals. This thought blunts my teeth,
paralyses my jaws, cramps my hands, and robs me of all appetite for food;
so much so that I have a mind to let myself die of hunger, the cruelest
death of all deaths."