CHAPTER XXXIX

Every word that Sancho said pleased the duchess as much as it caused despair in Don Quixote, and ordering him to be quiet, the Dolorous One continued, saying:

“Finally, after many questions and answers, and because the princess never wavered and did not depart from or vary her original statement, the vicar judged in favor of Don Clavijo and gave her to him as his legitimate wife, which so troubled Queen Doña Maguncia, Princess Antonomasia’s mother, that in three days’ time we buried her.”

“No doubt she must have died,” said Sancho.

“Of course!” responded Trifaldín. “In Candaya we don’t bury the living, only the dead.”

“It has been known to happen, Señor Squire,” replied Sancho, “that someone in a faint has been buried because people thought he was dead, and it seemed to me that Queen Maguncia ought to have fainted, not died; if you’re alive, many things can be remedied, and the princess’s recklessness wasn’t so great that she had to die over it. If the lady had married one of her pages, or another servant in her house, as many others have done, or so I’ve heard, there would have been no remedy for the damage; but marrying a knight who was so much the gentleman and so clever, like the one who’s been described here, really and truly, even though it was foolish, it wasn’t as bad as all that, because according to the rules of my master, who is present and will not let me lie, just as they turn lettered men into bishops, they can turn knights, especially if they’re errant, into kings and emperors.”

“You are correct, Sancho,” said Don Quixote, “because a knight errant, if he has even an iota of luck, is very close to being the greatest lord in the world. But let the Dolorous One continue, for it is clear to me that she still has to recount the bitter part of this history, which so far has been sweet.”

“Oh yes, the bitterness is still to come!” responded the countess. “And it is so bitter that in comparison bitter cucumbers are sweet and oleander is delectable. The queen, then, being dead and not in a faint, was buried, and as soon as we had covered her with earth and said our final vale, ⁴⁸⁵ then

over the grave of the queen, seated on a wooden horse, there appeared the giant Malambruno, Maguncia’s first cousin, who was both cruel and an enchanter, and with his arts, to avenge the death of his cousin and punish the audacity of Don Clavijo and castigate the excesses of Antonomasia, he left them all enchanted there on the grave; she was turned into a bronze monkey and he into a fearsome crocodile of an unknown metal, and between the two of them stands an inscribed pillar, also of metal, and on it are written some letters in the Syrian language, which, having been translated into Candayan, and now into Castilian, read as follows: These two daring lovers will not recover their original form until the valiant Manchegan comes to do battle with me in single combat; for his great valor alone have the fates reserved this never-before-seen adventure.

And having done this, he drew from his scabbard an enormous broad scimitar, and seizing me by the hair, he made as if to slash my throat and cut off my head at the root. I became distraught; my voice caught in my throat; I was utterly dejected; but, even so, I made the greatest effort I could, and in a trembling and doleful voice I told him a number of different things that made him suspend the execution of so harsh a punishment. Finally, he had all the duennas in the palace brought before him, the same duennas here present, and after having exaggerated our faults and censured the character of duennas, their wicked schemes and even worse intrigues, and laying on them all the blame that I alone deserved, he said that he did not want to inflict capital punishment on us but would impose other more protracted penalties that would cause us an ongoing civil death; and at the very moment and instant that he said this, we all felt the pores on our faces opening, and all over our faces it felt as if we were being punctured by needles. We brought our hands to our faces, and found ourselves in the condition you will see now.”

And then the Dolorous One and all the other duennas lifted the veils that concealed them and revealed their faces, which were covered by beards, some blond, some black, some white, some variegated, at the sight of which it was evident that the duke and duchess were amazed, Don Quixote and Sancho stupefied, and all those present astonished.

And the Countess Trifaldi continued:

“In this fashion did the evil and ill-intentioned Malambruno punish us, covering the softness and smoothness of our faces with the harshness of these bristles; if only it had been the will of heaven that he cut off our heads with his huge scimitar rather than darken the light of our faces with this fleece that covers us, because if we consider the matter, my lords and ladies (and what I am going to say now I would like to say with my eyes streaming tears, but thoughts of our misfortune, and the oceans of tears that have poured from them so far, have deprived my eyes of their aqueous humor and made them dry as chaff, and so I’ll say it without tears), then, I say, where can a bearded duenna go? What father or mother will take pity on her? Who will help her? For even when her skin is smooth and her face martyrized by a thousand different kinds of potions and cosmetics, she can scarcely find anyone to love her, and so what will she do when she reveals a forest on her face? Oh duennas, my companions, we were born at an unlucky time; in an evil hour did our parents engender us!”

And saying this, she showed signs of falling into a swoon.