"Then with that promise, my good Sancho, I am comforted, and I believe you will keep it, because in fact, although a simpleton, you are a veridical man."
"Vertical or horizontal," said Sancho, "I'll keep my word."
And having said this, they returned to mount Clavileno, and as he was mounting, Don Quixote said:
"Put on your blindfold, Sancho, and climb up; the person who sends for us from lands so distant will not deceive us, for there would be little glory in deceiving those who trust him, and even if everything turns out contrary to what I imagine, the glory of having undertaken this deed cannot be obscured by any sort of malevolence."
"Let's go, Senor," said Sancho, "for the beards and tears of these ladies have pierced my heart, and nothing I eat will taste good to me until I see them smooth again. Your grace should mount and put on your blindfold first, because if I have to sit on the hindquarters, the first one to mount has to be the man in the saddle."
"That is true," replied Don Quixote.
And taking a handkerchief from his pocket, he asked the Dolorous One to cover his eyes very carefully, and when she had covered them, he uncovered them again and said:
"If I remember correctly, I have read in Virgil about the Palladium of Troy, a wooden horse the Greeks presented to the goddess Pallas, which was pregnant with armed knights who subsequently caused the total ruin of Troy; and so it would be worthwhile first to see what Clavileno is carrying in his stomach."
"There's no reason to," said the Dolorous One, "for I trust him and know that Malambruno is neither wicked nor a traitor; Senor Don Quixote, your grace can mount without fear, and if anything does happen to you, the fault will be mine."
It seemed to Don Quixote that any reply he might give with regard to his safety would be to the detriment of his valor, and so with no further argument he mounted Clavileno and touched the peg, which turned easily; since he had no stirrups, and his legs hung straight down, he looked exactly like a painted or woven figure in a Flemish tapestry of a Roman triumph. Unwillingly, and very slowly, Sancho finally mounted, and settling himself the best he could on the hindquarters, he found them rather hard and not at all soft, and he asked the duke if it was possible to give him a pillow or cushion, whether from the drawing room couch of his lady the duchess or from the bed of some page, because the hindquarters of that horse seemed more like marble than wood.
To this the Countess Trifaldi said that Clavileno would not tolerate any manner or kind of embellishment on his back, but what Sancho could do was sit sidesaddle, and then he would not feel the hardness quite as much. Sancho did so, and saying, "God help me," he allowed his eyes to be covered, and after they had been covered he uncovered them again, and looking at everyone in the garden tenderly, and with tears in his eyes, he said that they should each help him in his hour of need with some Our Fathers and Hail Marys so that God would provide someone to say them on their behalf when they found themselves in similar danger. To which Don Quixote said:
"You thief, are you by any chance on the gallows, or in the final moments of your life, to plead in that fashion? Are you not, you craven and cowardly creature, in the same spot that was occupied by the fair Magalona, and from which she descended, not into the grave but to be the queen of France, if the histories do not lie? And I, who am at your side, shall I not compare myself to the valiant Pierres, who sat in the same place where I now sit? Cover your eyes, cover your eyes, you frightened animal, and do not allow your fear to escape your lips again, at least not in my presence."
"Blindfold me," responded Sancho, "and since you don't want me to commend myself to God or be commended to Him, is it any wonder I'm afraid that there must be some legion of devils around here who'll carry us off to Peralvillo?"2
Both were blindfolded, and Don Quixote, sensing that everything was as it should be, touched the peg, and as soon as he had placed his fingers on it, all the duennas and everyone else present raised their voices, saying:
"May God be your guide, valiant knight!"
"God go with you, intrepid squire!"
"Now, now you are in the air, moving through it faster than an arrow!"
"Now you are beginning to amaze and astonish everyone looking at you from the ground."
"Hold on, valiant Sancho, you're slipping! Be careful you don't fall, because your fall will be worse than that of the daring boy who wanted to drive the chariot of his father, the Sun!"3
Sancho heard the voices, and pressing close to his master and putting his arms around him, he said:
"Senor, how can they say we're going so high if we can hear their voices and they seem to be talking right here beside us?"
