In cases of this sort it is better to flee than to await the battle. But
I must be out of my senses to think and utter such nonsense; for it is
impossible that a long, white-hooded spectacled duenna could stir up or
excite a wanton thought in the most graceless bosom in the world. Is
there a duenna on earth that has fair flesh? Is there a duenna in the
world that escapes being ill-tempered, wrinkled, and prudish? Avaunt,
then, ye duenna crew, undelightful to all mankind. Oh, but that lady did
well who, they say, had at the end of her reception room a couple of
figures of duennas with spectacles and lace-cushions, as if at work, and
those statues served quite as well to give an air of propriety to the
room as if they had been real duennas."

So saying he leaped off the bed, intending to close the door and not
allow Senora Rodriguez to enter; but as he went to shut it Senora
Rodriguez returned with a wax candle lighted, and having a closer view of
Don Quixote, with the coverlet round him, and his bandages and night-cap,
she was alarmed afresh, and retreating a couple of paces, exclaimed, "Am
I safe, sir knight? for I don't look upon it as a sign of very great
virtue that your worship should have got up out of bed."

"I may well ask the same, senora," said Don Quixote; "and I do ask
whether I shall be safe from being assailed and forced?"

"Of whom and against whom do you demand that security, sir knight?" said
the duenna.

"Of you and against you I ask it," said Don Quixote; "for I am not
marble, nor are you brass, nor is it now ten o'clock in the morning, but
midnight, or a trifle past it I fancy, and we are in a room more secluded
and retired than the cave could have been where the treacherous and