Don Quixote

One of the novel's greatest comic scenes: all night they're terrified by mysterious pounding sounds that turn out to be fulling hammers at a mill. After the funeral procession attack, they're hungry, lost in darkness, and desperate for water. They hear water nearby and head toward it. Then comes another sound: THUMP THUMP THUMP—measured beats with rattling chains and iron. In total darkness among tall trees with wind making ominous sounds, this rhythmic pounding terrifies them. Quixote declares it must be some great perilous adventure and prepares to investigate alone. Sancho, genuinely afraid, begs him to wait until morning. When Quixote insists on going, Sancho does something brilliant: he secretly ties Rocinante's front legs together while pretending to check the saddle. Now Quixote cannot ride forward—the horse can barely hop. Quixote thinks this is enchantment preventing him from approaching the adventure. Sancho says it's a sign from heaven to wait until dawn. They're stuck there all night listening to the terrible pounding. To pass the time and keep his mind off fear, Sancho tells a long, pointless story about a goatherd and a shepherdess crossing a river one goat at a time—he counts each crossing, Quixote gets frustrated and tells him to just finish the story, Sancho says he has to count or he'll lose his place, and eventually the story just stops with no resolution. It's Sancho's revenge for being terrified—if he has to suffer, Quixote will suffer his bad storytelling. Finally dawn comes. They approach the source of the noise. It's six fulling hammers at a mill, pounding cloth. The most mundane industrial process imaginable. All that terror for textile manufacturing. Quixote is mortified. Sancho starts laughing uncontrollably—genuine belly laughs at his master's expense. Quixote, humiliated, tells him to stop. Sancho cannot. Quixote warns him. Sancho keeps laughing. Finally Quixote hits him with his lance for mocking him. This is their first physical violence—Quixote striking Sancho for laughing. The chapter reveals how fear creates narrative—all night they constructed elaborate stories about what could make that sound, when it was just hammers.