TE, 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 this page was very sharp and quick-witted; and eager
to serve his lord and lady he set off very willingly for Sancho's
village. Before he entered it he observed a number of women washing in a
brook, and asked them if they could tell him whether there lived there a
woman of the name of Teresa Panza, wife of one Sancho Panza, squire to a
knight called Don Quixote of La Mancha. At the question a young girl who
was washing stood up and said, "Teresa Panza is my mother, and that
Sancho is my father, and that knight is our master."

"Well then, miss," said the page, "com