"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."

Title: Don Quixote
Author: Miqeul de Cervantes
Viewed 406074 times

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