What befell Don Quixote and his company at the inn.

When they had eaten plentifully they left that place, and travelled all that day and the next without meeting anything worth notice, till they came to the inn, which was so frightful a sight to poor Sancho, that he would willingly not have gone in, but could by no means avoid it. The innkeeper, the hostess, her daughter, and Maritornes, met Don Quixote and his squire with a very hearty welcome. The knight received them with a face of gravity and approbation, bidding them prepare him a better bed than their last entertainment afforded him. "Sir," said the hostess, "pay us better than you did then, and you shall have a bed for a prince." And upon the knight's promise that he would, she promised him a tolerable bed in the large room where he lay before. He presently undressed, and being heartily crazed in body as well as in mind, he went to bed. He was scarcely got to his chamber, when the hostess flew suddenly at the barber, and catching him by the beard, "On my life," said she, "you shall use my tail no longer for a beard; pray, sir, give me my tail; my husband wants it to stick his comb into; and my tail I will have, sir." The barber surrendered the hostess her tail, with the other trinkets which he had borrowed to decoy Don Quixote out of the desert. Dorothea's beauty and Cardenio's handsome shape surprised every body. The curate bespoke supper; and the host, being pretty secure of his reckoning, soon got them a tolerable entertainment. They would not disturb the knight, who slept very soundly, for his distemper wanted rest more than meat; but they diverted themselves with the hostess's account of his encounter with the carriers, and of Sancho's being tossed in a blanket. Don Quixote's unaccountable madness was the principal subject of their discourse; upon which the curate insisting and arguing that it proceeded from his reading romances, the innkeeper took him up.

"Sir," said he, "you cannot make me of your opinion; for, in my mind, it is the pleasantest reading that ever was. I have now in the house two or three books of that kind, and some other pieces that really have kept me and many others alive. In harvest-time, a great many of the reapers come to drink here in the heat of the day, and he that can read best among us takes up one of these books, and all the rest of us, sometimes thirty or more, sit round about him and listen with such pleasure that we think neither of sorrow nor care. As for my own part, when I hear the mighty blows and dreadful battles of those knights-errant, I have half a mind to be one myself, and am raised to such a life and briskness that I could frighten away old age. I could sit and hear them from morning till night." "I wish you would, husband," said the hostess; "for then we should have some rest; for at all other times you are so out of humour and so snappish that we lead a sad life with you." "And what think you of this matter, young miss?" said the curate to the innkeeper's daughter. "Alack-a-day, sir," said she, "I do not understand those things, and yet I love to hear them; but I do not like that frightful ugly fighting that so pleases my father. Indeed, the sad lamentations of the poor knights for the loss of their mistresses sometimes makes me cry like any thing." "I suppose, then, young gentlewoman," said Dorothea, "you will be tender-hearted, and will never let a lover die for you." "I do not know what may happen as to that," said the girl; "but this I know, that I will never give any body reason to call me tigress and lioness, and I do not know how many other ugly names, as those ladies are often called; and I think they deserve yet worse, so they do; for they can never have soul nor conscience to let such fine gentlemen die or run mad for a sight of them. What signifies all their fiddling and coyness? If they are civil women, why do not they marry them; for that is all their knights would be at?" "Hold your prating, mistress," said the hostess, "how came you to know all this? It is not for such as you to talk of these matters." "The gentleman only asked me a question," said she, "and it would be uncivil not to answer him." "Well," said the curate, "do me the favour, good landlord, to bring out these books that I may have a sight of them."

