that melancholy and vexation were bringing him to his end. Don
Quixote desired them to leave him alone, for he would sleep a little;
they did so, and he slept for more than six hours straight off, as
they say, so that the housekeeper and the niece thought that he would
never wake.

At the end of that time he awaked, and, with a loud voice said,
"Blessed be Almighty God, who hath done me so much good. His mercies
are without end, nor are they shortened or hindered by the sins of
men." The niece, hearkening very attentively to these words of her
uncle, and finding more sense in them than there was wont to be in his
talk, at least since he had fallen ill, asked him, "What is that you
say, sir; has anything fresh happened? What mercies are these or what
sins of men?"--"The mercies, niece," answered Don Quixote, "are those
that heaven has this moment vouchsafed to me, which, as I said, my
sins do not prevent. My judgment is now free and clear, and the murky
clouds of ignorance removed, which my painful and continual reading of
those detestable books of knight-errantry cast over me. Now I perceive
their nonsense and deceit, and am only sorry the discovery happens so
late, when I want time to make some amends by reading others that
would enlighten my soul. I find, niece, that I am at the point of
death; and I would meet it in such a manner as to show that my life
has not been so evil as to leave me the character of a madman. Send,
my dear, for my good friends the curate, the bachelor Samson Carrasco,
and Master Nicholas the barber, for I wish to confess and make my
will." But this trouble the niece was saved by the entrance of the
three. Don Quixote had scarcely seen them when he said, "Largess, good
gentlemen, for I am no longer Don Quixote de la Mancha, but Alonso
Quixano, the same whom my behavior gave the surname of Good. I am now
an enemy to Amadis de Gaul and all the endless crowd of his
descendants; all the profane stories of knight-errantry are now
hateful to me. I have a sense of my folly and the danger I have run by
having read them; and now, through heaven's mercy and my own
experience, I abhor them." When the three heard this, they concluded
without doubt some new frenzy had possessed him, and Samson said to
him, "Now, Signor Don Quixote, when we have just had news that the
Lady Dulcinea is disenchanted, do you come out with this? and now we
are upon the point of turning shepherds, to spend our lives singing
like