Chap. IX Of Clavileno’s Arrival — And the Conclusion of This Protracted Adventure
Meanwhile, night came on, and along with it the time fixed for the arrival of the famous steed Clavileno, whose delay began already to afflict Don Quixote; for he looked upon the detention of the horse, as a sign that he himself was not the knight for whom the adventure was reserved, or that Malambruno was afraid to engage with him in single combat. But, lo! all of a sudden, four savages, clad in green ivy, entered the garden, bearing on their backs a green wooden horse, which being placed on the ground, one of the number pronounced, ‘Let him who has courage mount this machine.’—‘For my own part,’ said Sancho, ‘I do not mount; for neither have I courage, nor am I a knight.’ But the savage proceeded, saying, ‘Let the squire, if he has one, occupy the crupper; and he may confide in the valiant Malambruno; for, except the sword of that giant, no other steel or malice shall offend him; and the knight has no more to do, but to turn this peg upon his neck, and he will carry them through the air to the place where Malambruno waits for their arrival; but lest the height and sublimity of the road should turn their heads, their eyes must be covered until such time as the horse shall neigh, for that will be the signal of their having performed the journey.’ This intimation being given, they left the horse, and retired to the place from whence they came, with great solemnity.
The afflicted duenna no sooner beheld the steed, than addressing herself to Don Quixote, with tears in her eyes, ‘Valiant knight,’ said she, ‘Malambruno’s promise is made good: here stands the horse, our beards are still growing, and each of us, nay, every hair upon our chins, supplicate thee to shave and shear them, since there is nothing else required but to mount with thy squire, and happily begin your journey.’—‘That will I do, my Lady Countess Trifaldi,’ replied Don Quixote, ‘with good will, and hearty inclination; nor will I delay the expedition, by spending time in furnishing myself with a cushion, or even in putting on my spurs, so impatient I am to see your ladyship and those duennas quite smooth and shaven.’—‘That will I not do,’ cried Sancho, ‘neither with hearty nor heartless inclination, nor in any manner of way; and if the shaving cannot be performed without my mounting upon the crupper, my master must look for another squire to attend him, and these ladies must find another method for smoothing their faces; for I am no wizard, to take delight in flying through the air: and pray, what would my islanders say, should they know their governor was riding upon the wind? Moreover, it being three thousand and so many more leagues from hence to Candaya, should the horse be tired, or the giant out of humour, we may spend half a dozen years in returning; and by that time, the devil an island or islander in the whole world will know my face. It is a common saying, that Delay breeds danger; and, When the heifer you receive, have a halter in your sleeve. The beards of these ladies must therefore excuse me: I know St. Peter is well at Rome; my meaning is, I find myself very well in this mansion, where I am treated with such respect, and from the master of which I expect so great a favour as that of being made a governor.’ To this remonstrance the duke replied, ‘Friend Sancho, the island I have promised is neither floating nor fugitive, but its roots are so deeply fixed in the bowels of the earth, that three good pulls will not remove or tear it away; and, as you are sensible, I know there is no kind of office of any importance that is not obtained by some sort of bribe, more or less, the present I expect for the government is, that you will attend your master, Don Quixote, in crowning and accomplishing this memorable adventure; and, whether you return upon Clavileno with that dispatch which his speed seems to promise; or, by the cruelty of adverse fortune, you come back in the habit of a pilgrim, begging on foot, from house to house, and from one inn to another; you shall, nevertheless, at your return, find your island where you left it; and your islanders actuated by the same desire of receiving you as their governor, which they have always indulged; and as for my inclination, it can never change; for, to entertain the least doubt of my sincerity, Signior Sancho, would be a notorious injury to the attachment I feel for your service.’—‘Enough, my lord,’ cried Sancho: ‘I am a poor squire, and cannot bear such a load of courtesy; let my master mount, and my eyes be covered; recommend me to God; and let me know whether, while we travel through those altitudes, I may call upon the name of the Lord, or implore the protection of his angels.’ To this interrogation, the countess replied, ‘You may recommend yourself to God, or to whom you will; for Malambruno, though an inchanter, is nevertheless a Christian, and performs his inchantments with great sagacity and caution, nor does he intermeddle in any person’s affairs.’—‘Well, then,’ cried Sancho, ‘God, and the most Holy Trinity of Gaeta, be my guide and protection!’—‘Since the memorable adventure of the fulling-mills,’ said Don Quixote, ‘I have never seen Sancho so infected with fear, as upon this occasion; and, if I were as much addicted to superstition as some people are, his pusillanimity would produce some compunction in my soul: but, come hither, Sancho; for, with the permission of that noble pair, I would speak two words with you in private.’
