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‘Sit down, you imbecile; wherever I sit will be the head of the table for you.’

And that’s my story, and I don’t believe it was out of place here.”

Don Quixote turned a thousand different colors that looked like marbling on his dark skin, and the duke and duchess, having understood Sancho’s sly intent, hid their laughter so that Don Quixote would not lose his temper; and in order to change the subject and keep Sancho from further insolence, the duchess asked Don Quixote what news he had of the lady Dulcinea, and if he had recently sent her any giants or malefactors as presents, for surely he had defeated a good number of them. To which Don Quixote responded:

“Señora, my misfortunes, although they had a beginning, will never have an end. I have vanquished giants, and I have sent villains and malefactors to her, but where can they find her if she has been enchanted and transformed into the ugliest peasant girl anyone can imagine?”

“I don’t know,” said Sancho Panza. “To me she looks like the most beautiful creature in the world, at least, as far as speed and jumping are concerned, I know that no acrobat could compete with her; by my faith, Señora Duchess, she can leap from the ground onto the back of a donkey just like a cat.”

“Have you seen her enchanted, Sancho?” asked the duke.

“Of course I’ve seen her!” responded Sancho. “Who the devil else but me was the first to catch on to this matter of enchantment? She’s as enchanted as my father!”

The ecclesiastic, who heard talk of giants, villains, and enchantments, realized that this must be Don Quixote of La Mancha, whose history was the duke’s customary reading, for which he had often reprimanded him, saying that it was foolishness to read such foolishness; and knowing that what he suspected was true, he spoke to the duke with a good deal of anger, saying:

“Your Excellency, Señor, must give an accounting to Our Lord for what this good man does. I imagine that this Don Quixote, or Don Half-wit, or whatever his name is, is not so great a fool as Your Excellency wants him to be when you provide him with opportunities to continue his absurdities and nonsense.”

And turning to Don Quixote, he said:

“And you, you simpleminded man, whoever put it into your head that you are a knight errant and defeat giants and capture villains? Go now in peace, and in peace I shall say to you: return to your home, and rear your children, if you have any, and tend to your estate, and stop wandering the world and wasting your time and being a laughingstock to all who know you and all who do not. Where the devil did you get the idea that there once were knights errant or that there are any now? Where are there giants in Spain, or malefactors in La Mancha, or enchanted Dulcineas, or any of the endless nonsense that people tell about you?”

Don Quixote listened attentively to the words of that venerable man, and seeing that he had fallen silent, and without regard for the duke and duchess, he rose to his feet, and with an angry countenance and a wrathful face, he said…

But this response deserves its own chapter.

CHAPTER XXXII

Regarding the response that Don Quixote gave to his rebuker, along with other events both grave and comical

Don Quixote, then, rose to his feet, and trembling from head to toe like quicksilver, he spoke quickly and with great agitation, saying:

“The place where I am now, and the presence in which I find myself, and the respect I always have had, and have now, for the vocation your grace professes, bind and restrain the censure of my righteous anger; and for the reasons I have said, and because I know that everyone knows that the weapons of men in cassocks are the same as those of women, which is to say, their tongues, I shall with mine enter into equal combat with your grace, from whom one ought to have expected good counsel rather than base vituperation. Holy and well-intentioned rebukes require different circumstances and demand different occasions: at least, your having rebuked me in public, and so harshly, has gone beyond all the bounds