CHAPTER XLVII — WHEREIN IS CONTINUED THE ACCOUNT OF HOW SANCHO PANZA CONDUCTED HIMSELF — IN HIS GOVERNMENT

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The history says that from the justice court they carried Sancho to a
sumptuous palace, where in a spacious chamber there was a table laid
out with royal magnificence. The clarions sounded as Sancho entered the
room, and four pages came forward to present him with water for his
hands, which Sancho received with great dignity. The music ceased, and
Sancho seated himself at the head of the table, for there was only that
seat placed, and no more than one cover laid. A personage, who it
appeared afterwards was a physician, placed himself standing by his
side with a whalebone wand in his hand. They then lifted up a fine
white cloth covering fruit and a great variety of dishes of different
sorts; one who looked like a student said grace, and a page put a laced
bib on Sancho, while another who played the part of head carver placed
a dish of fruit before him. But hardly had he tasted a morsel when the
man with the wand touched the plate with it, and they took it away from
before him with the utmost celerity. The carver, however, brought him
another dish, and Sancho proceeded to try it; but before he could get
at it, not to say taste it, already the wand had touched it and a page
had carried it off with the same promptitude as the fruit. Sancho
seeing this was puzzled, and looking from one to another asked if this
dinner was to be eaten after the fashion of a jugglery trick.

To this he with the wand replied, “It is not to be eaten, señor
governor, except as is usual and customary in other islands where there
are governors. I, señor, am a physician, and I am paid a salary in this
island to serve its governors as such, and I have a much greater regard
for their health than for my own, studying day and night and making
myself acquainted with the governor’s constitution, in order to be able
to cure him when he falls sick. The chief thing I have to do is to
attend at his dinners and suppers and allow him to eat what appears to
me to be fit for him, and keep from him what I think will do him harm
and be injurious to his stomach; and therefore I ordered that plate of
fruit to be removed as being too moist, and that other dish I ordered
to be removed as being too hot and containing many spices that
stimulate thirst; for he who drinks much kills and consumes the radical
moisture wherein life consists.”

“Well then,” said Sancho, “that dish of roast partridges there that
seems so savoury will not do me any harm.”

To this the physician replied, “Of those my lord the governor shall not
eat so long as I live.”

“Why so?” said Sancho.

“Because,” replied the doctor, “our master Hippocrates, the polestar
and beacon of medicine, says in one of his aphorisms _omnis saturatio
mala, perdicis autem pessima_, which means ‘all repletion is bad, but
that of partridge is the worst of all.”

“In that case,” said Sancho, “let señor doctor see among the dishes
that are on the table what will do me most good and least harm, and let
me eat it, without tapping it with his stick; for by the life of the
governor, and so may God suffer me to enjoy it, but I’m dying of
hunger; and in spite of the doctor and all he may say, to deny me food
is the way to take my life instead of prolonging it.”

“Your worship is right, señor governor,” said the physician; “and
therefore your worship, I consider, should not eat of those stewed
rabbits there, because it is a furry kind of food; if that veal were
not roasted and served with pickles, you might try it; but it is out of
the question.”

“That big dish that is smoking farther off,” said Sancho, “seems to me
to be an olla podrida, and out of the diversity of things in such
ollas, I can’t fail to light upon something tasty and good for me.”

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“Absit,” said the doctor; “far from us be any such base thought!
There is nothing in the world less nourishing than an olla podrida; to
canons, or rectors of colleges, or peasants’ weddings with your ollas
podridas, but let us have none of them on the tables of governors,
where everything that is present should be delicate and refined; and
the reason is, that always, everywhere and by everybody, simple
medicines are more esteemed than compound ones, for we cannot go wrong
in those that are simple, while in the compound we may, by merely
altering the quantity of the things composing them. But what I am of
opinion the governor should eat now in order to preserve and fortify
his health is a hundred or so of wafer cakes and a few thin slices of
conserve of quinces, which will settle his stomach and help his
digestion.”

Sancho on hearing this threw himself back in his chair and surveyed the
doctor steadily, and in a solemn tone asked him what his name was and
where he had studied.

He replied, “My name, señor governor, is Doctor Pedro Recio de Aguero I
am a native of a place called Tirteafuera which lies between Caracuel
and Almodóvar del Campo, on the right-hand side, and I have the degree
of doctor from the university of Osuna.”

