"May I never share heaven," said the poor barber, "if your worships are
not all mistaken; and may my soul appear before God as that appears to me
a pack-saddle and not a caparison; but, 'laws go,'-I say no more; and
indeed I am not drunk, for I am fasting, except it be from sin."
The simple talk of the barber did not afford less amusement than the
absurdities of Don Quixote, who now observed:
"There is no more to be done now than for each to take what belongs to
him, and to whom God has given it, may St. Peter add his blessing."
But said one of the four servants, "Unless, indeed, this is a deliberate
joke, I cannot bring myself to believe that men so intelligent as those
present are, or seem to be, can venture to declare and assert that this
is not a basin, and that not a pack-saddle; but as I perceive that they
do assert and declare it, I can only come to the conclusion that there is
some mystery in this persistence in what is so opposed to the evidence of
experience and truth itself; for I swear by"--and here he rapped out a
round oath-"all the people in the world will not make me believe that
this is not a barber's basin and that a jackass's pack-saddle."
"It might easily be a she-ass's," observed the curate.
"It is all the same," said the servant; "that is not the point; but
whether it is or is not a pack-saddle, as your worships say."
On hearing this one of the newly arrived officers of the Brotherhood, who
had been listening to the dispute and controversy, unable to restrain his
anger and impatience, exclaimed, "It is a pack-saddle as sure as my
father is my father, and whoever has said or will say anything else must
be drunk."
"You lie like a rascally clown," returned Don Quixote; and lifting his
pike, which he had never let out of his hand, he delivered such a blow at
his head that, had not the officer dodged it, it would have stretched him
at full length. The pike was shivered in pieces against the ground, and
the rest of the officers, seeing their comrade assaulted, raised a shout,
calling for help for the Holy Brotherhood. The landlord, who was of the
fraternity, ran at once to fetch his staff of office and his sword, and
ranged himself on the side of his comrades; the servants of Don Luis
clustered round him, lest he should escape from them in the confusion;
the barber, seeing the house turned upside down, once more laid hold of
his pack-saddle and Sancho did the same; Don Quixote drew his sword and
charged the officers; Don Luis cried out to his servants to leave him
alone and go and help Don Quixote, and Cardenio and Don Fernando, who
were supporting him; the curate was shouting at the top of his voice, the
landlady was screaming, her daughter was wailing, Maritornes was weeping,
Dorothea was aghast, Luscinda terror-stricken, and Dona Clara in a faint.
The barber cudgelled Sancho, and Sancho pommelled the barber; Don Luis
gave one of his servants, who ventured to catch him by the arm to keep
him from escaping, a cuff that bathed his teeth in blood; the Judge took
his part; Don Fernando had got one of the officers down and was
belabouring him heartily; the landlord raised his voice again calling for
help for the Holy Brotherhood; so that the whole inn was nothing but
cries, shouts, shrieks, confusion, terror, dismay, mishaps, sword-cuts,
fisticuffs, cudgellings, kicks, and bloodshed; and in the midst of all
this chaos, complication, and general entanglement, Don Quixote took it
into his head that he had been plunged into the thick of the discord of
Agramante's camp; and, in a voice that shook the inn like thunder, he
cried out: