Don Quixote’s suspension prank at the inn turns a simple practical joke into an episode in which his chivalric imagination supplies the wrong explanation for every detail. Maritornes and the landlady’s daughter exploit his watch outside the inn, fasten him in place with Dapple’s halter, and leave him convinced that enchantment has made him and Rocinante immovable. When Maritornes releases him at daybreak, he answers the ordinary cause of his predicament with a mounted challenge, preserving his knightly interpretation even after the prank has ended.

The vigil and the opening

The inn has fallen quiet, but Don Quixote remains outside, armored and mounted on Rocinante, keeping watch. Maritornes and the landlady’s daughter are the only ones awake. Knowing that his imagination can turn an ordinary encounter into an adventure, they decide to amuse themselves by listening to him. Their position is unusual: the inn has no outward-facing window except a hole in the straw loft, used for throwing straw outside. From there they observe the knight and hear him sighing and addressing Dulcinea del Toboso in the language of devoted service.

When the landlady’s daughter signals to him, Don Quixote sees the opening by moonlight and mistakes it for a window in a castle, complete with the kind of gilt grating he expects in such a place. He interprets the women’s call as evidence that a noblewoman has fallen in love with him. Rather than recognize an invitation to a joke, he answers as a knight bound to another lady, refusing the imagined admirer while offering to grant any request that does not involve returning her affection. His response gives the women the opportunity to turn his own courteous performance into the mechanism of the prank.

A halter becomes a trap

Maritornes asks for one of his hands. Don Quixote agrees, and, standing on Rocinante’s saddle to reach the opening, extends his arm through it. Maritornes has gone to the stable and taken the halter from Dapple. She makes a running knot around Don Quixote’s wrist, then ties the other end securely to the bolt of the loft door. The setup depends on the position he has chosen: with his arm held through the hole and his feet on Rocinante, he cannot simply step away without risking a fall or pulling himself free by force.

Once the rope is secured, the two women leave, laughing, and do not stay to hear his protest. Their prank has no elaborate machinery: a halter, a door bolt, and Don Quixote’s balance on his horse are enough to hold him. The plainness of the arrangement sharpens the contrast between what has happened and what he thinks has happened. He cannot see the women’s retreat or identify the practical explanation, and his confinement therefore appears to him as the work of an enchantment.

The knight’s explanation

Don Quixote is afraid that Rocinante may move and pull him down, so he scarcely dares to shift his position. Although he believes the horse will stand still, that steadiness only deepens his confidence that supernatural forces are at work. He tries gently to free his arm, but the knot and bolt hold fast. His efforts do not uncover the trick; instead, each failure becomes further evidence, in his mind, that an enchanter has trapped him.

He recalls that he has already met with trouble at this inn and regrets returning after that earlier misadventure. He invokes the sword of Amadis, which he believes no enchantment could resist, laments what the world will lose while he is absent, and turns in thought to Dulcinea del Toboso. He calls for Sancho Panza, who is asleep on Dapple’s pack-saddle and does not hear him, and appeals to the sages and enchanters he associates with knightly adventures. The sequence shows how his imaginative system absorbs practical evidence: the fixed rope becomes a spell, Rocinante’s patience becomes confirmation, and an ordinary night’s discomfort takes on the permanence of a magical imprisonment.

Release and aftermath

At daybreak, Don Quixote is still held in the same position and has worked himself into desperation. His loud cries bring the landlord out through the inn gate, with other travelers following. Maritornes, awakened by the noise and guessing what has happened, returns to the loft and unties the halter without being seen. Don Quixote drops to the ground before the landlord and travelers, who ask what is wrong. He does not explain the prank. Instead, he removes the rope from his wrist, rises, mounts Rocinante, takes up his shield and lance, and rides around the plain before returning with a challenge to anyone who says he was rightly enchanted.

The guests are astonished, and the landlord supplies the practical explanation that Don Quixote is out of his senses. The episode then yields to the inn’s other business: newly arrived travelers are looking for the young man following Doña Clara. The transition returns the scene from the knight’s supposed enchantment to the ordinary human concerns unfolding at the inn.

Comic structure and significance

The prank works through a repeated gap between action and interpretation. The women exploit the expectations Don Quixote brings to the scene: he sees a castle window rather than a hole in a loft wall, a lovesick noblewoman rather than two amused observers, and enchantment rather than a halter tied to a bolt. His own courteous refusal helps place his hand within reach, while the knightly language with which he explains the trap prevents him from recognizing its mundane cause.

The episode also turns his vigilance into a vulnerability. He is outside to guard the inn as though it were a castle, yet the place’s simple architecture and the sleeping squire leave him dependent on the very horse whose stillness keeps him suspended. His release does not produce recognition or an admission of error: he remounts and acts as though a serious challenge to his honor remains. The comedy therefore comes not only from the prank itself, but from the persistence of his imagined explanation after the physical obstacle has been removed.