CHAPTER XXXIX.

IN WHICH THE TRIFALDI CONTINUES HER MARVELLOUS AND MEMORABLE STORY


By every word that Sancho uttered, the duchess was as much delighted as
Don Quixote was driven to desperation. He bade him hold his tongue, and
the Distressed One went on to say: "At length, after much questioning and
answering, as the princess held to her story, without changing or varying
her previous declaration, the Vicar gave his decision in favour of Don
Clavijo, and she was delivered over to him as his lawful wife; which the
Queen Dona Maguncia, the Princess Antonomasia's mother, so took to heart,
that within the space of three days we buried her."

"She died, no doubt," said Sancho.

"Of course," said Trifaldin; "they don't bury living people in Kandy,
only the dead."

"Senor Squire," said Sancho, "a man in a swoon has been known to be
buried before now, in the belief that he was dead; and it struck me that
Queen Maguncia ought to have swooned rather than died; because with life
a great many things come right, and the princess's folly was not so great
that she need feel it so keenly. If the lady had married some page of
hers, or some other servant of the house, as many another has done, so I
have heard say, then the mischief would have been past curing. But to
marry such an elegant accomplished gentleman as has been just now
described to us--indeed, indeed, though it was a folly, it was not such a
great one as you think; for according to the rules of my master here--and
he won't allow me to lie--as of men of letters bishops are made, so of
gentlemen knights, specially if they be errant, kings and emperors may be
made."

"Thou art right, Sancho," said Don Quixote, "for with a knight-errant, if
he has but two fingers' breadth of good fortune, it is on the cards to
become the mightiest lord on earth. But let senora the Distressed One
proceed; for I suspect she has got yet to tell us the bitter part of this
so far sweet story."

"The bitter is indeed to come," said the countess; "and such bitter that
colocynth is sweet and oleander toothsome in comparison. The queen, then,
being dead, and not in a swoon, we buried her; and hardly had we covered
her with earth, hardly had we said our last farewells, when, quis talia
fando temperet a lachrymis? over the queen's grave there appeared,
mounted upon a wooden horse, the giant Malambruno, Maguncia's first
cousin, who besides being cruel is an enchanter; and he, to revenge the
death of his cousin, punish the audacity of Don Clavijo, and in wrath at
the contumacy of Antonomasia, left them both enchanted by his art on the
grave itself; she being changed into an ape of brass, and he into a
horrible crocodile of some unknown metal; while between the two there
stands a pillar, also of metal, with certain characters in the Syriac
language inscribed upon it, which, being translated into Kandian, and now
into Castilian, contain the following sentence: 'These two rash lovers
shall not recover their former shape until the valiant Manchegan comes to
do battle with me in single combat; for the Fates reserve this unexampled
adventure for his mighty valour alone.' This done, he drew from its
sheath a huge broad scimitar, and seizing me by the hair he made as
though he meant to cut my throat and shear my head clean off. I was
terror-stricken, my voice stuck in my throat, and I was in the deepest
distress; nevertheless I summoned up my strength as well as I could, and
in a trembling and piteous voice I addressed such words to him as induced
him to stay the infliction of a punishment so severe. He then caused all
the duennas of the palace, those that are here present, to be brought
before him; and after having dwelt upon the enormity of our offence, and
denounced duennas, their characters, their evil ways and worse intrigues,
laying to the charge of all what I alone was guilty of, he said he would
not visit us with capital punishment, but with others of a slow nature
which would be in effect civil death for ever; and the very instant he
ceased speaking we all felt the pores of our faces opening, and pricking
us, as if with the points of needles. We at once put our hands up to our
faces and found ourselves in the state you now see."

Here the Distressed One and the other duennas raised the veils with which
they were covered, and disclosed countenances all bristling with beards,
some red, some black, some white, and some grizzled, at which spectacle
the duke and duchess made a show of being filled with wonder. Don Quixote
and Sancho were overwhelmed with amazement, and the bystanders lost in
astonishment, while the Trifaldi went on to say: "Thus did that
malevolent villain Malambruno punish us, covering the tenderness and
softness of our faces with these rough bristles! Would to heaven that he
had swept off our heads with his enormous scimitar instead of obscuring
the light of our countenances with these wool-combings that cover us! For
if we look into the matter, sirs (and what I am now going to say I would
say with eyes flowing like fountains, only that the thought of our
misfortune and the oceans they have already wept, keep them as dry as
barley spears, and so I say it without tears), where, I ask, can a duenna
with a beard to to? What father or mother will feel pity for her? Who
will help her? For, if even when she has a smooth skin, and a face
tortured by a thousand kinds of washes and cosmetics, she can hardly get
anybody to love her, what will she do when she shows a countenace turned
into a thicket? Oh duennas, companions mine! it was an unlucky moment
when we were born and an ill-starred hour when our fathers begot us!" And
as she said this she showed signs of being about to faint.