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Towards Duennas he entertained as great a dislike as towards those who dyed their beards uttering wonderful things respecting their falsehood and affectation, their tricks and pretences, their simulated scruples and their real wickedness, reproaching them with their fancied maladies of stomach, and the frequent giddiness with which they were afflicted in the head; nay, even their mode of speaking, was made the subject of his censure; and he declared that there were more turns in their speech than folds in their great togas and wide gowns; finally, he declared them altogether useless, if not much worse.
Ill betide the jade that in the flower of her youth would not sooner become a nun than a duenna! Unfortunate beings that we are, we duennas! Though we may be descended in the direct male line from Hector of Troy himself, our mistresses never fail to address us as 'you' if they think it makes queens of them. O giant Malambruno, though thou art an enchanter, thou art true to thy promises.
"Hush, friend Sancho," said Don Quixote; "since this lady duenna comes in quest of me from such a distant land she cannot be one of those the apothecary meant; moreover this is a countess, and when countesses serve as duennas it is in the service of queens and empresses, for in their own houses they are mistresses paramount and have other duennas to wait on them."
The dread day, then, having arrived, and the duke having ordered a spacious stand to be erected facing the court of the castle for the judges of the field and the appellant duennas, mother and daughter, vast crowds flocked from all the villages and hamlets of the neighbourhood to see the novel spectacle of the battle; nobody, dead or alive, in those parts having ever seen or heard of such a one.
Gradually the castle grew silent, the closing of doors and drawing of bolts ceased at last, and all was still. All, except those two duennas; and Laura saw that if she ever was to lull them to bed, she must call them in to undress her. So opening the door, she beckoned to Carlotta, who, to her great joy, appeared in a dressing-gown.
"Ah!" exclaimed the Distressed One at this, "may all the stars of the celestial regions look down upon your greatness with benign eyes, valiant knight, and shed every prosperity and valour upon your heart, that it may be the shield and safeguard of the abused and downtrodden race of duennas, detested by apothecaries, sneered at by squires, and made game of by pages.
"You are very hard on duennas, Sancho my friend," said the duchess; "you incline very much to the opinion of the Toledo apothecary. But indeed you are wrong; there are duennas in my house that may serve as patterns of duennas; and here is my Dona Rodriguez, who will not allow me to say otherwise."
It was then January, and the great Mistletoe question was not as yet settled. Letter No. 3. December 31. My Dear Miss Trefoil, Here I am still at Surbiton's and we have had such good sport that I'm half inclined to give the Duke the slip. What a pity that you can't come here instead. Wouldn't it be nice for you and half a dozen more without any of the Dowagers or Duennas?
Our youthful page had no defence whatever to offer. "What say you, Catherine," he said, "if we two, thus strangely turned out of service at the same time, should give our two most venerable duennas the torch to hold, while we walk a merry measure with each other over the floor of this weary world?" "A goodly proposal, truly," said Catherine, "and worthy the mad-cap brain of a discarded page!
Illustrious Romancer! were the "fine frenzies," which possessed the brain of thy own Quixote, a fit subject, as in this Second Part, to be exposed to the jeers of Duennas and Serving Men? to be monstered, and shown up at the heartless banquets of great men?
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