To which Sancho, glowing all over with rage, returned, “Then let Doctor
Pedro Recio de Malaguero, native of Tirteafuera, a place that’s on the
right-hand side as we go from Caracuel to Almodóvar del Campo, graduate
of Osuna, get out of my presence at once; or I swear by the sun I’ll
take a cudgel, and by dint of blows, beginning with him, I’ll not leave
a doctor in the whole island; at least of those I know to be ignorant;
for as to learned, wise, sensible physicians, them I will reverence and
honour as divine persons. Once more I say let Pedro Recio get out of
this or I’ll take this chair I am sitting on and break it over his
head. And if they call me to account for it, I’ll clear myself by
saying I served God in killing a bad doctor—a general executioner. And
now give me something to eat, or else take your government; for a trade
that does not feed its master is not worth two beans.”

The doctor was dismayed when he saw the governor in such a passion, and
he would have made a Tirteafuera out of the room but that the same
instant a post-horn sounded in the street; and the carver putting his
head out of the window turned round and said, “It’s a courier from my
lord the duke, no doubt with some despatch of importance.”

The courier came in all sweating and flurried, and taking a paper from
his bosom, placed it in the governor’s hands. Sancho handed it to the
majordomo and bade him read the superscription, which ran thus:

_To Don Sancho Panza, Governor of the Island of Barataria, into his own
hands or those of his secretary._

Sancho when he heard this said, “Which of you is my secretary?” “I am,
señor,” said one of those present, “for I can read and write, and am a
Biscayan.” “With that addition,” said Sancho, “you might be secretary
to the emperor himself; open this paper and see what it says.” The
new-born secretary obeyed, and having read the contents said the matter
was one to be discussed in private. Sancho ordered the chamber to be
cleared, the majordomo and the carver only remaining; so the doctor and
the others withdrew, and then the secretary read the letter, which was
as follows:

It has come to my knowledge, Señor Don Sancho Panza, that certain
enemies of mine and of the island are about to make a furious attack
upon it some night, I know not when. It behoves you to be on the alert
and keep watch, that they surprise you not. I also know by trustworthy
spies that four persons have entered the town in disguise in order to
take your life, because they stand in dread of your great capacity;
keep your eyes open and take heed who approaches you to address you,
and eat nothing that is presented to you. I will take care to send you
aid if you find yourself in difficulty, but in all things you will act
as may be expected of your judgment. From this place, the Sixteenth of
August, at four in the morning.

Your friend,
THE DUKE

Sancho was astonished, and those who stood by made believe to be so
too, and turning to the majordomo he said to him, “What we have got to
do first, and it must be done at once, is to put Doctor Recio in the
lock-up; for if anyone wants to kill me it is he, and by a slow death
and the worst of all, which is hunger.”

“Likewise,” said the carver, “it is my opinion your worship should not
eat anything that is on this table, for the whole was a present from
some nuns; and as they say, ‘behind the cross there’s the devil.’”

“I don’t deny it,” said Sancho; “so for the present give me a piece of
bread and four pounds or so of grapes; no poison can come in them; for
the fact is I can’t go on without eating; and if we are to be prepared
for these battles that are threatening us we must be well provisioned;
for it is the tripes that carry the heart and not the heart the tripes.
And you, secretary, answer my lord the duke and tell him that all his
commands shall be obeyed to the letter, as he directs; and say from me
to my lady the duchess that I kiss her hands, and that I beg of her not
to forget to send my letter and bundle to my wife Teresa Panza by a
messenger; and I will take it as a great favour and will not fail to
serve her in all that may lie within my power; and as you are about it
you may enclose a kiss of the hand to my master Don Quixote that he may
see I am grateful bread; and as a good secretary and a good Biscayan
you may add whatever you like and whatever will come in best; and now
take away this cloth and give me something to eat, and I’ll be ready to
meet all the spies and assassins and enchanters that may come against
me or my island.”

At this instant a page entered saying, “Here is a farmer on business,
who wants to speak to your lordship on a matter of great importance, he
says.”

“It’s very odd,” said Sancho, “the ways of these men on business; is it
possible they can be such fools as not to see that an hour like this is
no hour for coming on business? We who govern and we who are judges—are
we not men of flesh and blood, and are we not to be allowed the time
required for taking rest, unless they’d have us made of marble? By God
and on my conscience, if the government remains in my hands (which I
have a notion it won’t), I’ll bring more than one man on business to
order. However, tell this good man to come in; but take care first of
all that he is not some spy or one of my assassins.”

