Wine-Skins, a Giant's Head, and Anselmo's End — Don Quixote

The curate is finishing the novel when Sancho bursts in shouting that Don Quixote has beheaded the Micomicona giant like a turnip. Upstairs Quixote is asleep in his shirt, slashing wine skins at the bed's head while dreaming of battle; red wine floods the room, the landlord punches him awake, and the landlady lists every debt from tail to barrels.

Quixote kneels to the curate thinking he is the princess and declares the giant defeated. Dorothea promises Sancho his county anyway, the inn is partly soothed, and the curate reads on: Leonela's lover is caught, Camilla flees with jewels to Lothario and the convent, and Florence learns that "The Two Friends" have destroyed each other.

Anselmo dies mid-sentence writing that foolish curiosity robbed him of life. Camilla takes the veil after news that Lothario fell in Italy. The curate says he likes the novel but no husband could be so absurd as Anselmo, while downstairs Quixote and Sancho still believe the severed head vanished by enchantment and the giant's blood was wine.