ed that inn, which for him
was reaching heaven where all the mischances of earth are over and at an
end.

CHAPTER XXXVII.

IN WHICH IS CONTINUED THE STORY OF THE FAMOUS PRINCESS MICOMICONA, WITH
OTHER DROLL ADVENTURES

To all this Sancho listened with no little sorrow at heart to see how his
hopes of dignity were fading away and vanishing in smoke, and how the
fair Princess Micomicona had turned into Dorothea, and the giant into Don
Fernando, while his master was sleeping tranquilly, totally unconscious
of all that had come to pass. Dorothea was unable to persuade herself
that her present happiness was not all a dream; Cardenio was in a similar
state of mind, and Luscinda's thoughts ran in the same direction. Don
Fernando gave thanks to Heaven for the favour shown to him and for having
been rescued from the intricate labyrinth in which he had been brought so
near the destruction of his good name and of his soul; and in short
everybody in the inn was full of contentment and satisfaction at the
happy issue of such a complicated and hopeless business. The curate as a
sensible man made sound reflections upon the whole affair, and
congratulated each upon his good fortune; but the one that was in the
highest spirits and good humour was the landlady, because of the promise
Cardenio and the curate had given her to pay for all the losses and
damage she had sustained through Don Quixote's means. Sancho, as has been
already said, was the only one who was distressed, unhappy, and dejected;
and so with a long face he went in to his master, who had just awoke, and
said to him:

"Sir Rueful Countenance, your worship may as well sleep on as much as you
like, without troubling yourself about killing any giant or restoring her
kingdom to the princess; for that is all over and settled now."

"I should think it was," replied Don Quixote, "for I have had the most
prodigious and stupendous battle with the giant that I ever remember
having had all the days of my life; and with one back-stroke-swish!--I
brought his head tumbling to the ground, and so much blood gushed forth
from him that it ran in rivulets over the earth like water."

"Like red wine, your worship had better say," replied Sancho; "for I
would have you know, if you don't know it, that the dead giant is a
hacked wine-skin, and the blood four-and-twenty gallons of red wine that
it had in its belly, and the cut-off head is the bitch that bore me; and
the devil take