When kind fortune so ordered it that a ploughman, who lived in the same village, and near his house, happened to pass by, as he came from the mill with a sack of wheat. The fellow seeing a man lie at his full length on the ground, asked him who he was, and why he made such a sad complaint. Don Quixote, whose distempered brain presently represented to him the countryman as the Marquis of Mantua, his imaginary uncle, made him no answer, but went on with the romance. The fellow stared, much amazed to hear a man talk such unaccountable stuff; and taking off the vizor of his helmet, broken all to pieces with blows bestowed upon it by the mule-driver, he wiped off the dust that covered his face, and presently knew the gentleman. "Master Quixada!" cried he (for so he was properly called when he had the right use of his senses, and had not yet from a sober gentleman transformed himself into a wandering knight); "how came you in this condition?" But the other continued his romance, and made no answers to all the questions the countryman put to him, but what followed in course in the book: which the good man perceiving, he took off the battered adventurer's armour as well as he could, and fell a searching for his wounds; but finding no sign of blood, or any other hurt, he endeavoured to set him upon his legs; and at last with a great deal of trouble, he heaved him upon his own ass, as being the more easy and gentle carriage: he also got all the knight's arms together, not leaving behind so much as the splinters of his lance; and having tied them up, and laid them on Rozinante, which he took by the bridle, and his ass by the halter, he led them all towards the village, and trudged on foot himself, while he reflected on the extravagances which he heard Don Quixote utter. Nor was the Don himself less melancholy; for he felt himself so bruised and battered that he could hardly sit on the ass; and now and then he breathed such grievous sighs, as seemed to pierce the very skies, which moved his compassionate neighbour once more to entreat him to declare to him the cause of his grief: so he bethought himself of the Moor Abindaraez, whom Rodrigo de Narvaez, Alcade of Antequera, took and carried prisoner to his castle; so that when the husbandman asked him how he did and what ailed him, he answered word for word as the prisoner Abindaraez replied to Rodrigo de Narvaez, in the Diana of George di Montemayor, where that adventure is related; applying it so properly to his purpose, that the countryman wished himself any where than within the hearing of such strange nonsense; and being now fully convinced that his neighbour's brains were turned, he made all the haste he could to the village, to be rid of him. Don Quixote in the mean time thus went on: "You must know, Don Rodrigo de Narvaez, that this beautiful Xerifa, of whom I gave you an account, is at present the most lovely Dulcinea del Toboso, for whose sake I have done, still do, and will achieve the most famous deeds of chivalry that ever were, are, or ever shall be seen in the universe." "Good sir," replied the husbandman, "I am not Don Rodrigo de Narvaez, nor the Marquis of Mantua, but Pedro Alonzo by name, your worship's neighbour; nor are you Baldwin, nor Abindaraez, but only that worthy gentleman Senior Quixada." "I know very well who I am," answered Don Quixote; "and what's more, I know, that I may not only be the persons I have named, but also the twelve peers of France, nay and the nine worthies all in one; since my achievements will out-rival not only the famous exploits which made any of them singly illustrious, but all their mighty deeds accumulated together."
Thus discoursing, they at last got near their village about sunset; but the countryman stayed at some distance till it was dark, that the distressed gentleman might not be seen so scurvily mounted, and then he led him home to his own house, which he found in great confusion. The curate and the barber of the village, both of them Don Quixote's intimate acquaintances, happened to be there at that juncture, as also the housekeeper, who was arguing with them: "What do you think, pray, good Doctor Perez," said she, (for this was the curate's name) "what do you think of my master's mischance? neither he, nor his horse, nor his target, lance, nor armour, have been seen these six days. What shall I do, wretch that I am? I dare lay my life, and it is as sure as I am a living creature, that those cursed books of errantry, which he used to be always poring upon, have set him beside his senses; for now I remember I have heard him often mutter to himself that he had a mind to turn knight-errant, and ramble up and down the world to find out adventures." His niece added, addressing herself to the barber; "You must know, Mr. Nicholas, that many times my uncle would read you those unconscionable books of disventures for eight-and-forty hours together; then away he would throw his book, and drawing his sword, he would fall a fencing against the walls; and when he had tired himself with cutting and slashing, he would cry he had killed four giants as big as any steeples; and the sweat which he put himself into, he would say was the blood of the wounds he had received in the fight: then would he swallow a huge jug of cold water, and presently he would be as quiet and as well as ever he was in his life; and he said that this same water was a sort of precious drink brought him by the sage Esquife, a great magician and his special friend. Now, it is I who am the cause of all this mischief, for not giving you timely notice of my uncle's raving, that you might have put a stop to it, ere it was too late, and have burnt all these excommunicated books; for there are I do not know how many of them that deserve as much to be burnt as those of the rankest heretics." "I am of your mind," said the curate; "and verily to-morrow shall not pass over before I have fairly brought them to a trial, and condemned them to the flames, that they may not minister occasion to such as would read them, to be perverted after the example of my good friend."
