Introduction: When Don Quixote and Sancho Panza spend the night at a village inn, “a traveler arrives on horseback with three of his servants.” His name is Don Quixote Narrative Don Alvaro Tarfe and he stays “in [a] ground-floor room opposite Don Quixote’s [bedroom].” Upon arrival, Don Tarfe “changes into more comfortable clothes, strolls out [onto a] cool, spacious porch,” sees Don Quixote “pacing up and down,” and asks our knight where he is going? Don Quixote replies that he is “on [his] way to a [nearby] village where he lives.”
Don Quixote NovelDon Alvaro Compares Avellandea’s Don Quixote to the Real Don Quixote: When Don Quixote learns that Don Tarfe is from the second part of The History of Don Quixote and that “the protagonist of the history, Don Quixote, is a very close friend of his,—[since he] was the one who took him away from home [by] persuading him to travel to Saragossa to take don quixote books part in the jousts there,”—Don Quixote asks him if he is “at all like the Don Quixote to whom [he] refers.” No, “certainly not, Don Tarfe replies, not in the slightest.” Then Don Quixote asks him if he has “a squire called Sancho Panza” with him. Yes, he does, replies Don Tarfe, but “although he [has a] reputation of being a comical fellow, his attempts to be funny [are] unsuccessful.” When Sancho Panza says that “all other Don Quixote’s and Sancho Panza’s beside [them] are figures from dreamland,” Don Tarfe says that he believes him “because [he has] said more funny things in the half-a-dozen words [he has] just spoken than the other Sancho Panza managed in all the words [he] heard from him.” Avellaneda’s Sancho Panza, according to Don Tarfe, is “better at gorging himself than at talking, and [is] more foolish than funny.” Furthermore, Don Tarfe says that he left “Don Quixote the Bad [in a] Toledo madhouse awaiting Reconquista War treatment.” Don Quixote replies that though he does not know whether he is Don Quixote the Good or Don Quixote the Bad “he has never set foot in Saragossa.” On the contrary, Don Quixote “refuses to go [to Saragossa] to prove to the world that [the other Don Quixote] is a fraud.” Rather, he intends to go “straight to Barcelona,” instead. In sum, Don Quixote swears that he is “the Don Quixote of whom fame speaks, not [the fake Don Quixote] who seeks to usurp [his] name and exalt himself with [his] thoughts.”
Don Tarfe’s Declares to the Village Mayor That This Don Quixote is the Real Don Quixote: Don Quixote entreats Don Tarfe to “declare before [the] village mayor that [he has] never seen [Don Quixote] in all the days of [his] life until now.” Don Tarfe responds that he “shall be delighted to do so, even though it amazes [him] to see two Don Quixote’s and two Sancho Panza’s at the same time, as identical in name as they are antithetical in action.” Therefore, when Don Tarfe eats lunch at the inn with Don Quixote and Sancho Panza, Don Quixote “presents the mayor a petition to the effect that it [is] his wish and right that Don Alvaro Tarfe should [swear to] his Worship that [he does] not know Don Quixote and that [this] Don Quixote [is the real Don Quixote].” In total agreement, “the mayor takes all the appropriate steps: drawing-up the deposition [in front of a notary] with all the legal requisites, as is proper in such cases.” Don Tarfe’s sworn statement delights Don Quixote and Sancho Panza greatly since it proves they are real life characters while the other Don Quixote and Sancho Panza Don Quixote Tale – are fake concocted imposters.
Don Tarfe Leaves Don Quixote: When evening comes, Don Tarfe, Don Quixote, and Sancho Panza, leave the village. After “a couple of miles the road forks [with] Don Quixote Story one way leading to Don Quixote’s village,” while the other way leads to Granada. After Don Tarfe embraces Don Quixote and Sancho Panza he leaves for Granada.
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