Cardenio heard the name of Luscinda, but he only shrugged his shoulders,
bit his lips, bent his brows, and before long two streams of tears
escaped from his eyes. Dorothea, however, did not interrupt her story,
but went on in these words:
"This sad intelligence reached my ears, and, instead of being struck with
a chill, with such wrath and fury did my heart burn that I scarcely
restrained myself from rushing out into the streets, crying aloud and
proclaiming openly the perfidy and treachery of which I was the victim;
but this transport of rage was for the time checked by a resolution I
formed, to be carried out the same night, and that was to assume this
dress, which I got from a servant of my father's, one of the zagals, as
they are called in farmhouses, to whom I confided the whole of my
misfortune, and whom I entreated to accompany me to the city where I
heard my enemy was. He, though he remonstrated with me for my boldness,
and condemned my resolution, when he saw me bent upon my purpose, offered
to bear me company, as he said, to the end of the world. I at once packed
up in a linen pillow-case a woman's dress, and some jewels and money to
provide for emergencies, and in the silence of the night, without letting
my treacherous maid know, I sallied forth from the house, accompanied by
my servant and abundant anxieties, and on foot set out for the city, but
borne as it were on wings by my eagerness to reach it, if not to prevent
what I presumed to be already done, at least to call upon Don Fernando to
tell me with what conscience he had done it. I reached my destination in
two days and a half, and on entering the city inquired for the house of
Luscinda's parents. The first person I asked gave me more in reply than I
sought to know; he showed me the house, and told me all that had occurred
at the betrothal of the daughter of the family, an affair of such
notoriety in the city that it was the talk of every knot of idlers in the
street. He said that on the night of Don Fernando's betrothal with
Luscinda, as soon as she had consented to be his bride by saying 'Yes,'
she was taken with a sudden fainting fit, and that on the bridegroom
approaching to unlace the bosom of her dress to give her air, he found a
paper in her own handwriting, in which she said and declared that she
could not be Don Fernando's bride, because she was already Cardenio's,
who, according to the man's account, was a gentleman of distinction of
the same city; and that if she had accepted Don Fernando, it was only in
obedience to her parents. In short, he said, the words of the paper made
it clear she meant to kill herself on the completion of the betrothal,
and gave her reasons for putting an end to herself all which was
confirmed, it was said, by a dagger they found somewhere in her clothes.
On seeing this, Don Fernando, persuaded that Luscinda had befooled,
slighted, and trifled with him, assailed her before she had recovered
from her swoon, and tried to stab her with the dagger that had been
found, and would have succeeded had not her parents and those who were
present prevented him. It was said, moreover, that Don Fernando went away
at once, and that Luscinda did not recover from her prostration until the
next day, when she told her parents how she was really the bride of that
Cardenio I have mentioned. I learned besides that Cardenio, according to
report, had been present at the betrothal; and that upon seeing her
betrothed contrary to his expectation, he had quitted the city in
despair, leaving behind him a letter declaring the wrong Luscinda had
done him, and his intention of going where no one should ever see him
again. All this was a matter of notoriety in the city, and everyone spoke
of it; especially when it became known that Luscinda was missing from her
father's house and from the city, for she was not to be found anywhere,
to the distraction of her parents, who knew not what steps to take to
recover her. What I learned revived my hopes, and I was better pleased
not to have found Don Fernando than to find him married, for it seemed to
me that the door was not yet entirely shut upon relief in my case, and I
thought that perhaps Heaven had put this impediment in the way of the
second marriage, to lead him to recognise his obligations under the
former one, and reflect that as a Christian he was bound to consider his
soul above all human objects. All this passed through my mind, and I
strove to comfort myself without comfort, indulging in faint and distant
hopes of cherishing that life that I now abhor.