For what did Don Quixote fight? For Dulcinea, for glory, for life, for
survival. Not for Iseult, who is the eternal flesh; not for Beatrice,
who is theology; not for Margaret, who is the people; not for Helen, who
is culture. He fought for Dulcinea, and he won her, for he lives.
And the greatest thing about him was his having been mocked and
vanquished, for it was in being overcome that he overcame; he overcame
the world by giving the world cause to laugh at him.
And to-day? To-day he feels his own comicness and the vanity of his
endeavours so far as their temporal results are concerned; he sees
himself from without--culture has taught him to objectify himself, to
alienate himself from himself instead of entering into himself--and in
seeing himself from without he laughs at himself, but with a bitter
laughter. Perhaps the most tragic character would be that of a Margutte
of the inner man, who, like the Margutte of Pulci, should die of
laughter, but of laughter at himself. _E ridera in eterno_, he will
laugh for all eternity, said the Angel Gabriel of Margutte. Do you not
hear the laughter of God?
The mortal Don Quixote, in dying, realized his own comicness and bewept
his sins; but the immortal Quixote, realizing his own comicness,
superimposes himself upon it and triumphs over it without renouncing it.
And Don Quixote does not surrender, because he is not a pessimist, and
he fights on.
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