• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

“For the part of her that’s a countess,” responded Sancho before the duke could respond, “I think it’s right for your highnesses to go out to receive her, but for the part that’s a duenna, it’s my opinion that you shouldn’t take a step.”

“Who involved you in this, Sancho?” said Don Quixote.

“Who, Señor?” responded Sancho. “I involved myself, and I can involve myself as a squire who has learned the terms of courtesy in the school of your grace, the most courteous and polite knight in all of courtliness; in these things, as I have heard your grace say, you can lose as much for a card too many as for a card too few, and a word to the wise is sufficient.”

“What Sancho says is true,” said the duke. “Let us see the countess’s appearance, and then we can consider the courtesy that is owed her.”

Then the drums and fife entered, as they had done earlier.

And here the author concluded this brief chapter and began the next one, following the same adventure, which is one of the most notable in this history.

CHAPTER XXXVIII

Which recounts the tale of misfortune told by the Dolorous Duenna

Behind the mournful musicians a group of duennas, numbering twelve, began to enter the garden in two separate lines, all of them dressed in wide, nunlike habits, apparently of fulled serge, and white headdresses of sheer muslin, which were so long they revealed only the edging of the habits. Behind them came the Countess Trifaldi, led by the hand by the squire Trifaldín of the White Beard, and dressed in very fine black baize without a nap, and if it had been napped, each bit would have been the size of one of the good Martos garbanzos. Her train, or skirt, or whatever it is called, ended in three points, which were held up by the hands of three pages, also dressed in mourning, making an attractive mathematical figure with the three acute angles formed by the three points, leading everyone who saw the acutely pointed skirt to conclude that this was why she was called The Countess Trifaldi, as if we had said The Countess of the Three Skirts; and this, says Benengeli, was true, for her real name was The Countess Lobuna, because there were many wolves in her county,1 and if there had been foxes instead of wolves, she would have been called The Countess Zorruna, because it was the custom in those parts for nobles to take their titles from the thing or things that are most abundant on their lands; but this countess, to favor the novelty of her skirt, abandoned Lobuna and adopted Trifaldi.

The twelve duennas and their mistress walked at the pace of a procession, their faces covered with black veils, not transparent like Trifaldín’s but so heavy that nothing could be seen through them.

As soon as the duennaesque squadron appeared, the duke, the duchess, and Don Quixote rose to their feet, as did everyone who was watching their slow progress. The twelve duennas stopped and opened a path along which the Dolorous One moved forward, still holding Trifaldín’s hand; when they saw this, the duke, the duchess, and Don Quixote moved forward some twelve paces to receive her. She fell to her knees and, in a voice more rough and hoarse than subtle and delicate, said:

“May it please your highnesses, you should not show so much courtesy to this your serving man, I mean to say serving woman, because, as I am dolorous, I will not be able to respond as I should since my strange and never-before-seen misfortune has taken away my wits, and I do not know where, it must be a very distant place, because the more I look for them, the less I find them.”

“The man would be lacking them,” responded the duke, “Señora Countess, who did not discover your worth in your person, and your worth, without any need to see more, deserves all the cream of courtesy and all the flower of polite ceremonies.”

And taking her hand, he raised her to her feet and led her to a seat next to the duchess, who also received her with great courtesy.

Don Quixote was silent, and Sancho longed to see the faces of the Countess Trifaldi