Don Quixote_ Translation by Edith Grossman (HarperCollins) - Miguel De Cervantes Saavedra [410]
The figure approached, then, with the aforementioned slow solemnity, to kneel before the duke, who stood, as did everyone else who was there, to wait for him, but under no circumstances would the duke allow him to speak until he rose to his feet. The prodigiously frightening person obeyed, and when he was standing he raised the veil to reveal the most hideous, longest, whitest, and thickest beard that human eyes had ever seen, and then, from a broad and swelling chest, he forced and coerced a solemn, sonorous voice, and fixing his eyes on the duke, he said:
“Most high and powerful lord, I am called Trifaldín of the White Beard; I am squire to the Countess Trifaldi, also known as the Dolorous Duenna, on whose behalf I bring your highness a message, which is this: may your magnificence have the goodness to give her license and per-mission to enter and tell you of her affliction, which is one of the strangest and most amazing that the most troubled mind in the world could ever have imagined. And first she wishes to know if the valiant and never vanquished knight Don Quixote of La Mancha is in your castle, for she has come looking for him, on foot, and without breaking her fast, all the way from the kingdom of Candaya to your realm, something that can and ought to be considered a miracle, or else the work of enchantment. She is at the door of this fortress or country house, and awaits only your consent to come in. I have spoken my message.”
And then he coughed and stroked his beard with both hands, and with great calm he waited for the duke’s response, which was:
“Good Squire Trifaldín of the White Beard, it has been many days since we heard of the misfortune of Señora Countess Trifaldi, obliged by enchanters to be called the Dolorous Duenna; you may certainly, O stupendous squire, tell her to come in, and that the valiant knight Don Quixote of La Mancha is here, and from his generous nature she can surely expect every protection and every assistance; you may also tell her on my behalf that if she finds my favor necessary, she shall have it, for I must give it to her as a knight who is bound and obliged to serve all women, especially widowed, scorned, and afflicted duennas, which is what your mistress must be.”
On hearing this, Trifaldín went down on one knee, then signaled the fife and drums to play and walked out of the garden to the same music and at the same pace with which he had entered, leaving everyone stunned by his presence and bearing. And the duke, turning to Don Quixote, said:
“It seems, O famous knight, that the shadows of malice and ignorance cannot cover and obscure the light of valor and virtue. I say this because it is barely six days that your grace has been in this castle, and already the sad and the afflicted come seeking you from distant and remote lands, not in carriages or on dromedaries, but on foot, and fasting, confident they will find in that mighty arm the remedy for their cares and sorrows, for your great deeds are known and admired all over the known world.”
“Señor Duke, I wish,” responded Don Quixote, “that the blessed religious who displayed at the table the other day so much animosity and ill will toward knights errant were here to see with his own eyes whether such knights are necessary in the world: to touch, at least, with his own hand, the fact that those who are extraordinarily afflicted and disconsolate, in great difficulties and enormous misfortunes, do not go to seek their remedy in the house of the lettered, or the village sacristan, or