The Unhappiness of Being a Single Man: Essential Stories

THE TRUTH ABOUT SANCHO PANZA

SANCHO PANZA—who incidentally has never boasted about this—used to leave out piles of novels about knights and robbers in the evenings and for the long hours of the night, and by doing so for several years he succeeded in distracting his devil, whom he later gave the name Don Quixote, so completely that this devil threw himself into all kinds of crazy exploits, which, because they lacked a definite target—it should have been Sancho Panza—never hurt anyone. Sancho Panza, a free man, calmly followed Don Quixote on his quests, perhaps out of a sense of responsibility, and got a great deal of edifying entertainment from him till the end of his days.