Don Quixote

by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

The bread they bake here is as good as in France, and at night every cat is gray, and the person who hasn’t eaten by two in the afternoon has more than enough misfortune, and no stomach’s so much bigger than any other that it can’t be filled, as they say, with straw and hay,3 and the little birds of the field have God to protect and provide for them, and four varas of flannel from Cuenca will warm you more than four of limiste4 from Segovia, and when we leave this world and go into the ground, the path of the prince is as narrow as the laborer’s, and the pope’s body doesn’t need more room underground than the sacristan’s, even if one is higher than the other, because when we’re in the grave we all have to adjust and shrink or they make us adjust and shrink, whether we want to or not, and that’s the end of it. And I say again that if your ladyship doesn’t want to give me the ínsula because I’m a fool, I’ll be smart enough not to care at all;