The Mock Knighting — Don Quixote

After supper Quixote kneels before the innkeeper in the stable and refuses to rise until he is dubbed a knight. He asks to watch his armour overnight in the chapel of the castle. The landlord, already suspecting madness and wanting sport, agrees. He invents a knightly past that is really a confession of swindling widows and ruining maidens, and Quixote listens as if it were holy biography. When the innkeeper says knights need money and clean shirts even if the books omit such things, Quixote promises to obey.

That night he watches his armour beside the courtyard well while the whole inn gathers to stare. A muleteer moves the gear to water his team; Quixote invokes Dulcinea and cracks the man's head with his lance, then does worse to a second. Stones fly, the landlord shouts that the madman cannot be held accountable, and Quixote calls the place a treacherous castle. Fearing more damage, the host rushes the ceremony.

He reads from his account book as if it were a prayer, strikes Quixote on the neck and shoulder, and has La Tolosa and La Molinera gird on sword and spurs while barely containing their laughter. Quixote grants them the title of Doña. The form satisfies him completely. He mounts Rocinante at once, eager to sally forth, and the landlord sends him away with rhetorical Godspeed and no reckoning paid.