Which Deals with the Adventure of the Enchanted Head, Together with Other Trivial Matters Which Cannot Be Left Untold
THE cavalier turned out to be one Don Antonio Moreno, a gentleman with a great sense of humor, well read and rich. As soon as Don Quixote had entered the house, Don Antonio persuaded him to discard the suit of armor; then he took him out on the balcony, where he at once attracted all the boys in the street and crowds of people, who gazed at him as if he had been a monkey. The cavaliers passed in review before the balcony, and the knight was given the impression that it was in his special honor they were bedecked as they were, for he did not realize that it was a holiday. Sancho was delighted beyond description. He was treated royally by the servants, who thought that they had never met any one quite as amusing as he. Don Antonio's friends were all instructed to pay homage to Don Quixote and at all times to address him as if he were a knight errant.
The flattery and honors were too much for the poor knight: they turned his head completely, and he became puffed up with his own importance. Sancho, too, amused Don Antonio and his guests exceedingly, and they enjoyed particularly hearing about his escapades as governor.
After dinner that day, the host took Don Quixote into a distant room, which contained no furniture except a table, on which was a pedestal supporting a head made of what seemed to be bronze. After having acted in the most mysterious manner, and having carefully ascertained that all the doors to the room were shut and no one listening, Antonio swore the knight to secrecy. Then he proceeded to tell Don Quixote that the head he saw there before him had been made by a Polish magician, and possessed the magic faculty of being able to answer any question whispered into its ear. Only on certain days, however, did its magic assert itself, and the following day, which was the day after Friday—it had been astrologically worked out—would again witness the miracle. Don Antonio asked the knight whether there was anything he should especially like to ask the head; if so, he could put the question to it on the morrow. Don Quixote seemed sceptical, but made no comment, and they returned to the other guests.
In the afternoon the knight errant was placed on a tall mule, bedecked with beautiful trimmings, and himself encased in a heavy and uncomfortably warm garb of yellow cloth; then, unbeknown to him, they pinned on his back a parchment with this inscription in large letters: This is Don Quixote of La Mancha.
As they were parading through the streets the knight's vanity swelled more and more, for from every nook and corner there came great shouts of recognition. Soon he was unable to restrain his vainglorious nature, and he turned to his host and remarked to him with much satisfaction: "Great are the privileges knight-errantry involves, for it makes him who professes it known and famous in every region of the earth. See, Don Antonio, even the very boys of this city know me without ever having seen me." Finally the crowds increased so that Don Antonio was obliged to remove the parchment, and soon they had to take refuge in his house.
In the evening Don Antonio's wife gave a dance, and it was amusing to see the tall and lank hero move about on the ballroom floor; the men gave him the opportunity to dance every dance, for they themselves enjoyed watching him better than dancing. At last Don Quixote was so exhausted both by the dancing and by the lovemaking that the ladies had imposed on him—and how they delighted in hearing him avow his great love for Dulcinea—that Sancho had to take him to his room and put him to bed.
The next day Don Antonio took his wife, Don Quixote, and a few intimate friends into the secret chamber, and after many mysterious preliminaries, the questioning of the head began. All seemed particularly interested in what Don Quixote would have to ask, and felt rewarded when his turn came, for this is what he demanded: "Tell me, thou that answerest, was that which happened to me in the cave of Montesinos the truth or a dream? Will my squire Sancho's whipping be accomplished without fail? Will the disenchantment of Dulcinea be brought about?"
In a mysterious voice that seemed to come from a great distance, the head returned these answers: "As to the question of the cave, there is much to be said; there is something of both in it. Sancho's whipping will proceed leisurely. The disenchantment of Dulcinea will attain its due consummation."
Don Quixote heaved a sigh and declared that if only his peerless one were disenchanted, it would be all the good fortune he could wish for. Then Sancho tried his luck; but at the conclusion of Sancho's audience with the head, he did not seem properly awed, and his master became displeased with his pretentious expectations and reprimanded him severely in the presence of the whole company.
All the while Sancho's incessant talking and his master's exalted behavior kept every one in an uproarious humor. The joke that Don Antonio had arranged consisted in having a student, a young nephew of Don Antonio's, placed in a chamber underneath the one in which the head was, to receive the questions and speak the replies through a tube that led from the inside of the head to the room below. Soon after this form of amusement had taken place, it was agreed upon by the gentlemen of the city to arrange for a tilting at the ring, for they were convinced that such an exhibition would afford greater opportunities for mirth and laughter than anything else they might think of.
One day Don Quixote and Sancho, accompanied by two of Don Antonio's servants, were walking on foot through the city, when they suddenly passed a printing shop; and, never having seen one, the knight entered with Sancho and the servants. He was as curious as usual, and asked the printer innumerable questions about the books that he was printing. He saw some of the printers reading the proofs of a book, and he turned to them and inquired what the title of the book was. They told him it was the Second Part of "The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha," adding that it was written by a certain person of Tordesillas. Upon hearing this, Don Quixote grew quite cold in his demeanor, and having moralized that fiction resembling truth is always greater than absurdly untruthful stories, he uttered a hope that the book would be burned to ashes. And then he turned his back on the astonished men and left the shop in great haste.