"Well then," said Sancho, "God and the most holy Trinity of Gaetagive me help!"
"Since the memorable adventure of the fulling mills," said DonQuixote, "I have
never seen Sancho in such a fright as now; were Ias superstitious as others his
abject fear would cause me somelittle trepidation of spirit. But come here, Sancho,
for with theleave of these gentles I would say a word or two to thee inprivate;"
and drawing Sancho aside among the trees of the garden andseizing both his hands
he said, "Thou seest, brother Sancho, thelong journey we have before us, and God
knows when we shall return, orwhat leisure or opportunities this business will allow
us; I wish theetherefore to retire now to thy chamber, as though thou wert going
tofetch something required for the road, and in a trice give thyselfif it be only
five hundred lashes on account of the three thousandthree hundred to which thou
art bound; it will be all to the good, andto make a beginning with a thing is to
have it half finished."
"By God," said Sancho, "but your worship must be out of your senses!This is like
the common saying, 'You see me with child, and you wantme a virgin.' Just as I'm
about to go sitting on a bare board, yourworship would have me score my backside!
Indeed, your worship is notreasonable. Let us be off to shave these duennas; and
on our returnI promise on my word to make such haste to wipe off all that's dueas
will satisfy your worship; I can't say more."
"Well, I will comfort myself with that promise, my good Sancho,"replied Don Quixote,
"and I believe thou wilt keep it; for indeedthough stupid thou art veracious."
"I'm not voracious," said Sancho, "only peckish; but even if I was alittle, still
I'd keep my word."
With this they went back to mount Clavileno, and as they wereabout to do so Don
Quixote said, "Cover thine eyes, Sancho, and mount;for one who sends for us from
lands so far distant cannot mean todeceive us for the sake of the paltry glory to
be derived fromdeceiving persons who trust in him; though all should turn out thecontrary
of what I hope, no malice will be able to dim the glory ofhaving undertaken this
exploit."
"Let us be off, senor," said Sancho, "for I have taken the beardsand tears of
these ladies deeply to heart, and I shan't eat a bit torelish it until I have seen
them restored to their formersmoothness. Mount, your worship, and blindfold yourself,
for if I amto go on the croup, it is plain the rider in the saddle must mountfirst."
"That is true," said Don Quixote, and, taking a handkerchief outof his pocket,
he begged the Distressed One to bandage his eyes verycarefully; but after having
them bandaged he uncovered them again,saying, "If my memory does not deceive me,
I have read in Virgil ofthe Palladium of Troy, a wooden horse the Greeks offered
to thegoddess Pallas, which was big with armed knights, who wereafterwards the destruction
of Troy; so it would he as well to see,first of all, what Clavileno has in his stomach."
"There is no occasion," said the Distressed One; "I will be bail forhim, and
I know that Malambruno has nothing tricky or treacherousabout him; you may mount
without any fear, Senor Don Quixote; on myhead be it if any harm befalls you."
Don Quixote thought that to say anything further with regard tohis safety would
be putting his courage in an unfavourable light;and so, without more words, he mounted
Clavileno, and tried the peg,which turned easily; and as he had no stirrups and
his legs hung down,he looked like nothing so much as a figure in some Roman triumphpainted
or embroidered on a Flemish tapestry.
Much against the grain, and very slowly, Sancho proceeded tomount, and, after
settling himself as well as he could on the croup,found it rather hard, and not
at all soft, and asked the duke if itwould be possible to oblige him with a pad
of some kind, or a cushion;even if it were off the couch of his lady the duchess,
or the bed ofone of the pages; as the haunches of that horse were more likemarble
than wood. On this the Trifaldi observed that Clavileno wouldnot bear any kind of
harness or trappings, and that his best planwould be to sit sideways like a woman,
as in that way he would notfeel the hardness so much.
Sancho did so, and, bidding them farewell, allowed his eyes to hebandaged, but
immediately afterwards uncovered them again, and lookingtenderly and tearfully on
those in the garden, bade them help him inhis present strait with plenty of Paternosters
and Ave Marias, thatGod might provide some one to say as many for them, whenever
theyfound themselves in a similar emergency.