Then taking his squire aside into a tuft of trees, and grasping both his hands, ‘You see, brother Sancho,’ said he, ‘the long journey that awaits us; and God knows when we shall return, and what leisure or convenience our business may allow; I therefore beg thou wilt now retire to thy apartment, on pretence of fetching some necessaries for the road, and, in the twinkling of a straw, inflict upon thyself some five hundred of those three thousand three hundred lashes for which thou art engaged, and they shall stand good in the account; for, when a thing is once began, it is almost as good as half finished.’—‘Before God!’ cried Sancho, ‘your worship must be out of your senses; this is just as they say, You see me in a hurry, and ask me to marry. Now, when I am going to ride upon a wooden crupper, would your worship have me afflict my posteriors? Verily, verily, your worship was never more out of the way; at present, let us proceed and shave those duennas, and at our return, I promise to your worship, on the faith of my character, to quit my score with such dispatch, that your worship shall be satisfied; and I’ll say no more.’—‘Well, then,’ answered the knight, ‘I will console myself, honest Sancho, with that promise, which I really believe thou wilt perform; for, surely, though thy head be but green, thy heart is true blue.’—‘Green,’ said Sancho; ‘my head is not green, but black; but even though it were pye-bald, I would perform my promise.’
After this short dialogue they returned, in order to take horse; then, the knight addressing himself to the squire, ‘Sancho,’ said he, ‘suffer yourself to be hoodwinked, and get up: he who sends for us from such distant regions, can have no intention to deceive us, because he could reap no glory from having deceived those who depended on his sincerity; and, although the event may turn out contrary to my expectation, the glory of having undertaken such an exploit no malice whatsoever can impair.’—‘Come, then, Signior,’ cried the squire, ‘for the beards and tears of those ladies are so imprinted in my heart, that I shall not swallow a mouthful to do me good, until I see them restored to their original smoothness. Get up, Signior, and hoodwink yourself first: for, if the crupper is to be my seat, it is plain that you must mount first into the saddle.’—‘You are in the right,’ replied Don Quixote; who, pulling an handkerchief from his pocket, desired the afflicted duenna to fasten it round his eyes, which, however, were no sooner covered, than he took off the bandage, saying, ‘If I remember aright, I have read in Virgil, of the Trojan Palladium, a wooden horse offered to the goddess Pallas, the bowels of which horse were filled with armed men, who afterwards occasioned the total destruction of Troy; and, therefore, it will not be amiss, first of all, to examine the belly of Clavileno.’—‘There is no occasion,’ said the afflicted duenna; ‘for I am certain that Malambruno has neither treachery nor malice in his heart: your worship, Signior Don Quixote, may therefore mount, without the least apprehension; and if any mischief befal you, lay it at my door.’ The knight reflecting that any hesitation about his personal safety would be a disparagement to his valour, mounted Clavileno without farther altercation, and tried the peg, which turned with ease; and his legs hanging down at full length, for want of stirrups, he looked like a figure in some Roman triumph, painted or wrought in Flemish tapestry.
Then Sancho, very slowly, and much against his will, crept up behind, and seating himself as well as he could upon the crupper, found it so hard and uneasy, that he begged the duke would order him to be accommodated with some cushion or pillow, though it should be taken from my Lady Duchess’s sopha, or some page’s bed; for the crupper of that horse seemed to be made of marble rather than of wood.
