HKB
OF THE SECOND SALLY OF OUR WORTHY KNIGHT, DON QUIXOTE OF LA MANCHA
While the curate was praising the merits of "The Tears of Angelica," there was suddenly a tremendous outcry and noise from Don Quixote's bedroom. They hastened to see what was the matter, and when they reached his room they found him out of bed, sword in hand, cutting and slashing all around him, raving and shouting, with perspiration dripping from his body. He imagined that he was keeping at a distance several bold and daring warriors, and he kept exclaiming that the envious Don Roland had battered him with the trunk of an oak-tree because of his illustrious achievements in chivalry. They finally succeeded in forcibly putting him to bed, having wiped away the perspiration--which he insisted was blood. He then asked for something to eat; and when it was brought he fell asleep again.
After the housekeeper had burned up all the books that were in the house, the curate and the barber thought it best to safeguard themselves against their friend's fury when he should find that his treasures had disappeared. So they decided to wall up and plaster the room where the books had been. Two days later, when Don Quixote got up out of bed, he went to look for his library. And it was nowhere to be found, of course: where the door had been, there was only a wall. He asked his housekeeper where his books were, as well as the room they had been kept in; but she had been well instructed and blamed it all on the devil. His niece told him that she believed a magician had taken the room away. She had seen him, she declared, come on a cloud, riding on a serpent; and when he had disappeared, the whole house was full of smoke and there was no trace of either room or books. The niece also declared that she had heard the magician say plainly that he was the Sage Munaton.
The niece's explanation of the magic was heartily approved of by Don Quixote. The only doubt he expressed was about the identity of the magician. "He must have said Friston," he insisted. The housekeeper here came to the niece's aid and stated that she did not know whether he had said "Friston" or "Friton" or what he had said; but one thing she was sure of was that his name ended with "ton."
This convinced Don Quixote that it was no other than the Sage Munaton, a great enemy of his, whose vanity could not tolerate the prophecies that Don Quixote was about to conquer in battle a certain knight whom Munaton had befriended.
After this our worthy knight stuck to his house and home for a fortnight. His two gossiping friends, the curate and the village barber, did everything in their power to divert his thoughts from his fixed idea of a revival of the days of knighthood and chivalry. But the fire in Don Quixote's breast was smouldering: it was an undying flame.
Near Don Quixote there lived a man by the name of Sancho Panza. He was a farm-hand--a poor but honest fellow who had both wife and children. Sancho Panza was not overburdened with thoughts derived from reading books of chivalry--the simple facts being that he could neither read nor write--nor, for that matter, with thoughts of any other kind on any other subject, for while Don Quixote had lost his wits, Sancho had never had any.