Don Quixote

by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

them bearable or the remedy that would end them. “What you say is true,” responded Anselmo, “and with that confidence I will tell you, friend Lotario, that the desire that plagues me is my wondering if Camila, my wife, is as good and perfect as I think she is, and I cannot learn the truth except by testing her so that the test reveals the worth of her virtue, as fire shows the worth of gold. Because it seems to me, dear friend, that a woman is not virtuous if she is not solicited, and that she alone is strong who does not bend to promises, gifts, tears, and the constant importunities of lovers who woo her. Why be grateful when a woman is good,” he said, “if no one urges her to be bad? Why is it of consequence that she is shy and reserved if she does not have the occasion to lose her restraint and knows she has a husband who, at her first rash act, would take her life? In short, I do not hold the woman who is virtuous because of fear or lack of opportunity in the same esteem as the one who is courted and pursued and emerges wearing the victor’s crown. For these reasons, and many others I could mention that support and strengthen this opinion, my desire is for Camila, my wife, to pass through these difficulties, and be refined and prove her value in the fire of being wooed and courted by one worthy of desiring her; and if she emerges, as I believe she will, triumphant from this battle, I shall deem my good fortune unparalleled;