DON QUIXOTE

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But for all this Don Quixote could not shake off his sadness. His friends
called in the doctor, who felt his pulse and was not very well satisfied
with it, and said that in any case it would be well for him to attend to
the health of his soul, as that of his body was in a bad way. Don Quixote
heard this calmly; but not so his housekeeper, his niece, and his squire,
who fell weeping bitterly, as if they had him lying dead before them. The
doctor's opinion was that melancholy and depression were bringing him to
his end. Don Quixote begged them to leave him to himself, as he had a
wish to sleep a little. They obeyed, and he slept at one stretch, as the
saying is, more than six hours, so that the housekeeper and niece thought
he was going to sleep for ever. But at the end of that time he woke up,
and in a loud voice exclaimed, "Blessed be Almighty God, who has shown me
such goodness. In truth his mercies are boundless, and the sins of men
can neither limit them nor keep them back!"

The niece listened with attention to her uncle's words, and they struck
her as more coherent than what usually fell from him, at least during his