Don Quixote Meets Don Álvaro Tarfe and Secures His Formal Testimony stages a collision between the travelers and a character from a rival printed continuation. At a village inn, Don Quixote persuades Don Álvaro Tarfe to make a legally formal declaration that he has never met this Don Quixote and that neither the knight nor Sancho Panza is the pair Tarfe knew in print. The encounter answers a literary usurpation with an improbable remedy: a witness, a magistrate, and a notary are enlisted to distinguish the true travelers from their fictional doubles.

Setting and Recognition

Don Quixote and Sancho spend the day at the village and inn, waiting for night. Sancho is to complete his self-imposed scourging, while Don Quixote waits to see it accomplished because he believes it will help fulfill his wishes. Their vigil is interrupted by a mounted traveler who arrives with three or four servants. One servant addresses him as Don Álvaro Tarfe, a name Don Quixote remembers seeing while turning through the Second Part of his history.

Sancho proposes that they let the traveler dismount and ask him about it later. When the two men speak, Don Quixote asks Tarfe to identify himself and then says he believes Tarfe is the person appearing in the recently printed Second Part of the history of Don Quixote of La Mancha, published by another author. Tarfe confirms that identification. The meeting therefore begins not with a chance acquaintance but with recognition across competing books: Don Quixote knows Tarfe as a figure in the false continuation, while Tarfe claims personal acquaintance with another Don Quixote.

Two Versions of the Travelers

Tarfe recounts that the Don Quixote he knew was his great friend. He says he took that man from home, or at least persuaded him to attend jousts in Saragossa, where Tarfe was also going, and that he showed him kindnesses and saved him from punishment for his rashness. Asked whether the man before him resembles that Don Quixote, Tarfe answers that he does not. He also remembers the other man’s squire, who bore the name Sancho Panza, but says that although the squire was reputed to be amusing, Tarfe never heard him say anything particularly funny.

Sancho uses the contrast to assert his own identity. He presents himself as the real Sancho Panza and claims that drollery comes readily to him, unlike the dull and unfunny Sancho Tarfe describes. He identifies the present knight as the real Don Quixote of La Mancha, renowned for his courage, wisdom, love, and work as a defender of those in need, with Dulcinea del Toboso as his sole mistress. The other pair, he insists, are dreams and mockeries. Tarfe accepts the distinction as he hears Sancho speak, judging that this Sancho has shown more wit in a few words than the other did in all the time Tarfe knew him. He also recalls the other squire as greedy and dull. The exchange makes personal manner, not merely a shared name, evidence in the dispute.

Tarfe remains unsettled by the apparent existence of two pairs with the same names but different characters. He says he remembers leaving the other Don Quixote confined in the Casa del Nuncio at Toledo, and wonders how a different Don Quixote could now be before him. Don Quixote responds with his own test of identity: he has never been in Saragossa. After learning that the imaginary Don Quixote had attended its jousts, he deliberately avoided the city so that the false account would not be confused with his own journey. Instead, he went directly to Barcelona, whose people and setting he praises, although he regrets the unhappy adventures that befell him there. His route becomes evidence against the rival history’s account.

The Declaration

Don Quixote asks Tarfe to state before the village alcalde that he had never seen him until that day, and that neither he nor Sancho is the pair Tarfe knew in the printed Second Part. At dinner, the alcalde happens to arrive at the inn with a notary. Don Quixote presents a petition explaining that his rights require Tarfe’s declaration concerning his identity and the book attributed to Avellaneda of Tordesillas. The alcalde puts the statement into legal form, and Tarfe makes it with the formalities required for such cases.

The declaration brings the dispute into the village’s ordinary civic machinery: a petition, a magistrate, a notary, and a recorded statement. Don Quixote and Sancho are delighted by the result, although the narration observes that the document may be of little practical importance when their words and actions already distinguish them from their printed counterparts. That qualification gives the scene its comic balance. The travelers treat the testimony as a decisive vindication, while the difference between the two pairs has been apparent in Tarfe’s own conversation with them.

After the declaration, Don Quixote and Tarfe exchange courtesies and offers of service. Don Quixote’s conduct and judgment dispel Tarfe’s error; Tarfe, still amazed by the encounter, concludes that he must have been enchanted to have met two such opposite men bearing the same names. Sancho likewise suggests that Tarfe may be enchanted, connecting the confusion to Dulcinea’s supposed enchantment and to the lashes he is administering for her disenchantment. Tarfe says he does not understand the matter, and Sancho offers to explain it if they travel the same road.

Parting and Aftermath

In the evening the travelers leave the village with Tarfe. After about half a league, the road divides: one branch leads toward Don Quixote’s village, while Tarfe must take the other. Before they part, Don Quixote tells him of his defeat, Dulcinea’s enchantment, and the proposed remedy. The account brings fresh amazement to Tarfe, who embraces Don Quixote and Sancho before continuing on his way.

Don Quixote and Sancho spend that night among trees so Sancho can continue the penance. Sancho protects his back by striking the bark of the beech trees more than himself, while Don Quixote counts each apparent stroke. Together with the previous night’s count, the total reaches 3,029. The next day, the travelers discuss how effectively they deceived Tarfe and how securely his declaration had been obtained. Sancho completes the task later that night, to Don Quixote’s great joy. The meeting thus gives the knight a moment of apparent documentary certainty about which Don Quixote is real, even as his hope for Dulcinea’s disenchantment continues to govern the road ahead.