To which Sancho made answer, "By the living God, Sir Knight of the Rueful

Countenance, I cannot endure or bear with patience some of the things

that your worship says; and from them I begin to suspect that all you

tell me about chivalry, and winning kingdoms and empires, and giving

islands, and bestowing other rewards and dignities after the custom of

knights-errant, must be all made up of wind and lies, and all pigments or

figments, or whatever we may call them; for what would anyone think that

heard your worship calling a barber's basin Mambrino's helmet without

ever seeing the mistake all this time, but that one who says and

maintains such things must have his brains addled? I have the basin in my

sack all dinted, and I am taking it home to have it mended, to trim my

beard in it, if, by God's grace, I am allowed to see my wife and children

some day or other."

"Look here, Sancho," said Don Quixote, "by him thou didst swear by just

now I swear thou hast the most limited understanding that any squire in

the world has or ever had. Is it possible that all this time thou hast

been going about with me thou hast never found out that all things

belonging to knights-errant seem to be illusions and nonsense and

ravings, and to go always by contraries? And not because it really is so,

but because there is always a swarm of enchanters in attendance upon us

that change and alter everything with us, and turn things as they please,

and according as they are disposed to aid or destroy us; thus what seems

to thee a barber's basin seems to me Mambrino's helmet, and to another it

will seem something else; and rare foresight it was in the sage who is on

my side to make what is really and truly Mambrine's helmet seem a basin

to everybody, for, being held in such estimation as it is, all the world

would pursue me to rob me of it; but when they see it is only a barber's

basin they do not take the trouble to obtain it; as was plainly shown by

him who tried to break it, and left it on the ground without taking it,

for, by my faith, had he known it he would never have left it behind.

Keep it safe, my friend, for just now I have no need of it; indeed, I

shall have to take off all this armour and remain as naked as I was born,

if I have a mind to follow Roland rather than Amadis in my penance."




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