PART II - CHAPTER XLI.

by Miguel de Cervantes

　　OF THE ARRIVAL OF CLAVILENO AND THE END OF THIS PROTRACTED ADVENTUREAnd now night came, and with it the appointed time for the arrival of thefamous horse Clavileno, the non-appearance of which was already beginningto make Don Quixote uneasy, for it struck him that, as Malambruno was solong about sending it, either he himself was not the knight for whom theadventure was reserved, or else Malambruno did not dare to meet him insingle combat. But lo! suddenly there came into the garden four wild-menall clad in green ivy bearing on their shoulders a great wooden horse.They placed it on its feet on the ground, and one of the wild-men said,"Let the knight who has heart for it mount this machine."Here Sancho exclaimed, "I don't mount, for neither have I the heart noram I a knight.""And let the squire, if he has one," continued the wild-man, "take hisseat on the croup, and let him trust the valiant Malambruno; for by nosword save his, nor by the malice of any other, shall he be assailed. Itis but to turn this peg the horse has in his neck, and he will bear themthrough the air to where Malambruno awaits them; but lest the vastelevation of their course should make them giddy, their eyes must becovered until the horse neighs, which will be the sign of their havingcompleted their journey."With these words, leaving Clavileno behind them, they retired with easydignity the way they came. As soon as the Distressed One saw the horse,almost in tears she exclaimed to Don Quixote, "Valiant knight, thepromise of Malambruno has proved trustworthy; the horse has come, ourbeards are growing, and by every hair in them all of us implore thee toshave and shear us, as it is only mounting him with thy squire and makinga happy beginning with your new journey.""That I will, Senora Countess Trifaldi," said Don Quixote, "most gladlyand with right goodwill, without stopping to take a cushion or put on myspurs, so as not to lose time, such is my desire to see you and all theseduennas shaved clean.""That I won't," said Sancho, "with good-will or bad-will, or any way atall; and if this shaving can't be done without my mounting on the croup,my master had better look out for another squire to go with him, andthese ladies for some other way of making their faces smooth; I'm nowitch to have a taste for travelling through the air. What would myislanders say when they heard their governor was going, strolling abouton the winds? And another thing, as it is three thousand and odd leaguesfrom this to Kandy, if the horse tires, or the giant takes huff, we'll behalf a dozen years getting back, and there won't be isle or island in theworld that will know me: and so, as it is a common saying 'in delaythere's danger,' and 'when they offer thee a heifer run with a halter,'these ladies' beards must excuse me; 'Saint Peter is very well in Rome;'I mean I am very well in this house where so much is made of me, and Ihope for such a good thing from the master as to see myself a governor.""Friend Sancho," said the duke at this, "the island that I have promisedyou is not a moving one, or one that will run away; it has roots sodeeply buried in the bowels of the earth that it will be no easy matterto pluck it up or shift it from where it is; you know as well as I dothat there is no sort of office of any importance that is not obtained bya bribe of some kind, great or small; well then, that which I look toreceive for this government is that you go with your master Don Quixote,and bring this memorable adventure to a conclusion; and whether youreturn on Clavileno as quickly as his speed seems to promise, or adversefortune brings you back on foot travelling as a pilgrim from hostel tohostel and from inn to inn, you will always find your island on yourreturn where you left it, and your islanders with the same eagerness theyhave always had to receive you as their governor, and my good-will willremain the same; doubt not the truth of this, Senor Sancho, for thatwould be grievously wronging my disposition to serve you.""Say no more, senor," said Sancho; "I am a poor squire and not equal tocarrying so much courtesy; let my master mount; bandage my eyes andcommit me to God's care, and tell me if I may commend myself to our Lordor call upon the angels to protect me when we go towering up there."To this the Trifaldi made answer, "Sancho, you may freely commendyourself to God or whom you will; for Malambruno though an enchanter is aChristian, and works his enchantments with great circumspection, takingvery good care not to fall out with anyone.""Well then," said Sancho, "God and the most holy Trinity of Gaeta give mehelp!""Since the memorable adventure of the fulling mills," said Don Quixote,"I have never seen Sancho in such a fright as now; were I assuperstitious as others his abject fear would cause me some littletrepidation of spirit. But come here, Sancho, for with the leave of thesegentles I would say a word or two to thee in private;" and drawing Sanchoaside among the trees of the garden and seizing both his hands he said,"Thou seest, brother Sancho, the long journey we have before us, and Godknows when we shall return, or what leisure or