The Junior Classics, Volume 4: Heroes and heroines of chivalry
General
The Junior Classics, Volume 4: Heroes and heroines of chivalry
Children's literature
So saying he ran into the room, and the rest followed him, and found
Don Quixote in the strangest guise imaginable. He was in his shirt,
which did not reach to his knees. His legs were very long and lean. On
his head he wore a greasy red nightcap which belonged to the inkeeper.
Round his left arm he had folded the blanket from off his bed, at
which Sancho gazed angrily, for he owed that blanket a grudge. In his
right hand he gripped his naked sword, with which he laid round about
him with many a thwack, shouting out as if indeed he was at battle
with some terrible giant. The best sport of all was that his eyes
were not open, for he was indeed asleep, and dreaming that he was
fighting a giant. For his imagination was so full of the adventure in
front of him that he dreamed that he had already arrived at Micomicon,
and was there in combat with his enemy; and he had given so many blows
to the wine-bags, supposing them to be the giant, that the whole
chamber flowed with wine.
When the innkeeper saw this, he flew into such a rage that he set upon
Don Quixote with his clenched fist, and began to pummel him, so that
if Cardenio and the curate had not pulled him off, he would have
finished the battle of the giant altogether. In spite of this, the
poor knight did not awake until the barber got a great kettleful of
cold water from the well, and threw it right over him, when Don
Quixote woke up, but even then did not understand where he was.
As for Sancho, he went up and down the floor, searching for the
giant's head, and seeing he could not find it, said: "Now I know that
everything I see in this house is enchanted, for this head is not to
be seen here, though I myself saw it cut off with my own eyes, and the
blood running from the body as from a fountain."
"What blood or what fountain dost thou cackle of here?" cried the
innkeeper. "Thou thief! dost thou not see that the blood and the
fountain is no other thing but the wine-bags which are ripped open,
and the red wine which swims up and down the room?"
"I know nothing but this," replied Sancho, "that if I cannot find the
giant's head, my earldom will dissolve like salt cast into water." For
indeed Sancho awake was worse than his master asleep, so greatly had
his master's promises turned his brain.
The innkeeper was at his wits' end at seeing the stupidity of the
squire and the mischief done by his master, but he determined that
they should not as before go away without paying; that knighthood
should be no excuse for this, and he would make them pay for the very
patches in the wine-skins that had been ruined.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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