Of How Chapter XVII Was Not the Last
Original in Spanish
To Enrique Jaramillo Levi
Struck down on the ground, on the threshold of death, the knight let his head fall to one side. He managed to see his old horse trying to flee from the beast, at a pitiful gallop, without much luck. Farther off, on a hill that outlined its curve against the afternoon sky, he thought he saw the blurred silhouettes of two riders who were also trying to evade it. He felt his face and his beard. He saw that his hand was covered in blood. He wanted to rise, or at least to turn onto his side, but he could not. He felt a lightness in his head, as when sleep comes on, and he knew that his life was going out.
“Behold in what bitter woe the end comes to meet me,” he sighed faintly, under his breath. “Succor me in this sad hour, milady.”
A strong breeze, from the west, shook the royal flags and the branches of a holm oak.
The pen stopped suddenly. Leaning on the desk, the man closed his eyes and massaged his tired eyelids with his index finger. A strange sensation, as of sadness or melancholy, fluttered in his chest. He looked out the open window. Some dirty children were playing with wooden swords in the alley. Evening was falling. The voice of the town crier, somewhat distant, distracted him for a moment. He stood up. He looked at the bundle of papers on the table. He sat down again. Something was still missing, he sensed; something was not in its place. He took the last sheet of the group and tore it up. Then he reinserted the four previous sheets elsewhere in the stack of paper. He dipped the pen again.
The knight opened his eyes. On the hill appeared the silhouettes of the two riders. He raised his eyes and saw the lion leap upon him and repair the wounds on his body with its claws, and then run backward to the cage, where it lay down calmly. He felt his body being thrown upward, into the air, and the pain disappeared. The old horse came back at a gallop, backward as well, and with a capriole placed itself beneath his body. The armor made no sound as it collapsed onto the saddle. Beast and rider remained still before the lions’ cart. The recollection of the fierce attack vanished from memory. Raising his broken visor, Don Quixote looked at the lion keeper, who awaited his answer. A breeze from the west set the flags flying.
Notes
Translated from the Spanish by the author.