in it, as well as I could make out, a heart that had been mummied, so
parched and dried was it. Montesinos told me that all those forming the
procession were the attendants of Durandarte and Belerma, who were
enchanted there with their master and mistress, and that the last, she
who carried the heart in the cloth, was the lady Belerma, who, with her
damsels, four days in the week went in procession singing, or rather
weeping, dirges over the body and miserable heart of his cousin; and that
if she appeared to me somewhat ill-favoured or not so beautiful as fame
reported her, it was because of the bad nights and worse days that she
passed in that enchantment, as I could see by the great dark circles
round her eyes, and her sickly complexion; 'her sallowness, and the rings
round her eyes,' said he, 'are not caused by the periodical ailment usual
with women, for it is many months and even years since she has had any,
but by the grief her own heart suffers because of that which she holds in
her hand perpetually, and which recalls and brings back to her memory the
sad fate of her lost lover; were it not for this, hardly would the great
Dulcinea del Toboso, so celebrated in all these parts, and even in the
world, come up to her for beauty, grace, and gaiety.'

"'Hold hard!' said I at this, 'tell your story as you ought, Senor Don
Montesinos, for you know very well that all comparisons are odious, and
there is no occasion to compare one person with another; the peerless
Dulcinea del Toboso is what she is, and the lady Dona Belerma is what she
is and has been, and that's enough.' To which he made answer, 'Forgive
me, Senor Don Quixote; I own I was wrong and spoke unadvisedly in saying
that the lady Dulcinea could scarcely come up to the lady Belerma; for it
were enough for me to have learned, by what means I know not, that you
are her knight, to make me bite my tongue out before I compared her to
anything save heaven itself.' After this apology which the great
Montesinos made me, my heart recovered itself from the shock I had
received in hearing my lady compared with Belerma."

"Still I wonder," said Sancho, "that your worship did not get upon the
old fellow and bruise every bone of him with kicks, and pluck his beard
until you didn't leave a hair in it."

"Nay, Sancho, my friend," said Don Quixote, "it would not have been right
in me to do that, for we are all bound to pay respect to the aged, even
though they be not knights,