The life and exploits of the ingenious gentleman Don Quixote de la Mancha - Livres de poche

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAP. XVI. Of what happened to the ingenious Gentleman in the Inn, which he imagined to be a Castle. The innkeeper, seeing Don Quixote laid across the ass, inquired of Sancho what ailed him ? Sancho answered him, that it was nothing but a fall from a rock, whereby his ribs were somewhat bruised. The innkeeper had a wife of a different disposition from those of the like occupation; for she was naturally charitable, and touched with the misfortunes of her neighbours; so that she presently set herself to cure Don Quixote, and made her daughter, a very comely young maiden, assist her in the cure of her guest . There was also a servant in the inn, an Asturian wench, broad- faced, flat-headed, and saddle-nosed, with one eye squinting and the other not much better. It is true, the activity of her body made amends for her other defects. She was not seven hands high from her feet to her head; and her shoulders, which burdened her a little too much, made her look down to the ground more than she cared to do. Now this agreeable lass helped the damsel; and both of them made Don Quixote a very sorry bed in a garret, which gave evident tokens of having formerly served many years as a horse-loft: in which room lodged also a carrier, whose bed lay a little beyond that of our Don Quixote; and though it was composed of pannels, and other trappings of his mules, it had much the advantage of Don Quixote's, which consisted of four not very smooth boards upon two not very equal trestles, and a flock-bed no thicker than a quilt, and full of knobs, which, if one had not seen through the breaches that they were not wool, by the hardness might have been taken for pebble stones; with two sheets, like the leather of an old target, and a rug, the threads of which, if you had a mind, you might ...