Don Quixote_ Translation by Edith Grossman (HarperCollins) - Miguel De Cervantes Saavedra [446]
“No,” he said in a voice that could be heard, believing what he had just imagined, “the greatest beauty on earth will not influence me to stop adoring the one I have engraved and impressed deep in my heart and at the very center of my being, no matter, my lady, if you are transformed into an uncouth peasant, or a nymph of the golden Tajo weaving cloth of gold and silk, or are being held by Merlin or Montesinos wherever they wish, for wherever you may be, you are mine, and wherever I go, I have been and shall be yours.”
The conclusion of these words and the opening of the door were all one. He stood on his bed, wrapped from head to toe in a yellow satin bedspread, a two-cornered beretta on his head, and his face and mustache bandaged: his face on account of the scratches, his mustache so that it would not droop and fall, and in this garb he seemed the most extraordinary phantom that anyone could imagine.
He fixed his eyes on the door, and where he expected to see the overwhelmed and lovesick Altisidora come in, he saw instead a most reverend duenna wearing white veils so long and intricate that they covered and enshrouded her from head to foot. In the fingers of her left hand she carried half a burning candle, and with her right hand she shadowed her face so that the light would not shine in her eyes, which were covered by very large spectacles. She stepped very softly and moved her feet very quietly.
Don Quixote looked down at her from his observation post, and when he saw her manner of dress and noticed her silence, he thought that a witch or a sorceress had come in that attire to commit some villainy against him, and he began very quickly to cross himself. The terrifying vision continued to approach, and when she reached the middle of the chamber, she raised her eyes and saw with what urgency Don Quixote was making the sign of the cross; and if he was fearful at the sight of her figure, she was terrified at seeing his, because as soon as she saw him, so high, and so yellow in the bedspread, and with the bandages that disfigured him, she screamed, saying:
“Jesus! What am I seeing?”
And she was so startled that she dropped the candle, and finding herself in the dark, she turned to leave, and in her fear she tripped on her skirts and fell with a great noise. A fearful Don Quixote began to say:
“I conjure thee, phantom, or whatever thou mayest be, to tell me what thou art and to tell me what it is that thou wantest of me. If thou art a soul in torment, tell me, and I shall do for thee all that is in my power, for I am a Catholic Christian and partial to doing good to everyone; for that reason I took on the order of knight errantry which I profess, whose exercise extends even to doing good to souls in purgatory.”
The dumbfounded duenna, who heard herself being conjured, associated Don Quixote’s fear with her own, and in a low and grieving voice she responded:
“Señor Don Quixote, if your grace happens to be Don Quixote, I am no phantom or vision or soul in purgatory, as your grace must have thought, but Doña Rodríguez, the duenna-of-honor to my lady the duchess, and I have come to your grace because I am in the sort of need your grace usually remedies.”
“Tell me, Señora Doña Rodríguez,” said Don Quixote, “by any chance has your grace come to act as a go-between? For I must tell you that I am not available to anyone, thanks to the peerless beauty of my lady Dulcinea of Toboso. In short, Señora Doña Rodríguez, I say that if your grace sets and puts aside all amorous messages, you may light your candle again, and come back, and we shall speak of anything you like and desire, except, as I have said, any invitation to the affections.”
“I, serve as anyone’s messenger, Señor?” responded the duenna. “Your grace does not know me very well; indeed, I have not yet reached so advanced an age that I resort to such foolishness, for, God be praised, I still have my