y to his lady Dulcinea; for he had
always present to his mind the virtue of Amadis, that flower and mirror
of knights-errant. He locked the door behind him, and by the light of two
wax candles undressed himself, but as he was taking off his stockings--O
disaster unworthy of such a personage!--there came a burst, not of sighs,
or anything belying his delicacy or good breeding, but of some two dozen
stitches in one of his stockings, that made it look like a
window-lattice. The worthy gentleman was beyond measure distressed, and
at that moment he would have given an ounce of silver to have had half a
drachm of green silk there; I say green silk, because the stockings were
green.

Here Cide Hamete exclaimed as he was writing, "O poverty, poverty! I know
not what could have possessed the great Cordovan poet to call thee 'holy
gift ungratefully received.' Although a Moor, I know well enough from the
intercourse I have had with Christians that holiness consists in charity,
humility, faith, obedience, and poverty; but for all that, I say he must
have a great deal of godliness who can find any satisfaction in being
poor; unless, indeed, it be the kind of poverty one of their greatest
saints refers to, saying, 'possess all things as though ye possessed them
not;' which is what they call poverty in spirit. But thou, that other
poverty--for it is of thee I am speaking now--why dost thou love to fall
out with gentlemen and men of good birth more than with other people? Why
dost thou compel them to smear the cracks in their shoes, and to have the
buttons of their coats, one silk, another hair, and another glass? Why
must their ruffs be always crinkled like endive leaves, and not crimped
with a crimping iron?" (From this we may perceive the antiquity of starch
and crimped ruffs.) Then he goes on: "Poor gentleman of good family!
always cockering up his honour, dining miserably and in secret, and
making a hypocrite of the toothpick with which he sallies out into the
street after eating nothing to oblige him to use it! Poor fellow, I say,
with his nervous honour, fancying they perceive a league off the patch on
his shoe, the sweat-stains on his hat, the shabbiness of his cloak, and
the hunger of his stomach!"

All this was brought home to Don Quixote by the bursting of his stitches;
however, he comforted himself on perceiving that Sancho had left behind a
pair of travelling boots, which he resolved to wear the next day. At last
he went