دون كيخوتي

In a village of La Mancha, whose name I would rather not remember, there lived not long ago one of those gentlemen who keep an old lance on a rack, an ancient shield, a thin horse and a greyhound for hunting. His meals cost him most of his income. On weekdays he wore a suit of good brown cloth, and on holidays he put on velvet breeches with slippers to match. He shared his house with a housekeeper past forty, a niece not yet twenty, and a lad who saddled the horse and did odd jobs in the fields.

The gentleman was close to fifty. He was tall and lean, with a bony face, and he liked to rise early and go hunting. Some say his surname was Quixada and others say Quesada, but the best guess is that he was called Quixana. It hardly matters. What matters is that the story never strays from the truth.