The Puppet Show's Destruction — Don Quixote

The boy showman narrates Master Pedro's puppet tale of Don Gaiferos and Melisendra: Charlemagne scolds the idle husband, a Moor kisses the captive, Marsilio orders lashes, and Gaiferos rescues his wife from the tower while Don Quixote demands straight proof and Pedro from inside tells the boy to keep to plain song.

When the Moors pursue the fleeing lovers, Don Quixote corrects the ringing of bells in Moorish Saragossa, then leaps sword in hand to defend Gaiferos and slashes the pasteboard army to splinters in less than two credos, nearly beheading Master Pedro himself. The whole show lies ruined, the ape flees to the roof, and even Sancho has never seen his master in such fury.

Master Pedro laments in verse that yesterday he was lord of kings and emperors and today is a beggar without his ape. Don Quixote insists enchanters made the puppets seem real, yet condemns himself in costs; the landlord and Sancho appraise shattered Marsilio, split Charlemagne, and noseless Melisendra until Sancho pays forty reals and three-quarters plus two more to catch the ape.

Quixote suppers generously for the house, the braying-town man and the page depart at dawn, Master Pedro slips away with the wreckage, and by eight o'clock knight and squire leave the inn while the history turns elsewhere.