“No, my lord,” said the page, “for he looks like a simple fellow, and
either I know very little or he is as good as good bread.”

“There is nothing to be afraid of,” said the majordomo, “for we are all
here.”

“Would it be possible, carver,” said Sancho, “now that Doctor Pedro
Recio is not here, to let me eat something solid and substantial, if it
were even a piece of bread and an onion?”

“To-night at supper,” said the carver, “the shortcomings of the dinner
shall be made good, and your lordship shall be fully contented.”

“God grant it,” said Sancho.

The farmer now came in, a well-favoured man that one might see a
thousand leagues off was an honest fellow and a good soul. The first
thing he said was, “Which is the lord governor here?”

“Which should it be,” said the secretary, “but he who is seated in the
chair?”

“Then I humble myself before him,” said the farmer; and going on his
knees he asked for his hand, to kiss it. Sancho refused it, and bade
him stand up and say what he wanted. The farmer obeyed, and then said,
“I am a farmer, señor, a native of Miguelturra, a village two leagues
from Ciudad Real.”

“Another Tirteafuera!” said Sancho; “say on, brother; I know
Miguelturra very well I can tell you, for it’s not very far from my own
town.”

“The case is this, señor,” continued the farmer, “that by God’s mercy I
am married with the leave and licence of the holy Roman Catholic
Church; I have two sons, students, and the younger is studying to
become bachelor, and the elder to be licentiate; I am a widower, for my
wife died, or more properly speaking, a bad doctor killed her on my
hands, giving her a purge when she was with child; and if it had
pleased God that the child had been born, and was a boy, I would have
put him to study for doctor, that he might not envy his brothers the
bachelor and the licentiate.”

“So that if your wife had not died, or had not been killed, you would
not now be a widower,” said Sancho.

“No, señor, certainly not,” said the farmer.

“We’ve got that much settled,” said Sancho; “get on, brother, for it’s
more bed-time than business-time.”

“Well then,” said the farmer, “this son of mine who is going to be a
bachelor, fell in love in the said town with a damsel called Clara
Perlerina, daughter of Andres Perlerino, a very rich farmer; and this
name of Perlerines does not come to them by ancestry or descent, but
because all the family are paralytics, and for a better name they call
them Perlerines; though to tell the truth the damsel is as fair as an
Oriental pearl, and like a flower of the field, if you look at her on
the right side; on the left not so much, for on that side she wants an
eye that she lost by small-pox; and though her face is thickly and
deeply pitted, those who love her say they are not pits that are there,
but the graves where the hearts of her lovers are buried. She is so
cleanly that not to soil her face she carries her nose turned up, as
they say, so that one would fancy it was running away from her mouth;
and with all this she looks extremely well, for she has a wide mouth;
and but for wanting ten or a dozen teeth and grinders she might compare
and compete with the comeliest. Of her lips I say nothing, for they are
so fine and thin that, if lips might be reeled, one might make a skein
of them; but being of a different colour from ordinary lips they are
wonderful, for they are mottled, blue, green, and purple—let my lord
the governor pardon me for painting so minutely the charms of her who
some time or other will be my daughter; for I love her, and I don’t
find her amiss.”

“Paint what you will,” said Sancho; “I enjoy your painting, and if I
had dined there could be no dessert more to my taste than your
portrait.”

“That I have still to furnish,” said the farmer; “but a time will come
when we may be able if we are not now; and I can tell you, señor, if I
could paint her gracefulness and her tall figure, it would astonish
you; but that is impossible because she is bent double with her knees
up to her mouth; but for all that it is easy to see that if she could
stand up she’d knock her head against the ceiling; and she would have
given her hand to my bachelor ere this, only that she can’t stretch it
out, for it’s contracted; but still one can see its elegance and fine
make by its long furrowed nails.”

“That will do, brother,” said Sancho; “consider you have painted her
from head to foot; what is it you want now? Come to the point without
all this beating about the bush, and all these scraps and additions.”

“I want your worship, señor,” said the farmer, “to do me the favour of
giving me a letter of recommendation to the girl’s father, begging him
to be so good as to let this marriage take place, as we are not
ill-matched either in the gifts of fortune or of nature; for to tell
the truth, señor governor, my son is possessed of a devil, and there is
not a day but the evil spirits torment him three or four times; and
from having once fallen into the fire, he has his face puckered up like
a piece of parchment, and his eyes watery and always running; but he
has the disposition of an angel, and if it was not for belabouring and
pummelling himself he’d be a saint.”