Here Trifaldi interposing, assured him that Clavileno would bear no kind of furniture or ornament; but said he might sit sideways like a woman, in which attitude he would not be so sensible of the hardness. Sancho took her advice, and saying adieu, allowed his eyes to be covered; but, afterwards pulling up the bandage, and looking ruefully at all the people in the garden, he, with tears in his eyes, besought them to assist him in that extremity with a brace of Paternosters, and as many Ave Marias, as God should provide somebody to do as much for them in like time or need.
Don Quixote hearing this apostrophe, ‘How now, miscreant!’ said he, ‘are you brought to the gallows, or in the last agonies of death, that you make use of such intreaties? Dispirited and cowardly creature! Art not thou seated in the very same place which was occupied by the fair Magalona, and from which she descended, not to her grave, but to the crown of France, if history speaks truth? And I, who sit by thy side, surely may vie with valiant Peter, who pressed the self same back now pressed by me. Shroud, shroud thine eyes, thou animal without a soul, and let not those symptoms of fear escape thy lips, at least in my presence.’—‘Hoodwink me then,’ answered Sancho, ’and since I must neither recommend myself, nor be recommended, to the protection of God, what wonder is it, if I am afraid we shall meet with some legion of devils, who will treat us according to the Peralvillo law181?’
Their eyes being covered, and Don Quixote perceiving he was fixed in his seat, turned the peg; and scarce had his finger touched this rudder, when the whole bevy of duennas, and all that were present, raised their voices, crying, ‘Heaven be thy guide, valorous knight! God be thy protection, intrepid squire!—Now, now, you rise and cut the liquid sky more swiftly than an arrow; now, you begin to astonish and confound all those who gaze upon you from this earthly spot!—Hold fast, valiant Sancho, for we see thee totter; beware of falling: to fall from such an height would be more fatal than the fall of that aspiring youth whose ambition prompted him to drive the chariot of the sun his father.’
Sancho, hearing this exclamation, crept closer to his master, and hugging him fast in his arms, ‘Signior,’ said he, ‘how can we be so high as those people say we are, seeing we can hear them speak as well as if we were within a few yards of them?’—‘You must not mind that circumstance,’ answered the knight; ‘for these incidents and flights being all together out of the ordinary course of things, you may hear and see what you please, at the distance of a thousand leagues: but do not squeeze me so hard, lest I tumble from my seat. I really cannot imagine what it is that disturbs and affrights thee; for I swear, in all the days of my life, I never bestrode a horse of a more easy pace: indeed, he goes so smoothly, that I can hardly feel him move. Dispel thy fear, my friend, for truly the business goes on swimmingly, and we sail right afore the wind.’—‘You are certainly in the right,’ answered Sancho; ‘for on this side, there blows as fresh a gale as if I was fanned with a thousand pair of bellows.’
Nor was he much mistaken in his conjecture; for the wind that blew was actually produced by one of those machines: so well had the adventure been contrived by the duke and duchess, and, their steward, that nought was wanting to render it compleat. Then the knight feeling the same breeze, ‘Without doubt,’ said he, ‘we must be arrived at the second region of the air, in which hail and snow are produced; meteors, thunder and lightning, are engendered in the third region: if we continue to mount at this rate, we shall in a very little time reach the region of fire; and I know not how to manage this peg, so as to put a stop to our rising, and prevent our being scorched to a cinder.’