"Pay no attention to that, Sancho, for since these things and these flights are outside the ordinary course of events, at a distance of a thou-sand leagues you will see and hear whatever you wish. And do not hold me so tightly, for you will throw me off; the truth is I do not know why you are perturbed or frightened; I would dare to avow that in all the days of my life I have never ridden a mount with a smoother gait: it almost seems as if we were not moving at all. Friend, banish your fear, for in fact the matter is proceeding as it should, and we have the wind at our backs."
"That is true," responded Sancho. "On this side the wind's so strong it feels like a thousand bellows blowing on me."
And there were large bellows blowing the air around him, for this adventure had been so well planned by the duke and the duchess and their steward that no element was lacking to make it perfect.
Don Quixote also felt the air blowing, and he said:
"There can be no doubt, Sancho, that we are approaching the second region of air where hail and snow are born; thunder, lightning, and thunderbolts are born in the third region; and if we continue to rise in this fashion, we shall soon come to the region of fire, and I do not know how to adjust the peg to keep us from going so high that we are burned."
Then, with some tow-cloth on a reed that was easy to light and extinguish, their faces were warmed from a distance. Sancho, who felt the heat, said:
"By my soul, we must be in that place of fire already, or very close to it, because a good part of my beard has been singed, and I'm ready, Senor, to take off the blindfold and see where we are."
"Do not," responded Don Quixote. "Remember the true story of Licentiate Torralba,4 whom the devils carried through the air mounted on a reed, with his eyes closed, and in twelve hours he arrived in Rome and dismounted on the Torre di Nona,5 which is a street in the city, and saw all the tumult, and the assault and the death of Bourbon,6 and in the morning he was back in Madrid, where he gave an account of all that he had seen; he himself said that while he was flying through the air, the devil told him to open his eyes, and he opened them, and he saw himself so close, or so it seemed, to the body of the moon that he could have grasped it with his hand, and he did not dare look down at the earth lest he faint. Therefore, Sancho, there is no reason for us to uncover our eyes; the one who is responsible for us will take care of us, and perhaps we are circling and going higher so that we can suddenly swoop down on the kingdom of Candaya, the way a falcon or a hawk, no matter how high it soars, falls on a crane and captures it; and although it seems to us as if we left the garden less than half an hour ago, believe me when I say that we must have gone a great distance."
"I don't know about that," responded Sancho Panza. "All I can say is that if Senora Magallanes7 or Magalona was happy with these hindquarters, she couldn't have had very tender flesh."
All these exchanges between the two valiant men were heard by the duke and the duchess and those in the garden and gave them extraordinary pleasure; and desiring to conclude the strange and carefully made adventure, they set fire to Clavileno's tail with some tow-cloths, and since the horse was full of fireworks, it suddenly flew into the air with a fearsome noise and threw Don Quixote and Sancho Panza to the ground, half-scorched.
In the meantime, the entire bearded squadron of duennas had disappeared from the garden, including the
Countess Trifaldi, and those who were left in the garden lay on the ground as if in a faint. Don Quixote and Sancho, badly bruised, rose to their feet, and looking all around them, they were astonished to find themselves in the same garden from which they had departed and to see such a large number of people lying on the ground; and their stupefaction was even greater when, on one side of the garden, they saw a huge lance driven into the ground and hanging from it by two cords of green silk a smooth white parchment, on which, in large gold letters, the following was written:
The illustrious knight Don Quixote of La Mancha has finished and concluded the adventure of the Countess Trifaldi, also called the Dolorous Duenna, and company, by simply attempting it.
