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“May it be God’s will,” said Don Quixote, “for when a lady humbleth herself before me, I do not wish to lose the opportunity to raise her and restore her to her rightful throne. Let us depart now, for the ancient saying that danger lieth in delay spurreth my desire to be on our way. And since heaven hath not created, nor hell seen, any that canst daunt or frighten me, saddle Rocinante, Sancho, and harness thy donkey and the palfrey of the queen, and let us bid farewell to the castellan and these gentlefolk and leave at once.”

Sancho, who had been present for this entire exchange, shook his head and said:

“Oh, Señor, Señor, there’s more wickedness in the village than they tell you about, begging the pardon of honorable ladies who let themselves be touched.”

“What wickedness can there be in any village, or in all the cities of the world, that can discredit me, oh, lowborn knave?”

“If your grace gets angry,” responded Sancho, “I’ll be quiet and won’t say what I’m obliged to say as a good squire, and what a good Christian is obliged to tell his master.”

“Say whatever you wish,” replied Don Quixote, “as long as your words are not intended to instill fear in me, for if you are afraid, then you are true to the person you are, and if I am not, then I am true to mine.”

“That’s not it, sinner that I am in the sight of God!” responded Sancho. “It’s just that I’m absolutely certain and positive that this lady who says she’s the queen of the great kingdom of Micomicón is no more a queen than my mother, because if she was who she says she is, she wouldn’t go around hugging and kissing one of the men here at the inn, behind every door and every chance she gets.”

Dorotea turned bright red at Sancho’s words, because it was true that her husband, Don Fernando, had, on occasion, taken with his lips part of the prize his love had won, which Sancho had witnessed, and such boldness had seemed to him more appropriate to a courtesan than to the queen of so great a kingdom; she could not or would not say a word in response to Sancho, but allowed him to continue, and he did, saying:

“I’m saying this, Señor, because if after having traveled so many highways and byways, and gone through so many bad nights and worse days, the fruit of our labors is being plucked by someone taking his ease in this inn, then there’s no reason for me to hurry and saddle Rocinante, and harness the donkey, and prepare the palfrey, because we’d be better off sitting still and doing nothing: let each whore tend to her spinning, and we’ll eat.”

Oh, Lord save me, but what a rage overcame Don Quixote when he heard his squire’s discourteous words! It was so great, I say, that with precipitate voice and stumbling tongue and fire blazing from his eyes, he said:

“Oh, base, lowborn, wretched, rude, ignorant, foul-mouthed, ill-spoken, slanderous, insolent varlet! You have dared to speak such words in my presence and in the presence of these distinguished ladies, dared to fill your befuddled imagination with such vileness and effrontery? Leave my presence, unholy monster, repository of lies, stronghold of falsehoods, storehouse of deceits, inventor of iniquities, promulgator of insolence, enemy of the decorum owed to these royal persons. Go, do not appear before me under pain of my wrath!”

And saying this he scowled, puffed out his cheeks, looked all around him, and stamped his right foot very hard on the ground, all signs of the great anger raging in his heart. These words and furious gestures so frightened and terrified Sancho that he would have been overjoyed if the earth had opened up and swallowed him. And he did not know what to do except to turn and leave the enraged presence of his master. But the perceptive Dorotea, who by this time understood Don Quixote’s madness very well, said, in order to pacify his rage:

“Do not be indignant, Señor Knight of the Sorrowful Face, at the foolish things your good squire has said, because it may be that he does not