Hereupon the curate observed, “I have hardly said a word as yet; and I would gladly be relieved of a doubt, arising from what Don Quixote has said, that worries and works my conscience.”

“The señor curate has leave for more than that,” returned Don Quixote, “so he may declare his doubt, for it is not pleasant to have a doubt on one’s conscience.”

“Well then, with that permission,” said the curate, “I say my doubt is that, all I can do, I cannot persuade myself that the whole pack of knights-errant you, Señor Don Quixote, have mentioned, were really and truly persons of flesh and blood, that ever lived in the world; on the contrary, I suspect it to be all fiction, fable, and falsehood, and dreams told by men awakened from sleep, or rather still half asleep.”