The countryman, who, with Don Quixote, stood without, listening to all this discourse, now perfectly understood the cause of his neighbour's disorder; and, without any more ado, he called out, "Open the gates there, for the Lord Baldwin, and the Lord Marquis of Mantua, who is coming sadly wounded; and for the Moorish Lord Abindaraez, whom the valorous Don Rodrigo de Narvaez, Alcade of Antequera, brings prisoner." At which words they all got out of doors; and the one finding it to be her uncle, and the other to be her master, and the rest their friend, who had not yet alighted from the ass, because indeed he was not able, they all ran to embrace him; to whom Don Quixote: "Forbear," said he, "for I am sorely hurt, by reason that my horse failed me; carry me to bed, and, if it be possible, let the enchantress Urganda be sent for to cure my wounds." "Now," quoth the housekeeper, "see whether I did not guess right, on which foot my master halted!—Come, get to bed, I beseech you; and, my life for yours, we will take care to cure you without sending for that same Urganda. A hearty curse, I say, light upon those books of chivalry that have put you in this pickle!" Whereupon they carried him to his bed, and searched for his wounds, but could find none; and then he told them he was only bruised, having had a dreadful fall from his horse Rozinante while he was fighting ten giants, the most outrageous and audacious upon the face of the earth. "Ho, ho!" cried the curate, "are there giants too in the dance? nay, then, we will have them all burnt by to-morrow night." Then they asked the Don a thousand questions, but to every one he made no other answer, but that they should give him something to eat, and then leave him to his repose. They complied with his desires; and then the curate informed himself at large in what condition the countryman had found him; and having had a full account of every particular, as also of the knight's extravagant talk, both when the fellow found him, and as he brought him home, this increased the curate's desire of effecting what he had resolved to do next morning: at which time he called upon his friend, Mr. Nicholas the barber, and went with him to Don Quixote's house.
CHAPTER VI.
Of the pleasant and curious scrutiny which the Curate and the Barber made of the library of our ingenious gentleman.
The knight was yet asleep, when the curate came, attended by the barber, and desired his niece to let him have the key of the room where her uncle kept his books, the author of his woes: she readily consented; and so in they went, and the housekeeper with them. There they found above an hundred large volumes neatly bound, and a good number of small ones. As soon as the housekeeper had spied them out, she ran out of the study, and returned immediately with a holy-water pot and a sprinkler: "Here, doctor," cried she, "pray sprinkle every cranny and corner in the room, lest there should lurk in it some one of the many sorcerers these books swarm with, who might chance to bewitch us, for the ill-will we bear them, in going about to send them out of the world." The curate could not forbear smiling at the good woman's simplicity; and desired the barber to reach him the books one by one, that he might peruse the title-pages, for perhaps he might find some among them that might not deserve this fate. "Oh, by no means," cried the niece; "spare none of them; they all help, somehow or other, to crack my uncle's brain. I fancy we had best throw them all out at the window in the yard, and lay them together in a heap, and then set them on fire, or else carry them into the back-yard, and there make a pile of them, and burn them, and so the smoke will offend nobody." The housekeeper joined with her, so eagerly bent were both upon the destruction of those poor innocents; but the curate would not condescend to those irregular proceedings, and resolved first to read at least the title-page of every book.
The first that Mr. Nicholas put into his hands was Amadis de Gaul, in four volumes. "There seems to be some mystery in this book's being the first taken down," cried the curate, as soon as he had looked upon it; "for I have heard it is the first book of knight-errantry that ever was printed in Spain, and the model of all the rest; and therefore I am of opinion, that, as the first teacher and author of so pernicious a sect, it ought to be condemned to the fire without mercy." "I beg a reprieve for him," cried the barber; "for I have been told 'tis the best book that has been written in that kind; and therefore, as the only good thing of that sort, it may deserve a pardon." "Well then," replied the curate, "for this time let him have it. Let's see that other, which lies next to him." "These," said the barber, "are the exploits of Esplandian, the son of Amadis de Gaul." "Verily," said the curate, "the father's goodness shall not excuse the want of it in the son. Here, good mistress housekeeper, open that window, and throw it into the yard, and let it serve as a foundation to that pile we are to set a blazing presently." She was not slack in her obedience; and thus poor Don Esplandian was sent headlong into the yard, there patiently to wait the time of punishment.
"To the next," cried the curate. "This," said the barber, "is Amadis of Greece; and I'm of opinion that all those that stand on this side are of the same family." "Then let them all be sent packing into the yard," replied the curate. They were delivered to the housekeeper accordingly, and many they were; and to save herself the labour of carrying them down stairs, she fairly sent them flying out at the window.
"What overgrown piece of lumber have we here?" cried the curate. "Olivante de Laura," returned the barber. "The same author wrote the Garden of Flowers; and, to deal ingeniously with you, I cannot tell which of the two books has most truth in it, or, to speak more properly, less lies: but this I know for certain, that he shall march into the back-yard, like a nonsensical arrogant blockhead as he is."