Page:Don Quixote (Cervantes, Ormsby) Volume 1.djvu/43

 Rh knew how to bring in, the ox-tail hanging up with the landlord's comb stuck in it, the wine-skins at the bed-head, and those notable examples of hostelry art, Helen going off in high spirits on Paris's arm, and Dido on the tower dropping tears as big as walnuts. Nay, it may well be that on those journeys into remote regions he came across now and then a specimen of the pauper gentleman, with his lean hack and his greyhound and his books of chivalry, dreaming away his life in happy ignorance that the world had changed since his great-grandfather's old helmet was new. But it was in Seville that he found out his true vocation, though he himself would not by any means have admitted it to be so. It was there, in the Triana, that he was first tempted to try his hand at drawing from life, and first brought his humor into play in the exquisite little sketch of "Rinconete y Cortadillo," the germ, in more ways than one, of "Don Quixote."

Where and when that was written, we cannot tell. After his imprisonment all trace of Cervantes in his official capacity disappears, from which it may be inferred that he was not reinstated. That he was still in Seville in November 1598 appears from a satirical sonnet of his on the elaborate catafalque erected to testify the grief of the city at the death of Philip II., but from this up to 1603 we have no clew to his movements. The words in the preface to the First Part of "Don Quixote" are generally held to be conclusive that he conceived the idea of the book, and wrote the beginning of it at least, in a prison, and that he may have done so is extremely likely. At the same time it should be borne in mind that they contain no assertion to that effect, and may mean nothing more than that this brain-child of his was begotten under circumstances as depressing as prison life. If we accept them literally, the prison may very well have been that in which he was confined for nearly three months at Seville.

The story of his having been imprisoned afterwards at Argamasilla de Alba rests entirely on local tradition. That Argamasilla is Don Quixote's village does not admit of a doubt. Even if Cervantes himself had not owned it by making the Academicians of Argamasilla write verses in honor of Don Quixote, there is no other town or village in La Mancha, except perhaps its near neighbor Tomelloso, the relative position of which to the field of Montiel, the high road to Seville, Puerto Lapice, and the Sierra Morena, agrees with the narrative; and