Don Quixote [Trans. by Edith Grossman] (114 page)

As soon as the duchess finished reading the letter, she said to Sancho:

“There are two things in which the good governor is slightly mistaken: one, when he says or implies that this governorship has been given to him in exchange for the lashes that he’ll give himself, when he knows and cannot deny that when my lord the duke promised it to him, nobody even dreamed there were lashes in the world; the other is that he shows himself to be very greedy, and I wouldn’t want it to be oregano;
³
greed rips the sack, and a greedy governor dispenses unjust justice.”

“I didn’t mean it that way, Señora,” responded Sancho, “and if your grace thinks the letter isn’t the way it should be, there’s nothing to do but tear it up and make a new one, though it may be even worse if it’s left up to my poor wits.”

“No, no,” replied the duchess, “this is fine, and I want the duke to see it.”

Having said this, they went out to a garden where they were to have dinner that day. The duchess showed Sancho’s letter to the duke, who derived a good deal of pleasure from it. They ate, and after the table had been cleared, and after amusing themselves for some time with Sancho’s delicious talk, they suddenly heard the mournful sound of a fife and a harsh, strident drum. Everyone seemed startled by the confused, martial, and melancholy harmony, especially Don Quixote, who in his agitation could barely keep his seat; regarding Sancho, we need say only that fear carried him to his customary refuge, which was the side or the skirts of the duchess, because, really and truly, the sound they heard was extremely sad and melancholy.

And with all of them in this state of perplexity, they saw two men dressed in mourning come into the garden, their robes so long and flowing that they trailed along the ground; they were playing two large drums that were also covered in black. Beside them a man played the fife, as pitch black and dark as the rest. Following the three men was a personage with a gigantic body, cloaked, rather than dressed, in a deep black, full-length robe whose skirt was also exceptionally long. Girding and encircling the robe was a broad black swordbelt from which there hung an enormous scimitar with a black scabbard and guard. His face was covered by a black transparent veil, through which one could catch glimpses of a very long beard as white as the snow, and he walked, very gravely and serenely, to the beat of the drums. In short, his size, pace, black raiment, and escort could and did astound all those who looked at him but did not know who he was.

The figure approached, then, with the aforementioned slow solemnity, to kneel before the duke, who stood, as did everyone else who was there, to wait for him, but under no circumstances would the duke allow him to speak until he rose to his feet. The prodigiously frightening person obeyed, and when he was standing he raised the veil to reveal the most hideous, longest, whitest, and thickest beard that human eyes had ever seen, and then, from a broad and swelling chest, he forced and coerced a solemn, sonorous voice, and fixing his eyes on the duke, he said:

“Most high and powerful lord, I am called Trifaldín of the White Beard; I am squire to the Countess Trifaldi, also known as the Dolorous Duenna, on whose behalf I bring your highness a message, which is this: may your magnificence have the goodness to give her license and per-
mission to enter and tell you of her affliction, which is one of the strangest and most amazing that the most troubled mind in the world could ever have imagined. And first she wishes to know if the valiant and never vanquished knight Don Quixote of La Mancha is in your castle, for she has come looking for him, on foot, and without breaking her fast, all the way from the kingdom of Candaya to your realm, something that can and ought to be considered a miracle, or else the work of enchantment. She is at the door of this fortress or country house, and awaits only your consent to come in. I have spoken my message.”

And then he coughed and stroked his beard with both hands, and with great calm he waited for the duke’s response, which was:

“Good Squire Trifaldín of the White Beard, it has been many days since we heard of the misfortune of Señora Countess Trifaldi, obliged by enchanters to be called the Dolorous Duenna; you may certainly, O stupendous squire, tell her to come in, and that the valiant knight Don Quixote of La Mancha is here, and from his generous nature she can surely expect every protection and every assistance; you may also tell her on my behalf that if she finds my favor necessary, she shall have it, for I must give it to her as a knight who is bound and obliged to serve all women, especially widowed, scorned, and afflicted duennas, which is what your mistress must be.”

