be started to his feet and
listened with open ears to catch what they said about him, and heard the
Don Jeronimo who had been addressed say in reply, "Why would you have us
read that absurd stuff, Don Juan, when it is impossible for anyone who
has read the First Part of the history of 'Don Quixote of La Mancha' to
take any pleasure in reading this Second Part?"

"For all that," said he who was addressed as Don Juan, "we shall do well
to read it, for there is no book so bad but it has something good in it.
What displeases me most in it is that it represents Don Quixote as now
cured of his love for Dulcinea del Toboso."

On hearing this Don Quixote, full of wrath and indignation, lifted up his
voice and said, "Whoever he may be who says that Don Quixote of La Mancha
has forgotten or can forget Dulcinea del Toboso, I will teach him with
equal arms that what he says is very far from the truth; for neither can
the peerless Dulcinea del Toboso be forgotten, nor can forgetfulness have
a place in Don Quixote; his motto is constancy, and his profession to
maintain the same with his life and never wrong it."

"Who is this that answers us?" said they in the next room.

"Who should it be," said Sancho, "but Don Quixote of La Mancha himself,
who will make good all he has said and all he will say; for pledges don't
trouble a good payer."

Sancho had hardly uttered these words when two gentlemen, for such they
seemed to be, entered the room, and one of them, throwing his arms round
Don Quixote's neck, said to him, "Your appearance cannot leave any
question as to your name, nor can your name fail to identify your
appearance; unquestionably, senor, you are the real Don Quixote of La
Mancha, cynosure and morning star of knight-errantry, despite and in
defiance of him who has sought to usurp your name and bring to naught
your achievements, as the author of this book which I here present to you
has done;" and with this he put a book which his companion carried into
the hands of Don Quixote, who took it, and without replying began to run
his eye over it; but he presently returned it saying, "In the little I
have seen I have discovered three things in this author that deserve to
be censured. The first is some words that I have read in the preface; the
next that the language is Aragonese, for sometimes he writes without
articles; and the third, which above all stamps him as ignorant, is that
he goes wrong and departs from the truth in the