Chap. IV Which Gives an Account of the Perilous and Inconceivable — Adventure of the Afflicted Duenna, Alias the Countess Trifaldi — Together With a Letter Which Sancho Panza Wrote to His Wife Teresa Panza
The duke’s steward was a man of humour and ingenuity, who acted the part of Merlin, and adjusted all the apparatus of the foregoing adventure; for he composed the verses, and directed a page to represent Dulcinea; finally, under the auspices of his lord and lady, he projected another of the most agreeable and strange fancy that could possibly be conceived.
Next day the duchess asking Sancho if he had begun the task of the penance, which he was to undergo for the disinchantment of Dulcinea, he answered in the affirmative, and said, he had that same night given himself five lashes; but when she enquired about the instrument with which they were inflicted, he owned they were applied with his hand. ‘That is rather clapping than lashing,’ replied her grace; ‘and I take it for granted, the sage Merlin will not be content with such delicacy; it will be absolutely necessary that honest Sancho should make a scourge of briars, or use a switch that will make him feel it; for learning is not acquired without pain, and the liberty of such an high-born lady as Dulcinea is not to be purchased for a trifle.’ To this remonstrance Sancho replied, ‘I wish your grace would lend me some convenient whip, or ragged rope’s end, which would do the business without giving me a great deal of pain; for I would have your grace to know, that although I am a labouring man, my flesh has more of the cotton than the mat weed in it; and there is no reason that I should destroy myself for another’s advantage.’—‘In good time be it,’ answered the duchess; ‘to-morrow morning I will give you a scourge that will fit you to an hair, and agree as well with the tenderness of your flesh, as if it was its own brother.’
This affair being adjusted, ‘My lady,’ said Sancho Panza, ‘your highness must know I have writ a letter to my wife Teresa Panza, giving an account of all that hath befallen me since we parted: here it is in my bosom, and wants nothing but a superscription. I wish your grace, in your great understanding, would read it; for, in my mind, it smacks of the governor; I mean, of the manner in which governors ought to write.’—’And who was the inditer?’ said the duchess. ‘Who should indite it, sinner that I am, but myself!’ answered the squire. ‘Did you likewise write it yourself?’ replied her grace. ‘I did not so much as think of any such matter,’ said Sancho; ‘for the truth is, I can neither read nor write, though I know very well how to set my mark.’—‘Let us see this epistle,’ quoth the duchess, ‘in which, I dare say, you have displayed the quality and extent of your understanding.’
Then Sancho pulling an open letter from his bosom, the duchess took and read it to this effect.
SANCHO’S LETTER TO HIS WIFE TERESA PANZA.
‘If I have been finely lashed, I have been well mounted; If I have obtained a good government, it has cost me a good whipping. This, Teresa, thou wilt not now understand, but shalt learn some other opportunity. Know, Teresa, I am determined thou shalt ride in a coach, which is a resolution pat to the purpose; for any other way of travelling is fit for none but cats. A governor’s lady you shall be, and I would fain see the best of them tread upon thy heels. I have sent thee a green hunting suit, which was a present from my Lady Duchess. Make it up into a petticoat and jacket for our daughter. My master Don Quixote, as I have heard in this country, is a sensible madman, and a diverting fool, and I myself am nothing short of him in these respects. We have been in the cave of Montesinos, and the sage Merlin has pitched upon me to disinchant the Lady Dulcinea del Toboso, who in your parts is called Aldonza Lorenzo; with three thousand three hundred stripes, lacking five, which I am to give myself, she will be as much disinchanted as the mother that bore her. Thou shalt not mention a syllable of this to any person whatsoever; for if you go to seek advice about your own concerns, one will say it is white, and another swear ’tis black.’
A few days hence I shall set out for my government, whither I go with a most outrageous desire of getting money; and I am told, this is the case with all new governors. I will feel the pulse of it, and give thee notice whether or no thou shalt come and live with me.
Dapple is in good health, and sends his most hearty commendations: I believe I shall not forsake him even if they should make me the Grand Turk. My Lady Duchess kisses thy hand a thousand times: return the compliment with two thousand; for, as my master says, Nothing is so reasonable and cheap as good manners. It has not pleased God that I should stumble upon another portmanteau with a hundred crowns, as heretofore; but let that give thee no uneasiness, my dear Teresa, for he is safe who has good cards to play; and what is amiss will come out in the washing of this same government. One thing, I own, gives me great concern: I am told, that if once I taste it, I shall be apt to eat my fingers; and should that be the case, it will be no cheap bargain; though the lame and the paralytick enjoy a sort of canonry in the alms they receive. Wherefore, one way or another, thou wilt certainly be rich and fortunate. The Lord make thee so, as he very well may, and preserve for thy service thy husband the governor.
‘Sancho Panza.
‘From the Duke’s Castle, July 20, 1614.’
The Duchess having read the letter to an end, ‘In two circumstances,’ said she, ‘the honest governor is a little out of the way. First, in saying or insinuating, that the government was bestowed upon him, in return for the stripes he must undergo; whereas he knows, and cannot deny, that when my Lord Duke promised him the island, nobody thought of any such thing as stripes in the world: Secondly, he discovers an avaricious disposition, and I should not like to see him a skin flint; for greediness bursts the bag, and a covetous governor will do very ungoverned justice.’—‘I did not write with that intention,’ answered the squire: ’and if your ladyship thinks this is not a proper letter, there is nothing to do but tear it and write another, which perhaps will be still worse, if it be left to my own numbskull.’—‘No, no,’ cried the duchess, ‘this will do very well, and must be shewn to the duke.’
