and hat-band! Well, it
is a true saying, 'Misfortunes never come single.'"

I do not so much mind that loss, replied the Alferez, since I may apply
to myself the old saw, "My father-in-law thought to cheat me by putting
off his squinting daughter upon me; and I myself am blind of an eye."

"I don't know in what respect you can say that?" replied Peralta.

Why, in this respect, that all that lot of chains and gewgaws might be
worth some ten or twelve crowns.

"Impossible!" exclaimed the licentiate; "for that which the Senor
Alferez wore on his neck must have weighed more than two hundred
ducats."

So it would have done, replied the Alferez, if the reality had
corresponded with the appearance; but "All is not gold that glitters,"
and my fine things were only imitations, but so well made that nothing
but the touchstone or the fire could have detected that they were not
genuine.

"So, then, it seems to have been a drawn game between you and the Senora
Dona Estefania," said the licentiate.

So much so that we may shuffle the cards and make a fresh deal. Only the
mischief is, Senor Licentiate, that she may get rid of my mock chains,
but I cannot get rid of the cheat she put upon me; for, in spite of my
teeth, she remains my wife.

"You may thank God, Senor Campuzano," said Peralta, "that your wife has
taken to her heels, and that you are not obliged to go in search of
her."

Very true; but for all that, even without looking for her, I always find
her--in imagination; and wherever I am, my disgrace is always present
before me.

"I know not what answer to make you, except to remind you of these two
verses of Petrarch:--

"'Che qui prende diletto di far frode,
Non s'ha di lamentar s'altro l'inganna.'

That is to say, whoever makes it his practice and his pleasure to
deceive others, has no right to complain when he is himself deceived."

But I don't complain, replied the Alferez; only I pity myself--for the
culprit who knows his fault does not the less feel the pain of his
punishment. I am well aware that I sought to deceive and that I was
deceived, and caught in my own snare; but I cannot command my feelings
so much as not to lament over myself. To come, however, to what more
concerns my history (for I may give that name to the narrative of my
adventures), I learned that Dona Estefania had been taken away by that
cousin whom she brought to our wedding, who had been a lover of hers of
long standing. I h