ve me of certain doubts I
have, rising out of the history of the great Don Quixote that is now in
print. One is: inasmuch as worthy Sancho never saw Dulcinea, I mean the
lady Dulcinea del Toboso, nor took Don Quixote's letter to her, for it
was left in the memorandum book in the Sierra Morena, how did he dare to
invent the answer and all that about finding her sifting wheat, the whole
story being a deception and falsehood, and so much to the prejudice of
the peerless Dulcinea's good name, a thing that is not at all becoming
the character and fidelity of a good squire?"

At these words, Sancho, without uttering one in reply, got up from his
chair, and with noiseless steps, with his body bent and his finger on his
lips, went all round the room lifting up the hangings; and this done, he
came back to his seat and said, "Now, senora, that I have seen that there
is no one except the bystanders listening to us on the sly, I will answer
what you have asked me, and all you may ask me, without fear or dread.
And the first thing I have got to say is, that for my own part I hold my
master Don Quixote to be stark mad, though sometimes he says things that,
to my mind, and indeed everybody's that listens to him, are so wise, and
run in such a straight furrow, that Satan himself could not have said
them better; but for all that, really, and beyond all question, it's my
firm belief he is cracked. Well, then, as this is clear to my mind, I can
venture to make him believe things that have neither head nor tail, like
that affair of the answer to the letter, and that other of six or eight
days ago, which is not yet in history, that is to say, the affair of the
enchantment of my lady Dulcinea; for I made him believe she is enchanted,
though there's no more truth in it than over the hills of Ubeda."

The duchess begged him to tell her about the enchantment or deception, so
Sancho told the whole story exactly as it had happened, and his hearers
were not a little amused by it; and then resuming, the duchess said, "In
consequence of what worthy Sancho has told me, a doubt starts up in my
mind, and there comes a kind of whisper to my ear that says, 'If Don
Quixote be mad, crazy, and cracked, and Sancho Panza his squire knows it,
and, notwithstanding, serves and follows him, and goes trusting to his
empty promises, there can be no doubt he must be still madder and sillier
than his master; and that being so, it will be cast in your teeth, senora
du