At this Don Quixote exclaimed, "Art thou on the gallows, thief, orat thy last
moment, to use pitiful entreaties of that sort?Cowardly, spiritless creature, art
thou not in the very place the fairMagalona occupied, and from which she descended,
not into the grave,but to become Queen of France; unless the histories lie? And
I whoam here beside thee, may I not put myself on a par with the valiantPierres,
who pressed this very spot that I now press? Cover thineeyes, cover thine eyes,
abject animal, and let not thy fear escape thylips, at least in my presence."
"Blindfold me," said Sancho; "as you won't let me commend myselfor be commended
to God, is it any wonder if I am afraid there is aregion of devils about here that
will carry us off to Peralvillo?"
They were then blindfolded, and Don Quixote, finding himself settledto his satisfaction,
felt for the peg, and the instant he placed hisfingers on it, all the duennas and
all who stood by lifted up theirvoices exclaiming, "God guide thee, valiant knight!
God be withthee, intrepid squire! Now, now ye go cleaving the air more swiftlythan
an arrow! Now ye begin to amaze and astonish all who are gazingat you from the earth!
Take care not to wobble about, valiantSancho! Mind thou fall not, for thy fall will
be worse than thatrash youth's who tried to steer the chariot of his father the
Sun!"
As Sancho heard the voices, clinging tightly to his master andwinding his arms
round him, he said, "Senor, how do they make out weare going up so high, if their
voices reach us here and they seem tobe speaking quite close to us?"
"Don't mind that, Sancho," said Don Quixote; "for as affairs of thissort, and
flights like this are out of the common course of things,you can see and hear as
much as you like a thousand leagues off; butdon't squeeze me so tight or thou wilt
upset me; and really I know notwhat thou hast to be uneasy or frightened at, for
I can safely swear Inever mounted a smoother-going steed all the days of my life;
onewould fancy we never stirred from one place. Banish fear, my friend,for indeed
everything is going as it ought, and we have the windastern."
"That's true," said Sancho, "for such a strong wind comes against meon this side,
that it seems as if people were blowing on me with athousand pair of bellows;" which
was the case; they were puffing athim with a great pair of bellows; for the whole
adventure was sowell planned by the duke, the duchess, and their majordomo, thatnothing
was omitted to make it perfectly successful.
Don Quixote now, feeling the blast, said, "Beyond a doubt, Sancho,we must have
already reached the second region of the air, where thehail and snow are generated;
the thunder, the lightning, and thethunderbolts are engendered in the third region,
and if we go onascending at this rate, we shall shortly plunge into the region offire,
and I know not how to regulate this peg, so as not to mount upwhere we shall be
burned."
And now they began to warm their faces, from a distance, with towthat could be
easily set on fire and extinguished again, fixed onthe end of a cane. On feeling
the heat Sancho said, "May I die if weare not already in that fire place, or very
near it, for a good partof my beard has been singed, and I have a mind, senor, to
uncoverand see whereabouts we are."
"Do nothing of the kind," said Don Quixote; "remember the true storyof the licentiate
Torralva that the devils carried flying throughthe air riding on a stick with his
eyes shut; who in twelve hoursreached Rome and dismounted at Torre di Nona, which
is a street of thecity, and saw the whole sack and storming and the death of Bourbon,and
was back in Madrid the next morning, where he gave an account ofall he had seen;
and he said moreover that as he was going through theair, the devil bade him open
his eyes, and he did so, and sawhimself so near the body of the moon, so it seemed
to him, that hecould have laid hold of it with his hand, and that he did not dareto
look at the earth lest he should be seized with giddiness. So that,Sancho, it will
not do for us to uncover ourselves, for he who hasus in charge will be responsible
for us; and perhaps we are gaining analtitude and mounting up to enable us to descend
at one swoop on thekingdom of Kandy, as the saker or falcon does on the heron, so
as toseize it however high it may soar; and though it seems to us nothalf an hour
since we left the garden, believe me we must havetravelled a great distance."
"I don't know how that may be," said Sancho; "all I know is thatif the Senora
Magallanes or Magalona was satisfied with this croup,she could not have been very
tender of flesh."
