hat
could have induced Malambruno to discard a steed so swift and so gentle,
and burn it so recklessly as he did."

"Probably," said the duchess, "repenting of the evil he had done to the
Trifaldi and company, and others, and the crimes he must have committed
as a wizard and enchanter, he resolved to make away with all the
instruments of his craft; and so burned Clavileno as the chief one, and
that which mainly kept him restless, wandering from land to land; and by
its ashes and the trophy of the placard the valour of the great Don
Quixote of La Mancha is established for ever."

Don Quixote renewed his thanks to the duchess; and having supped, retired
to his chamber alone, refusing to allow anyone to enter with him to wait
on him, such was his fear of encountering temptations that might lead or
drive him to forget his chaste fidelity to his lady Dulcinea; for he had
always present to his mind the virtue of Amadis, that flower and mirror
of knights-errant. He locked the door behind him, and by the light of two
wax candles undressed himself, but as he was taking off his stockings--O
disaster unworthy of such a personage!--there came a burst, not of sighs,
or anything belying his delicacy or good breeding, but of some two dozen
stitches in one of his stockings, that made it look like a
window-lattice. The worthy gentleman was beyond measure distressed, and
at that moment he would have given an ounce of silver to have had half a
drachm of green silk there; I say green silk, because the stockings were
green.

Here Cide Hamete exclaimed as he was writing, "O poverty, poverty! I know
not what could have possessed the great Cordovan poet to call thee 'holy
gift ungratefully received.' Although a Moor, I know well enough from the
intercourse I have had with Christians that holiness consists in charity,
humility, faith, obedience, and poverty; but for all that, I say he must
have a great deal of godliness who can find any satisfaction in being
poor; unless, indeed, it be the kind of poverty one of their greatest
saints refers to, saying, 'possess all things as though ye possessed them
not;' which is what they call poverty in spirit. But thou, that other
poverty--for it is of thee I am speaking now--why dost thou love to fall
out with gentlemen and men of good birth more than with other people? Why
dost thou compel them to smear the cracks in their shoes, and to have the
buttons of their coats, one silk, another hair, and anothe