it and eager to take it. At other times, so they tell
me when they find me in a rational mood, I sally out upon the road, and
though they would gladly give it me, I snatch food by force from the
shepherds bringing it from the village to their huts. Thus do pass the
wretched life that remains to me, until it be Heaven's will to bring it
to a close, or so to order my memory that I no longer recollect the
beauty and treachery of Luscinda, or the wrong done me by Don Fernando;
for if it will do this without depriving me of life, I will turn my
thoughts into some better channel; if not, I can only implore it to have
full mercy on my soul, for in myself I feel no power or strength to
release my body from this strait in which I have of my own accord chosen
to place it.

"Such, sirs, is the dismal story of my misfortune: say if it be one that
can be told with less emotion than you have seen in me; and do not
trouble yourselves with urging or pressing upon me what reason suggests
as likely to serve for my relief, for it will avail 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