Chapter XXXVI. In which is told the strange and never-imagined adventure of the Sorrowing Duenna, alias the Countess Trifaldi, with a letter Sancho Panza wrote to his wife, Teresa Panza
The duke had a steward of a very waggish and free and easy wit, who had played the part of Merlin and arranged all the apparatus of the past adventure, composed the verses, and had a page play Dulcinea. Finally, with his lord and lady taking a hand, he devised another, of the most amusing and strange contrivance that can be imagined.
The next day the duchess asked Sancho whether he had begun the task of the penance he was to do for Dulcinea’s disenchantment. He said he had, and that the night before he had given himself five lashes. The duchess asked him what he had given them with. He answered that it was with his hand.
“That,” replied the duchess, “is more like giving oneself slaps than lashes. I hold for myself that the sage Merlin will not be satisfied with such softness; the good Sancho will need to use some scourge of thistle spurs, or one of knotted cords, that make themselves felt; for letters go in with blood, and the freedom of so great a lady as Dulcinea is not to be given away so cheaply, for so small a price; and let Sancho bear in mind that works of charity done lukewarmly and slackly have no merit and are worth nothing.”
To which Sancho answered:
“Let your ladyship give me some suitable scourge or rope’s end, and I’ll lay on with it, so long as it doesn’t hurt too much, because I’ll have your grace know that, though I’m a rustic, my flesh has more of cotton than of esparto grass about it, and it won’t be right for me to ruin myself for somebody else’s profit.”
“So be it,” answered the duchess. “Tomorrow I shall give you a scourge that will suit you to a nicety and agree with the tenderness of your flesh as if they were its own sisters.”
To which Sancho said:
“Your highness should know, lady of my soul, that I have written a letter to my wife, Teresa Panza, giving her an account of everything that has happened to me since I left her; here I have it in my bosom, and it lacks nothing but the address; I’d like your wisdom to read it, because it seems to me it goes the way a governor’s should, I mean, the way governors must write.”
“And who dictated it?” asked the duchess.
“Who would dictate it but me, sinner that I am?” answered Sancho.
“And did you write it?” said the duchess.
“Not a bit of it,” answered Sancho, “because I can’t read or write, though I can sign my name.”
“Let us see it,” said the duchess, “for surely you will show in it the quality and sufficiency of your wit.”
Sancho took an open letter out of his bosom, and the duchess, taking it, saw that it ran in this manner:
Letter from Sancho Panza to Teresa Panza, his wife
If they gave me a good whipping, I rode out on it like a fine gentleman; if I have a good government, it’s costing me a good whipping. You won’t understand this yet, my Teresa; another time you’ll know. You must know, Teresa, that I’ve decided you’re to ride in a coach, which is what matters, because any other way of going is going on all fours. You’re a governor’s wife: see if anybody dares gnaw at your heels now! I’m sending you a green hunting suit that my lady the duchess gave me; fix it up so it’ll do our daughter for a skirt and bodice. Don Quixote, my master, from what I’ve heard said in these parts, is a sane madman and a witty simpleton, and I’m not far behind him. We’ve been in the cave of Montesinos, and the sage Merlin has laid hands on me for the disenchantment of Dulcinea del Toboso, who back home is called Aldonza Lorenzo: once I’ve given myself three thousand three hundred lashes, less five, she’ll be left as disenchanted as the mother who bore her. You won’t say anything of this to anybody, because put your business before the council, and some will say it’s white and others that it’s black. A few days from now I’ll set out for the government, where I’m going with the greatest wish to make money, because they’ve told me all new governors go with this same wish; I’ll feel its pulse, and let you know whether you’re to come and be with me or not. The gray is well, and sends you his best regards; and I don’t mean to leave him, even if they took me off to be the Grand Turk. My lady the duchess kisses your hands a thousand times; send her back two thousand in return, for there’s nothing that costs less or comes cheaper, as my master says, than good manners. God hasn’t been pleased to put another valise in my way with another hundred escudos in it, like the one that time, but don’t let it grieve you, my Teresa, for the man ringing the bells is safe and sound, and it’ll all come out in the wash of the government; only it has grieved me a lot that they tell me that once I get a taste of it I’ll be licking my fingers after it; and if that’s so, it won’t come very cheap to me, though the crippled and maimed already have their canonry in the alms they beg; so, one way or another, you’re to be rich, and in luck. God give it to you, as He can, and keep me to serve you. From this castle, the twentieth of July, 1614.
Your husband the governor,
Sancho Panza.
When the duchess had finished reading the letter, she said to Sancho:
“In two things the good governor goes a little astray: one, in saying or giving to understand that this government has been given him for the lashes he is to give himself, when he knows, and cannot deny it, that when the duke my lord promised it to him, nobody dreamed there were such things as lashes in the world; the other is that he shows himself very greedy in it, and I should not like that to be oregano, for greed bursts the sack, and the greedy governor makes for ungoverned justice.”