“Is there anything else you want, good man?” said Sancho.

“There’s another thing I’d like,” said the farmer, “but I’m afraid to
mention it; however, out it must; for after all I can’t let it be
rotting in my breast, come what may. I mean, señor, that I’d like your
worship to give me three hundred or six hundred ducats as a help to my
bachelor’s portion, to help him in setting up house; for they must, in
short, live by themselves, without being subject to the interferences
of their fathers-in-law.”

“Just see if there’s anything else you’d like,” said Sancho, “and don’t
hold back from mentioning it out of bashfulness or modesty.”

“No, indeed there is not,” said the farmer.

The moment he said this the governor started to his feet, and seizing
the chair he had been sitting on exclaimed, “By all that’s good, you
ill-bred, boorish Don Bumpkin, if you don’t get out of this at once and
hide yourself from my sight, I’ll lay your head open with this chair.
You whoreson rascal, you devil’s own painter, and is it at this hour
you come to ask me for six hundred ducats! How should I have them, you
stinking brute? And why should I give them to you if I had them, you
knave and blockhead? What have I to do with Miguelturra or the whole
family of the Perlerines? Get out I say, or by the life of my lord the
duke I’ll do as I said. You’re not from Miguelturra, but some knave
sent here from hell to tempt me. Why, you villain, I have not yet had
the government half a day, and you want me to have six hundred ducats
already!”

The carver made signs to the farmer to leave the room, which he did
with his head down, and to all appearance in terror lest the governor
should carry his threats into effect, for the rogue knew very well how
to play his part.

But let us leave Sancho in his wrath, and peace be with them all; and
let us return to Don Quixote, whom we left with his face bandaged and
doctored after the cat wounds, of which he was not cured for eight
days; and on one of these there befell him what Cide Hamete promises to
relate with that exactitude and truth with which he is wont to set
forth everything connected with this great history, however minute it
may be.

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CHAPTER XLVIII.
OF WHAT BEFELL DON QUIXOTE WITH DOÑA RODRIGUEZ, THE DUCHESS’S DUENNA,
TOGETHER WITH OTHER OCCURRENCES WORTHY OF RECORD AND ETERNAL
REMEMBRANCE

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Exceedingly moody and dejected was the sorely wounded Don Quixote, with
his face bandaged and marked, not by the hand of God, but by the claws
of a cat, mishaps incidental to knight-errantry.

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Six days he remained without appearing in public, and one night as he
lay awake thinking of his misfortunes and of Altisidora’s pursuit of
him, he perceived that someone was opening the door of his room with a
key, and he at once made up his mind that the enamoured damsel was
coming to make an assault upon his chastity and put him in danger of
failing in the fidelity he owed to his lady Dulcinea del Toboso. “No,”
said he, firmly persuaded of the truth of his idea (and he said it loud
enough to be heard), “the greatest beauty upon earth shall not avail to
make me renounce my adoration of her whom I bear stamped and graved in
the core of my heart and the secret depths of my bowels; be thou, lady
mine, transformed into a clumsy country wench, or into a nymph of
golden Tagus weaving a web of silk and gold, let Merlin or Montesinos
hold thee captive where they will; where’er thou art, thou art mine,
and where’er I am, must be thine.” The very instant he had uttered
these words, the door opened. He stood up on the bed wrapped from head
to foot in a yellow satin coverlet, with a cap on his head, and his
face and his moustaches tied up, his face because of the scratches, and
his moustaches to keep them from drooping and falling down, in which
trim he looked the most extraordinary scarecrow that could be
conceived. He kept his eyes fixed on the door, and just as he was
expecting to see the love-smitten and unhappy Altisidora make her
appearance, he saw coming in a most venerable duenna, in a long
white-bordered veil that covered and enveloped her from head to foot.
Between the fingers of her left hand she held a short lighted candle,
while with her right she shaded it to keep the light from her eyes,
which were covered by spectacles of great size, and she advanced with
noiseless steps, treading very softly.