On hearing this, Trifaldín went down on one knee, then signaled the fife and drums to play and walked out of the garden to the same music and at the same pace with which he had entered, leaving everyone stunned by his presence and bearing. And the duke, turning to Don Quixote, said:

“It seems, O famous knight, that the shadows of malice and ignorance cannot cover and obscure the light of valor and virtue. I say this because it is barely six days that your grace has been in this castle, and already the sad and the afflicted come seeking you from distant and remote lands, not in carriages or on dromedaries, but on foot, and fasting, confident they will find in that mighty arm the remedy for their cares and sorrows, for your great deeds are known and admired all over the known world.”

“Señor Duke, I wish,” responded Don Quixote, “that the blessed religious who displayed at the table the other day so much animosity and ill will toward knights errant were here to see with his own eyes whether such knights are necessary in the world: to touch, at least, with his own hand, the fact that those who are extraordinarily afflicted and disconso
late, in great difficulties and enormous misfortunes, do not go to seek their remedy in the house of the lettered, or the village sacristan, or the knight who has never managed to go beyond the borders of his town, or the idle courtier who would rather seek out news to repeat and recount than perform deeds and great feats so that others can tell about them and write about them; the remedy for difficulties, the help for those in need, the protection of damsels, the consolation of widows, are not found in any persons more clearly than in knights errant, and I give infinite thanks to heaven because I am one, and I welcome any misfortune and travail that may befall me in this honorable exercise. Let the duenna come and make any request she chooses; I shall draw her remedy from the strength of my arm and the intrepid resolve of my courageous spirit.”

CHAPTER XXXVII

The duke and the duchess were exceedingly glad to see how well Don Quixote was responding to their intentions, and at this point Sancho said:

“I wouldn’t want this Señora Duenna to put any obstacles in the way of the governorship I’ve been promised, because I heard a Toledan pharmacist, who could talk the way a goldfinch sings, say that whenever duennas were involved nothing good could happen. God save me, what bad things that pharmacist had to say about them! Which makes me think that since all duennas are annoying and impertinent no matter what their quality and condition may be, what will the dolorous ones be like, I mean this Countess Tres Faldas
¹
or Three Skirts or Three Trains? Where I come from, skirts and trains, trains and skirts, are all the same.”

“Be quiet, Sancho my friend,” said Don Quixote. “Since this duenna has come from such distant lands to find me, she cannot be one of those the pharmacist described, especially since she is a countess, and when countesses serve as duennas, they probably are serving queens and em
presses, for in their own houses they are highborn ladies who are served by other duennas.”

To which Doña Rodríguez, who was present, responded:

“My lady the duchess has duennas in her service who could be countesses if fortune so desired, but laws go where kings command; let no one speak ill of duennas, in particular those who are old and maidens, for although I am not one of those, I clearly understand and grasp the advantage a maiden duenna has over one who is widowed; and the person who cut us down to size still has the scissors in his hand.”

“All the same,” replied Sancho, “there’s so much to cut in duennas, according to my barber, that it would be better not to stir the rice even if it sticks.”

“Squires,” responded Doña Rodríguez, “are always our enemies; since they haunt the antechambers and always see us, the times they’re not praying, which is most of the time, they spend gossiping about us, digging up our defects and burying our good names. Well, I swear to those fickle dimwits that no matter how much it grieves them, we have to live in the world, and in noble houses, even though we’re dying of hunger and cover our delicate or not so delicate flesh with a black mourning habit, just as a person may cover or conceal a dung heap with a tapestry on the day of a procession. By my faith, if I were permitted to, and if the time were right, I’d make people understand, not just those here but everyone in the world, how there is no virtue that cannot be found in a duenna.”

“I believe,” said the duchess, “that my good Doña Rodríguez is correct, absolutely correct, but she must wait for a more suitable time to defend herself and all other duennas, and so confound the poor opinion of that wicked pharmacist, and tear it out by the roots from the heart of the great Sancho Panza.”