opportunities thisbusiness will allow us; I wish thee therefore to retire now to thychamber, as though thou wert going to fetch something required for theroad, and in a trice give thyself if it be only five hundred lashes onaccount of the three thousand three hundred to which thou art bound; itwill be all to the good, and to make a beginning with a thing is to haveit half finished.""By God," said Sancho, "but your worship must be out of your senses! Thisis like the common saying, 'You see me with child, and you want me avirgin.' Just as I'm about to go sitting on a bare board, your worshipwould have me score my backside! Indeed, your worship is not reasonable.Let us be off to shave these duennas; and on our return I promise on myword to make such haste to wipe off all that's due as will satisfy yourworship; I can't say more.""Well, I will comfort myself with that promise, my good Sancho," repliedDon Quixote, "and I believe thou wilt keep it; for indeed though stupidthou art veracious.""I'm not voracious," said Sancho, "only peckish; but even if I was alittle, still I'd keep my word."With this they went back to mount Clavileno, and as they were about to doso Don Quixote said, "Cover thine eyes, Sancho, and mount; for one whosends for us from lands so far distant cannot mean to deceive us for thesake of the paltry glory to be derived from deceiving persons who trustin him; though all should turn out the contrary of what I hope, no malicewill be able to dim the glory of having undertaken this exploit.""Let us be off, senor," said Sancho, "for I have taken the beards andtears of these ladies deeply to heart, and I shan't eat a bit to relishit until I have seen them restored to their former smoothness. Mount,your worship, and blindfold yourself, for if I am to go on the croup, itis plain the rider in the saddle must mount first.""That is true," said Don Quixote, and, taking a handkerchief out of hispocket, he begged the Distressed One to bandage his eyes very carefully;but after having them bandaged he uncovered them again, saying, "If mymemory does not deceive me, I have read in Virgil of the Palladium ofTroy, a wooden horse the Greeks offered to the goddess Pallas, which wasbig with armed knights, who were afterwards the destruction of Troy; soit would be as well to see, first of all, what Clavileno has in hisstomach.""There is no occasion," said the Distressed One; "I will be bail for him,and I know that Malambruno has nothing tricky or treacherous about him;you may mount without any fear, Senor Don Quixote; on my head be it ifany harm befalls you."Don Quixote thought that to say anything further with regard to hissafety would be putting his courage in an unfavourable light; and so,without more words, he mounted Clavileno, and tried the peg, which turnedeasily; and as he had no stirrups and his legs hung down, he looked likenothing so much as a figure in some Roman triumph painted or embroideredon a Flemish tapestry.Much against the grain, and very slowly, Sancho proceeded to mount, and,after settling himself as well as he could on the croup, found it ratherhard, and not at all soft, and asked the duke if it would be possible tooblige him with a pad of some kind, or a cushion; even if it were off thecouch of his lady the duchess, or the bed of one of the pages; as thehaunches of that horse were more like marble than wood. On this theTrifaldi observed that Clavileno would not bear any kind of harness ortrappings, and that his best plan would be to sit sideways like a woman,as in that way he would not feel the hardness so much.Sancho did so, and, bidding them farewell, allowed his eyes to bebandaged, but immediately afterwards uncovered them again, and lookingtenderly and tearfully on those in the garden, bade them help him in hispresent strait with plenty of Paternosters and Ave Marias, that God mightprovide some one to say as many for them, whenever they found themselvesin a similar emergency.At this Don Quixote exclaimed, "Art thou on the gallows, thief, or at thylast moment, to use pitiful entreaties of that sort? Cowardly, spiritlesscreature, art thou not in the very place the fair Magalona occupied, andfrom which she descended, not into the grave, but to become Queen ofFrance; unless the histories lie? And I who am here beside thee, may Inot put myself on a par with the valiant Pierres, who pressed this veryspot that I now press? Cover thine eyes, cover thine eyes, abject animal,and let not thy fear escape thy lips, at least in my presence.""Blindfold me," said Sancho; "as you won't let me commend myself or becommended to God, is it any wonder if I am afraid there is a region ofdevils about here that will carry us off to Peralvillo?"They were then blindfolded, and Don Quixote, finding himself settled tohis satisfaction, felt for the peg, and the instant he placed his fingerson it, all the duennas and all who stood by lifted up their voicesexclaiming, "God guide thee, valiant knight! God be with thee, intrepidsquire! Now, now ye go cleaving the air more swiftly than an arrow! Nowye begin to amaze and astonish all who are gazing at you from the earth!Take care not to wobble about, valiant Sancho! Mind thou fall not, forthy