on Quixote's
bedroom. They hastened to see what was the matter, and when they
reached his room they found him out of bed, sword in hand, cutting and
slashing all around him, raving and shouting, with perspiration
dripping from his body. He imagined that he was keeping at a distance
several bold and daring warriors, and he kept exclaiming that the
envious Don Roland had battered him with the trunk of an oak-tree
because of his illustrious achievements in chivalry. They finally
succeeded in forcibly putting him to bed, having wiped away the
perspiration--which he insisted was blood. He then asked for something
to eat; and when it was brought he fell asleep again.

After the housekeeper had burned up all the books that were in the
house, the curate and the barber thought it best to safeguard
themselves against their friend's fury when he should find that his
treasures had disappeared. So they decided to wall up and plaster the
room where the books had been. Two days later, when Don Quixote got up
out of bed, he went to look for his library. And it was nowhere to be
found, of course: where the door had been, there was only a wall. He
asked his housekeeper where his books were, as well as the room they
had been kept in; but she had been well instructed and blamed it all
on the devil. His niece told him that she believed a magician had
taken the room away. She had seen him, she declared, come on a cloud,
riding on a serpent; and when he had disappeared, the whole house was
full of smoke and there was no trace of either room or books. The
niece also declared that she had heard the magician say plainly that
he was the Sage Munaton.

The niece's explanation of the magic was heartily approved of by Don
Quixote. The only doubt he expressed was about the identity of the
magician. "He must have said Friston," he insisted. The housekeeper
here came to the niece's aid and stated that she did not know whether
he had said "Friston" or "Friton" or what he had said; but one thing
she was sure of was that his name ended with "ton."

This convinced Don Quixote that it was no other than the Sage Munaton,
a great enemy of his, whose vanity could not tolerate the prophecies
that Don Quixote was about to conquer in battle a certain knight whom
Munaton had befriended.

After this our worthy knight stuck to his house and home for a
fortnight. His two gossiping friends, the curate and the village
barber, did everything in their power to diver