Sancho had made his appearance in the middle of this conversation, and he was very much troubled and cast down by what he heard said about knights-errant being now no longer in vogue, and all books of chivalry being folly and lies; and he resolved in his heart to wait and see what came of this journey of his master’s, and if it did not turn out as happily as his master expected, he determined to leave him and go back to his wife and children and his ordinary labour.
The landlord was carrying away the valise and the books, but the curate said to him, “Wait; I want to see what those papers are that are written in such a good hand.” The landlord taking them out handed them to him to read, and he perceived they were a work of about eight sheets of manuscript, with, in large letters at the beginning, the title of “Novel of the Ill-advised Curiosity.” The curate read three or four lines to himself, and said, “I must say the title of this novel does not seem to me a bad one, and I feel an inclination to read it all.” To which the landlord replied, “Then your reverence will do well to read it, for I can tell you that some guests who have read it here have been much pleased with it, and have begged it of me very earnestly; but I would not give it, meaning to return it to the person who forgot the valise, books, and papers here, for maybe he will return here some time or other; and though I know I shall miss the books, faith I mean to return them; for though I am an innkeeper, still I am a Christian.”
“You are very right, friend,” said the curate; “but for all that, if the novel pleases me you must let me copy it.”
“With all my heart,” replied the host.
While they were talking Cardenio had taken up the novel and begun to read it, and forming the same opinion of it as the curate, he begged him to read it so that they might all hear it.
“I would read it,” said the curate, “if the time would not be better spent in sleeping.”
“It will be rest enough for me,” said Dorothea, “to while away the time by listening to some tale, for my spirits are not yet tranquil enough to let me sleep when it would be seasonable.”
“Well then, in that case,” said the curate, “I will read it, if it were only out of curiosity; perhaps it may contain something pleasant.”
Master Nicholas added his entreaties to the same effect, and Sancho too; seeing which, and considering that he would give pleasure to all, and receive it himself, the curate said, “Well then, attend to me everyone, for the novel begins thus.”
