We have traced him through six streets in the
last four years of his life.
But a touching fact is that they are all in
the same quarter. It is understood that his natural daughter and only
child, Isabel de Saavedra, entered the Convent of the Trinitarian nuns
in the street of Cantarranas - Singing Frogs - at some date unknown. All
the shifting and changing which Cervantes made in these embarrassed
years are within a small half-circle, whose centre is his grave and the
cell of his child. He fluttered about that little convent like a gaunt
old eagle about the cage that guards his callow young.
Like Albert Duerer, like Raphael and Van Dyck, he painted his own
portrait at this time with a force and vigor of touch which leaves
little to the imagination. As few people ever read the Exemplary
Novels, - more is the pity, - I will translate this passage from the
Prologue: -
"He whom you see there with the aquiline face, chestnut hair, a smooth
and open brow, merry eyes, a nose curved but well proportioned, a beard
of silver which twenty years ago was of gold, long mustaches, a small
mouth, not too full of teeth, seeing he has but six, and these in bad
condition, a form of middle height, a lively color, rather fair than
brown, somewhat round-shouldered and not too light on his feet; this is
the face of the author of Galatea and of Don Quixote de la Mancha, of
him who made the Voyage to Parnassus, and other works which are straying
about without the name of the owner:
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