Chapter XV. In which is told and made known who the Knight of the Mirrors and his squire were

Exceedingly content, proud, and vainglorious went Don Quixote at having won the victory over so valiant a knight as he imagined the Knight of the Mirrors to be, from whose knightly word he hoped to learn whether his lady’s enchantment was still going on, since the vanquished knight was bound, on pain of being no knight, to come back and give him an account of what had befallen him with her. But Don Quixote thought one thing and the Knight of the Mirrors another, for at the time he had no thought but to find somewhere to get himself plastered, as has been said.

The history says, then, that when the bachelor Sansón Carrasco advised Don Quixote to go back to the chivalries he had left off, it was because he had first held a council with the priest and the barber on what means might be taken to bring Don Quixote to stay at home, quiet and peaceful, without his ill-sought adventures stirring him up; and from that council it came out, by the common vote of all and the particular opinion of Carrasco, that they should let Don Quixote go out, since keeping him in seemed impossible, and that Sansón should come out on the road to meet him as a knight-errant and join battle with him, for there would be no lack of cause, and vanquish him, which he took to be an easy thing, and that it should be agreed and settled that the vanquished was to remain at the mercy of the victor; and Don Quixote once vanquished, the bachelor knight was to order him to go back to his village and his house and not leave it for two years, or until he ordered him otherwise; which it was plain that Don Quixote, being vanquished, would fulfill without any doubt, so as not to go against or fall short of the laws of chivalry, and it might be that during the time of his seclusion he would forget his vanities, or that there would be a chance to find some fitting remedy for his madness.

Carrasco accepted it, and Tomé Cecial, Sancho Panza’s crony and neighbor, a merry and feather-brained man, offered himself as his squire. Sansón armed himself as has been described, and Tomé Cecial fitted the false mask nose already mentioned over his natural one, so that his crony would not know him when they met; and so they followed the same route Don Quixote was taking, and very nearly found themselves at the adventure of the cart of Death. And at last they came upon them in the wood, where there befell them all that the prudent reader has read; and if it had not been for Don Quixote’s extraordinary thoughts, by which he persuaded himself that the bachelor was not the bachelor, the Señor Bachelor would have been left forever unable to take his degree as licentiate, for not having found nests where he thought to find birds.

Tomé Cecial, who saw how badly his wishes had turned out and what a sorry end their journey had come to, said to the bachelor:

“Truly, Señor Sansón Carrasco, we have got what we deserve: an enterprise is easily thought of and undertaken, but most times it is hard to get out of. Don Quixote mad, we sane: he goes off sound and laughing, your grace is left pounded and sad. Let us find out now, then, which is the madder: the one who is mad because he cannot help it, or the one who is mad of his own free will?”

To which Sansón replied:

“The difference between those two madmen is that the one who is mad perforce will always be so, and the one who is mad by choice will stop being so whenever he likes.”

“Then if that’s so,” said Tomé Cecial, “I was mad of my own free will when I chose to become your grace’s squire, and of that same will I mean to stop being so and go back home.”

“That suits you,” answered Sansón, “because to think that I am going back to mine until I have beaten Don Quixote black and blue is to think of what will never be; and it is not the wish that he recover his wits that will now lead me to look for him, but the wish for revenge, for the great pain in my ribs leaves no room for more charitable reflections.”

Talking of this the two of them went on until they reached a village where they had the luck to find a bonesetter, who treated the unfortunate Sansón. Tomé Cecial went back and left him, and he stayed behind brooding over his revenge; and the history will speak of him again in its own good time, so as not to miss rejoicing now with Don Quixote.