_“Pray, good gentlemen,” said the barber,[2] “let us have your opinion
in this matter. I suppose you will grant this same helmet to be a
basin?” “He that dares grant any such thing,” said Don Quixote, “must
know that he lies plainly, if he is a knight; but, if a squire, he lies
abominably.”_
That’s right, my lord Don Quixote, that’s right. It is courage, it is
the barefaced courage that is ready to affirm a thing aloud and before
all the world and to defend the affirmation of it to the death, it is
courage that creates all truths. Things are so much the truer the more
they are believed, and it is not intelligence but will that imposes
them upon the world.
“Now I swear before you all,” said Don Quixote, “by the order of
knighthood which I profess, that that is the same individual helmet
which I won from him, without the least addition or diminution.” To
which Sancho added, in timid support of his master: “That I will swear,
for since my lord won it, he never fought but once in it, and that was
the battle wherein he freed those ungracious galley-slaves, who by the
same token would have knocked out his brains with a shower of stones,
had not this same honest basin-helmet saved his skull.”
In “The Tragic Sense of Life” Unamuno says: “I wrote my _Vida de
Don Quixote y Sancho_ in opposition to the Cervantists and erudite
persons, in order to make a living work of what was and still is for
the majority a dead letter. What does it matter to me what Cervantes
intended or did not intend to put into it and what he actually did
put into it? What is living in it is what I myself discover in it,
whether Cervantes put it there or not, what I myself put into and under
and over it, and what we all put into it. I wanted to track down our
philosophy in it.”
Readers of Don Quixote will recall the encounter between the Knight
of La Mancha and the barber who had clapped his brass basin on his
head to keep his hat from being spoiled by the rain. Having routed his
enemy, the Knight seized the basin, which he asserted to be the golden
helmet of Mambrino, a famous Saracen (see _Orlando Furioso_, Canto I).
When afterwards the barber met Don Quixote at an inn and claimed his
basin, the dispute as to whether it was really a basin or a helmet
was referred to the rest of the company, some of whom sided with the
Knight and others with the barber.
Basin-helmet? Basin-helmet, Sancho? We must not do you the injustice
to suppose that your calling it a basin-helmet was one of your sly
jokes--no, it marks the progress of your faith. You were unable to pass
from what your eyes assured you of, showing you the object in dispute
in the likeness of a basin, to what faith in your master assured you,
showing it to you in the likeness of a helmet, without catching at this
compromise of a basin-helmet. In this respect there are many Sanchos
like you and you have invented this notion that virtue consists in
the _via media_. No, friend Sancho, no, there is no basin-helmet that
is worth a straw. It is a helmet or it is a basin according to him
who uses it, or rather it is basin and helmet at the same time for it
serves both turns. Without the least addition or diminution it can
and ought to be both helmet and basin, all of it helmet and all of it
basin; but what it can never be nor ought to be, however much be added
to it or taken away from it, is basin-helmet.
The barber to whom the basin belonged found the other barber, Master
Nicolas, and Don Fernando and the curate and Cardenio and the judge
more emphatic, for to the amazement of all the others who were present
they insisted that it was a helmet. One of the four pursuivants,
regarding this as a laborious joke, became annoyed and treated those
who said it was a helmet as if they were drunk. Don Quixote called him
a liar and hurled himself upon him; both sides prepared for battle
and fell to blows. Then it was that Don Quixote, thinking that he was
certainly involved in the disorder and confusion of King Agramant’s
camp, lifted up his voice and quieted the tumult.
What! it surprises you that the question as to whether the basin was a
basin or a helmet should have given rise to a general dispute? Other
and more involved disputes have broken out in the world with regard to
other basins and those not belonging to Mambrino. As to whether bread
is bread and wine wine and the like. Human sheep flock round Knights
of the Faith and maintain for various reasons or for no reason at
all, that the basin is a helmet, as the Knights assert, and they are
surprisingly rewarded for so maintaining it, and the strange thing is
that most of those who contend that it is a helmet really believe it
to be a basin. The heroism of Don Quixote communicated itself to his
mockers, who became quixotized in spite of themselves, and Don Fernando
made one of the pursuivants measure his length on the ground because
he had dared to maintain that the basin was not a helmet but a basin.
Heroical Don Fernando!
Thus we see Don Quixote’s mockers mocked by him, quixotized in their
own despite, joining in the fray and fighting with all their might
to defend the Faith of the Knight, although without sharing it. I am
convinced--although Cervantes does not tell us so--I am convinced that
the partisans of the Knight, the quixotists or helmetists, after having
received and administered punishment, began themselves to doubt whether
the basin were a basin and to believe that it really was the helmet of
Mambrino, for their ribs bore evidence of their belief. It must be
affirmed here yet again that it is martyrs who create faith rather than
faith that creates martyrs.
In few of his adventures does Don Quixote appear greater than in this
one, in which he imposes his faith upon those who mocked at it, so that
they are led to defend it with kicks and blows and to suffer for it.
And what was it that inspired them to do so? Simply his courage in
affirming before everybody that that basin, which he no less than they
saw with his own eyes to be a basin, was the helmet of Mambrino, for to
him it served the office of a helmet.
