Don Quixote - Part I - Page 340/400

Here the curate went on to relate briefly his brother's adventure with

Zoraida; to all which the Judge gave such an attentive hearing that he

never before had been so much of a hearer. The curate, however, only went

so far as to describe how the Frenchmen plundered those who were in the

boat, and the poverty and distress in which his comrade and the fair Moor

were left, of whom he said he had not been able to learn what became of

them, or whether they had reached Spain, or been carried to France by the

Frenchmen.

The captain, standing a little to one side, was listening to all the

curate said, and watching every movement of his brother, who, as soon as

he perceived the curate had made an end of his story, gave a deep sigh

and said with his eyes full of tears, "Oh, senor, if you only knew what

news you have given me and how it comes home to me, making me show how I

feel it with these tears that spring from my eyes in spite of all my

worldly wisdom and self-restraint! That brave captain that you speak of

is my eldest brother, who, being of a bolder and loftier mind than my

other brother or myself, chose the honourable and worthy calling of arms,

which was one of the three careers our father proposed to us, as your

comrade mentioned in that fable you thought he was telling you. I

followed that of letters, in which God and my own exertions have raised

me to the position in which you see me. My second brother is in Peru, so

wealthy that with what he has sent to my father and to me he has fully

repaid the portion he took with him, and has even furnished my father's

hands with the means of gratifying his natural generosity, while I too

have been enabled to pursue my studies in a more becoming and creditable

fashion, and so to attain my present standing. My father is still alive,

though dying with anxiety to hear of his eldest son, and he prays God

unceasingly that death may not close his eyes until he has looked upon

those of his son; but with regard to him what surprises me is, that

having so much common sense as he had, he should have neglected to give

any intelligence about himself, either in his troubles and sufferings, or

in his prosperity, for if his father or any of us had known of his

condition he need not have waited for that miracle of the reed to obtain

his ransom; but what now disquiets me is the uncertainty whether those

Frenchmen may have restored him to liberty, or murdered him to hide the

robbery. All this will make me continue my journey, not with the

satisfaction in which I began it, but in the deepest melancholy and

sadness. Oh dear brother! that I only knew where thou art now, and I

would hasten to seek thee out and deliver thee from thy sufferings,

though it were to cost me suffering myself! Oh that I could bring news to

our old father that thou art alive, even wert thou the deepest dungeon of

Barbary; for his wealth and my brother's and mine would rescue thee

thence! Oh beautiful and generous Zoraida, that I could repay thy good

goodness to a brother! That I could be present at the new birth of thy

soul, and at thy bridal that would give us all such happiness!"