Don Quixote kept an eye upon her from his watchtower, and observing her
costume and noting her silence, he concluded that it must be some witch
or sorceress that was coming in such a guise to work him some mischief,
and he began crossing himself at a great rate. The spectre still
advanced, and on reaching the middle of the room, looked up and saw the
energy with which Don Quixote was crossing himself; and if he was
scared by seeing such a figure as hers, she was terrified at the sight
of his; for the moment she saw his tall yellow form with the coverlet
and the bandages that disfigured him, she gave a loud scream, and
exclaiming, “Jesus! what’s this I see?” let fall the candle in her
fright, and then finding herself in the dark, turned about to make off,
but stumbling on her skirts in her consternation, she measured her
length with a mighty fall.

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Don Quixote in his trepidation began saying, “I conjure thee, phantom,
or whatever thou art, tell me what thou art and what thou wouldst with
me. If thou art a soul in torment, say so, and all that my powers can
do I will do for thee; for I am a Catholic Christian and love to do
good to all the world, and to this end I have embraced the order of
knight-errantry to which I belong, the province of which extends to
doing good even to souls in purgatory.”

The unfortunate duenna hearing herself thus conjured, by her own fear
guessed Don Quixote’s and in a low plaintive voice answered, “Señor Don
Quixote—if so be you are indeed Don Quixote—I am no phantom or spectre
or soul in purgatory, as you seem to think, but Doña Rodriguez, duenna
of honour to my lady the duchess, and I come to you with one of those
grievances your worship is wont to redress.”

“Tell me, Señora Doña Rodriguez,” said Don Quixote, “do you perchance
come to transact any go-between business? Because I must tell you I am
not available for anybody’s purpose, thanks to the peerless beauty of
my lady Dulcinea del Toboso. In short, Señora Doña Rodriguez, if you
will leave out and put aside all love messages, you may go and light
your candle and come back, and we will discuss all the commands you
have for me and whatever you wish, saving only, as I said, all
seductive communications.”

“I carry nobody’s messages, señor,” said the duenna; “little you know
me. Nay, I’m not far enough advanced in years to take to any such
childish tricks. God be praised I have a soul in my body still, and all
my teeth and grinders in my mouth, except one or two that the colds, so
common in this Aragon country, have robbed me of. But wait a little,
while I go and light my candle, and I will return immediately and lay
my sorrows before you as before one who relieves those of all the
world;” and without staying for an answer she quitted the room and left
Don Quixote tranquilly meditating while he waited for her. A thousand
thoughts at once suggested themselves to him on the subject of this new
adventure, and it struck him as being ill done and worse advised in him
to expose himself to the danger of breaking his plighted faith to his
lady; and said he to himself, “Who knows but that the devil, being wily
and cunning, may be trying now to entrap me with a duenna, having
failed with empresses, queens, duchesses, marchionesses, and
countesses? Many a time have I heard it said by many a man of sense
that he will sooner offer you a flat-nosed wench than a roman-nosed
one; and who knows but this privacy, this opportunity, this silence,
may awaken my sleeping desires, and lead me in these my latter years to
fall where I have never tripped? In cases of this sort it is better to
flee than to await the battle. But I must be out of my senses to think
and utter such nonsense; for it is impossible that a long, white-hooded
spectacled duenna could stir up or excite a wanton thought in the most
graceless bosom in the world. Is there a duenna on earth that has fair
flesh? Is there a duenna in the world that escapes being ill-tempered,
wrinkled, and prudish? Avaunt, then, ye duenna crew, undelightful to
all mankind. Oh, but that lady did well who, they say, had at the end
of her reception room a couple of figures of duennas with spectacles
and lace-cushions, as if at work, and those statues served quite as
well to give an air of propriety to the room as if they had been real
duennas.”

So saying he leaped off the bed, intending to close the door and not
allow Señora Rodriguez to enter; but as he went to shut it Señora
Rodriguez returned with a wax candle lighted, and having a closer view
of Don Quixote, with the coverlet round him, and his bandages and
night-cap, she was alarmed afresh, and retreating a couple of paces,
exclaimed, “Am I safe, sir knight? for I don’t look upon it as a sign
of very great virtue that your worship should have got up out of bed.”

“I may well ask the same, señora,” said Don Quixote; “and I do ask
whether I shall be safe from being assailed and forced?”

“Of whom and against whom do you demand that security, sir knight?”
said the duenna.

