Don Quixote

N WHICH THE TRIFALDI CONTINUES HER MARVELLOUS AND MEMORABLE STORY
By every word that Sancho uttered, the duchess was as much delighted as
Don Quixote was driven to desperation. He bade him hold his tongue, and
the Distressed One went on to say: “At length, after much questioning
and answering, as the princess held to her story, without changing or
varying her previous declaration, the Vicar gave his decision in favour
of Don Clavijo, and she was delivered over to him as his lawful wife;
which the Queen Doña Maguncia, the Princess Antonomasia’s mother, so
took to heart, that within the space of three days we buried her.”

“She died, no doubt,” said Sancho.

“Of course,” said Trifaldin; “they don’t bury living people in Kandy,
only the dead.”

“Señor Squire,” said Sancho, “a man in a swoon has been known to be
buried before now, in the belief that he was dead; and it struck me
that Queen Maguncia ought to have swooned rather than died; because
with life a great many things come right, and the princess’s folly was
not so great that she need feel it so keenly. If the lady had married
some page of hers, or some other servant of the house, as many another
has done, so I have heard say, then the mischief would have been past
curing. But to marry such an elegant accomplished gentleman as has been
just now described to us—indeed, indeed, though it was a folly, it was
not such a great one as you think; for according to the rules of my
master here—and he won’t allow me to lie—as of men of letters bishops
are made, so of gentlemen knights, specially if they be errant, kings
and emperors may be made.”

“Thou art right, Sancho,” said Don Quixote, “for with a knight-errant,
if he has but two fingers’ breadth of good fortune, it is on the cards
to become the mightiest lord on earth. But let señora the Distressed
One proceed; for I suspect she has got yet to tell us the bitter part
of this so far sweet story.”

“The bitter is indeed to come,” said the countess; “and such bitter
that colocynth is sweet and oleander toothsome in comparison. The
queen, then, being dead, and not in a swoon, we buried her; and hardly
had we covered her with earth, hardly had we said our last farewells,
when, quis talia fando temperet a lachrymis? over the queen’s grave
there appeared, mounted upon a wooden horse, the giant Malambruno,
Maguncia’s first cousin, who besides being cruel is an enchanter; and
he, to revenge the death of his cousin, punish the audacity of Don
Clavijo, and in wrath at the contumacy of Antonomasia, left them both
enchanted by his art on the grave itself; she being changed into an ape
of brass, and he into a horrible crocodile of some unknown metal; while
between the two there stands a pillar, also of metal, with certain
characters in the Syriac language inscribed upon it, which, being
translated into Kandian, and now into Castilian, contain the following
sentence: ‘These two rash lovers shall not recover their former shape
until the valiant Manchegan comes to do battle with me in single
combat; for the Fates reserve this unexampled adventure for his mighty
valour alone.’ This done, he drew from its sheath a huge broad
scimitar, and seizing me by the hair he made as though he meant to cut
my throat and shear my head clean off. I was terror-stricken, my voice
stuck in my throat, and I was in the deepest distress; nevertheless I
summoned up my strength as well as I could, and in a trembling and
piteous voice I addressed such words to him as induced him to stay the
infliction of a punishment so severe. He then caused all the duennas of
the palace, those that are here present, to be brought before him; and
after having dwelt upon the enormity of our offence, and denounced
duennas, their characters, their evil ways and worse intrigues, laying
to the charge of all what I alone was guilty of, he said he would not
visit us with capital punishment, but with others of a slow nature
which would be in effect civil death for ever; and the very instant he
ceased speaking we all felt the pores of our faces opening, and
pricking us, as if with the points of needles. We at once put our hands
up to our faces and found ourselves in the state you now see.”

Here the Distressed One and the other duennas raised the veils with
which they were covered, and disclosed countenances all bristling with
beards, some red, some black, some white, and some grizzled, at which
spectacle the duke and duchess made a show of being filled with wonder.
Don Quixote and Sancho were overwhelmed with amazement, and the
bystanders lost in astonishment, while the Trifaldi went on to say:
“Thus did that malevolent villain Malambruno punish us, covering the
tenderness and softness of our faces with these rough bristles! Would
to heaven that he had swept off our heads with his enormous scimitar
instead of obscuring the light of our countenances with these
wool-combings that cover us! For if we look into the matter, sirs (and
what I am now going to say I would say with eyes flowing like
fountains, only that the thought of our misfortune and the oceans they
have already wept, keep them as dry as barley spears, and so I say it
without tears), where, I ask, can a duenna with a beard go to? What
father or mother will feel pity for her? Who will help her? For, if
even when she has a smooth skin, and a face tortured by a thousand
kinds of washes and cosmetics, she can hardly get anybody to love her,
what will she do when she shows a countenance turned into a thicket? Oh
duennas, companions mine! it was an unlucky moment when we were born
and an ill-starred hour when our fathers begot us!” And as she said
this she showed signs of being about to faint.

p39e.jpg (27K)