The man took great pride in showing our knight the figures--there were Saint George, Saint Martin, Saint James the Moorslayer, and Saint Paul. Don Quixote spoke learnedly on each one of them. When he had seen them all, he bade the men cover the images with the cloths again. Then he declared that he considered it a happy omen to have come upon the images; for, said he, they were knights like himself. There was this difference, however, that while he fought with human weapons, poor sinner that he was, they used divine ones. And he added that if only his Dulcinea could be saved from her sufferings, perhaps his own mind might be restored to its proper function, and a desire for a milder and better life than he was leading now be the result. At this Sancho reverently chirped: "May God hear and sin be deaf!"
The men, having finished their repast, took leave of Don Quixote and Sancho and continued the journey to their village. They were not out of sight before Sancho broke loose with praise for his master, who knew everything under the sun, it seemed. Then he added: "In truth, master, if what has happened to us to-day is to be called an adventure, it has been one of the sweetest and pleasantest that has befallen us in the whole course of our travels; we have come out of it without having drawn sword, nor have we been left famishing. Blessed be God that he has let me see such a thing with my own eyes!"
The conversation now turned to other things, and soon love became the topic. Sancho could not understand why his master, as ugly as he was, should have turned the head of the fair Altisidora; and why his master had not fallen head over heels in love with her was entirely beyond Sancho's comprehension. Had he himself had the same opportunity he should not have foregone it, he could have promised his master. Here Don Quixote tried to explain to Sancho that there were different kinds of love: love of the mind, and of the body; but this explanation seemed to remain a puzzle to the squire.
While they had been talking in this manner, they had come into a wood, and suddenly Don Quixote rode into a green net which entangled him so completely that he began to shout that he had been enchanted again. He made ready to cut and slash with his sword, when two beautiful girls dressed as shepherdesses came from amidst the trees and began to plead with him not to tear the nets, which they had spread in the woods that they might snare the little birds. There was a holiday in the neighborhood, and they were to give a pageant and a play, they said, and they wanted the birds to be actors in the play with them. Then they courteously begged Don Quixote to be their guest and remain with them; but Don Quixote in return told them that the urgency of his calling made it necessary for him to refuse, whereupon he made them aware of who he was. As soon as the girls heard that they had Don Quixote of La Mancha in their midst, they became still more eager that he should remain, for they had all read and heard of their illustrious guest, they said, through the book that the whole of Spain and all the world was devouring just then.