Don Quixote_ Translation by Edith Grossman (HarperCollins) - Miguel De Cervantes Saavedra [527]
At that moment some six duennas appeared, crossing the courtyard in procession, one after the other, four of them wearing spectacles, and all of them holding up their right hands, with four finger widths of wrist exposed to make their hands seem longer, following the current fashion. As soon as Sancho saw them, he bellowed like a bull, saying:
“I might let myself be handled by the whole world, but consenting to being touched by duennas, never! Let cats claw my face, as they did to my master in this very castle; let them run my body through with sharpened daggers; let them tear at the flesh of my arms with red hot pincers, and I’ll bear it all patiently to serve these gentlemen, but I won’t consent to duennas touching me even if the devil carries me off.”
Don Quixote broke the silence, too, saying to Sancho:
“Be patient, my friend, and oblige these gentlemen, and give many thanks to heaven for having placed such virtue in your person that through its martyrdom you can disenchant the enchanted and resuscitate the dead.”
By now the duennas were close to Sancho, and he, more docile and convinced, settled himself in his chair and held up his face and beard to the first duenna, who gave him a very sharp slap, followed by a very deep curtsy.
“Less courtesy, and less face paint, Señora Duenna,” said Sancho, “because, by God, your hands smell of vinagrillo!”6
Finally, all the duennas marked him, and many other people from the house pinched him, but what he could not endure were the pinpricks, and so he got out of his chair, apparently angry, and grasping one of the burning torches that was near him, he chased after the duennas, and all his other tormentors, saying:
“Away, ministers of hell! I’m not made of bronze! I feel your awful tortures!”
At this point Altisidora, who must have been tired after spending so much time supine, turned to one side, and when the onlookers saw this, almost all of them cried out in unison:
“Altisidora is alive! Altisidora lives!”
Rhadamanthus ordered Sancho to set aside his wrath, for their intended purpose had been achieved.
As soon as Don Quixote saw Altisidora begin to move, he fell to his knees before Sancho, saying:
“Now it is time, friend of my soul rather than my squire, to give yourself some of the lashes to which you are obliged in order to disenchant Dulcinea. Now, I say, is the time when your virtue is ripe and ready to perform the good deed that is expected of you.”
To which Sancho responded:
“This seems like one dirty trick on top of another, and not honey on hotcakes. How nice it would be after pinches, slaps, and pinpricks to have a few lashes. Why not just take a big stone and tie it around my neck and put me in a well, and I won’t mind it too much since I have to be a laughingstock in order to solve other people’s problems. Let me alone; if not, I swear I’ll knock down and destroy everything, and I don’t care what happens.”
By this time Altisidora had sat up on the catalfaque, and at the same instant flageolets began to play, accompanied by flutes and the sound of everyone’s voices, crying:
“Long live Altisidora! Altisidora, long may she live!”
The duke and duchess rose to their feet, as did Kings Minos and Rhadamanthus, and all of them together, along with Don Quixote and Sancho, went to greet Altisidora and take her down from the catafalque, and she, pretending to be faint, curtsied to the duke and duchess and to the kings, and looking at Don Quixote out of the corner of her eye, she said to him:
“God forgive you, coldhearted knight, for because of your cruelty I have been in the next world for more than a thousand years, it seems