“Of you and against you I ask it,” said Don Quixote; “for I am not
marble, nor are you brass, nor is it now ten o’clock in the morning,
but midnight, or a trifle past it I fancy, and we are in a room more
secluded and retired than the cave could have been where the
treacherous and daring Æneas enjoyed the fair soft-hearted Dido. But
give me your hand, señora; I require no better protection than my own
continence, and my own sense of propriety; as well as that which is
inspired by that venerable head-dress;” and so saying he kissed her
right hand and took it in his own, she yielding it to him with equal
ceremoniousness. And here Cide Hamete inserts a parenthesis in which he
says that to have seen the pair marching from the door to the bed,
linked hand in hand in this way, he would have given the best of the
two tunics he had.

Don Quixote finally got into bed, and Doña Rodriguez took her seat on a
chair at some little distance from his couch, without taking off her
spectacles or putting aside the candle. Don Quixote wrapped the
bedclothes round him and covered himself up completely, leaving nothing
but his face visible, and as soon as they had both regained their
composure he broke silence, saying, “Now, Señora Doña Rodriguez, you
may unbosom yourself and out with everything you have in your sorrowful
heart and afflicted bowels; and by me you shall be listened to with
chaste ears, and aided by compassionate exertions.”

“I believe it,” replied the duenna; “from your worship’s gentle and
winning presence only such a Christian answer could be expected. The
fact is, then, Señor Don Quixote, that though you see me seated in this
chair, here in the middle of the kingdom of Aragon, and in the attire
of a despised outcast duenna, I am from the Asturias of Oviedo, and of
a family with which many of the best of the province are connected by
blood; but my untoward fate and the improvidence of my parents, who, I
know not how, were unseasonably reduced to poverty, brought me to the
court of Madrid, where as a provision and to avoid greater misfortunes,
my parents placed me as seamstress in the service of a lady of quality,
and I would have you know that for hemming and sewing I have never been
surpassed by any all my life. My parents left me in service and
returned to their own country, and a few years later went, no doubt, to
heaven, for they were excellent good Catholic Christians. I was left an
orphan with nothing but the miserable wages and trifling presents that
are given to servants of my sort in palaces; but about this time,
without any encouragement on my part, one of the esquires of the
household fell in love with me, a man somewhat advanced in years,
full-bearded and personable, and above all as good a gentleman as the
king himself, for he came of a mountain stock. We did not carry on our
loves with such secrecy but that they came to the knowledge of my lady,
and she, not to have any fuss about it, had us married with the full
sanction of the holy mother Roman Catholic Church, of which marriage a
daughter was born to put an end to my good fortune, if I had any; not
that I died in childbirth, for I passed through it safely and in due
season, but because shortly afterwards my husband died of a certain
shock he received, and had I time to tell you of it I know your worship
would be surprised;” and here she began to weep bitterly and said,
“Pardon me, Señor Don Quixote, if I am unable to control myself, for
every time I think of my unfortunate husband my eyes fill up with
tears. God bless me, with what an air of dignity he used to carry my
lady behind him on a stout mule as black as jet! for in those days they
did not use coaches or chairs, as they say they do now, and ladies rode
behind their squires. This much at least I cannot help telling you,
that you may observe the good breeding and punctiliousness of my worthy
husband. As he was turning into the Calle de Santiago in Madrid, which
is rather narrow, one of the alcaldes of the Court, with two alguacils
before him, was coming out of it, and as soon as my good squire saw him
he wheeled his mule about and made as if he would turn and accompany
him. My lady, who was riding behind him, said to him in a low voice,
‘What are you about, you sneak, don’t you see that I am here?’ The
alcalde like a polite man pulled up his horse and said to him,
‘Proceed, señor, for it is I, rather, who ought to accompany my lady
Doña Casilda’—for that was my mistress’s name. Still my husband, cap in
hand, persisted in trying to accompany the alcalde, and seeing this my
lady, filled with rage and vexation, pulled out a big pin, or, I rather
think, a bodkin, out of her needle-case and drove it into his back with
such force that my husband gave a loud yell, and writhing fell to the
ground with his lady. Her two lacqueys ran to rise her up, and the
alcalde and the alguacils did the same; the Guadalajara gate was all in
commotion—I mean the idlers congregated there; my mistress came back on
foot, and my husband hurried away to a barber’s shop protesting that he
was run right through the guts. The courtesy of my husband was noised
abroad to such an extent, that the boys gave him no peace in the
street; and on this account, and because he was somewhat shortsighted,
my lady dismissed him; and it was chagrin at this I am convinced beyond
a doubt that brought on his death. I was left a helpless widow, with a
daughter on my hands growing up in beauty like the sea-foam; at length,
however, as I had the character of being an excellent needlewoman, my
lady the duchess, then lately married to my lord the duke, offered to
take me with her to this kingdom of Aragon, and my daughter also, and
here as time went by my daughter grew up and with her all the graces in
the world; she sings like a lark, dances quick as thought, foots it
like a gipsy, reads and writes like a schoolmaster, and does sums like
a miser; of her neatness I say nothing, for the running water is not
purer, and her age is now, if my memory serves me, sixteen years five
months and three days, one more or less. To come to the point, the son
of a very rich farmer, living in a village of my lord the duke’s not
very far from here, fell in love with this girl of mine; and in short,
how I know not, they came together, and under the promise of marrying
her he made a fool of my daughter, and will not keep his word. And
though my lord the duke is aware of it (for I have complained to him,
not once but many and many a time, and entreated him to order the
farmer to marry my daughter), he turns a deaf ear and will scarcely
listen to me; the reason being that as the deceiver’s father is so
rich, and lends him money, and is constantly going security for his
debts, he does not like to offend or annoy him in any way. Now, señor,
I want your worship to take it upon yourself to redress this wrong
either by entreaty or by arms; for by what all the world says you came
into it to redress grievances and right wrongs and help the
unfortunate. Let your worship put before you the unprotected condition
of my daughter, her youth, and all the perfections I have said she
possesses; and before God and on my conscience, out of all the damsels
my lady has, there is not one that comes up to the sole of her shoe,
and the one they call Altisidora, and look upon as the boldest and
gayest of them, put in comparison with my daughter, does not come
within two leagues of her. For I would have you know, señor, all is not
gold that glitters, and that same little Altisidora has more
forwardness than good looks, and more impudence than modesty; besides
being not very sound, for she has such a disagreeable breath that one
cannot bear to be near her for a moment; and even my lady the
duchess—but I’ll hold my tongue, for they say that walls have ears.”