Malambruno considers himself completely satisfied and entirely content; the chins of the duennas are now smooth and clean, and the sovereigns Don Clavijo and Antonomasia are in their pristine state. And when the squirely flogging is completed, the white dove will be free of the foul goshawks that pursue her and in the arms of her beloved suitor; 8 so it has been ordained by the wise Merlin, protoenchanter of all enchanters.
When Don Quixote had read the letters on the parchment, he clearly understood that they spoke of the disenchantment of Dulcinea, and giving many thanks to heaven for his having concluded so great an exploit with so little danger, and for returning to their earlier state the faces of the venerable duennas, who were no longer present, he went to where the duke and duchess still lay in a swoon, and grasping the hand of the duke, he said:
"Ah, my good lord, take heart, take heart, for it is all nothing! The adventure is concluded, with no harm to anyone, as the writing on that document clearly demonstrates."
The duke, very slowly, as if waking from a deep sleep, regained consciousness, and in the same fashion so did the duchess and all those who had fallen in the garden, showing signs of so much wonder and astonishment, one could almost believe that what they knew so well how to feign as a joke had really happened. The duke read the statement with half-closed eyes, and then, his arms opened wide, he went to embrace Don Quixote, saying he was the best knight that any age had ever seen.
Sancho kept looking for the Dolorous One to see what kind of face she had without a beard, and if she was as beautiful without one as her gallant disposition promised, but they told him that as soon as Clavileno descended in flames through the air and landed on the ground, the entire squadron of duennas, including Countess Trifaldi, had disappeared, by which time they were already hairless and free of stubble. The duchess asked Sancho how things had gone for him on his long journey, to which Sancho responded:
"Senora, I felt that we were flying, like my master said, through the region of fire, and I wanted to uncover my eyes a little, but my master, who I asked for permission to uncover my eyes, did not agree; but since I have some dab of curiosity in me and want to know what people try to stop me and keep me from knowing, very carefully, without anybody seeing me, right at my nose, I pushed aside just a little bit of the handkerchief that was covering my eyes, and I looked down at the earth, and it seemed to me that it was no larger than a mustard seed, and the men walking on it not much bigger than hazel nuts, so you can see how high we must have been flying then."
To this the duchess said:
"Sancho my friend, think about what you are saying; it seems you did not see the earth but only the men walking on it, for it is clear that if the earth looked to you like a mustard seed and each man like a hazel nut, only one man would have covered the entire earth."
"That's true," responded Sancho, "but even so, I lifted up the blindfold just a little on one side, and I saw all of it."
"Look, Sancho," said the duchess, "from just one side you can't see all of whatever you may be looking at."
"I don't know about those lookings," replied Sancho. "All I know is that it would be nice if your ladyship would understand that since we were flying by enchantment, by enchantment I could see all the earth and all the men no matter how I looked at them; and if you don't believe me, your grace also won't believe me when I say that moving the blindfold near my eyebrows, I saw myself so close to the sky that there was less than a span and a half between it and me, and I can swear, Senora, that it's also very big. And as it happened, we were passing by the seven nanny goats,9 and by God and my immortal soul, since I was a goatherd when I was a boy at home, as soon as I saw them I wanted to spend a little time with them...! And if I couldn't, I thought I would die. So, quick as you please, what do I do? Without saying anything to anybody, not even my master, very quietly and gently I got down from Clavileno, and I played with the nanny goats, and they're as sweet as gilly flowers, for almost three-quarters of an hour, and Clavileno didn't move from the spot or move forward."
"And while our good Sancho was amusing himself with the goats," asked the duke, "what was Senor Don Quixote doing?"
To which Don Quixote responded:
"Since all these things and all these occurrences lie outside the natural order, it is no surprise that Sancho says what he says. As for myself, I can say that I did not lift the blindfold at the top or the bottom, nor did I see the sky, the earth, the sea, or the sands. It is certainly true that I felt as if I had passed through the region of air, and even touched the region of fire, but I cannot believe we passed beyond that, for since the region of fire lies between the sphere of the moon and the final region of air, we could not reach the sphere of the seven nanny goats that Sancho has mentioned without being burned; and since we are not burned, either Sancho is lying, or Sancho is dreaming."
