"Hell!" cried Don Quixote. "Call it by no such name, for it does not deserve it."
Then he asked for something to eat, and Sancho put before him an abundance of food, since he said he was very hungry. When he had eaten, he asked them to sit still and listen to his story.
CHAPTER XXIII
Of the Wonderful Things the Incomparable Don Quixote Said He Saw in the Profound Cave of Montesinos, the Impossibility and Magnitude of Which Cause This Adventure to Be Apocryphal
WHEN he was being hoisted down, Don Quixote said, he had suddenly landed on a precipice which led to a cave within the cave, large enough to hold a team of mules and a cart. There, he claimed, he fell asleep, only to wake and find himself in a beautiful field, from where he had gone on a regular sightseeing trip, visiting the most wonderful castles and palaces, and meeting with the most exalted personages. Among these was no other than the enchanted Montesinos himself. He had taken Don Quixote into his own palace, built of crystal and alabaster, and shown him the tomb of his friend Durandarte, who lay there in his enchantment, with his hairy hand over his heart. Don Quixote had asked whether it were indeed true that he, Montesinos, had cut out the heart of his dead friend, as the story had told, and brought it to his Lady Belerma, and Montesinos had nodded in affirmation.
Suddenly they had heard the poor dead knight moan in the most heartrending way, and he had asked Montesinos again and again whether he had done as he had bade him and carried his heart to his Lady Belerma in France. Montesinos had fallen on his knees and had assured his cousin with tearful eyes that as soon as he had died he had cut out his heart with a poniard, dried it with a lace handkerchief as well as he could, and then departed to see his Lady. At the first village he had come to in France, he had stopped to sprinkle some salt on it to keep it fresh, and had given it to the Lady Belerma, who was now also enchanted in this cave.
Don Quixote continued his tale. The enchanter, the sage Merlin, so Montesinos had said, had prophesied that he, Don Quixote, reviver of knight-errantry, was to be the one to disenchant them all. He and Montesinos had almost come to blows, however, when the latter had inferred that during her enchantment the Lady Belerma had developed large circles under her eyes, and that if it had not been for these her beauty would have surpassed even that of the famous Lady Dulcinea of El Toboso. But Montesinos was courteous enough to apologize and acknowledge the truth of the proverb which says that comparisons are odious.
Sancho and the young author of books had some difficulty in persuading themselves that all these things had happened in so short a time, for Don Quixote had only been gone about an hour; but Don Quixote, hearing this, insisted that he had been absent three days and three nights. Then he proceeded to tell how he had felt no hunger whatever, that none down there ever ate, and that the enchanted never slept; he admitted, however, that their nails, hair, and beards grew.
When Sancho heard all this he asked to be forgiven by God for saying he thought his master was lying, but the next moment he had retracted it, and when his master asked what he really meant, he said he did not know.