Don Quixote - Part I - Page 106/400

"What!" said Don Quixote, "has that never reached them?"

The rest of the party went along listening with great attention to the

conversation of the pair, and even the very goatherds and shepherds

perceived how exceedingly out of his wits our Don Quixote was. Sancho

Panza alone thought that what his master said was the truth, knowing who

he was and having known him from his birth; and all that he felt any

difficulty in believing was that about the fair Dulcinea del Toboso,

because neither any such name nor any such princess had ever come to his

knowledge though he lived so close to El Toboso. They were going along

conversing in this way, when they saw descending a gap between two high

mountains some twenty shepherds, all clad in sheepskins of black wool,

and crowned with garlands which, as afterwards appeared, were, some of

them of yew, some of cypress. Six of the number were carrying a bier

covered with a great variety of flowers and branches, on seeing which one

of the goatherds said, "Those who come there are the bearers of

Chrysostom's body, and the foot of that mountain is the place where he

ordered them to bury him." They therefore made haste to reach the spot,

and did so by the time those who came had laid the bier upon the ground,

and four of them with sharp pickaxes were digging a grave by the side of

a hard rock. They greeted each other courteously, and then Don Quixote

and those who accompanied him turned to examine the bier, and on it,

covered with flowers, they saw a dead body in the dress of a shepherd, to

all appearance of one thirty years of age, and showing even in death that

in life he had been of comely features and gallant bearing. Around him on

the bier itself were laid some books, and several papers open and folded;

and those who were looking on as well as those who were opening the grave

and all the others who were there preserved a strange silence, until one

of those who had borne the body said to another, "Observe carefully,

Ambrosia if this is the place Chrysostom spoke of, since you are anxious

that what he directed in his will should be so strictly complied with."

"This is the place," answered Ambrosia "for in it many a time did my poor

friend tell me the story of his hard fortune. Here it was, he told me,

that he saw for the first time that mortal enemy of the human race, and

here, too, for the first time he declared to her his passion, as

honourable as it was devoted, and here it was that at last Marcela ended

by scorning and rejecting him so as to bring the tragedy of his wretched

life to a close; here, in memory of misfortunes so great, he desired to

be laid in the bowels of eternal oblivion." Then turning to Don Quixote

and the travellers he went on to say, "That body, sirs, on which you are

looking with compassionate eyes, was the abode of a soul on which Heaven

bestowed a vast share of its riches. That is the body of Chrysostom, who

was unrivalled in wit, unequalled in courtesy, unapproached in gentle

bearing, a phoenix in friendship, generous without limit, grave without

arrogance, gay without vulgarity, and, in short, first in all that

constitutes goodness and second to none in all that makes up misfortune.

He loved deeply, he was hated; he adored, he was scorned; he wooed a wild

beast, he pleaded with marble, he pursued the wind, he cried to the

wilderness, he served ingratitude, and for reward was made the prey of

death in the mid-course of life, cut short by a shepherdess whom he

sought to immortalise in the memory of man, as these papers which you see

could fully prove, had he not commanded me to consign them to the fire

after having consigned his body to the earth."