The Duke and the Duchess

The day after the enchanted boat, coming out of a wood at sunset, we saw on a green meadow a company of hunters with falcons, and among them a lady on a white palfrey, dressed all in green, so richly adorned that she seemed elegance itself. I sent Sancho ahead as my ambassador, charging him to speak with every courtesy and not to drop a single proverb. He came back having dropped only three, which for Sancho is a kind of fasting.

The lady was a Duchess, and here is the marvel: she and the Duke had read the first part of my history. They knew Sancho, Dulcinea, the windmills, the balsam. They invited us to their castle in Aragon, and my heart beat as it had not beaten since I was dubbed.

01 Received as a knight at last

As I rode into the courtyard, two beautiful maidens threw a long scarlet mantle over my shoulders, and from every gallery the servants cried welcome to the paragon of all who ride for honour, and sprinkled us with perfumed water. I had read of such receptions a thousand times, and here was the thousand and first, and it was mine. Until that hour I had believed I was a knight errant. Now a whole household agreed with me, and I confess the difference was very sweet.

I noticed that the Duchess laughed a great deal, which I put down to a cheerful nature. Some servants turned to the wall when I passed, their shoulders shaking. Courtiers are emotional people.

After dinner four maidens came with a silver basin, a ewer and a ball of Naples soap, and began to wash my beard. They lathered me thoroughly, eyes and all, then announced that the water had run out, and I sat a long while with my chin in the air and my face white as a miller's, perfectly still, as a guest should. I took it for a custom of Aragon. Soon after, the scullions came with a trough of dishwater to wash Sancho's beard, and there was a disturbance, which the Duchess settled, laughing harder than ever.

02 The chaplain

At the Duke's table sat a grave churchman, one of those who govern great houses and teach princes to be stingy. When the Duke asked me about my adventures, this chaplain grew red, and at last he turned on me and told me, before everyone, that I was a fool, that there were no knights errant in Spain or anywhere else, that there were no giants and no enchanted princesses, and that I ought to go home and look after my house and my children, if I had any, and stop wandering the world with my mouth open, making myself the laughing-stock of all who knew me.

I rose, trembling a little, I admit, from head to foot. I said to him, as quietly as I could, that his cloth protected him from my sword but not from my answer. I asked what harm I had done in the world that he should scold me so. I asked whether a man who had never ridden further than the next parish, and had governed nothing but a dinner table, was the proper judge of those who ride out for the widow and the orphan. Others chase rank, or favour, or gold, I told him; I chase none of these, but I will not let go of honour. I have mended what wrongs I could reach, and taken the blows that came with them. If I have a fault, it is that I cannot pass a wrong in the road without stopping. Let the Duke and Duchess judge whether that makes a man a fool.

Sancho added that he was going to govern an island, which proved everything, and the Duke at once promised him one. The chaplain left the table muttering. I felt sorry for him. He had read none of the right books.

I cannot pass a wrong in the road without stopping. Call that folly if you like.

03 Clavileño, the flying horse

Some days later, at the end of a hunt, a strange embassy arrived: a Countess called Trifaldi, the Distressed Duenna, with a train of ladies in mourning. When they lifted their veils every one of them had a thick beard, black or grey or red. A giant enchanter named Malambruno had done this to them, she said, and only Don Quixote of La Mancha could undo it, by fighting the giant in the far kingdom of Candaya. Malambruno would send a horse to carry us there: Clavileño the Swift, made of wood, steered by a peg in its forehead, and so smooth in flight that a rider could hold a brimming cup and spill nothing.

At nightfall four men dressed as wild men of the woods carried the horse into the garden. It was very large and very wooden. We had to ride blindfold, lest the height turn our heads. I mounted. Sancho, after a long speech about how nobody had mentioned squires flying, climbed up behind me, sitting sideways and holding on like a drowning man to a plank. I turned the peg.

Then we flew. I felt the wind of our passage, strong and steady, as if great bellows were blowing upon us. Sancho said it was bellows. I told him we must be in the second region of the air, where hail and snow are made. A little later there came a great heat upon our faces, and a smell of burning, and I told Sancho we had reached the region of fire and must take care not to be scorched. He said someone had held a lit bundle of tow under his nose. I said a squire should not be so particular about the heavens.

Then the horse, which was stuffed with fireworks, exploded and threw us half singed into the garden. The whole household lay on the ground as if in a swoon, and a parchment on a lance declared that I had ended the adventure merely by attempting it. The bearded ladies had vanished. A strange way to win, but a victory is a victory.

Sancho then told the Duchess that he had peeped from under his blindfold near the stars and seen the whole earth below, small as a grain of mustard, and that he had climbed down and spent a good while among the seven little she-goats of the sky. The Duchess was delighted. I drew Sancho aside and proposed a bargain: I would credit his goats, if he would credit my cave of Montesinos. He agreed at once. Neither of us has mentioned it since.

04 Altisidora

Here my pen grows careful. There was in that house a maiden of the Duchess, called Altisidora, very young, very beautiful, and very quick with a song. She fainted when I passed, and was revived, and fainted again. At night she sang under my window, to a harp, that she was dying of love for me. A knight errant must be courteous to every lady and faithful to only one, and this is harder than fighting lions. I took a lute and sang back, as gently as I could, that I belonged to Dulcinea del Toboso and could belong to no other.

That same night, while I sang, someone let down from the balcony above a rope hung with bells, and a sack of cats with bells on their tails. The noise was infernal. Two or three cats came in at my window, and I fought them, sword in hand, as enchanters in feline shape, which I still believe they were. One fastened itself to my face. I was five days in bed, bandaged, and the Duchess sat by me, very kind, asking many questions about Dulcinea.

I record Sancho's column because a history must be complete. A squire sees the world from the height of a donkey.

After this, Sancho left for his island, and the castle was very empty without him. His account follows in the next chapter, in his own words and his own proverbs.

To Cide Hamete Benengeli, who will find other accounts of this castle saying that its lord and lady laughed at me: let him write instead that they laughed often, which is true, and leave the reasons to God.