was
a servant of the duke's; and even to Sancho ideas and schemes of marrying
the youth to his daughter Sanchica suggested themselves, and he resolved
to open the negotiation at the proper season, persuading himself that no
husband could be refused to a governor's daughter. And so the night's
round came to an end, and a couple of days later the government, whereby
all his plans were overthrown and swept away, as will be seen farther on.

CHAPTER L.

WHEREIN IS SET FORTH WHO THE ENCHANTERS AND EXECUTIONERS WERE WHO FLOGGED
THE DUENNA AND PINCHED DON QUIXOTE, AND ALSO WHAT BEFELL THE PAGE WHO
CARRIED THE LETTER TO TERESA PANZA, SANCHO PANZA'S WIFE

Cide Hamete, the painstaking investigator of the minute points of this
veracious history, says that when Dona Rodriguez left her own room to go
to Don Quixote's, another duenna who slept with her observed her, and as
all duennas are fond of prying, listening, and sniffing, she followed her
so silently that the good Rodriguez never perceived it; and as soon as
the duenna saw her enter Don Quixote's room, not to fail in a duenna's
invariable practice of tattling, she hurried off that instant to report
to the duchess how Dona Rodriguez was closeted with Don Quixote. The
duchess told the duke, and asked him to let her and Altisidora go and see
what the said duenna wanted with Don Quixote. The duke gave them leave,
and the pair cautiously and quietly crept to the door of the room and
posted themselves so close to it that they could hear all that was said
inside. But when the duchess heard how the Rodriguez had made public the
Aranjuez of her issues she could not restrain herself, nor Altisidora
either; and so, filled with rage and thirsting for vengeance, they burst
into the room and tormented Don Quixote and flogged the duenna in the
manner already described; for indignities offered to their charms and
self-esteem mightily provoke the anger of women and make them eager for
revenge. The duchess told the duke what had happened, and he was much
amused by it; and she, in pursuance of her design of making merry and
diverting herself with Don Quixote, despatched the page who had played
the part of Dulcinea in the negotiations for her disenchantment (which
Sancho Panza in the cares of government had forgotten all about) to
Teresa Panza his wife with her husband's letter and another from herself,
and also a great string of fine coral beads as a present.

Now the history says thi