Keep it safe, my friend, for just now I have no need of it; indeed, I shall have to take off all this armour and remain as naked as I was born, if I have a mind to follow Roland rather than Amadis in my penance."
Upon this place the Knight of the Rueful Countenance fixed his choice for the performance of his penance, and as he beheld it exclaimed in a loud voice as though he were out of his senses:
"For the love of God," said Sancho, "be careful, your worship, how you give yourself those knocks on the head, for you may come across such a rock, and in such a way, that the very first may put an end to the whole contrivance of this penance; and I should think, if indeed knocks on the head seem necessary to you, and this business cannot be done without them, you might be content -as the whole thing is feigned, and counterfeit, and in joke- you might be content, I say, with giving them to yourself in the water, or against something soft, like cotton; and leave it all to me; for I'll tell my lady that your worship knocked your head against a point of rock harder than a diamond."
"It seems to me," said Sancho, "that the knights who behaved in this way had provocation and cause for those follies and penances; but what cause has your worship for going mad?
Joyfully will I submit to any penance he shall assign me.''
This do for six weeks to come, and thy penance is accomplished.''
"I shan't inflict any penance," said the clerical gentleman, collecting his heavy hat and umbrella with an air of some amusement; "quite the contrary.
"And what," asked Boulnois, smiling, "is the little penance I have so luckily been let off?"
The others returned, the room filled again, benches were reclaimed and repossessed, and another hour of pleasure or of
penance was to be sat out, another hour of music was to give delight or the gapes, as real or affected taste for it prevailed.
Prieto added that the troubles in the world like wars in many countries, terror attacks, man-made and natural disasters, and crisis in the church are part of the purification process for mankind to heed the call for
penance.