"With all my heart," said the innkeeper; and with that, stepping to his chamber, he opened a little portmanteau that shut with a chain, and took out three large volumes, with a parcel of manuscripts in a fair legible letter. The title of the first was Don Cirongilio of Thrace; the second Felixmarte of Hircania; and the third was the History of the great Captain GonÇalo Hernandes de Corduba, and the Life of Diego Garcia de Paredes, bound together.[7] The curate, reading the title, turned to the barber, and told him they wanted now Don Quixote's housekeeper and his niece. "I shall do as well with the books," said the barber; "for I can find the way to the back-yard, or to the chimney; there is a good fire that will do their business." "Business!" said the innkeeper, "I hope you would not burn my books?" "Only two of them," said the curate; "this same Don Cirongilio and his friend Felixmarte." "I hope, sir," said the host, "they are neither heretics nor flegmatics." "Schismatics, you mean," said the barber. "I mean so," said the innkeeper; "and if you must burn any, let it be this of GonÇalo Hernandes and Diego Garcia; for you should sooner burn one of my children than the others." "These books, honest friend," said the curate, "that you appear so concerned for are senseless rhapsodies of falsehood and folly; and this which you so despise is a true history, and contains a true account of two celebrated men. The first by his bravery and courage purchased immortal fame, and the name of the Great General, by the universal consent of mankind; and the other, Diego Garcia de Paredes, was of noble extraction, and born in Truxillo, a town of Estremadura, and was a man of singular courage, and of such mighty strength, that with one of his hands he could stop a mill-wheel in its most rapid motion, and with his single force defended the passage of a bridge against an immense army. Several other great actions are related in the memoirs of his life, but all with so much modesty and unbiassed truth, that they easily pronounce him his own historiographer; and had they been written by any one else, with freedom and impartiality, they might have eclipsed your Hectors, Achilles's, and Orlandos, with all their heroic exploits." "That's a fine jest, truly," said the innkeeper; "my father could have told you another tale, sir. Holding a mill-wheel! why, is that such a mighty matter? Only do but turn over a leaf of Felixmarte there; you will find how with one single back-stroke he cut five swinging giants off by the middle, as if they had been so many bean-cods, of which the children make little puppet-friars; and read how at another time he charged a most mighty and powerful army of above a million and six hundred thousand fighting men, all armed cap-a-pie, and routed them all like so many sheep. And what can you say of the worthy Cirongilio of Thrace? who, as you may read there, going by water one day, was assaulted by a fiery serpent in the middle of the river; he presently leaped nimbly upon her back, and, hanging by her scaly neck, grasped her throat fast with both his arms, so that the serpent, finding herself almost strangled, was forced to dive into the water to save herself, and carried the knight, who would not quit his hold, to the very bottom, where he found a stately palace and such pleasant gardens that it was a wonder; and straight the serpent turned into a very old man, and told him such things as were never heard nor spoken. Now, a fig for your Great Captain and your Diego Garcia." Dorothea, hearing this, said softly to Cardenio, that the host was capable of making a second part to Don Quixote. "I think so too," cried Cardenio, "for it is plain he believes every tittle contained in those books; nor can all the Carthusian friars in the world persuade him otherwise." "I tell thee, friend," said the curate, "there were never any such persons as your books of chivalry mention upon the face of the earth; your Felixmarte of Hircania and your Cirongilio of Thrace are all but chimeras and fictions of idle and luxuriant wits, who wrote them for the same reason that you read them, because they had nothing else to do." "Sir," said the innkeeper, "you must angle with another bait, or you will catch no fish; I know what's what as well as another; I can tell where my own shoe pinches me; and you must not think, sir, to catch old birds with chaff. A pleasant jest indeed, that you should pretend to persuade me now that these notable books are lies and stories! why, sir, are they not in print? Are they not published according to order? licensed by authority from the privy council? And do you think that they would permit so many untruths to be printed, and such a number of battles and enchantments, to set us all a-madding?" "I have told you already, friend," replied the curate, "that this is licensed for our amusement in our idle hours: for the same reason that tennis, billiards, chess, and other recreations are tolerated, that men may find a pastime for those hours they cannot find employment for. Neither could the government foresee this inconvenience from such books that you urge, because they could not reasonably suppose any rational person would believe their absurdities. And were this a proper time, I could say a great deal in favour of such writings; and how, with some regulations, they might be made both instructive and diverting. But I design upon the first opportunity to communicate my thoughts on this head to some that may redress it. In the mean time, honest landlord, you may put up your books, and believe them true if you please, and much good may they do you. And I wish you may never halt on the same foot as your guest, Don Quixote." "There's no fear of that," said the innkeeper; "for I never design to turn knight-errant, because I find the customs that supported the noble order are quite out of doors."