AS soon as Sancho had eaten his dinner, he decided to have no sleep that afternoon, but to hasten to the Duchess' chambers that he might talk to her the whole afternoon. The Duchess asked him innumerable questions about his master and the Lady Dulcinea, and about Teresa Panza and every one concerned in the book about Don Quixote; and Sancho managed to keep the Duchess and her duennas in an uncommonly good humor for the rest of the day. They soon drifted to Sancho's government, and the squire expressed the belief that perhaps after a fortnight he would be as well versed in the affairs of government as he was in the farm labor he had been doing all his life.
"Let them only put me into this government and they will see wonders," he said; "for one who has been a good squire will be a good governor."
And then he took leave of the high lady, who suggested that he go home and sleep for the rest of the afternoon. He promised that he would, and entreated her to see to it that good care was taken of his Dapple. When he had explained to the Duchess that Dapple was his faithful donkey, and told her of the incident with Doña Rodriguez, she assured him that Dapple would want for nothing in her stable. She suggested that when he had his government in hand, he ought to pension Dapple off and let him quit working; and Sancho thought that was by no means a bad idea, for, he said, he would not be the first ass to be so pensioned.
The Duchess, when he had left, hastened to tell the Duke of her amusing conversation with Sancho; and again they put their heads together, trying to invent new ways and plots whereby they might derive amusement from the presence of Don Quixote and his squire.
CHAPTER XXXIV
Which Relates How They Learned the Way in Which They Were to Disenchant the Peerless Dulcinea Del Toboso, Which Is One of the Rarest Adventures in This Book
WHEN the Duke and the Duchess had hit upon a plan they proceeded to make preparations for its being carried out, and on the sixth day they invited Don Quixote to go hunting with them. There was an array of huntsmen and beaters, as great a retinue as the Duke could possibly get together. Both Don Quixote and his squire had been presented with splendid hunting suits; but Don Quixote did not accept his, saying that he would soon have to return to the hard pursuits of his calling, and that it would only be a burden to carry it along.
Sancho did not know that his beautiful suit was destined to be torn that very day. A wild boar came along, and Sancho deserted his Dapple and climbed quickly up into the tallest tree he could find; but fate would have it that the branch gave way, and Sancho fell onto a branch below, where he hung suspended by a great rent in his breeches, screaming with all his might that he would be devoured by the boar; but the boar fell in the next moment, pierced by many spears, and Sancho was helped to the ground by his master.
The boar was taken to some tents nearby, where dinner soon was ready and being served for the hunters. Sancho could not refrain then from showing the Duchess what had befallen him in the tree-top, expressing to her his opinion of hunts of that kind, involving so much risk. Much better, he thought, it would be to hunt hares and other little animals. And then he went on at a tremendous speed, repeating proverb after proverb, one minute telling the Duchess how he would govern his island, and the next minute talking about something in his home village.