Don Quixote was still asleep when the dinner was served, and during dinner—the Innkeeper, his wife, his daughter, and Maritornes being there, as well as all the travellers—they talked of Don Quixote's strange craze, and of the state in which they had found him. The Hostess told them of what had happened between him and the Carrier, and glancing round to see if Sancho were present, and not seeing him, she told them the story of his being tossed in the blanket, to the no small entertainment of all the company.
The Curate told him it was the books of Knighthood that Don Quixote had read that had turned his head.
'I know not how that can be,' said the Innkeeper, 'for to my thinking there is no finer reading in the world; and when it is harvest-time, the reapers here often collect during the midday heat, and one who can read takes one of these books in hand, while some thirty of us get round him, and sit listening with so much delight that I could find it in my heart to be hearing such stories day and night.'
'And I think well of them, too,' said the Hostess, 'for when the reading is going on, you are so full of it that you forget to scold me, and I have a good time of it.'
'Ah,' said her daughter, 'I too listen, and though I like not the fights which please my father, yet the lamentations which the Knights make when they are away from their Ladies make me weep for pity, and I enjoy that.'
'We have need here,' said the Curate, 'of our friends, the old woman and the Niece. Beware, my good Host, of these books, and take care that they carry you not on the road they have taken Don Quixote.'
'Not so,' said the Innkeeper, 'I shall not be such a fool as to turn Knight Errant; for I see well enough that it is not the fashion now to do as they used to do in the times when these famous Knights roamed about the world. All that is of no use nowadays.'
Sancho came in in the midst of this, and was amazed to hear them say that Knights Errant now were of no use, and that books of Knighthood were full of follies and lies, and he made up his mind to see the end of this voyage of his Master, and if that did not turn out as happily as he expected, to return home to his wife and children and to his former labours.
At this moment a noise came from the room where Don Quixote was lying, and Sancho went hastily to see if his Master wanted anything.