it is to me a sufficient proof to have found you in this place, where solitude and night, the natural couch and proper retreat of knights-errant, keep you company.” To which Don made answer, “A knight I am of the profession you mention, and though sorrows, misfortunes, and calamities have made my heart their abode, the compassion I feel for the misfortunes of others has not been thereby banished from it. From what you have just now sung I gather that yours spring from love, I mean from the love you bear that fair ingrate you named in your lament.”
In the meantime, they had seated themselves together on the hard ground peaceably and sociably, just as if, as soon as day broke, they were not going to break one another’s heads.
“Are you, sir knight, in love perchance?” asked he of the Grove of Don Quixote.
“By mischance I am,” replied Don Quixote; “though the ills arising from well-bestowed affections should be esteemed favours rather than misfortunes.”
“That is true,” returned he of the Grove, “if scorn did not unsettle our reason and understanding, for if it be excessive it looks like revenge.”
“I was never scorned by my lady,” said Don Quixote.
“Certainly not,” said Sancho, who stood close by, “for my lady is as a lamb, and softer than a roll of butter.”
“Is this your squire?” asked he of the Grove.
“He is,” said Don Quixote.
“I never yet saw a squire,” said he of the Grove, “who ventured to speak when his master was speaking; at least, there is mine, who is as big as his father, and it cannot be proved that he has ever opened his lips when I am speaking.”