"Then you must have fallen too," said the hostess.
"I did not fall," said Sancho Panza, "but from the shock I got at seeing
my master fall, my body aches so that I feel as if I had had a thousand
thwacks."
"That may well be," said the young girl, "for it has many a time happened
to me to dream that I was falling down from a tower and never coming to
the ground, and when I awoke from the dream to find myself as weak and
shaken as if I had really fallen."
"There is the point, senora," replied Sancho Panza, "that I without
dreaming at all, but being more awake than I am now, find myself with
scarcely less wheals than my master, Don Quixote."
"How is the gentleman called?" asked Maritornes the Asturian.
"Don Quixote of La Mancha," answered Sancho Panza, "and he is a
knight-adventurer, and one of the best and stoutest that have been seen
in the world this long time past."
"What is a knight-adventurer?" said the lass.
"Are you so new in the world as not to know?" answered Sancho Panza.
"Well, then, you must know, sister, that a knight-adventurer is a thing
that in two words is seen drubbed and emperor, that is to-day the most
miserable and needy being in the world, and to-morrow will have two or
three crowns of kingdoms to give his squire."
"Then how is it," said the hostess, "that belonging to so good a master
as this, you have not, to judge by appearances, even so much as a
county?"
"It is too soon yet," answered Sancho, "for we have only been a month
going in quest of adventures, and so far we have met with nothing that
can be called one, for it will happen that when one thing is looked for
another thing is found; however, if my master Don Quixote gets well of
this wound, or fall, and I am left none the worse of it, I would not
change my hopes for the best title in Spain."
To all this conversation Don Quixote was listening very attentively, and
sitting up in bed as well as he could, and taking the hostess by the hand
he said to her, "Believe me, fair lady, you may call yourself fortunate
in having in this castle of yours sheltered my person, which is such that
if I do not myself praise it, it is because of what is commonly said,
that self-praise debaseth; but my squire will inform you who I am. I only
tell you that I shall preserve for ever inscribed on my memory the
service you have rendered me in order to tender you my gratitude while
life shall last me; and would to Heaven love held me not so enthralled
and subject to its laws and to the eyes of that fair ingrate whom I name
between my teeth, but that those of this lovely damsel might be the
masters of my liberty."