screaming thru foam at his mouth, half-chocked on his own threats. I’m still alive. What had stopped him? God’s will and my knightly deportment of not caring a fig. Three years in chains before the monks brought 1000 ducats demanded by him for my freedom. It took me four years more to pay back the sum to my relatives and good people donating for the ransom. Yet I was always sure of my good luck, if not this time then at the next attempt I’d surely break out.
Because I was the fortune’s favorite of which my quality there are no doubts, and through the all trials was I confident and trusted that whatever is is right…
…any predicament sent us by stars is to make tastier the pending lucky outcome. Am I happy? Yes! Because I know exactly what is happiness. You don’t need gold nor glinting stones to be happy. Dark wine, white cheese, a loaf of soft bread, a phial of ink to make a company to your quill, and, of course, a couple of sheets of paper ain’t too much of a load, huh? Add also a guitar and you’re all set to go after your daily share of happiness. Start out in the morning to a mature tree among the vastitude of arid hills and fields in our La Mancha and there under the lisping whisper of its rustling leaves watch the growth and wane of one more happy day in your life…
…my luck it was to keep me riding the crest of the tidal wave at any period in a man’s life. As a lithe youth with fluffy growth in my jowl and upper lip, I took to turning out verses praised by my friends and University instructors. Which one? Where were we then? Alcala? Or Salamanca? Whatever. We moved too often, our family was always on the run. My father, God have mercy on him, had skillful hand at leach application, and at improving gentleman’s good looks by close shave, which virtues kept him afloat in his life of a constant fugitive from debts and creditors, poor soul. Anyway, they were just unwit lacing, my verses were, no better than the bosh turnout by present laureates to the applaud of their friends and mentors. In certain matters we, people, are incorrigible for ever…
…a year of treading the Naples’ poorly paved streets and those of the Eternal City in service of Cardinal Acquaviva, after my escape over there necessitated by a chance duel in Madrid, before it struck, my star hour. The pivotal moment that decided the fate of all the Christendom. Ottomans went out to make Europe their own domain.
I enrolled the ranks of the Holy League, and I did not miss out the sea battle on which depended the future of the World. Two hundred-and-a-half our ships carried 26,000 men to discover the enemy in the Gulf of Lepanto on that sunny October morning. Turkish vessels were much more numerous.
From early in the morning I was tremendously out of sorts, burning with fever. Captain of Marquessa, on whose board was I a private soldier, sternly ordered me keep to the safety of my cabin, yet my most exhortative protestations mitigated his attitude and he considered a good riddance to appoint me the commander of a small felucca manned with a crew of twelve.
It was a glorious day. Cannons roared from both sides sending the powder smoke in the azure sky over the greenish brine ruffled by the wind inconstant to any of the quarters. My men were all experienced sailors and they pulled with might and main. We neared the flagship in the right squadron of the adversary fleet and rammed her through the ores bristling out on the starboard. Up flew iron crooks of grapples to claw the gunwale overhead, two light ladders sprung up from our felucca to the mammoth galley. And off we were to board her! The indomitable dozen under my command!
What followed must needs employ a score of Homers to relate the fiery uproar of scrambling confrontation, the clangs of swords in deadly tumult. Two arquebus shots in my chest somehow stayed unheeded. The world was spinning on the point of my sword. A stray cannonball made my left arm useless, but I went on hacking my way forward to cut down the royal standard of Egypt floating over the ship. The flag fell down onto the waves, the galley crew cried surrender, half thousand of them perished in the battle.
When the great day was supervened upon by falling night, everyone in the victorious Holy League fleet knew already – the day was won due to the wisdom of their generalissimo and gallantry of a 23-year-old soldier. The two wounds in the chest oozed blood for two more years, my left arm remained a withered vine ever since hanging around from its shoulder. No way to play a guitar any more…
Yes, I was too proud then, too young, too unaware to get it that any struggle you enter, you enter for defeat, and there is no other outcome. Time, The Grim Umpire, sees to ineluctability of your defeat…
So what now? Besides being happy on sunny days? Ha! Here enters the greatest treasure you can expect of human life – freedom! Nothing is comparable to being free.
So, now I live on both free and happy. More than that! As a self-styled scholar I fill my days with learning and soon enough I’m going to check the qualities of absolute freedom delivered to anyone by benevolent Mr. Death. Who else can fetch you a higher degree of freedom? You get free of your debts, maladies, outworn carcass, saggy skin in senile spots. You leave all that behind as well as hunger, wars, the fear of death. All’s over. Ain’t it the sweetest gift in life?.
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15
As I was zeroing