fall will be worse than that rash youth's who tried to steer thechariot of his father the Sun!"As Sancho heard the voices, clinging tightly to his master and windinghis arms round him, he said, "Senor, how do they make out we are going upso high, if their voices reach us here and they seem to be speaking quiteclose to us?""Don't mind that, Sancho," said Don Quixote; "for as affairs of thissort, and flights like this are out of the common course of things, youcan see and hear as much as you like a thousand leagues off; but don'tsqueeze me so tight or thou wilt upset me; and really I know not whatthou hast to be uneasy or frightened at, for I can safely swear I nevermounted a smoother-going steed all the days of my life; one would fancywe never stirred from one place. Banish fear, my friend, for indeedeverything is going as it ought, and we have the wind astern.""That's true," said Sancho, "for such a strong wind comes against me onthis side, that it seems as if people were blowing on me with a thousandpair of bellows;" which was the case; they were puffing at him with agreat pair of bellows; for the whole adventure was so well planned by theduke, the duchess, and their majordomo, that nothing was omitted to makeit perfectly successful.Don Quixote now, feeling the blast, said, "Beyond a doubt, Sancho, wemust have already reached the second region of the air, where the hailand snow are generated; the thunder, the lightning, and the thunderboltsare engendered in the third region, and if we go on ascending at thisrate, we shall shortly plunge into the region of fire, and I know not howto regulate this peg, so as not to mount up where we shall be burned."And now they began to warm their faces, from a distance, with tow thatcould be easily set on fire and extinguished again, fixed on the end of acane. On feeling the heat Sancho said, "May I die if we are not alreadyin that fire place, or very near it, for a good part of my beard has beensinged, and I have a mind, senor, to uncover and see whereabouts we are.""Do nothing of the kind," said Don Quixote; "remember the true story ofthe licentiate Torralva that the devils carried flying through the airriding on a stick with his eyes shut; who in twelve hours reached Romeand dismounted at Torre di Nona, which is a street of the city, and sawthe whole sack and storming and the death of Bourbon, and was back inMadrid the next morning, where he gave an account of all he had seen; andhe said moreover that as he was going through the air, the devil bade himopen his eyes, and he did so, and saw himself so near the body of themoon, so it seemed to him, that he could have laid hold of it with hishand, and that he did not dare to look at the earth lest he should beseized with giddiness. So that, Sancho, it will not do for us to uncoverourselves, for he who has us in charge will be responsible for us; andperhaps we are gaining an altitude and mounting up to enable us todescend at one swoop on the kingdom of Kandy, as the saker or falcon doeson the heron, so as to seize it however high it may soar; and though itseems to us not half an hour since we left the garden, believe me we musthave travelled a great distance.""I don't know how that may be," said Sancho; "all I know is that if theSenora Magallanes or Magalona was satisfied with this croup, she couldnot 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 by it; andnow, desirous of putting a finishing touch to this rare andwell-contrived adventure, they applied a light to Clavileno's tail withsome tow, and the horse, being full of squibs and crackers, immediatelyblew up with a prodigious noise, and brought Don Quixote and Sancho Panzato the ground half singed. By this time the bearded band of duennas, theTrifaldi and all, had vanished from the garden, and those that remainedlay stretched on the ground as if in a swoon. Don Quixote and Sancho gotup rather shaken, and, looking about them, were filled with amazement atfinding themselves in the same garden from which they had started, andseeing such a number of people stretched on the ground; and theirastonishment was increased when at one side of the garden they perceiveda tall lance planted in the ground, and hanging from it by two cords ofgreen silk a smooth white parchment on which there was the followinginscription in large gold letters: "The illustrious knight Don Quixote ofLa Mancha has, by merely attempting it, finished and concluded theadventure of the Countess Trifaldi, otherwise called the DistressedDuenna; Malambruno is now satisfied on every point, the chins of theduennas are now smooth and clean, and King Don Clavijo and QueenAntonomasia in their original form; and when the squirely flagellationshall have 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 parchment heperceived clearly that it referred to the disenchantment of Dulcinea, andreturning hearty thanks to heaven that he had with so little dangerachieved so grand an exploit as to restore to their former complexion thecountenances of those venerable duennas, he advanced towards the duke andduchess, who had not yet come to themselves, and taking the duke by thehand he said, "Be of good cheer, worthy sir, be of good