"So it is," said Cardenio; "and so uncommon and unexampled, that were one
to attempt to invent and concoct it in fiction, I doubt if there be any
wit keen enough to imagine it."

"But another strange thing about it," said the curate, "is that, apart
from the silly things which this worthy gentleman says in connection with
his craze, when other subjects are dealt with, he can discuss them in a
perfectly rational manner, showing that his mind is quite clear and
composed; so that, provided his chivalry is not touched upon, no one
would take him to be anything but a man of thoroughly sound
understanding."

While they were holding this conversation Don Quixote continued his with
Sancho, saying:

"Friend Panza, let us forgive and forget as to our quarrels, and tell me
now, dismissing anger and irritation, where, how, and when didst thou
find Dulcinea? What was she doing? What didst thou say to her? What did
she answer? How did she look when she was reading my letter? Who copied
it out for thee? and everything in the matter that seems to thee worth
knowing, asking, and learning; neither adding nor falsifying to give me
pleasure, nor yet curtailing lest you should deprive me of it."

"Senor," replied Sancho, "if the truth is to be told, nobody copied out
the letter for me, for I carried no letter at all."

"It is as thou sayest," said Don Quixote, "for the note-book in which I
wrote it I found in my own possession two days after thy departure, which
gave me very great vexation, as I knew not what thou wouldst do on
finding thyself without any letter; and I made sure thou wouldst return
from the place where thou didst first miss it."

"So I should have done," said Sancho, "if I had not got it by heart when
your worship read it to me, so that I repeated it to a sacristan, who
copied it out for me from hearing it, so exactly that he said in all the
days of his life, though he had read many a letter of excommunication, he
had never seen or read so pretty a letter as that."

"And hast thou got it still in thy memory, Sancho?" said Don Quixote.

"No, senor," replied Sancho, "for as soon as I had repeated it, seeing
there was no further use for it, I set about forgetting it; and if I
recollect any of it, it is that about 'Scrubbing,'I mean to say
'Sovereign Lady,' and the end 'Yours till death, the Knight of the Rueful
Countenance;' and between these two I put into it more than three hundred
'my souls' and 'my life's' and 'm