In the midst of this conversation their faces were warmed with some tow that was kindled for the purpose, at the end of a long pole, and Sancho feeling the heat, ‘Let me perish!’ cried he, ‘if we are not now come to that same habitation of fire; for a great part of my beard is already singed; and I am resolved to uncover my eyes, that I may see whereabouts we are.’—‘By no means,’ answered the knight: ‘remember the true story of the licentiate Toralva, who being mounted on a cane, was conveyed through the air, with his eyes shut, by the devils: in twelve hours he arrived at Rome, and alighted on the tower of Nona, which is in one of the streets of that city, whence he beheld the whole tumult, assault, and death, of the constable of Bourbon; and before morning he had returned to Madrid, where he gave an account of that transaction. He likewise affirmed, that while he travelled through the air, the devil bade him open his eyes, and he saw himself so near the body of the moon, that he could have touched it with his hand; but he durst not look towards the earth, lest his head should have turned giddy. Let us not, therefore, uncover our eyes, Sancho; he in whose charge we are will give a good account of us; and, perhaps, we are now at the very point of our elevation, from whence we shall come souse upon the kingdom of Candaya, as a faker or jerfaulcon darts down upon an heron with a force proportioned to his rise: and, although it seems to us no more than half an hour since we set out from the garden, you may depend upon it we have travelled an immense way.’—’As to that matter, I am quite ignorant,’ said Sancho: ‘this only I know, that if Madam Magallanes or Magalona took pleasure in sitting upon this crupper, her flesh must not have been very tender.’
All this dialogue of the two heroes was overheard by the duke and duchess, and the rest of the company in the garden, to whom it afforded extraordinary entertainment: at length, desirous of finishing this strange and well-concerted adventure, they set fire to Clavileno’s tail with some lighted flax; his belly being filled with squibs and crackers, he instantly blew up with a dreadful explosion, and Don Quixote, with his squire, came to the ground more than half singed. By this time the whole bearded squadron, with my Lady Trifaldi, had vanished from the garden, and all the rest of the company were stretched upon the ground as in a trance. Don Quixote and Sancho getting on their feet, in a very indifferent condition, and looking all around, were astonished to find themselves in the same garden from which they took their flight, and to see such a number of people extended along the grass: but their admiration was still more increased, when at one corner of the garden they beheld a huge lance fixed in the ground, and tied to this lance, by two cords of green silk, a smooth, white skin of parchment, on which was the following inscription in large golden letters:
‘The renowned knight Don Quixote de la Mancha has finished and atchieved the adventure of the Countess Trifaldi, alias the afflicted Duenna, and her companions solely by his having undertaken the enterprize.
‘Malambruno is wholly satisfied and appeased; the chins of the duennas are smooth and clean; their Majesties Don Clavijo and Antonomasia are restored to their original form: and when the squirely flagellation shall be accomplished, the white dove will be delivered from the pestilential talons of her persecutors, and find herself within the arms of her beloved turtle; for such is the decree of the sage Merlin, the prince and prototype of all enchanters.’
Don Quixote having read this scroll, at once comprehended the meaning, which related to the disinchantment of Dulcinea, and returning a thousand thanks to Heaven for his success in having finished such a mighty exploit with so little danger, and reduced to their pristine form the faces of those venerable duennas who had disappeared, he went towards the place where the duke and duchess still lay intranced, and pulling his grace by the arm, ‘Courage! courage, my noble lord!’ said he; ‘all is over now; the adventure is finished, without damage to the barrier, as will plainly appear by the inscription of yonder scroll.’
The duke seemed to recover gradually, like one waking from a profound sleep; his example was followed by the duchess, and all the rest who lay along the garden; and they exhibited such marks of fear and astonishment, that even almost to themselves, that seemed to have happened in earnest which they had so well acted in jest. The duke having read the inscription with his eyes half shut, ran with open arms to embrace Don Quixote, calling him the most worthy knight that any age had ever produced: while Sancho went looking about for the afflicted matron, to see if her beard was quite gone, and whether her face, without hair, was as beautiful as her gallant deportment seemed to promise. But he was told, that as Clavileno descended in a flame from the sky, the whole squadron of duennas, with Trifaldi at their head, had vanished, and their faces smack-smooth as if they had been clean shaven.
