r with the Orianas,
Alastrajareas, Madasimas, or others of that sort, with whom, as you well
know, the histories abound."

"To that I may reply," said Don Quixote, "that Dulcinea is the daughter
of her own works, and that virtues rectify blood, and that lowly virtue
is more to be regarded and esteemed than exalted vice. Dulcinea, besides,
has that within her that may raise her to be a crowned and sceptred
queen; for the merit of a fair and virtuous woman is capable of
performing greater miracles; and virtually, though not formally, she has
in herself higher fortunes."

"I protest, Senor Don Quixote," said the duchess, "that in all you say,
you go most cautiously and lead in hand, as the saying is; henceforth I
will believe myself, and I will take care that everyone in my house
believes, even my lord the duke if needs be, that there is a Dulcinea in
El Toboso, and that she is living to-day, and that she is beautiful and
nobly born and deserves to have such a knight as Senor Don Quixote in her
service, and that is the highest praise that it is in my power to give
her or that I can think of. But I cannot help entertaining a doubt, and
having a certain grudge against Sancho Panza; the doubt is this, that the
aforesaid history declares that the said Sancho Panza, when he carried a
letter on your worship's behalf to the said lady Dulcinea, found her
sifting a sack of wheat; and more by token it says it was red wheat; a
thing which makes me doubt the loftiness of her lineage."

To this Don Quixote made answer, "Senora, your highness must know that
everything or almost everything that happens me transcends the ordinary
limits of what happens to other knights-errant; whether it be that it is
directed by the inscrutable will of destiny, or by the malice of some
jealous enchanter. Now it is an established fact that all or most famous
knights-errant have some special gift, one that of being proof against
enchantment, another that of being made of such invulnerable flesh that
he cannot be wounded, as was the famous Roland, one of the twelve peers
of France, of whom it is related that he could not be wounded except in
the sole of his left foot, and that it must be with the point of a stout
pin and not with any other sort of weapon whatever; and so, when Bernardo
del Carpio slew him at Roncesvalles, finding that he could not wound him
with steel, he lifted him up from the ground in his arms and strangled
him, calling to mind seasona