most essential; but perhaps I shall content
myself with the simple imitation of Amadis, who without giving way to any
mischievous madness but merely to tears and sorrow, gained as much fame
as the most famous."

"It seems to me," said Sancho, "that the knights who behaved in this way
had provocation and cause for those follies and penances; but what cause
has your worship for going mad? What lady has rejected you, or what
evidence have you found to prove that the lady Dulcinea del Toboso has
been trifling with Moor or Christian?"

"There is the point," replied Don Quixote, "and that is the beauty of
this business of mine; no thanks to a knight-errant for going mad when he
has cause; the thing is to turn crazy without any provocation, and let my
lady know, if I do this in the dry, what I would do in the moist;
moreover I have abundant cause in the long separation I have endured from
my lady till death, Dulcinea del Toboso; for as thou didst hear that
shepherd Ambrosio say the other day, in absence all ills are felt and
feared; and so, friend Sancho, waste no time in advising me against so
rare, so happy, and so unheard-of an imitation; mad I am, and mad I must
be until thou returnest with the answer to a letter that I mean to send
by thee to my lady Dulcinea; and if it be such as my constancy deserves,
my insanity and penance will come to an end; and if it be to the opposite
effect, I shall become mad in earnest, and, being so, I shall suffer no
more; thus in whatever way she may answer I shall escape from the
struggle and affliction in which thou wilt leave me, enjoying in my
senses the boon thou bearest me, or as a madman not feeling the evil thou
bringest me. But tell me, Sancho, hast thou got Mambrino's helmet safe?
for I saw thee take it up from the ground when that ungrateful wretch
tried to break it in pieces but could not, by which the fineness of its
temper may be seen."

To which Sancho made answer, "By the living God, Sir Knight of the Rueful
Countenance, I cannot endure or bear with patience some of the things
that your worship says; and from them I begin to suspect that all you
tell me about chivalry, and winning kingdoms and empires, and giving
islands, and bestowing other rewards and dignities after the custom of
knights-errant, must be all made up of wind and lies, and all pigments or
figments, or whatever we may call them; for what would anyone think that
heard your worship calling a barber's basin Mam