Accordingly, repairing to a garden, where they were to dine that day, she communicated Sancho’s epistle to the duke, who perused it with infinite pleasure. Here they went to dinner, and after the cloth was taken away, and they had entertained themselves a good while with the savoury conversation of Sancho, their ears were suddenly invaded with the dismal sound of a fife and a hoarse unbraced drum: all the company were startled at this confused, martial, and melancholy musick, especially Don Quixote, whose emotion would not allow him to sit quiet. With regard to Sancho, all that can be said is, that he was driven by fear to his usual shelter, the sides or skirts of the duchess: for the sound they heard was really and truly horrible and dreary. In the midst of this confusion and surprize, which took hold on all present, they saw two men enter the garden, in mourning-cloaks, so large and long that they trailed upon the ground. These figures were employed in beating two large drums, which were likewise covered with black, and they were accompanied by a fifer as black and dismal as themselves, and followed by a personage of gigantick stature, rolled rather than cloathed in a cassock of the blackest hue, furnished with a train of unmeasurable length. Over this cassock, his body was girded and crossed with a broad black belt, from which depended an immense scymitar, with hilt and sheath of the same sable colour. His face was covered with a black, transparent veil, through which appeared a huge and bushy beard as white as snow; and in walking he kept time to the sound of the drums, with great gravity and composure. In a word, his tallness, his demeanour, his melancholy dress, and his attendants, were sufficient to surprize, and did surprize, all those who beheld him, without knowing the nature of the scheme. With the said solemnity of personification he advanced in order to kneel before the duke, who, with the rest of the company, received him standing; but his grace would by no means hear his address until he rose. The prodigious spectre complied with his desire and stood upright; then unveiling his face, and displaying the largest, whitest, thickest, and most stupendous beard that ever human eyes beheld, he fixed his eyes upon the duke, and in a grave, sonorous voice, extracted and discharged from his ample and dilated chest, pronounced, ‘Most high and mighty prince, I am Trifaldin of the Snowy Beard, squire to the Countess Trifaldi, otherwise distinguished by the appellation of the afflicted duenna: from her I bring a message to your grace, requesting that your magnificence would be pleased to give her leave and opportunity to enter and declare in person her mishap; which is the strangest and the newest that ever the most hapless imagination could conceive; and first of all, she wants to know if the valiant and invincible knight Don Quixote de La Mancha now resides within your castle; for in quest of him, she is come a-foot and fasting from the kingdom of Candaya to these your territories: a circumstance which might and ought to be deemed a miracle, or at least effected by the power of inchantment. She is now at the gate of this fortress or pleasure-house, and only waits for your permission to come in.’
So saying, he hemmed; and with both hands stroaking his beard from top to bottom, waited with great composure for the duke’s reply, which was this: ‘Worthy Squire Trifaldin of the Snowy Beard, many days are passed since we have been apprized of the misfortune of my Lady Countess Trifaldi, on whom the inchanters have intailed the epithet of the afflicted duenna; well may you, stupendous squire, desire her to come in; and here is the valiant knight Don Quixote de La Mancha, from whose generous disposition she may securely promise herself all manner of aid and protection; and you may likewise give her to understand, in my name, that if my assistance be necessary, it shall not be wanting; for I think myself obliged to grant it, as being a knight, to which title is annexed and belongs, that maxim of assisting the fair-sex with all our might, especially widowed, reduced, and afflicted duennas, like her ladyship.’ Trifaldin hearing this declaration, bent his knee to the ground, and making a signal to the fifer and drums to repeat the same note, and resume the same pace with which they entered, he retired from the garden, leaving the whole company astonished at his presence and deportment.
Then the duke turning to Don Quixote, ‘In a word, renowned knight,’ said he, ‘it is not in the power of all the clouds of ignorance and malice to conceal or obscure the light of valour and of virtue. This observation I make, because your excellency has been scarce six days in this castle, when, the melancholy and afflicted come in quest of you from the most distant and sequestered countries, not in coaches or on dromedaries, but a-foot and fasting, confident of finding in that most valiant arm the remedy and cure of their toils and misfortunes: thanks to your illustrious exploits, which pervade and encircle the whole habitable globe.’
‘My Lord Duke,’ replied the knight, ‘I wish that same pious ecclesiastick was here at present; he, who at your grace’s table, the other day, expressed so much ill-will and such an inveterate grudge to knights-errant, that he might see with his own eyes whether or not such knights are of any service in this world; or at least, be fully convinced that the distressed and disconsolate, overwhelmed with extraordinary woes, and enormous misfortunes, do not go for redress to the houses of learned men, to the mansions of parish priests, nor to the knight who never dreamed of going beyond the limits of his own estate; nor to the idle courtier, who would rather enquire about news, that he might have the pleasure of repeating and retailing them, than endeavour to perform actions and exploits for others to perpetuate and record: the redress of grievances, the support of the necessitous, the protection of damsels, and the consolation of widows, are found in no set of people more than in knights-errant; that I am one of these, I return infinite thanks to Heaven, and shall cheerfully undergo whatever danger and disgrace may befall me in the course of such an honourable exercise. Let this duenna approach, and beg what boon she shall desire, I will commit her cause to the strength of my arm, and the intrepid resolution of my aspiring soul.’