cheer; it'snothing at all; the adventure is now over and without any harm done, asthe inscription fixed on this post shows plainly."The duke came to himself slowly and like one recovering consciousnessafter a heavy sleep, and the duchess and all who had fallen prostrateabout the garden did the same, with such demonstrations of wonder andamazement that they would have almost persuaded one that what theypretended so adroitly in jest had happened to them in reality. The dukeread the placard with half-shut eyes, and then ran to embrace Don Quixotewith-open arms, declaring him to be the best knight that had ever beenseen in any age. Sancho kept looking about for the Distressed One, to seewhat her face was like without the beard, and if she was as fair as herelegant person promised; but they told him that, the instant Clavilenodescended flaming through the air and came to the ground, the whole bandof duennas with the Trifaldi vanished, and that they were already shavedand without a stump left.The duchess asked Sancho how he had fared on that long journey, to whichSancho replied, "I felt, senora, that we were flying through the regionof fire, as my master told me, and I wanted to uncover my eyes 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 knowwhat is forbidden and kept from me, quietly and without anyone seeing meI drew aside the handkerchief covering my eyes ever so little, close tomy nose, and from underneath looked towards the earth, and it seemed tome that it was altogether no bigger than a grain of mustard seed, andthat the men walking on it were little bigger than hazel nuts; so you maysee how high we must have got to then."To this the duchess said, "Sancho, my friend, mind what you are saying;it seems you could not have seen the earth, but only the men walking onit; for if the earth looked to you like a grain of mustard seed, and eachman like a hazel nut, one man alone would have covered the whole earth.""That is true," said Sancho, "but for all that I got a glimpse of a bitof one side of it, and saw it all.""Take care, Sancho," said the duchess, "with a bit of one side one doesnot see the whole of what one looks at.""I don't understand that way of looking at things," said Sancho; "I onlyknow that your ladyship will do well to bear in mind that as we wereflying by enchantment so I might have seen the whole earth and all themen by enchantment whatever way I looked; and if you won't believe this,no more will you believe that, uncovering myself nearly to the eyebrows,I saw myself so close to the sky that there was not a palm and a halfbetween me and it; and by everything that I can swear by, senora, it ismighty great! And it so happened we came by where the seven goats are,and by God and upon my soul, as in my youth I was a goatherd in my owncountry, as soon as I saw them I felt a longing to be among them for alittle, and if I had not given way to it I think I'd have burst. So Icome and take, and what do I do? without saying anything to anybody, noteven to my master, softly and quietly I got down from Clavileno andamused myself with the goats--which are like violets, like flowers--fornigh three-quarters of an hour; and Clavileno never stirred or moved fromone spot.""And while the good Sancho was amusing himself with the goats," said theduke, "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 no wonderthat Sancho says what he does; for my own part I can only say that I didnot uncover my eyes either above or below, nor did I see sky or earth orsea or shore. It is true I felt that I was passing through the region ofthe air, and even that I touched that of fire; but that we passed fartherI cannot believe; for the region of fire being between the heaven of themoon and the last region of the air, we could not have reached thatheaven where the seven goats Sancho speaks 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 the tokensof those same goats, and you'll see by that whether I'm telling the truthor not.""Tell us them then, Sancho," said the duchess."Two of them," said Sancho, "are green, two blood-red, two blue, and onea mixture of all colours.""An odd sort of goat, that," said the duke; "in this earthly region ofours we have no such colours; I mean goats of such colours.""That's very plain," said Sancho; "of course there must be a differencebetween the goats of heaven and the goats of the earth.""Tell me, Sancho," said the duke, "did you see any he-goat among thosegoats?""No, senor," said Sancho; "but I have heard say that none ever passed thehorns of the moon."They did not care to ask him anything more about his journey, for theysaw he was in the vein to go rambling all over the heavens giving anaccount of everything that went on there, without having ever stirredfrom the garden. Such, in short, was the end of the adventure of theDistressed Duenna, which gave the duke and duchess laughing matter notonly for the time being, but for all their lives, and Sancho something totalk about for ages, if he lived so long; but Don Quixote, coming closeto his ear, said to him, "Sancho, as you would have us believe what yousaw in heaven, I require you to believe me as to what I saw in the caveof Montesinos; I say no more."