All the new knight needs now in order to venture forth is a lady to whose service he is sworn and a servant or page. For the former, he chooses Dulcinea del Tobosa, named after Aldonza Lorenzo, a farm girl whom he had been taken with at one time.
After three days on the road, Quixote encounters a group of traveling salesmen whom he attacks after they refuse to acknowledge Dulcinea's great beauty. He is badly beaten by the servant of the salesman and forced to accept the help of a neighbor, who brings him home on the back of a donkey.
While he is recovering, Quixote is forced to watch as his housekeeper, a barber, and a priest burn all his books on chivalry in an attempt to persuade him to give up his improbable quest. But this only fuels Quixote's determination. He persuades Sancho Panza, a plump, simple-minded-but-opportunistic laborer, to serve as his page, by playing on his ambitions. Don Quixote promises Sancho his own island to govern, for surely such a splendid knight as he is sure to become will soon take many spoils.
And so this pair set forth, Quixote on his spavined old horse, Panza mounted on Dapple, his mule. Their second adventure lasts for three weeks and is comprised of a series of events that comprise the balance of Book One. Among other things, Quixote battles windmills, thinking them to be giants. At an inn, which he mistakes for a castle, Quixote is visited in bed by a maid, who causes a great uproar when she discovers she has come to the wrong room. Refusing to pay the bill and accusing the innkeeper of being inhospitable, Quixote is rousted, only to fall promptly into another misadventure with a religious procession, and yet other ironic and error-prone encounters with locals.