To which Sancho responded:

“Ever since I’ve felt the pride of being a governor I’ve lost the foolish ideas of a squire, and I don’t care a fig for all the duennas in the world.”

They would have gone on with the duennaesque conversation if they had not heard the fife and drums begin to play again, leading them to assume that the Dolorous Duenna was coming in. The duchess asked the duke if it would be a good idea to go to receive her, since she was a countess and a distinguished person.

“For the part of her that’s a countess,” responded Sancho before the duke could respond, “I think it’s right for your highnesses to go out to re
ceive her, but for the part that’s a duenna, it’s my opinion that you shouldn’t take a step.”

“Who involved you in this, Sancho?” said Don Quixote.

“Who, Señor?” responded Sancho. “I involved myself, and I can involve myself as a squire who has learned the terms of courtesy in the school of your grace, the most courteous and polite knight in all of courtliness; in these things, as I have heard your grace say, you can lose as much for a card too many as for a card too few, and a word to the wise is sufficient.”

“What Sancho says is true,” said the duke. “Let us see the countess’s appearance, and then we can consider the courtesy that is owed her.”

Then the drums and fife entered, as they had done earlier.

And here the author concluded this brief chapter and began the next one, following the same adventure, which is one of the most notable in this history.

CHAPTER XXXVIII

Behind the mournful musicians a group of duennas, numbering twelve, began to enter the garden in two separate lines, all of them dressed in wide, nunlike habits, apparently of fulled serge, and white headdresses of sheer muslin, which were so long they revealed only the edging of the habits. Behind them came the Countess Trifaldi, led by the hand by the squire Trifaldín of the White Beard, and dressed in very fine black baize without a nap, and if it had been napped, each bit would have been the size of one of the good Martos garbanzos. Her train, or skirt, or whatever it is called, ended in three points, which were held up by the hands of three pages, also dressed in mourning, making an attractive mathematical figure with the three acute angles formed by the three points, leading everyone who saw the acutely pointed skirt to conclude that this was why she was called
The Countess Trifaldi,
as if we had said
The Countess of the Three Skirts;
and this, says Benengeli, was true, for her real name was
The Countess Lobuna,
because there were many wolves in
her county,
¹
and if there had been foxes instead of wolves, she would have been called
The Countess Zorruna,
because it was the custom in those parts for nobles to take their titles from the thing or things that are most abundant on their lands; but this countess, to favor the novelty of her skirt, abandoned
Lobuna
and adopted
Trifaldi.

The twelve duennas and their mistress walked at the pace of a procession, their faces covered with black veils, not transparent like Trifaldín’s but so heavy that nothing could be seen through them.

As soon as the duennaesque squadron appeared, the duke, the duchess, and Don Quixote rose to their feet, as did everyone who was watching their slow progress. The twelve duennas stopped and opened a path along which the Dolorous One moved forward, still holding Trifaldín’s hand; when they saw this, the duke, the duchess, and Don Quixote moved forward some twelve paces to receive her. She fell to her knees and, in a voice more rough and hoarse than subtle and delicate, said:

“May it please your highnesses, you should not show so much courtesy to this your serving man, I mean to say serving woman, because, as I am dolorous, I will not be able to respond as I should since my strange and never-before-seen misfortune has taken away my wits, and I do not know where, it must be a very distant place, because the more I look for them, the less I find them.”

“The man would be lacking them,” responded the duke, “Señora Countess, who did not discover your worth in your person, and your worth, without any need to see more, deserves all the cream of courtesy and all the flower of polite ceremonies.”

And taking her hand, he raised her to her feet and led her to a seat next to the duchess, who also received her with great courtesy.

Don Quixote was silent, and Sancho longed to see the faces of the Countess Trifaldi and some of her many duennas, but that would not be possible until they, of their own free will and desire, uncovered them.