DON QUIXOTE

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proceed--the venerable Montesinos led me into the palace of crystal,
where, in a lower chamber, strangely cool and entirely of alabaster, was
an elaborately wrought marble tomb, upon which I beheld, stretched at
full length, a knight, not of bronze, or marble, or jasper, as are seen
on other tombs, but of actual flesh and bone. His right hand (which
seemed to me somewhat hairy and sinewy, a sign of great strength in its
owner) lay on the side of his heart; but before I could put any question
to Montesinos, he, seeing me gazing at the tomb in amazement, said to me,
'This is my friend Durandarte, flower and mirror of the true lovers and
valiant knights of his time. He is held enchanted here, as I myself and
many others are, by that French enchanter Merlin, who, they say, was the
devil's son; but my belief is, not that he was the devil's son, but that
he knew, as the saying is, a point more than the devil. How or why he
enchanted us, no one knows, but time will tell, and I suspect that time
is not far off. What I marvel at is, that I know it to be as sure as that
it is now day, that Durandarte ended his life in my arms, and that, after
his death, I took out his heart with my own hands; and indeed it must