By every word that Sancho uttered, the duchess was as much delighted as Don Quixote was driven to desperation.
He bade him hold his tongue, and the Distressed One went on to say: 'At length, after much questioning and answering, as the princess held to her story, without changing or varying her previous declaration, the Vicar gave his decision in favour of Don Clavijo, and she was delivered over to him as his lawful wife; which the Queen Doña Maguncia, the Princess Antonomasia’s mother, so took to heart, that within the space of three days we buried her.
' 'She died, no doubt,' said Sancho. 'Of course,' said Trifaldin; 'they don’t bury living people in Kandy, only the dead.
' 'Señor Squire,' said Sancho, 'a man in a swoon has been known to be buried before now, in the belief that he was dead; and it struck me that Queen Maguncia ought to have swooned rather than died; because with life a great many things come right, and the princess’s folly was not so great that she need feel it so keenly.
If the lady had married some page of hers, or some other servant of the house, as many another has done, so I have heard say, then the mischief would have been past curing.
But to marry such an elegant accomplished gentleman as has been just now described to us—indeed, indeed, though it was a folly, it was not such a great one as you think; for according to the rules of my master here—and he won’t allow me to lie—as of men of letters bishops are made, so of gentlemen knights, specially if they be errant, kings and emperors may be made.
' 'Thou art right, Sancho,' said Don Quixote, 'for with a knight-errant, if he has but two fingers’