"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."
"And while the good Sancho was amusing himself with the goats," saidthe duke, "how did Senor Don Quixote amuse himself?"
To which Don Quixote replied, "As all these things and such likeoccurrences are out of the ordinary course of nature, it is nowonder that Sancho says what he does; for my own part I can only saythat I did not uncover my eyes either above or below, nor did I seesky or earth or sea or shore. It is true I felt that I was passingthrough the region of the air, and even that I touched that of fire;but that we passed farther I cannot believe; for the region of firebeing between the heaven of the moon and the last region of the air,we could not have reached that heaven where the seven goats Sanchospeaks of are without being burned; and as we were not burned,either Sancho is lying or Sancho is dreaming."
"I am neither lying nor dreaming," said Sancho; "only ask me thetokens of those same goats, and you'll see by that whether I'm tellingthe truth or not."
"Tell us them then, Sancho," said the duchess.
"Two of them," said Sancho, "are green, two blood-red, two blue, andone a mixture of all colours."
"An odd sort of goat, that," said the duke; "in this earthlyregion of ours we have no such colours; I mean goats of such colours."
"That's very plain," said Sancho; "of course there must be adifference between the goats of heaven and the goats of the earth."
"Tell me, Sancho," said the duke, "did you see any he-goat amongthose goats?"
"No, senor," said Sancho; "but I have heard say that none everpassed the horns of the moon."
They did not care to ask him anything more about his journey, forthey saw he was in the vein to go rambling all over the heavens givingan account of everything that went on there, without having everstirred from the garden. Such, in short, was the end of theadventure of the Distressed Duenna, which gave the duke and duchesslaughing matter not only for the time being, but for all theirlives, and Sancho something to talk about for ages, if he lived solong; but Don Quixote, coming close to his ear, said to him,"Sancho, as you would have us believe what you saw in heaven, Irequire you to believe me as to what I saw in the cave ofMontesinos; I say no more."
CHAPTER XLII
OF THE COUNSELS WHICH DON QUIXOTE GAVE SANCHO PANZA BEFORE HE SETOUT TO GOVERN THE ISLAND, TOGETHER WITH OTHER WELL-CONSIDERED MATTERS
THE duke and duchess were so well pleased with the successful anddroll result of the adventure of the Distressed One, that theyresolved to carry on the joke, seeing what a fit subject they had todeal with for making it all pass for reality. So having laid theirplans and given instructions to their servants and vassals how tobehave to Sancho in his government of the promised island, the nextday, that following Clavileno's flight, the duke told Sancho toprepare and get ready to go and be governor, for his islanders werealready looking out for him as for the showers of May.
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