Don Quixote turned the page and said, "This is prose and seems to be a
letter."
"A correspondence letter, senor?"
"From the beginning it seems to be a love letter," replied Don Quixote.
"Then let your worship read it aloud," said Sancho, "for I am very fond
of love matters."
"With all my heart," said Don Quixote, and reading it aloud as Sancho had
requested him, he found it ran thus:
Thy false promise and my sure misfortune carry me to a place whence the
news of my death will reach thy ears before the words of my complaint.
Ungrateful one, thou hast rejected me for one more wealthy, but not more
worthy; but if virtue were esteemed wealth I should neither envy the
fortunes of others nor weep for misfortunes of my own. What thy beauty
raised up thy deeds have laid low; by it I believed thee to be an angel,
by them I know thou art a woman. Peace be with thee who hast sent war to
me, and Heaven grant that the deceit of thy husband be ever hidden from
thee, so that thou repent not of what thou hast done, and I reap not a
revenge I would not have.
When he had finished the letter, Don Quixote said, "There is less to be
gathered from this than from the verses, except that he who wrote it is
some rejected lover;" and turning over nearly all the pages of the book
he found more verses and letters, some of which he could read, while
others he could not; but they were all made up of complaints, laments,
misgivings, desires and aversions, favours and rejections, some
rapturous, some doleful. While Don Quixote examined the book, Sancho
examined the valise, not leaving a corner in the whole of it or in the
pad that he did not search, peer into, and explore, or seam that he did
not rip, or tuft of wool that he did not pick to pieces, lest anything
should escape for want of care and pains; so keen was the covetousness
excited in him by the discovery of the crowns, which amounted to near a
hundred; and though he found no more booty, he held the blanket flights,
balsam vomits, stake benedictions, carriers' fisticuffs, missing
alforjas, stolen coat, and all the hunger, thirst, and weariness he had
endured in the service of his good master, cheap at the price; as he
considered himself more than fully indemnified for all by the payment he
received in the gift of the treasure-trove.
The Knight of the Rueful Countenance was still very anxious to find out
who the owner of the valise could be, conjecturing from the sonnet and
letter, from the money in gold, and from the fineness of the shirts, that
he must be some lover of distinction whom the scorn and cruelty of his
lady had driven to some desperate course; but as in that uninhabited and
rugged spot there was no one to be seen of whom he could inquire, he saw
nothing else for it but to push on, taking whatever road Rocinante
chose--which was where he could make his way--firmly persuaded that among
these wilds he could not fail to meet some rare adventure. As he went
along, then, occupied with these thoughts, he perceived on the summit of
a height that rose before their eyes a man who went springing from rock
to rock and from tussock to tussock with marvellous agility. As well as
he could make out he was unclad, with a thick black beard, long tangled
hair, and bare legs and feet, his thighs were covered by breeches
apparently of tawny velvet but so ragged that they showed his skin in
several places.