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“By God,” responded Sancha, “I can ride a donkey as well as a coach. You must think I’m very hard to please!”

“Be quiet, girl,” said Teresa. “You don’t know what you’re saying, and this gentleman is right; time changes the rhyme: when it’s Sancho, it’s Sancha, and when it’s governor, it’s Señora, and I don’t know if I’m saying something or not.”

“Señora Teresa is saying more than she thinks,” said the page. “Give me something to eat and then send me away, because I plan to go back this afternoon.”

To which the priest said:

“Your grace will come and do penance with me,9 for Señora Teresa has more desire than provisions for serving so worthy a guest.”

The page refused, but then he had to concede, to his own advantage, and the priest took him home very gladly, for it meant he would have the opportunity to ask at his leisure about Don Quixote and his exploits.

The bachelor offered to write replies to her letters, but Teresa did not want the bachelor involved in her affairs because she thought he was something of a trickster, and so she gave a roll and two eggs to an altar boy who knew how to write, and he wrote two letters, one for her husband and the other for the duchess, which she herself dictated, and they are not the worst letters that appear in this great history, as we shall see further on.

CHAPTER LI

Regarding the progress of Sancho Panza’s governorship, and other matters of comparable interest

The day following the night of the governor’s patrol dawned, and for the butler it was a sleepless night because his thoughts were filled with the face, elegance, and beauty of the maiden in disguise; the steward used what remained of the night to write to his master and mistress regarding what Sancho Panza had done and said, and he was astonished by his deeds and speech because his words and actions indicated an extraordinary mixture of intelligence and foolishness.

Finally the governor awoke, and by order of Dr. Pedro Recio his breakfast consisted of a small amount of preserves and four swallows of cold water, which Sancho would have exchanged for a piece of bread and a bunch of grapes; but seeing that this was more a matter of coercion than choice, he accepted it with a sorrowful heart and a troubled stomach, while Pedro Recio tried to persuade him that very small amounts of delicate food would enliven his wits, something that was necessary for persons occupying high positions of authority in which one must use the strength not so much of the body as of the mind.

Because of this sophistry, Sancho suffered so much hunger that he secretly cursed the governorship, and even the one who had given it to him, but with his hunger and his preserves he began to judge that day’s cases, the steward and the rest of the acolytes being present, and the first was an enigma presented to him by a stranger, who said:

“Señor, a very large river divided a lord’s lands into two parts (and your grace should pay close attention, because the case is important and somewhat complicated). I say, then, that a bridge crossed this river, and at the end of it was a gallows and a kind of tribunal hall in which there were ordinarily four judges who applied the law set down by the owner of the river, the bridge, and the lands, which was as follows: ‘If anyone crosses this bridge from one side to the other, he must first take an oath as to where he is going and why; and if he swears the truth, let him pass; and if he tells a lie, let him die by hanging on the gallows displayed there, with no chance of pardon.’ Knowing this law and its rigorous conditions, many people crossed the bridge, and then, when it was clear that what they swore was true, the judges let them pass freely. It so happened, then, that a man once took the oath, and he swore and said that because of the oath he was going to die on the gallows, and he swore to nothing else. The judges studied the oath and said: ‘If we allow this man to pass freely, he lied in his oath,