The duke, the duchess, and all in the garden were listening to theconversation
of the two heroes, and were beyond measure amused byit; and now, desirous of putting
a finishing touch to this rare andwell-contrived adventure, they applied a light
to Clavileno's tailwith some tow, and the horse, being full of squibs and crackers,immediately
blew up with a prodigious noise, and brought Don Quixoteand Sancho Panza to the
ground half singed. By this time the beardedband of duennas, the Trifaldi and all,
had vanished from the garden,and those that remained lay stretched on the ground
as if in aswoon. Don Quixote and Sancho got up rather shaken, and, looking aboutthem,
were filled with amazement at finding themselves in the samegarden from which they
had started, and seeing such a number of peoplestretched on the ground; and their
astonishment was increased whenat one side of the garden they perceived a tall lance
planted in theground, and hanging from it by two cords of green silk a smoothwhite
parchment on which there was the following inscription inlarge gold letters: "The
illustrious knight Don Quixote of La Manchahas, by merely attempting it, finished
and concluded the adventureof the Countess Trifaldi, otherwise called the Distressed
Duenna;Malambruno is now satisfied on every point, the chins of the duennasare now
smooth and clean, and King Don Clavijo and Queen Antonomasiain their original form;
and when the squirely flagellation shallhave been completed, the white dove shall
find herself deliveredfrom the pestiferous gerfalcons that persecute her, and in
the arms ofher beloved mate; for such is the decree of the sage Merlin,arch-enchanter
of enchanters."
As soon as Don Quixote had read the inscription on the parchmenthe perceived
clearly that it referred to the disenchantment ofDulcinea, and returning hearty
thanks to heaven that he had with solittle danger achieved so grand an exploit as
to restore to theirformer complexion the countenances of those venerable duennas,
headvanced towards the duke and duchess, who had not yet come tothemselves, and
taking the duke by the hand he said, "Be of goodcheer, worthy sir, be of good cheer;
it's nothing at all; theadventure is now over and without any harm done, as the
inscriptionfixed on this post shows plainly."
The duke came to himself slowly and like one recoveringconsciousness after a
heavy sleep, and the duchess and all who hadfallen prostrate about the garden did
the same, with suchdemonstrations of wonder and amazement that they would have almostpersuaded
one that what they pretended so adroitly in jest hadhappened to them in reality.
The duke read the placard withhalf-shut eyes, and then ran to embrace Don Quixote
with-open arms,declaring him to be the best knight that had ever been seen in anyage.
Sancho kept looking about for the Distressed One, to see what herface was like without
the beard, and if she was as fair as her elegantperson promised; but they told him
that, the instant Clavilenodescended flaming through the air and came to the ground,
the wholeband of duennas with the Trifaldi vanished, and that they were alreadyshaved
and without a stump left.
The duchess asked Sancho how he had fared on that long journey, towhich Sancho
replied, "I felt, senora, that we were flying through theregion of fire, as my master
told me, and I wanted to uncover myeyes for a bit; but my master, when I asked leave
to uncover myself,would not let me; but as I have a little bit of curiosity about
me,and a desire to know what is forbidden and kept from me, quietly andwithout anyone
seeing me I drew aside the handkerchief covering myeyes ever so little, close to
my nose, and from underneath lookedtowards the earth, and it seemed to me that it
was altogether nobigger than a grain of mustard seed, and that the men walking on
itwere little bigger than hazel nuts; so you may see how high we musthave got to
then."
To this the duchess said, "Sancho, my friend, mind what you aresaying; it seems
you could not have seen the earth, but only the menwalking on it; for if the earth
looked to you like a grain ofmustard seed, and each man like a hazel nut, one man
alone wouldhave covered the whole earth."
"That is true," said Sancho, "but for all that I got a glimpse ofa bit of one
side of it, and saw it all."
"Take care, Sancho," said the duchess, "with a bit of one side onedoes not see
the whole of what one looks at."
"I don't understand that way of looking at things," said Sancho;"I only know
that your ladyship will do well to bear in mind that aswe were flying by enchantment
so I might have seen the whole earth andall the men by enchantment whatever way
I looked; and if you won'tbelieve this, no more will you believe that, uncovering
myselfnearly to the eyebrows, I saw myself so close to the sky that therewas not
a palm and a half between me and it; and by everything thatI can swear by, senora,
it is mighty great! And it so happened we cameby where the seven goats are, and
by God and upon my soul, as in myyouth I was a goatherd in my own country, as soon
as I saw them I felta longing to be among them for a little, and if I had not given
way toit I think I'd have burst. So I come and take, and what do I do?without saying
anything to anybody, not even to my master, softlyand quietly I got down from Clavileno
and amused myself with thegoats- which are like violets, like flowers- for nigh
three-quartersof an hour; and Clavileno never stirred or moved from one spot."