"I'm not lying and I'm not dreaming," responded Sancho. "And if you don't believe me, just ask me about what those goats look like, and then you'll see if I'm telling the truth or not."
"Tell us, Sancho," said the duchess.
"Two of them," responded Sancho, "are green, two are red, two are blue, and one is a mix."
"That's a new kind of nanny goat," said the duke, "and in our region of the ground they don't have those colors, I mean, goats that are those colors."
"That's very clear," said Sancho. "Yes, that must be the difference between goats in the sky and those on the ground."
"Tell me, Sancho," asked the duke. "Up there with all those nanny goats, did you see any males?"10
"No, Senor," responded Sancho, "but I heard that not one of them has passed beyond the horns of the moon."
They did not wish to ask him anything else about his journey, because it seemed to them that Sancho was prepared to wander through all the spheres and give an accounting of everything he had seen there without having moved from the garden.
In short, this was the end of the adventure of the Dolorous Duenna, which gave the duke and duchess reason to laugh, not only then but for the rest of their lives, and Sancho something to talk about for centuries, if he were to live that long; and Don Quixote went up to Sancho, and in his ear he whispered:
"Sancho, just as you want people to believe what you have seen in the sky, I want you to believe what I saw in the Cave of Montesinos. And that is all I have to say."
CHAPTER XLII
Regarding the advice Don Quixote gave to Sancho Panza before he went to govern the insula, along with other matters of consequence
The successful and amusing conclusion of the adventure of the Dolorous One so pleased the duke and duchess that they decided to move forward with their deceptions, seeing that they had a very accommodating individual who would accept them as true; and so, having devised their scheme and instructed their servants and vassals as to how they ought to behave toward Sancho in his governorship of the promised insula, the next day, which was the one following the flight of Clavileno, the duke told Sancho to prepare and ready himself to leave and be a governor, since his insulanos were waiting for him as if for the showers of May. Sancho kneeled before him and said:
"After I came down from the sky, and after I looked at the earth from that great height and saw how small it was, the burning desire I had to be a governor cooled a little; where's the
greatness in ruling a mustard seed, or the dignity or pride in governing half a dozen men the size of hazel nuts? It seemed to me that this was all there was on the whole earth. If your lordship would be kind enough to give me just a tiny part of the sky, something no bigger than half a league, I'd be happier to take that than the best insula in the world."
"Look, Sancho my friend," responded the duke, "I can't give anybody a part of the sky, even one no bigger than my nail; those favors and dispensations are reserved for God alone. What I can give I give to you, which is an insula, right and true, round and well-proportioned, and exceedingly fertile and bountiful, where, if you know how to manage things, with the riches of the earth you can approach the riches of the sky."
"Well then," responded Sancho, "let's have the insula, and I'll do my best to be so good a governor that in spite of rogues and rascals I'll go to heaven; it isn't greed that makes me want to leave my hut or rise to better things, but a desire I have to try it and see what it tastes like to be a governor."
"If you try it once, Sancho," said the duke, "you'll long to eat it again, because it is a very sweet thing to give orders and be obeyed. I'm certain that when your master becomes an emperor, as he undoubtedly will, considering how things are going for him, nobody will be able to tear that away from him, and the time he spent not being one will grieve and sadden him in the very center of his soul."
"Senor," replied Sancho, "I imagine that it's good to command, even if it's only a herd of cattle."
"Let them bury me with you,1 Sancho, for you know everything," responded the duke, "and I expect you to be the kind of governor your good judgment promises, and let's say no more about it, and be advised that tomorrow morning you will leave to be governor of the insula, and this afternoon you will be outfitted with the proper clothing and all the things necessary for your departure."
"They can dress me," said Sancho, "however they want; no matter what clothes I wear I'll still be Sancho Panza."