CHAPTER LXXIV

OF HOW DON QUIXOTE FELL SICK, AND OF THE WILL HE MADE; AND HOW HE DIED

The following day Don Quixote did not rise from his bed, and he was taken with a fever which kept him in bed for six days. All this time his faithful Sancho remained at his bedside; and his friends, the curate, the barber and the bachelor, visited him frequently. They all did what they could, for they seemed to sense that the sickness was brought on by the sad thought of his having been forced to give up his great hope of reviving knight-errantry.

When the doctor was sent for, he said frankly that it was time for Don Quixote to turn his thoughts to his soul; and when the niece and the devoted housekeeper heard this, they began to weep bitterly. The physician was of the same opinion as the curate and Don Quixote's other friends: that melancholy and unhappiness were the cause of the present state of his health.

Soon Don Quixote asked to be left alone, and then he fell into a long sleep, which lasted over six hours. It provoked the anxiety of the two women, who were afraid he would never wake up again. At last he awoke, and as he opened his eyes he exclaimed in a voice of exaltation and joy: "Blessed be the Lord Almighty, who has shown me such goodness! In truth his mercies are boundless, and the sins of men can neither limit them nor keep them back!"

The niece was struck by the unusual saneness of these words. She asked Don Quixote gently what he meant, and what sins of men he was speaking of. He replied in a voice full of calmness and serenity that G.o.d had just freed his reason, for he realized now how ignorance in believing in the absurdities of the books of chivalry had distorted his mind and vision so sadly. He regretted, he said, that he saw the light so late in life that there was no time for him to show his repentance by reading other books, which might have helped his soul. Then he begged his niece to send for the curate, the bachelor Carrasco, and the barber, as he wished to confess his sins and make his will before he departed from this earth.

The moment the three friends stepped over the threshold to his chamber, he called out happily: "Good news for you, good sirs, that I am no longer Don Quixote of La Mancha, but Alonso Quixano, whose way of life won for him the name of the Good." And he went on to say how he now loathed all books of chivalry which had brought him to the state he was in, and how happy he was in the thought that G.o.d had made him see his folly. The three men could only think that this was some new craze of their friend's and tried to persuade him not to talk thus, now that they had just got news of his peerless Dulcinea and were all of them about to become shepherds in order to keep him company; and they begged him to be rational and talk no more nonsense.

But soon they realized that Don Quixote was not jesting, for he begged them to send for a notary, and while the bachelor went to fetch him, the barber went to soothe the women; and the curate alone remained with Don Quixote to confess him.

When the good curate came out after the confession, the women gathered about him and when he told them that Don Quixote was indeed dying, they broke into sobs, for they loved him genuinely and dearly. The notary then came, and Don Quixote made his will. The first person he thought of was his faithful and beloved companion, Sancho Panza, whose simplicity and affection he rewarded by leaving him all the money of his own that was now in Sancho's possession. Had he had a kingdom to give him, he said, it would scarcely have been sufficient reward for all that Sancho had done for him. Then turning to Sancho, who stood at his bedside with tears in his eyes, he said to him: "Forgive me, my friend, that I led thee to seem as mad as myself, making thee fall into the same error I myself fell into, that there were and still are knights errant in the world."

"Ah," said Sancho, in a voice that was choked with tears, "do not die, master, but take my advice and live many years; for the foolishest thing a man can do in this life is to let himself die without rhyme or reason, without anybody killing him, or any hands but melancholy's making an end of him. Come, do not be lazy, but get up from your bed and let us take to the fields in a shepherd's trim as we agreed!

Perhaps behind some bush we shall find the Lady Dulcinea disenchanted, as fine as fine can be. If it be that you are dying of vexation at having been vanquished, lay the blame on me, and say you were thrown because I girthed Rocinante badly."

But although Samson Carrasco tried to persuade the dying knight that Sancho had reasoned rightly, they at last came to the conclusion that Don Quixote really was in his right senses, and that G.o.d had worked a miracle.

They now let the notary proceed and one of the stipulations in the will was that if his niece, Antonia Quixana, ever married a man who had read books of chivalry, she should by so doing forfeit all that he had left to her, and instead it would go to charity. Another clause contained a request to the executors to offer his humble apologies to the author of the Second Part of "The Achievements of Don Quixote of La Mancha" for his having committed so many absurdities that had been a provocation to the author to write this book.

When he had dictated the last words of his will, a sudden faintness came over Don Quixote, and for three days after that he was in a state between life and death. At last the end came, and he pa.s.sed away so calmly that the notary felt compelled to confess that he never had read of any knight errant in the whole wide world who had breathed his last breath so peacefully.

The bachelor, Samson Carrasco, wrote am epitaph for his tomb; and there is written on a tombstone in a little village of La Mancha the praise that those who knew and loved the valiant and doughty, yet gentle Don Quixote of La Mancha felt in their hearts for him, whose last wish was that he might die as Alonso Quixano the Good.

THE END