DON QUIXOTE

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describe it to us, I should never have done; and then how she who seems
to be the first among them all takes the bold knight who plunged into the
boiling lake by the hand, and without addressing a word to him leads him
into the rich palace or castle, and strips him as naked as when his
mother bore him, and bathes him in lukewarm water, and anoints him all
over with sweet-smelling unguents, and clothes him in a shirt of the
softest sendal, all scented and perfumed, while another damsel comes and
throws over his shoulders a mantle which is said to be worth at the very
least a city, and even more? How charming it is, then, when they tell us
how, after all this, they lead him to another chamber where he finds the
tables set out in such style that he is filled with amazement and wonder;
to see how they pour out water for his hands distilled from amber and
sweet-scented flowers; how they seat him on an ivory chair; to see how
the damsels wait on him all in profound silence; how they bring him such
a variety of dainties so temptingly prepared that the appetite is at a
loss which to select; to hear the music that resounds while he is at
table, by whom or whence produced he knows not. And then when the repast