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“Right now I mark them as mine,” said Sancho, “and don’t let anybody touch them; I’ll pay a better price for them than anybody else, because as far as I’m concerned nothing could taste any better, and it’s all the same to me whether they’re calves’ feet or cows’ heels.”

“Nobody will touch them,” said the innkeeper, “because the other guests I have are so highborn they brought their own cook and steward, and their own provisions.”

“If it’s highborn you want,” said Sancho, “there’s nobody better than my master, but his profession doesn’t allow any butlers or wine stewards; we just lie down in the middle of a meadow and eat our fill of acorns and medlar fruit.”

This was the conversation that Sancho had with the innkeeper; Sancho did not want to answer any of his questions, for he had already asked about his master’s profession or office.

The time for supper arrived, Don Quixote returned to his room, the landlord brought in the olla full of stew, and Don Quixote sat down to eat very deliberately. It seems that in the next room, which was separated from his only by a thin partition, Don Quixote heard someone say:

“By heaven, Señor Don Jerónimo, while they bring in our supper, let us read another chapter of the second part of Don Quixote of La Mancha.”

As soon as Don Quixote heard his name, he stood and listened very carefully to what they were saying about him, and he heard the man called Don Jerónimo respond:

“Señor Don Juan, why does your grace want us to read this nonsense? Whoever has read the first part of the history of Don Quixote of La Mancha cannot possibly derive any pleasure from reading this second part.”

“Even so,” said Don Juan, “it would be nice to read it because there’s no book so bad that it doesn’t have something good in it. What I dislike the most in this one is that it depicts Don Quixote as having fallen out of love with Dulcinea of Toboso.”1

When he heard this, Don Quixote, full of wrath and fury, raised his voice and said:

“If anyone says that Don Quixote of La Mancha has forgotten or ever can forget Dulcinea of Toboso, I shall make him understand with the most steadfast arms that he is very far from the truth, because the peerless Dulcinea of Toboso cannot be forgotten, nor does forgetting have any place in Don Quixote, for his coat of arms is constancy and his profession is to preserve it gently, and without force of any kind.”

“Who is answering us?” came the response from the next room.

“Who can it be,” responded Sancho, “but Don Quixote of La Mancha himself, who’ll carry out everything he’s said, and even what he might say? For the man who pays his debts doesn’t worry about guaranties.”

As soon as Sancho said this, two gentlemen, for that is what they seemed to be, came in through the door of the room, and one of them threw his arms around Don Quixote’s neck and said:

“Your presence cannot give the lie to your name, nor can your name not vouch for your presence: there is no doubt, Señor, that you are the true Don Quixote of La Mancha, the polestar and guiding light of knight errantry, notwithstanding and despite one who has wanted to usurp your name and annihilate your deeds, as the author of this book, which I give to you now, has done.”

And he placed a book in his hands, which his companion had been carrying; Don Quixote accepted it and without saying a word began to leaf through it, and in a little while he returned it, saying:

“In this short perusal I have found three things in this author that are worthy of reprimand. The first is some words that I have read in the prologue;2 the second is that the language is Aragonese, because sometimes he writes without articles;3 the third, which confirms his ignorance, is that he strays and deviates from the truth in the most important part of the history, because he says that the wife of my squire, Sancho Panza, is named Mari Gutiérrez, which is incorrect, for her name is Teresa Panza;4 if he errs in something so important, it is reasonable to fear that