ail me as much as the
medicine prescribed by a wise physician avails the sick man who will not
take it. I have no wish for health without Luscinda; and since it is her
pleasure to be another's, when she is or should be mine, let it be mine
to be a prey to misery when I might have enjoyed happiness. She by her
fickleness strove to make my ruin irretrievable; I will strive to gratify
her wishes by seeking destruction; and it will show generations to come
that I alone was deprived of that of which all others in misfortune have
a superabundance, for to them the impossibility of being consoled is
itself a consolation, while to me it is the cause of greater sorrows and
sufferings, for I think that even in death there will not be an end of
them."

Here Cardenio brought to a close his long discourse and story, as full of
misfortune as it was of love; but just as the curate was going to address
some words of comfort to him, he was stopped by a voice that reached his
ear, saying in melancholy tones what will be told in the Fourth Part of
this narrative; for at this point the sage and sagacious historian, Cide
Hamete Benengeli, brought the Third to a conclusion.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

WHICH TREATS OF THE STRANGE AND DELIGHTFUL ADVENTURE THAT BEFELL THE
CURATE AND THE BARBER IN THE SAME SIERRA

Happy and fortunate were the times when that most daring knight Don
Quixote of La Mancha was sent into the world; for by reason of his having
formed a resolution so honourable as that of seeking to revive and
restore to the world the long-lost and almost defunct order of
knight-errantry, we now enjoy in this age of ours, so poor in light
entertainment, not only the charm of his veracious history, but also of
the tales and episodes contained in it which are, in a measure, no less
pleasing, ingenious, and truthful, than the history itself; which,
resuming its thread, carded, spun, and wound, relates that just as the
curate was going to offer consolation to Cardenio, he was interrupted by
a voice that fell upon his ear saying in plaintive tones:

"O God! is it possible I have found a place that may serve as a secret
grave for the weary load of this body that I support so unwillingly? If
the solitude these mountains promise deceives me not, it is so; ah! woe
is me! how much more grateful to my mind will be the society of these
rocks and brakes that permit me to complain of my misfortune to Heaven,
than that of any human being, for there