better payment, served them
up a tolerably good dinner. All this time Don Quixote was asleep, and
they thought it best not to waken him, as sleeping would now do him more
good than eating.

While at dinner, the company consisting of the landlord, his wife, their
daughter, Maritornes, and all the travellers, they discussed the strange
craze of Don Quixote and the manner in which he had been found; and the
landlady told them what had taken place between him and the carrier; and
then, looking round to see if Sancho was there, when she saw he was not,
she gave them the whole story of his blanketing, which they received with
no little amusement. But on the curate observing that it was the books of
chivalry which Don Quixote had read that had turned his brain, the
landlord said:

"I cannot understand how that can be, for in truth to my mind there is no
better reading in the world, and I have here two or three of them, with
other writings that are the very life, not only of myself but of plenty
more; for when it is harvest-time, the reapers flock here on holidays,
and there is always one among them who can read and who takes up one of
these books, and we gather round him, thirty or more of us, and stay
listening to him with a delight that makes our grey hairs grow young
again. At least I can say for myself that when I hear of what furious and
terrible blows the knights deliver, I am seized with the longing to do
the same, and I would like to be hearing about them night and day."

"And I just as much," said the landlady, "because I never have a quiet
moment in my house except when you are listening to some one reading; for
then you are so taken up that for the time being you forget to scold."

"That is true," said Maritornes; "and, faith, I relish hearing these
things greatly too, for they are very pretty; especially when they
describe some lady or another in the arms of her knight under the orange
trees, and the duenna who is keeping watch for them half dead with envy
and fright; all this I say is as good as honey."

"And you, what do you think, young lady?" said the curate turning to the
landlord's daughter.

"I don't know indeed, senor," said she; "I listen too, and to tell the
truth, though I do not understand it, I like hearing it; but it is not
the blows that my father likes that I like, but the laments the knights
utter when they are separated from their ladies; and indeed they
sometimes make me weep with the pity