Then the duchess asking, how it had fared with Sancho in his long journey, the squire replied, ‘As for me, my lady, I perceived, as my master told me, that we flew threw the region of fire, and I felt a strong inclination to have a peep; but my master would not consent, when I begged his permission to uncover my eyes; nevertheless, I, who have a sort of a chip of curiosity, and an eager desire to know what I am forbid to enquire about fair and softly, without being perceived by any living soul, pulled down upon my nose the handkerchief that covered my eyes, and by these means had a glimpse of the earth, which seemed no bigger than a grain of mustard, and the men that walked upon it almost as little as hazle nuts; so you may guess how high we must have soared by that time.’
To this asseveration the duchess answered, ‘Have a care, friend Sancho; from what you say, it appears that it could not be the earth, but the men walking upon it, whom you saw: for if the earth appeared like a grain of mustard, and every man as big as a nut, it clearly follows, that one man must have covered the whole earth.’—‘Very true,’ said Sancho; ‘but, for all that, I had a side-view, by which I discovered the whole globe.’—‘Take notice, Sancho,’ resumed the duchess, ‘it is impossible to see the whole of any thing by a side-view.’—‘I know nothing of views,’ replied the squire; ‘this only I know, your ladyship ought to consider, that as we flew by inchantment, so might I, by inchantment, see the whole earth, and all the men upon it, in any sort of view whatsoever: and if your ladyship will not believe me in that, no more will you believe me when I tell you, that pushing up the handkerchief towards my eye-brows, I found myself within a hand’s breadth and a half of heaven, which I’ll assure your ladyship upon oath is very huge; and it came to pass, that our road lay close to the seven nanny-goats182: now, I having been a goatherd in my youth, before God and my conscience! I no sooner set eyes on them, than I was seized with the inclination to divert myself a little with the pretty creatures, and if I had not done it, I believe I should have burst for vexation. Come on then, what does me I? but, without saying a word to any living soul, not even to my master, fairly and softly slide down from Clavileno, and sport with the nannies, which are like violets and lilies, for the space of three quarters of an hour, and all that time the horse did not budge a step from the place.’
‘And while honest Sancho diverted himself with the goats,’ said the duke, ‘how was Signior Don Quixote entertained?’ To this interrogation the knight replied, ‘As all these adventures and incidents are out of the ordinary course of nature, we are not to wonder at what Sancho has told; for my own part, I can safely affirm, that I neither shoved up nor pulled down the bandage, nor did see either heaven, or earth, or sea, or land. True it is, I perceived we passed through the region of the air, and even bordered upon the region of fire, but that we travelled beyond it I cannot believe; for the fiery region being between the sphere of the moon and the utmost region of the air, we could not reach that firmament in which are placed the seven nannies, as Sancho calls them, without being scorched to death; and seeing we are not scorched, either Sancho lyes, or Sancho dreams.’—‘I neither lye nor dream,’ cried the squire; ‘let them ask the marks of the nanny-goats, and by my answers you will perceive whether or not I speak truth.’—‘Describe them, then, Sancho,’ said the duchess. ‘Two of them,’ replied Sancho, ‘are green, two carnation, two blue, and one motley.’—‘This is a new breed,’ said the duke; ‘in our region of earth there are no such colours; I mean, among the nanny-goats.’—‘That is very plain,’ replied the squire; ‘there must be some difference between the goats of heaven and those upon earth.’—‘Pray, tell me, Sancho,’ said his grace, ‘didst thou see never a he-goat among those females183?’—‘No, my lord,’ answered the squire; ‘I have been told none of those pass beyond the horns of the moon.’
They did not chuse to interrogate him farther about his journey; for they concluded that Sancho was in a fair way to travel through all the heavens above, and tell the news of each, though he had never stirred from the garden.
Finally, thus ended the adventure of the afflicted duenna, which afforded a fund for laughter to the duke and duchess, not only at that time, but during the whole course of their lives; as well as matter for Sancho to relate, had he lived whole centuries.
Don Quixote coming to the squire, whispered in his ear, ‘Hark ye, Sancho; since you would have us believe what you say, touching the things you saw in heaven, I desire the like credit from you with regard to those things I saw in the cave of Montesinos: that’s all.’