Don Quixote’s return to his village in the ox-cart closes his second sally not with a victory but with a carefully managed journey home. Carried on hay in a cart drawn by oxen, he arrives amid the astonishment of his neighbors, the alarm of his household, and Sancho Panza’s more practical concern for Dapple. The episode gathers the wandering party back into the village, even as the history that follows admits how little could be established about Don Quixote’s later adventures.

The Decision to Return

After Sancho Panza proposes returning to the village and preparing for another sally, Don Quixote agrees that they should wait for the malign influence of the stars to pass. The Canon of Toledo, the curate, and the barber support the decision. Amused by Sancho’s simplicity, they put Don Quixote into the cart as they had before, making the return a collective undertaking rather than a solitary retreat.

The party soon thins. The goatherd takes his leave, and the officers of the Holy Brotherhood decline to accompany the others farther; the curate pays what is due. The Canon of Toledo asks the curate to keep him informed about Don Quixote’s condition, then continues on his own journey. The remaining group consists of the curate, the barber, Don Quixote, Sancho Panza, and Rocinante. The carter settles Don Quixote on a truss of hay, and the oxen set off at their deliberate pace.

Arrival in the Village

After six days on the road, the cart reaches the village around midday on a Sunday, when the people are gathered in the plaza. Neighbors crowd around to see who is inside; recognizing Don Quixote, they are astonished. A boy runs to tell the housekeeper and the niece that their master and uncle has returned, lying on hay in the ox-cart and looking lean and yellow. The account makes the vehicle itself part of the homecoming: Don Quixote returns not in the manner of a victorious knight, but borne by the ordinary means of the road.

The housekeeper and niece respond with cries, beat their breasts, and renew their curses against the books of chivalry. Their distress reflects the fear that those books have once again drawn Don Quixote away from ordinary life. When he is brought inside, they repeat their denunciations, while the curate tells the niece to keep him comfortable and watch him carefully so that he does not escape again.

Sancho and the Household Reckoning

Sancho Panza’s wife, Teresa Panza, comes out when she learns that her husband has returned. Her first question is whether Dapple is well; Sancho reassures her that the donkey is better off than his master. She then asks what he has brought home for her and the children. Her questions make the gap between Sancho’s hopes of advancement and the household’s immediate expectations unmistakable: she looks for useful rewards, while he speaks of the pleasures and prospects of serving as a squire.

Sancho does not conceal that most adventures have gone badly. He recalls humiliating setbacks, including being tossed in a blanket, yet still presents the life of adventure as a source of excitement: crossing mountains, searching woods, climbing rocks, visiting castles, and staying at inns without paying. His account turns the return into more than Don Quixote’s homecoming. It also brings Sancho back to the family obligations and modest calculations that accompany his appetite for future fortune.

Inside the house, Don Quixote is undressed and laid in his old bed, but he looks askance and cannot make out where he is. The niece is charged with caring for him and preventing another departure. The household’s vigilance does not last: the history says their fear that he would slip away once he felt better proved justified. The return thus restores him to familiar surroundings without resolving the impulse that sent him on the road.

The Record After the Return

The account of the homecoming leads into an explicit break in the history. Its narrator says that diligent research yielded no authentic documents about Don Quixote’s third sally. Tradition preserved only that he went to Saragossa and attended famous jousts there; the narrator could discover no reliable particulars of his end or death from that tradition alone.

The missing history is eventually connected to a lead box said to have been found among the crumbling foundations of an old hermitage. Inside were parchment manuscripts in Gothic characters but Castilian verse, describing Don Quixote’s achievements, Dulcinea’s beauty, Rocinante, Sancho Panza’s fidelity, and Don Quixote’s burial. This documentary turn places the ox-cart return at a threshold: the second sally has brought Don Quixote home, but the narrative record of what follows is incomplete until the supposed manuscripts offer another route into his story.