sort is pleasure rather than pain."

"Don't be uneasy, friend Sancho," said the duchess; "I will take care
that my damsels wash you, and even put you in the tub if necessary."

"I'll be content with the beard," said Sancho, "at any rate for the
present; and as for the future, God has decreed what is to be."

"Attend to worthy Sancho's request, seneschal," said the duchess, "and do
exactly what he wishes."

The seneschal replied that Senor Sancho should be obeyed in everything;
and with that he went away to dinner and took Sancho along with him,
while the duke and duchess and Don Quixote remained at table discussing a
great variety of things, but all bearing on the calling of arms and
knight-errantry.

The duchess begged Don Quixote, as he seemed to have a retentive memory,
to describe and portray to her the beauty and features of the lady
Dulcinea del Toboso, for, judging by what fame trumpeted abroad of her
beauty, she felt sure she must be the fairest creature in the world, nay,
in all La Mancha.

Don Quixote sighed on hearing the duchess's request, and said, "If I
could pluck out my heart, and lay it on a plate on this table here before
your highness's eyes, it would spare my tongue the pain of telling what
can hardly be thought of, for in it your excellence would see her
portrayed in full. But why should I attempt to depict and describe in
detail, and feature by feature, the beauty of the peerless Dulcinea, the
burden being one worthy of other shoulders than mine, an enterprise