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268 show him that he has made a mistake, Don Quixote remains perfectly calm. He admits the mistake at once, and drops back into the commonplace. At times he himself laughs at his feigned error. At other times he takes refuge in the device of the malevolent enchanters—a story that serves well enough for Sancho, who first believes it and finally makes use of it, turning it against his master when he tells him that the three peasant girls on their donkeys are princesses on their palfreys.

Don Quixote’s returns to the truth are painless. A man truly mad, a hero with convictions, would experience distress and anguish at so many material denials, would suffer a thousand deaths in finding himself so obstinately contradicted. But Don Quixote, who knows his own game, and is befooling friends and strangers alike, is never moved to grief. He accepts his defeats as perfectly natural, and regrets only his bumps and bruises—inevitable inconveniences, the small change with which he pays the cost of his unusual pastime. Don Quixote is capable of laughter. He makes fun of Sancho and of himself. His spirit is free. He carries pleasant invention to the utmost, but he cannot carry his pretense to the point of grief, which is inimitable. He moves us to laughter because he himself cannot weep.