“I don’t mean it that way, my lady,” answered Sancho, “and if your grace thinks the letter doesn’t go as it ought to, there’s nothing for it but to tear it up and make a new one, and it might come out worse if they leave it to my noggin.”
“No, no,” replied the duchess, “this one is good, and I want the duke to see it.”
With this they went to a garden, where they were to dine that day. The duchess showed Sancho’s letter to the duke, who was hugely pleased with it. They dined, and after the cloth had been drawn, and after they had entertained themselves a good while with Sancho’s savory conversation, all of a sudden they heard the most doleful sound of a fife and that of a hoarse and tuneless drum. Everyone appeared disturbed by that confused, martial, and mournful harmony, especially Don Quixote, who could not keep still in his seat for sheer agitation; of Sancho there is nothing to say except that fear carried him to his usual refuge, which was the duchess’s side or skirts, because really and truly the sound that was heard was most doleful and melancholy.
And, while they were all held in suspense in this way, they saw two men come in through the garden, dressed in mourning so long and trailing that it dragged along the ground; these came beating two great drums, likewise covered in black. At their side came the fife, black and pitch-dark like the rest. The three were followed by a personage of gigantic body, mantled rather than dressed in a jet-black gown, whose skirt was likewise monstrously large. Over the gown a broad baldric, also black, girded him crosswise, and from it hung an enormous scimitar with black hilt and scabbard. His face was covered with a transparent black veil, through which a very long beard, white as snow, could be glimpsed. He moved his steps to the sound of the drums with great gravity and composure. In short, his greatness, his swagger, his blackness, and his train could have held in suspense, and did, all who looked at him without knowing him.
He came, then, with the deliberation and pomp described, and knelt before the duke, who, standing with the others who were there, was awaiting him; but the duke would on no account let him speak until he got up. The prodigious scarecrow did so, and, standing up, raised the mask from his face and laid bare the most horrendous, the longest, the whitest, and the bushiest beard ever seen by human eyes up to that day, and then he wrenched and drew out of his broad and ample chest a grave and sonorous voice, and, fixing his eyes on the duke, said:
“Most high and mighty lord, I am called Trifaldín of the White Beard; I am squire to the Countess Trifaldi, called by another name the Sorrowing Duenna, on whose behalf I bring your greatness an embassy, which is that your magnificence be pleased to give her leave and license to come in and tell you her woe, which is one of the newest and most wondrous that the most woeful thought on the globe could have thought. And first she wishes to know whether the valiant and never-vanquished knight Don Quixote of La Mancha is in this your castle, in search of whom she comes on foot and without breaking her fast from the kingdom of Candaya to this your estate, a thing that can and should be held a miracle or the force of enchantment. She is at the gate of this fortress or country house, and waits only for your good pleasure to come in. I have spoken.”
And then he coughed and stroked his beard from top to bottom with both hands, and with great calm stood waiting for the duke’s answer, which was:
“Good squire Trifaldín of the White Beard, it is many days now since we had news of the misfortune of my lady the Countess Trifaldi, whom the enchanters cause to be called the Sorrowing Duenna; you may well, stupendous squire, tell her to come in, and that here is the valiant knight Don Quixote of La Mancha, from whose generous nature she may safely promise herself every protection and every aid; and you may likewise tell her from me that if my favor is needed, it shall not be lacking, since I am already bound to give it by being a knight, to whom it belongs and pertains to favor every kind of woman, especially duennas who are widowed, wronged, and sorrowing, as her ladyship must be.”
Hearing which, Trifaldín bent his knee to the ground and, signaling to the fife and drums to play, went back out of the garden to the same sound and at the same pace at which he had come in, leaving everyone amazed at his presence and bearing. And, turning to Don Quixote, the duke said to him:
“In short, famous knight, the darkness of malice and of ignorance cannot hide and obscure the light of valor and virtue. I say this because your goodness has scarcely been six days in this castle when already they come seeking you from far-off and distant lands, and not in coaches or on dromedaries, but on foot and fasting: the sad, the afflicted, confident that they will find in that most mighty arm the remedy for their woes and travails, thanks to your great exploits, which run about and encircle all the discovered earth.”
“I could wish, lord duke,” answered Don Quixote, “that the blessed man of religion who the other day at table showed so ill a mien and such a grudge against knights-errant were present here, so that he might see with his own eyes whether such knights are needed in the world: he would at least have touched with his hand that the extraordinarily afflicted and disconsolate, in great cases and enormous misfortunes, do not go seeking their remedy at the houses of lawyers, nor at those of village sacristans, nor of the gentleman who has never managed to get past the boundaries of his own village, nor of the idle courtier who would rather go after news to repeat and recount than strive to do deeds and exploits for others to recount and write down; the remedy for woes, the relief of needs, the protection of damsels, the consolation of widows, is found in no kind of person better than in knights-errant, and I give infinite thanks to heaven for being one, and I count well spent any mishap and travail that may befall me in so honorable a calling. Let this duenna come and ask what she will, for I shall deliver her remedy by the strength of my arm and the dauntless resolution of my spirited soul.”