FORTUNE
FORTUNE
CHAPTER I
OF MY JOURNEY TO THE PLAIN
As I left the place of my birth and long abiding and took the road to that far country where I thought my fortune lay, the sun already had a countenance. It was shining on the chestnut trees; on the tall white walls of the house of justice at the corner of the square; on the worthy priest who was sprinkling holy water on the steps of the monastery of the Bleeding Heart to suppress the dust, to keep away the flies, and to consecrate the building; and especially on the only bailiff that our town could boast, whose salary fluctuated with the thieves he captured. He, honest fellow, had driven so poor a trade of late that he crept along in his winter coat, seeking the shade of trees and houses.
Even at this time some portion of philosophy had gone to the increase of my mind, a habit which sprang, I think, from my mother’s family—her brother Nicolas was a clerk of Salamanca and wore a purple gown. So when it fell to consider two such matters as the dearth of rogues and the sun’s majestic clemency it found a pleasant argument. I had yet to adventure half a league into the world, but unless my eyes were false, the place I had vowed to win was fair and full of virtue. Having such thoughts I rejoiced exceedingly. Thus I checked my horse a moment and, lifting up my eyes to heaven, was fain to salute the morning.
However, as I made to pursue my way, glowing with the generosity of my youth, my gaze was diverted by a thing of pity. It was an old poor woman sitting beside a door. She was thin and feeble. Her cheeks were hollow, there was no lustre in her glance, her mouth had not a tooth; but her face was such that I felt unable to pass her by. My father had an adage pertinent to her case. “Be kind to the poor,” said the first of mankind, “and if you are not the happiest man in Spain, it is a conspiracy of Fortune’s.”
As I approached this aged creature I saw she had an eye which seemed to ask an alms yet did disdain it; and this war of pride and necessity in a poor beggar woman, halt and lean, led me to consider that she was not of the common sort, but had had a birth perhaps, and upon a day had known the cushions of prosperity. And this fancy moved my heart indeed, for in my view there is no more pitiful sight in nature than a blood Arab so broken in his wind and circumstances as to be condemned to base employments. There were only ten crowns in my purse, but its strings were untied before I could consider of my private need. Bowing to her as solemnly as if she had been the daughter of a marquis—and who shall say that she was not?—I begged her to accept a tenth part of my inheritance.
She received this invitation with those shy eyes that so much enhance her sex; while such confusion overcame the gentle soul that a minute passed before her faltering hand could draw a coin from the bag I held before her.
I went on my way with no more than nine crowns in my possession. Now, it is no light thing, believe me, reader, for a youth of one-and-twenty to adventure into an unknown country, upon a quest of fortune on a mountain horse, in the company of a sword of an ancient pattern, a leather jerkin laced with steel, a hat without a feather, and the sum of nine crowns, neither more nor less, for the whole of his estate.
I had set the nose of Babieca in the direction of the south. At first my way was taken through a pleasant country of great hills, that had cork trees on their slopes. Here and there little rivers ran in and out; sparkling in the morning sun; shining on the side of some tall mountain; circling round the foot of some grave precipice. But as the morning passed, and as hour by hour I went farther from my native hills, the nature of the land was changed. The cool woods and streams, the rich green pastures, and the fine tall hills with their garlands of dark forests yielded to a barren plain, to which, alas! there appeared to be no end. It was bare and arid, and strewn in many places with sharp rocks. There was not a tree, not a stream of water; and such horrid quantities of sand consumed it that it became at last a desert whose life was sterile. A few barren shrubs were the only things that grew there; and, as I was soon to learn, an infinite degree of misery.