Don Quixote by Miguel Cervantes

Author:Miguel Cervantes
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster

IV

In which Sancho Panza satisfies the doubts, and answers the questions of the bachelor Sansón Carrasco; with other incidents worthy to be recited and known.

SANCHO RETURNING TO his master’s house, resumed the former conversation, to gratify Mr. Sansón, who said he wanted to know, when, in what manner, and by whom his ass had been stolen: “You must know, then, said he, that very night we fled from the Holy Brotherhood, and got into the Sierra Morena, after the misventuresome adventure of the galley-slaves, and the corpse that was carrying to Segovia, we took up our quarters in a thicket, where my master and I, being both fatigued, and sorely bruised in the frays we had just finished, went to rest, he leaning upon his lance, and I lolling upon Dapple, as if we had been stretched upon four feather-beds: I, in particular, slept so sound, that the thief, whosoever he was, had an opportunity of coming and propping me up with four stakes, fixed under the corner of my pannel, on which I was left astride; so that he slipt Dapple from under me, without my perceiving it in the least.” “And this no difficult matter, nor new device, said Don Quixote; for, the same thing happened to Sacripante, at the siege of Albraca, where, by this contrivance, his horse was stolen from between his legs, by the famous robber Brunelo.” “When morning came, proceeded Sancho, I no sooner began to stretch myself, than the stakes gave way, and down I came to the ground, with a vengeance: I looked for my beast, and finding he was gone, the tears gushed from my eyes, and I set up a lamentation, which, if the author of our history has not set down, you may depend upon it, he hath neglected a very excellent circumstance: a good many days after this mischance, as I chanced to be travelling with my lady the princess Micomicona, descrying a person riding towards me, in the habit of a gypsy, I immediately knew my own ass, and discovered the rider to be Ginés de Pasamonte, that impostor and notorious malefactor, whom my master and I delivered from the galley-chain.”

“The error lies not in that part of the history, replied the bachelor, but, consists in the author’s saying that Sancho rode on the same ass, before it appears, that he had retrieved him.” “As to that affair, said the squire, I can give you no satisfactory answer, perhaps, it was an oversight in the historian, or owing to the carelessness of the printer.” “Doubtless it was so, replied Sansón, but, what became of these hundred crowns? were they laid up, or laid out?” “I laid them out, answered Sancho, in necessaries for my own person, my wife and children; and those crowns were the cause of my gossip’s bearing patiently, my ramblings and rovings in the service of my lord and master Don Quixote; for, if after such a long absence, I had come home without my ass, and never a cross in my pocket, I might have expected a welcome the wrong way.

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