Don Quixote_ Translation by Edith Grossman (HarperCollins) - Miguel De Cervantes Saavedra [459]
“Señor Priest, keep your eyes open and see if anybody’s going to Madrid or Toledo who can buy me a hooped skirt, nice and round and just the way it should be, right in fashion and the best quality, because the real truth is I have to honor my husband’s governorship as much as I can, and even if it’s a bother I have to go to that court and get a carriage like all the other ladies, because a woman who has a governor for a husband can easily buy and keep one.”
“That’s right, Mother!” said Sanchica. “Please God, it’ll be today and not tomorrow, even though people who see me sitting next to my lady mother in that carriage will say: ‘Just look at her, daughter of a garlic eater, sitting and leaning back in the carriage as if she were the pope!’ But they can walk in the mud, and I’ll go in my carriage with my feet off the ground. A bad year and a bad month to all the gossips in the world, and as long as I’m warm, people can laugh all they want! Am I right, Mother?”
“O daughter, you certainly are right!” responded Teresa. “And all of this good fortune, and some even greater than this, my good Sancho predicted for me, and you’ll see, daughter, how he doesn’t stop until he makes me a countess; it’s all a matter of starting to be lucky; and I’ve heard your good father say very often—and he loves proverbs as much as he loves you—that when they give you the calf, run over with the rope; when they give you a governorship, take it; when they give you a countship, hold on to it tight, and when they call you over with a nice present, pack it away. Or else just sleep and don’t answer when fortune and good luck come knocking at your door!”
“And what difference does it make to me,” added Sanchica, “if they say when they see me so proud and haughty: ‘The dog in linen breeches…’6 and all the rest?”
Hearing this, the priest said:
“I can’t help thinking that everyone in the Panza family was born with a sack of proverbs inside; I’ve never seen one of them who isn’t always scattering proverbs around in every conversation they have.”
“That’s true,” said the page, “for Señor Governor Sancho says them all the time, and even though many are not to the point, they still give pleasure, and my lady the duchess and my lord the duke praise them a good deal.”
“Then, Señor, does your grace still affirm that Sancho’s governorship is true, and that there is a duchess in the world who sends his wife presents and writes to her? Because we, although we touched the presents and read the letters, don’t believe it, and we think this is one of those things that concern our compatriot Don Quixote, who thinks they are all done by enchantment; and so, I’m ready to say that I want to touch and feel your grace to see if you are an imagined emissary or a man of flesh and blood.”
“Señores, all I know,” responded the page, “is that I am a true emissary, and Señor Sancho Panza is a real governor, and my master and mistress the duke and duchess can give, and have given him, the governorship, and I’ve heard that in it Sancho Panza is performing valiantly; whether or not there’s enchantment in this is something your graces can argue among yourselves, because I don’t know any more than this, and I swear to that on the lives of my parents, who are still living and whom I love and cherish very much.”
“That may well be true,” replied the bachelor, “but dubitat Augustinus.”7
“No matter who doubts it,” responded the page, “the truth is what I have said, and truth will always rise above a lie, as oil rises above water; and if not, operibus credite, et non verbis:8 one of your graces should come with me, and you’ll see with your own eyes what your ears don’t believe.”
“I should be the one to go,” said Sanchica. “Señor, your grace can let me ride on the horse’s hindquarters, because I’d be very happy to see my father.”
“The daughters of governors should not