'I know that I do a thousand mad things, but without Lucinda I shall never recover my reason, and I feel certain that my misery can only be ended by death.'
THE DISCOVERY OF DOROTHEA
CHAPTER XIX
The Story of Dorothea, who loved Don Fernando
As soon as Cardenio had finished his melancholy story, the Curate was about to offer him some consolation, when he was stopped by hearing a mournful voice calling out: 'Oh that I could find an end to this life of misery! Alas, how much more agreeable to me is the company of these rocks and thickets than the society of faithless man! Would that I had any one to advise me in difficulty, to comfort me in distress, or to avenge my wrongs!'
This was overheard by the Curate and all who were with him, and thinking that the person who spoke must be hard by, they went to search, and had not gone twenty paces when they saw behind a large rock a boy sitting under an ash-tree. He wore a peasant's dress, but as he was bending down to wash his feet in the brook, his head was turned from them. They approached softly and without speaking, while his whole attention was employed in bathing his legs in the stream. They wondered at the whiteness and beauty of his feet, that did not seem formed to tread the furrows, or follow the cattle or the plough, as his dress seemed to suggest. The Curate, who was ahead of the rest, made signs to them to crouch down, or hide themselves behind a rock. This done, they all gazed at the beautiful youth, who was clad in a grey jacket, and wore breeches and hose of the same cloth, with a grey hunting-cap on his head. Having washed his delicate feet, he wiped them with a handkerchief which he took out of his cap, and in doing so he raised his head, showing to those who were looking at him a face of such exquisite beauty that Cardenio murmured: 'Since this is not Lucinda, it can be no earthly but some celestial being.'
The youth took off his cap, and, shaking his head, a wealth of hair, that Apollo might have envied, fell down upon his shoulders, and discovered to them all that the peasant was not only a woman, but one of the most delicate and handsome women they had ever seen. Even Cardenio had to admit to himself that only Lucinda could rival her in beauty. Her golden locks fell down in such length and quantity that they not only covered her shoulders, but concealed everything except her feet, and the bystanders more than ever desired to know who this mysterious beauty might be. Some one advanced, and at the noise the beauteous phantasy raised her head, and thrust aside her locks with both hands, to see what it was that had startled her. No sooner did she perceive them than she started up, and, without staying to put on her shoes or tie up her hair, seized her bundle, and took to flight full of alarm, but she had not run six yards when her delicate feet, unable to bear the roughness of the stones, failed her, and she fell to the ground.
They all ran to her assistance, and the Curate, who was first, said: 'Stay, Madam, whosoever you are; those you see here have no desire to harm you, and there is therefore no necessity whatever for flight.'