I told a servant to fetch Babieca, and when he had brought him to me he looked upon me askance because I did not vail him for the deed. I rode forth of the gates with the sun shining in the blue with fierce magnificence, and pointed my unprosperous course towards the city of Toledo. As these latitudes were much farther to the south than any I had been in before, I found the sun was even more against me than on the ill-starred day I had started from my home. Thus in great dejection of mind and body, I returned across the bridge of Alcantara, and in my heart’s extremity cast a final glance at that noble and deluding house, seated imperial on its promontory, beyond the yellow stretches of the fields. It could hardly have been more fair to the eye than formerly, yet now, because my fortunes looked another way and I had met rejection, and this beautiful castle had been placed beyond my ken, it seemed to take, even as I gazed, a thousand fresh glamours from the sun, and grew so gorgeous and desirable as to mock me with each of its gay turrets and pinnacles. Overcome by the bitterness of my reflections, I checked my horse as he picked his way delicately down the steep winding path, and turning about, stood up in the saddle to confront that haughty palace that offered me disdain. Raising my right arm, I cried, “Proud castle, mock me if you please, but the hour shall dawn when you shall honour Miguel Jesus Maria de Sarda y Boegas!” Doubtless these words were vain, yet there was that in my heart that seemed to give them warrant; and whether they made good the right to be uttered will be made clear in the process of this history. Upon coming into the town and reaching the Chapel of the Consummation, I found a shady prospect beneath its walls. Tying Babieca to a railing, I sat down to meditate upon the course of my affairs. It was clear that I had much to learn before I might move with security into the world. Sir Richard Pendragon, barbarous foreigner as he was, had taught me already that we must learn to decipher the human character and its manifold complexities ere the smiles of Fortune can requite those who crave them. But at least, thought I, as I sought consolation of my father’s never-failing wisdom, this is a vicarious world, in which our material state is nothing, and of all things only an honest mind is virtuous.