Don Quixote_ Translation by Edith Grossman (HarperCollins) - Miguel De Cervantes Saavedra [447]
And without waiting for a reply, she left the room, where Don Quixote remained, calm and pensive, waiting for her; but then he had a thousand thoughts regarding this new adventure, and it seemed to him that he had behaved incorrectly and shown worse judgment by placing himself in danger of breaking the faith he had promised his lady, and he said to himself:
“Who knows if the devil, who is subtle and cunning, wants to deceive me now with a duenna when he has failed with empresses, queens, duchesses, marquises, and countesses? For I have often heard it said by many wise men that, if he can, he will give you a snub-nosed woman rather than one with an aquiline nose. And who knows whether this solitude, this opportunity, this silence, will awaken my sleeping desires and cause me, at this advanced age, to fall where I never have stumbled? In cases like this, it is better to flee than to wait for the battle. But I cannot be in my right mind, saying and thinking such nonsense, for it is not possible for a duenna in long white veils and spectacles to provoke or stimulate lascivious thoughts in the world’s most susceptible bosom. Can there be a duenna on earth whose flesh is chaste? Can there be a duenna on the planet who is not insolent, affected, and pretentious? Be gone, then, duennaesque horde, useless for any human pleasures! Oh, how wise the lady who, they say, had two figures of duennas with their spectacles and pincushions, as if they were doing needlework, at the end of her drawing room couch, and the statues did as much for the authority of the room as real duennas did!”
And saying this, he leaped out of bed, intending to close the door and not allow Señora Rodríguez to enter, but as he was about to close it, Señora Rodríguez returned, holding a lighted candle of white wax, and when she saw Don Quixote more closely, wrapped in the bedspread, with his bandages and his cap or beretta, she became afraid again, took two steps backward, and said:
“Is my safety assured, Señor Knight? Because I do not take it as a sign of modesty that your grace has gotten out of your bed.”
“I could very well ask the same question, Señora,” responded Don Quixote, “and so I ask if I shall be safe from assault and violation.”
“From whom or to whom, Señor Knight, do you ask for that assurance?” responded the duenna.
“From you and to you,” responded Don Quixote, “for I am not marble and you are not bronze, and it is not now ten in the morning but midnight, or even a little later, I imagine, and this is a chamber more hidden and secret than the cave where the traitorous and reckless Aeneas enjoyed the beautiful and compassionate Dido. But give me, Señora, your hand, for I wish no greater assurance than that of my own continence and modesty, and that offered by these most reverend veils.”
And having said this, he kissed her right hand and held it in his own, and she did the same, with the same ceremony.
Here Cide Hamete offers an aside and says that, by Mohammed, he would give the better cloak of two that he owns to see them holding and grasping each other as they walked from the door to the bed.
Don Quixote at last got into his bed, and Doña Rodríguez sat in a chair at some distance from the bed, not removing her spectacles or setting down the candle. Don Quixote concealed and hid himself completely, leaving only his face uncovered, and when the two had regained their composure, the first to break the silence was Don Quixote, saying:
“Now, Señora Doña Rodríguez, your grace can reveal and disclose all that is in your troubled heart and care-ridden soul, for it will be heard by my chaste ears and remedied by my compassionate deeds.”
“I do believe,” responded the duenna, “that from your grace’s gallant and pleasing