SCENE I

DON LORENZO. [_Seated at table reading attentively._] 'Mercy, my niece,' replied Don Quixote, 'is that which God this moment has shown me, despite my sins. Already my mind is clear and free, unclogged of the obscurities of ignorance, which my unhappy and incessant readings of those detestable books of chivalry cast upon me like a heavy shadow. Already have I sounded the depth of their delusions and absurdities, and I now regret nothing but that this awakening should have come so late that I have no longer time to seek compensation in reading those other books which are the light of the soul. I feel myself on the point of death, dear niece. I should like to depart in such a way that my life would not appear so evil as to obtain for me the reputation of madness; that, though it is true I have been mad, my death should not confirm its truth.' [_Stops reading, and remains a while in thought._] Folly! To struggle without truce or rest in this fierce battle of life for justice as Cervantes' immortal hero struggled in the world of his imagining! Folly! To love with an infinite love, and with the divine beauty of our desire ever beyond our reach, as was the Dulcinea he so passionately loved! Folly! To walk with the soul ever fronting the ideal, along the rough and prosaic path of human realities, which is like running after one of heaven's stars through crags and rocky places. Folly! Yes, so the doctors tell us; but of so inoffensive a form, and, upon the face of it, so little likely to prove contagious, that, to make an end of it, we do not need another Quixote. [_Pause. Rises and walks to the middle of the stage, where he stands thinking._]