and it raised some doubts as to the governor's simplicity. The duchess
withdrew to hear from the page about his adventures in Sancho's village,
which he narrated at full length without leaving a single circumstance
unmentioned. He gave her the acorns, and also a cheese which Teresa had
given him as being particularly good and superior to those of Tronchon.
The duchess received it with greatest delight, in which we will leave
her, to describe the end of the government of the great Sancho Panza,
flower and mirror of all governors of islands.

CHAPTER LIII.

OF THE TROUBLOUS END AND TERMINATION SANCHO PANZA'S GOVERNMENT CAME TO

To fancy that in this life anything belonging to it will remain for ever
in the same state is an idle fancy; on the contrary, in it everything
seems to go in a circle, I mean round and round. The spring succeeds the
summer, the summer the fall, the fall the autumn, the autumn the winter,
and the winter the spring, and so time rolls with never-ceasing wheel.
Man's life alone, swifter than time, speeds onward to its end without any
hope of renewal, save it be in that other life which is endless and
boundless. Thus saith Cide Hamete the Mahometan philosopher; for there
are many that by the light of nature alone, without the light of faith,
have a comprehension of the fleeting nature and instability of this
present life and the endless duration of that eternal life we hope for;
but our author is here speaking of the rapidity with which Sancho's
government came to an end, melted away, disappeared, vanished as it were
in smoke and shadow. For as he lay in bed on the night of the seventh day
of his government, sated, not with bread and wine, but with delivering
judgments and giving opinions and making laws and proclamations, just as
sleep, in spite of hunger, was beginning to close his eyelids, he heard
such a noise of bell-ringing and shouting that one would have fancied the
whole island was going to the bottom. He sat up in bed and remained
listening intently to try if he could make out what could be the cause of
so great an uproar; not only, however, was he unable to discover what it
was, but as countless drums and trumpets now helped to swell the din of
the bells and shouts, he was more puzzled than ever, and filled with fear
and terror; and getting up he put on a pair of slippers because of the
dampness of the floor, and without throwing a dressing gown or anything
of the kind over him he r