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.
CHAPTER LXIII
The Mishap That Befell Sancho Panza Through the Visit to the Galleys
THE afternoon of that same day Don Antonio took Don Quixote and Sancho on board one of the galleys, amid all the honors that accompany the visits of great and famous personages. There were fanfares, and cheers, and the firing of guns, and all the high-ranking officers of the army and navy who were in the city had been appealed to by Don Antonio Moreno and turned out to pay him their respects.