Don Quixote — Chapter 45 in French
By Miguel de Cervantes
ue vous semble, seigneurs, s’écria le barbier, de ce qu’affirment ces gentilshommes, puisqu’ils s’opiniâtrent à dire que ceci n’est pas un plat à barbe, mais un armet ? "What do you think now, gentlemen," said the barber, "of what these gentles say, when they want to make out that this is a helmet?"
— Et qui dira le contraire, interrompit Don Quichotte, je lui ferai savoir qu’il ment, s’il est chevalier ; et, s’il est écuyer, qu’il en a menti mille fois. "And whoever says the contrary," said Don Quixote, "I will let him know he lies if he is a knight, and if he is a squire that he lies again a thousand times."
» Notre barbier, maître Nicolas, qui se trouvait présent à la bagarre, connaissant si bien l’humeur de Don Quichotte, voulut exciter encore son extravagance, et pousser plus loin la plaisanterie, pour donner de quoi rire à tout le monde. Our own barber, who was present at all this, and understood Don Quixote's humour so thoroughly, took it into his head to back up his delusion and carry on the joke for the general amusement; so addressing the other barber he said:
Il dit donc, parlant à l’autre barbier : « Seigneur barbier, qui que vous soyez, sachez que je suis du même état que vous ; que j’ai reçu, il y a plus de vingt ans, mon diplôme d’examen, et que je connais parfaitement tous les instruments et ustensiles du métier de la barbe, sans en excepter un seul ; sachez de plus que, dans le temps de ma jeunesse, j’ai été soldat, "Senor barber, or whatever you are, you must know that I belong to your profession too, and have had a licence to practise for more than twenty years, and I know the implements of the barber craft, every one of them, perfectly well; and I was likewise a soldier for some time in the days of my youth, and I know also what a helmet is, and a morion, and a headpiece with a visor, and other things pertaining to soldiering, I meant to say to soldiers' arms; and I say-saving better opinions and always with submission to sounder judgments--that this piece we have now before us, which this worthy gentleman has in his hands, not only is no barber's basin, but is as far from being one as white is from black, and truth from falsehood; I say, moreover, that this, although it is a helmet, is not a complete helmet."