"In a village of Estramadura there was a shepherd–no, I mean a goatherd–which shepherd or goatherd as my story says, was called Lope Ruiz–and this Lope Ruiz was in love with a shepherdess called Torralva, who was daughter to a rich herdsman, and this rich herdsman—"
"If this be thy story, Sancho," said Don Quixote, "thou wilt not have done these two days. Tell it concisely, like a man of sense, or else say no more."
"I tell it in the manner they tell all stories in my country," answered Sancho, "and I cannot tell it otherwise, nor ought your Worship to require me to make new customs."
"Tell it as thou wilt, then," said Don Quixote, "since it is the will of fate that I should hear it, go on."
Sancho continued:
"He looked about him until he espied a fisherman with a boat near him, but so small that it could only hold one person and one goat. The fisherman got into the boat and carried over one goat; he returned and carried another; he came back again and carried another. Pray, sir, keep an account of the goats which the fisherman is carrying over, for if you lose count of a single one, the story ends, and it will be impossible to tell a word more. . . . I go on, then. . . . He returned for another goat, and another, and another and another—"
"Suppose them all carried over," said Don Quixote, "or thou wilt not have finished carrying them this twelve months!"
"Tell me, how many have passed already?" said Sancho.
"How should I know?" answered Don Quixote.
"See there, now! Did I not tell thee to keep an exact account? There is an end of the story. I can go no further."
"How can this be?" said Don Quixote. "Is it so essential to the story to know the exact number of goats that passed over, that if one error be made the story can proceed no further?"
"Even so," said Sancho Panza.
From Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes
Painting by Geli Korzhev, "Don Quixote and Sancho Panza" 1977-1984, oil on canvas
Museum of Russian Art, private american collection
