“You like to read?" Reading was one of David's favorite things to do. So much more enjoyable than talking or exchanging pleasantries with strangers.
"Yes, do you?" she asked, a hopeful look on her face.
"Indeed, I do....I regretted that I could only fit one book in my rucksack on the Continent."
.."Oh, do tell me, what was it?"
"In English you would call it The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of Lamancha, but I had the Spanish version."
"..Don Quixote. A comedy is it not?'
..."Marianne gave it to me. She said I would need something silly to cheer me on the battlefield. But I read it so many times, I must say my opinion of the book changed, more than once."
"How so?", she asked...
"At first I thought it was a comedy, then I came to regard it as a tragic novel, because Quixote was considered mad and treated like a lunatic. But in the end I found it life-changing."
.."How so?"
"The book save my life, in more ways than one. Reading it kept me sane all those long, sleepless nights in the cold...."
"How else did it save your life?" Lady Annabelle asked...
.."It quite literally saved me from death. When the French captured me and a small group of my men, they began executing the officers. Only when they got to me, they rifled through my rucksack and when they saw the book, they realized I could speak Spanish. That was of use to them so they kept me alive as an interpreter.”