Page:Et Cetera, a Collector's Scrap-Book (1924).djvu/200

 with gold and precious stones, turned his face in a vast despair. He uttered sighs, deep and rumbling and circular like sorrowful winds.

“How long, my dear friends, shall we remain chained to this evil dream, this monstrous incantation?”

Sancho Panza, Governor-General, unlocked his arms from the waist of a beautiful Micamacienne, and approached his master. His feet clanked with the silver spurs, and his scimitar, studded with jewels of all colors, beat lightly against his side, while his body, protruding far beyond him, shone with decorations and wide golden bands.

“What evil dreams, Your Majesty?”

“This enchanted hut; this pig-sty.”

Sancho Panza screwed his small eyes, until they vanished completely in their velvet bed of fat.

“This pig-sty?” he muttered at last, dazed.

“Look at yourself, Sancho. How they have fattened you! You roll upon your short legs like a heavy barrel.”

Sancho Panza, Governor-General, was insulted.

“The beautiful women of Micamaca call my bearing elegant, Your Majesty.”

Don Quijote, Emperor, continued without hearing the answer,—“And look at me. Where is the long face of the ‘Knight of the Sorrowful Visage?’ A moon—reddish and full—gazing dully.”