foot of the tower; and the best of her
is that she is not a bit prudish, for she has plenty of affability, and
jokes with everybody, and has a grin and a jest for everything. So, Sir
Knight of the Rueful Countenance, I say you not only may and ought to do
mad freaks for her sake, but you have a good right to give way to despair
and hang yourself; and no one who knows of it but will say you did well,
though the devil should take you; and I wish I were on my road already,
simply to see her, for it is many a day since I saw her, and she must be
altered by this time, for going about the fields always, and the sun and
the air spoil women's looks greatly. But I must own the truth to your
worship, Senor Don Quixote; until now I have been under a great mistake,
for I believed truly and honestly that the lady Dulcinea must be some
princess your worship was in love with, or some person great enough to
deserve the rich presents you have sent her, such as the Biscayan and the
galley slaves, and many more no doubt, for your worship must have won
many victories in the time when I was not yet your squire. But all things
considered, what good can it do the lady Aldonza Lorenzo, I mean the lady
Dulcinea del Toboso, to have the vanquished your worship sends or will
send coming to her and going down on their knees before her? Because may
be when they came she'd be hackling flax or threshing on the threshing
floor, and they'd be ashamed to see her, and she'd laugh, or resent the
present."

"I have before now told thee many times, Sancho," said Don Quixote, "that
thou art a mighty great chatterer, and that with a blunt wit thou art
always striving at sharpness; but to show thee what a fool thou art and
how rational I am, I would have thee listen to a short story. Thou must
know that a certain widow, fair, young, independent, and rich, and above
all free and easy, fell in love with a sturdy strapping young
lay-brother; his superior came to know of it, and one day said to the
worthy widow by way of brotherly remonstrance, 'I am surprised, senora,
and not without good reason, that a woman of such high standing, so fair,
and so rich as you are, should have fallen in love with such a mean, low,
stupid fellow as So-and-so, when in this house there are so many masters,
graduates, and divinity students from among whom you might choose as if
they were a lot of pears, saying this one I'll take, that I won't take;'
but she replied to him with great spr