“For heaven’s sake, Doña Rodriguez, what ails my lady the duchess?”
asked Don Quixote.

“Adjured in that way,” replied the duenna, “I cannot help answering the
question and telling the whole truth. Señor Don Quixote, have you
observed the comeliness of my lady the duchess, that smooth complexion
of hers like a burnished polished sword, those two cheeks of milk and
carmine, that gay lively step with which she treads or rather seems to
spurn the earth, so that one would fancy she went radiating health
wherever she passed? Well then, let me tell you she may thank, first of
all God, for this, and next, two issues that she has, one in each leg,
by which all the evil humours, of which the doctors say she is full,
are discharged.”

“Blessed Virgin!” exclaimed Don Quixote; “and is it possible that my
lady the duchess has drains of that sort? I would not have believed it
if the barefoot friars had told it me; but as the lady Doña Rodriguez
says so, it must be so. But surely such issues, and in such places, do
not discharge humours, but liquid amber. Verily, I do believe now that
this practice of opening issues is a very important matter for the
health.”

Don Quixote had hardly said this, when the chamber door flew open with
a loud bang, and with the start the noise gave her Doña Rodriguez let
the candle fall from her hand, and the room was left as dark as a
wolf’s mouth, as the saying is. Suddenly the poor duenna felt two hands
seize her by the throat, so tightly that she could not croak, while
someone else, without uttering a word, very briskly hoisted up her
petticoats, and with what seemed to be a slipper began to lay on so
heartily that anyone would have felt pity for her; but although Don
Quixote felt it he never stirred from his bed, but lay quiet and
silent, nay apprehensive that his turn for a drubbing might be coming.
Nor was the apprehension an idle one; for leaving the duenna (who did
not dare to cry out) well basted, the silent executioners fell upon Don
Quixote, and stripping him of the sheet and the coverlet, they pinched
him so fast and so hard that he was driven to defend himself with his
fists, and all this in marvellous silence. The battle lasted nearly
half an hour, and then the phantoms fled; Doña Rodriguez gathered up
her skirts, and bemoaning her fate went out without saying a word to
Don Quixote, and he, sorely pinched, puzzled, and dejected, remained
alone, and there we will leave him, wondering who could have been the
perverse enchanter who had reduced him to such a state; but that shall
be told in due season, for Sancho claims our attention, and the
methodical arrangement of the story demands it.

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