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“It seems at first glance to be a love letter,” responded Don Quixote.

“Read it aloud, your grace,” said Sancho. “I really like things that have to do with love.”

“I should be happy to,” said Don Quixote.

And, reading it aloud, as Sancho had requested, he saw that it said:

Your false promise and my certain misfortune have taken me to a place from which news of my death will reach your ears before the words of my lament. You rejected me, O ungrateful lady, for one who has more than I, but not one of greater worth; but if virtue were the wealth that is held in high esteem, I would not envy the fortunes of others or weep for my own misfortunes. What your beauty erected was demolished by your actions; from the former I understood that you were an angel, and from the latter I know that you are a woman. Go in peace, cause of my conflict, and may heaven grant that the deceptions of your husband remain forever hidden, so that you need not repent of what you did, nor I take my revenge for what I do not desire.

When he had finished reading the letter, Don Quixote said:

“Less from this than from the verses, one can assume that the man who wrote it is a scorned lover.”

And leafing through almost the entire notebook, he found other verses and letters, some of which he could read and others not; but what they all contained were complaints, laments, suspicions, joys and sorrows, kindnesses and slights, either celebrated or wept over.

While Don Quixote was looking through the book, Sancho looked through the traveling case, and every corner of it and the cushion was searched, scrutinized, and investigated, every seam pulled apart, every tuft of wool untangled, so that nothing would be left behind for want of effort or diligence, for the escudos he had discovered, which amounted to more than a hundred, had awakened an enormous appetite in him. And though he did not find more than he had already found, he considered as time well spent the tossing in the blanket, the vomiting of the potion, the blessings of the staffs, the fists of the muledriver, the loss of his saddlebags, the theft of his coat, and all the hunger, thirst, and weariness he had endured in the service of his worthy lord, for it seemed to him he had been more than well-rewarded when his master favored him and presented his find to him as a gift.

The Knight of the Sorrowful Face was left with a great desire to know who the owner of the traveling case might be, supposing, on the basis of the sonnet and letter, the gold coins and excellent shirts, that he must be a wellborn and noble lover driven to some desperate end by his lady’s scorn and harsh treatment. But since no person appeared in that desolate and rugged place whom he could question, his only concern was to move on, following no other path than the one chosen by Rocinante, which tended to be the one the horse could travel most easily, and always imagining that there was bound to be some extraordinary adventure waiting for him in the thickets.

Riding along, thinking these thoughts, at the top of a hill that lay ahead of him Don Quixote saw a man leaping from crag to crag and bush to bush with uncommon speed. The man appeared to be half-dressed, and he had a heavy black beard, long disheveled hair, no shoes on his feet, and nothing at all on his calves; his thighs were covered by breeches that seemed to be made of tawny velvet but were so tattered and torn that in many places his skin showed through. His head was bare, and though he moved with the speed we have mentioned, the Knight of the Sorrowful Face saw and noted all these details; he tried to follow him but could not because it was beyond the strength of Rocinante to travel that rugged ground, especially since he was by nature slow-paced and phlegmatic. Then Don Quixote imagined that the man was the owner of the saddle cushion and traveling case, and he resolved to look for him until he found him, even if he was obliged to spend a year in those mountains, and so he ordered Sancho to get off his donkey