d, 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."

"You would deal with them more harshly and cruelly than their owner
himself," said Vivaldo, "for it is neither right nor proper to do the
will of one who enjoins what is wholly unreasonable; it would not have
been reasonable in Augustus Caesar had he permitted the directions left
by the divine Mantuan in his will to be carri