ng care to ascertain the most direct
road to Barcelona without touching upon Saragossa; so anxious was he to
make out this new historian, who they said abused him so, to be a liar.
Well, as it fell out, nothing worthy of being recorded happened him for
six days, at the end of which, having turned aside out of the road, he
was overtaken by night in a thicket of oak or cork trees; for on this
point Cide Hamete is not as precise as he usually is on other matters.

Master and man dismounted from their beasts, and as soon as they had
settled themselves at the foot of the trees, Sancho, who had had a good
noontide meal that day, let himself, without more ado, pass the gates of
sleep. But Don Quixote, whom his thoughts, far more than hunger, kept
awake, could not close an eye, and roamed in fancy to and fro through all
sorts of places. At one moment it seemed to him that he was in the cave
of Montesinos and saw Dulcinea, transformed into a country wench,
skipping and mounting upon her she-ass; again that the words of the sage
Merlin were sounding in his ears, setting forth the conditions to be
observed and the exertions to be made for the disenchantment of Dulcinea.
He lost all patience when he considered the laziness and want of charity
of his squire Sancho; for to the best of his belief he had only given
himself five lashes, a number paltry and disproportioned to the vast
number required. At this thought he felt such vexation and anger that he
reasoned the matter thus: "If Alexander the Great cut the Gordian knot,
saying, 'To cut comes to the same thing as to untie,' and yet did not
fail to become lord paramount of all Asia, neither more nor less could
happen now in Dulcinea's disenchantment if I scourge Sancho against his
will; for, if it is the condition of the remedy that Sancho shall receive
three thousand and odd lashes, what does it matter to me whether he
inflicts them himself, or some one else inflicts them, when the essential
point is that he receives them, let them come from whatever quarter they
may?"

With this idea he went over to Sancho, having first taken Rocinante's
reins and arranged them so as to be able to flog him with them, and began
to untie the points (the common belief is he had but one in front) by
which his breeches were held up; but the instant he approached him Sancho
woke up in his full senses and cried out, "What is this? Who is touching
me and untrussing me?"

"It is I," said Don Quixote, "an