And the conversion of the other Don
Quixote--he who was converted only to die--was possible because he was
mad, and it was his madness, and not his death nor his conversion that
immortalized him, earning him forgiveness for the crime of having been
born.[67] _Felix culpa!_ And neither was his madness cured, but only
transformed. His death was his last knightly adventure; in dying he
stormed heaven, which suffereth violence.
This mortal Don Quixote died and descended into hell, which he entered
lance on rest, and freed all the condemned, as he had freed the galley
slaves, and he shut the gates of hell, and tore down the scroll that
Dante saw there and replaced it by one on which was written "Long live
hope!" and escorted by those whom he had freed, and they laughing at
him, he went to heaven. And God laughed paternally at him, and this
divine laughter filled his soul with eternal happiness.
And the other Don Quixote remained here amongst us, fighting with
desperation. And does he not fight out of despair? How is it that among
the words that English has borrowed from our language, such as _siesta,
camarilla, guerrilla_, there is to be found this word _desperdo_? Is not
this inward Don Quixote that I spoke of, conscious of his own tragic
comicness, a man of despair (_desesperado_). A _desperado_--yes, like
Pizarro and like Loyola. But "despair is the master of impossibilities,"
as we learn from Salazar y Torres (_Elegir al enemigo_, Act I.
Pages:
426
427
428
429
430
431
432
433
434
435
436
437
438
439
440
441
442
443
444
445
446
447
448
449
450