vented outright the marvelous phantasmagoria of the Cave of Montesinos?
From the time when he issues from the subterranean world, Sancho himself doubts his truthfulness, and at the Duke’s, Don Quixote makes a cynical compact with his squire: “If you will believe my Montesinos story, I will believe your story about Heaven.”[1] But the shameless invention stands, and the implied confession was in reality superfluous.[2]
Don Quixote does not succeed in remaining within the limits of perfect pretense. And these slips in his part give a double reënforcement to our discovery: he did not take his game so seriously as to carry it too far. Don Quixote is a pretended madman who betrays himself by his mirth. His tranquillity and his wit depose against him: there is no conflict in his soul. Where there is no seriousness there can be no conflict. Don Quixote jests: true madmen never jest.
VI
The profundity of Don Quixote—and there is an element of profundity in the joker of La Mancha—lies elsewhere. For the methods of
- ↑ “Sancho, since you desire me to believe what you saw in Heaven, I desire you to believe what I saw in the Cave of Montesinos”: Part II, Chapter XLI.
- ↑ See Part II, Chapter XXV.
