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To which Sancho said:

“That’s a nice thing in a historian! He must certainly know all about us if he calls my wife Mari Gutiérrez instead of Teresa Panza! Look at the book again, Señor, and see if I’m in it, and if he’s changed my name.”

“From what I have heard you say, my friend,” said Don Jerónimo, “you undoubedly are Sancho Panza, the squire to Señor Don Quixote.”

“Yes, I am,” responded Sancho, “and proud of it.”

“Well, by my faith,” said the gentleman, “this modern author does not treat you with the decency you demonstrate in your person: he depicts you as gluttonous, and simpleminded, and not at all amusing, and very different from the Sancho described in the first part of the history of your master.”5

“May God forgive him,” said Sancho. “He should have left me in my corner and forgotten about me, because you shouldn’t play music unless you know how, and St. Peter’s just fine in Rome.”

The two gentlemen asked Don Quixote to come into their room and have supper with them, for they knew very well that the inn did not have food worthy of his person. Don Quixote, who was always courteous, agreed to their request and had supper with them, and Sancho was left with the power of life and death and absolute jurisdiction over the olla; he sat at the head of the table, along with the innkeeper, who was no less fond than Sancho of feet and heels.

In the course of their supper, Don Juan asked Don Quixote if he had news of Señora Dulcinea of Toboso: if she had married, or given birth, or was pregnant, or if she was still a virgin and remembered—within the bounds of her modesty and decorum—the amorous thoughts of Señor Don Quixote. To which he responded:

“Dulcinea is a virgin, and my thoughts are more constant than ever; our communications, as barren as always; her beauty, transformed into that of a crude peasant.”

And then he recounted, point by point, the enchantment of Señora Dulcinea and what had happened to him in the Cave of Montesinos, along with the instructions the wise Merlin had given him on how to disenchant her, which had to do with Sancho’s lashes.

The two gentlemen were exceedingly happy to hear Don Quixote relate the strange events of his history, and they were as amazed by the nonsensical things he said as by the elegant manner in which he said them. Here they considered him intelligent, and there he seemed to slip into foolishness, and they could not determine where precisely to place him between intelligence and madness.

Sancho finished eating, and leaving the innkeeper looking like an X,6 he went to the room where his master was having supper, and when he entered he said:

“By my soul, Señores, I don’t think the author of this book that your graces have wants to get along with me; since he calls me a glutton, as your graces say, I wouldn’t want him to call me a drunkard, too.”

“He does say that,” said Don Jerónimo, “but I don’t remember precisely how, although I do know that his words are offensive, and false as well, as I can see by the physiognomy of the good Sancho here present.”

“Believe me, your graces,” said Sancho, “the Sancho and the Don Quixote in that history are not the ones who appear in the history composed by Cide Hamete Benengeli, the ones who are us: my master is valiant, intelligent, and in love, and I’m simple, amusing, and not a glutton or a drunkard.”

“I believe that,” said Don Juan, “and if it were possible, I would order that no one could dare to deal with the affairs of the great Don Quixote except Cide Hamete, the first author, just as Alexander the Great ordered that no one could dare paint his portrait except Apelles.”

“Let anyone who wishes to,” said Don Quixote, “portray me, but not mistreat me, for patience often falters when it is loaded down with injuries.”

“No injury,” said Don Juan, “can be done to Señor Don Quixote that he cannot avenge, if he does not ward it off with the shield of his patience, which, in my opinion, is strong and great.”

They spent a good part of the night in these and other similar conversations, and although