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“My señora has no need of anything like that, Señor Knight,” said Maritornes.

“Then what, O discreet duenna, doth thy señora need?” responded Don Quixote.

“Just one of your beautiful hands,” said Maritornes, “so that with it she can ease the great desire that has brought her to this opening at such great risk to her honor, for if my señor, her father, heard her, the least thing he would slice off would be her ear.”

“I should like to see him try!” responded Don Quixote. “But surely he will be careful not to do so, unless he wisheth to meet the most calamitous end that any father hath ever met in this world, for laying hands on the delicate appendages of his enamored daughter.”

Maritornes, certain that Don Quixote would surely give her the hand she had requested, had decided on what to do, and she climbed down from the opening, went to the stable, took the halter of Sancho Panza’s donkey, and hurried back to the opening just as Don Quixote was standing on Rocinante’s saddle in order to reach the barred window where he imagined the heartbroken damsel to be; and as he gave her his hand, he said:

“Señora, takest thou this hand, or rather, this scourge of all evildoers in the world; takest thou this hand, I say, untouched by the hand of any woman, not e’en the hand of she who hath entire possession of this my body. I do not give it to thee so that thou mayest kiss it, but so that thou mayest gaze upon the composition of its sinews, the consistency of its muscles, the width and capacity of its veins, and from this conjecture the might of the arm to which such a hand belongeth.”

“Now we’ll see,” said Maritornes.

And after making a slip knot in the halter, she put it around his wrist and climbed down from the opening, then tied the other end of the halter very firmly to the lock on the loft door. Don Quixote, who felt the rough cord around his wrist, said:

“It seemeth to me that thy grace is filing my hand instead of fondling it; treateth it not so harshly, for it is not to blame for the injury my desire hath done thee, nor is it fitting that thou should’st seek vengeance for thy entire displeasure on so small a part of my body. Thou should’st remember, too, that one who loveth sweetly doth not punish severely.”

But no one was listening to these words of Don Quixote, because as soon as Maritornes attached the halter to his wrist, she and the innkeeper’s daughter went away, convulsed with laughter, and left him so securely tied that it was impossible for him to free himself.

As we have said, he was standing on Rocinante, his entire arm inside the opening and his wrist tied to the lock on the door, extremely uneasy and fearful that if Rocinante moved to one side or the other, he would be left hanging by his arm, and so he did not dare move at all, although considering Rocinante’s patience and passivity, one could reasonably expect him to stand for a century without moving.

In short, when Don Quixote discovered that he was bound and the ladies had vanished, he began to imagine that all this was the result of enchantment, as it had been the last time when in that very castle an enchanted Moor of a muledriver had given him a severe beating; to himself he cursed his lack of intelligence and good sense, for after having been hurt so badly in that castle, he had dared enter it a second time, despite the common knowledge among knights errant that when they have embarked on an adventure and have not succeeded, it is a sign that the adventure is meant not for them but for others, and so they have no need to attempt it a second time. Even so, he pulled his arm to see if he could free himself, but he was so securely tied that all his efforts were in vain. It is certainly true that he pulled rather tentatively so that Rocinante would not move, and though he longed to sit down in the saddle, all he could do was remain standing or pull his hand off.

He wished for the sword of Amadís, against which all enchantments were powerless; then he cursed his fate; then he exaggerated how much the world would feel