This is the courage of the purest water--that which resists not merely
a shock to the reason or decay of fortune or loss of honour, but also
being taken for a madman and an idiot.
This is the courage that we need in Spain and our soul remains
paralysed because of the lack of it. It is because of the lack of it
that we are neither powerful nor wealthy nor cultured; it is because of
the lack of it that we have no system of irrigation, no good harvests;
it is because of the lack of it that it doesn’t rain more on our
drought-parched fields, or that when it does rain it rains in torrents,
sweeping away the manure and sometimes sweeping away the houses too.
This seems to you like a paradox? Go into the country and propose
to any farmer some improvement in his methods of cultivation or the
introduction of a new kind of crop or of a new agricultural machine,
and he will say: “That doesn’t pay here.” “Have you tried it?” you
ask, and he simply repeats: “That doesn’t pay here.” He doesn’t know
whether it pays or whether it doesn’t pay, for he hasn’t tried it and
doesn’t mean to try it. He would try it if he were sure of its success
beforehand, but the prospect of the possibility of a failure, with the
consequent mockery and derision of his neighbours, the possibility
of their taking him for a deluded fool or a lunatic, this prospect
terrifies him and so he doesn’t experiment. And then people are
surprised at the triumph of those who have the courage to face ridicule
serenely, of those who rid themselves of the herd-instinct.
In the province of Salamanca there was a remarkable man who rose from
the greatest poverty to be a millionaire. The peasants of the district,
with the sheep-like instincts of their kind, were only able to explain
his success by supposing that in his younger days he had embezzled
money, for these wretched peasants, crusted over with common sense
and entirely lacking in moral courage, believe only in theft and the
lottery. But one day I was told of a quixotic feat which this cattle
farmer had performed. It seems that he had brought sea-bream’s spawn
from the Cantabrian coast to put in one of his ponds! When I heard
that, I understood everything. He who has the courage to face the jeers
which are bound to be provoked by bringing the spawn of a salt-water
fish to put in a pond in Castile, he who does that deserves his fortune.
But it was absurd, you say? And who knows what is absurd and what is
not? And even if it were! Only he who attempts the absurd is capable
of achieving the impossible. There is only one way of hitting the nail
on the head and that is by hammering on the shoe a hundred times. And
there is only one way of achieving a real triumph and that is by
facing ridicule with serenity. And it is because our agriculturists
haven’t the courage to face ridicule that our agriculture languishes in
its present backward condition.
Yes, all our ills spring from moral cowardice, from the individual’s
lack of staunch resolution in affirming his own truth, his own faith,
and defending it. The soul of this people, this flock of somnolent
sheep, is smothered and swathed in falsehood, and their stupidity
proceeds from their very excess of prudence.
It is claimed that there are certain principles that are beyond
discussion and when anyone attempts to criticize them the air rings
with shouts of protest. Not long ago I proposed that we should
demand the abolition of certain of the articles of our law of Public
Instruction, and a pack of poltroons began to bellow that such a course
was inopportune and impertinent, not to mention stronger and more
offensive epithets that were used. I am sick of hearing everything that
is most opportune called inopportune, everything that tends to disturb
the digestion of the full-bellied and infuriates fools. What are they
afraid of? That it will result in a brawl? that a new civil war will
break out? Better and better. That’s what we need.
Yes, that’s what we need--a new civil war. It is necessary to assert
that basins ought to be and are helmets and to get up a fight about
it like the fight they got up at the inn. A new civil war, let the
weapons be what they will. Can’t you hear those spiritless creatures
whose hearts are dried and shrivelled up reiterating that these kinds
of disputes lead to nothing practical? What do they understand by
practical? Can’t you hear them reiterating that there are discussions
which ought never to be broached?
There are plenty of cowardly spirits who are always drilling it into
us that we ought to leave religious questions on one side, that the
first thing to do is to become powerful and wealthy. And the poltroons
don’t see that it is just because we ignore what concerns our inward
well-being that we are not and never shall be wealthy and powerful. I
repeat it yet again, there will never be any agriculture or industry or
commerce in our country, nor roads where there ought to be roads, until
we have discovered our Christianity, which is Quixotic Christianity.
We shall never have a powerful and splendid and glorious and strong
external life until we have kindled in the hearts of our people the
fire of the eternal disquietudes. We cannot be rich so long as our life
is nothing but deceit, and deceit is our spirit’s daily bread.
Can’t you hear the solemn ass that opens his mouth and says: “It’s
forbidden to say that here”? Can’t you hear all those who are bound
with the fetters of falsehood talking about peace, a peace that is more
deadly than death itself? That terrible and ignominious rule which
figures in the list of regulations of almost all the social clubs in
Spain, “political and religious discussions prohibited”--does that say
nothing to you?
Peace! peace! peace! all the frogs of our national pond croak in chorus.
Peace! peace! peace! Yes, but peace established upon the triumph of
sincerity, peace established upon the overthrow of falsehood. Peace,
but not a peace of compromise, not a hollow political agreement, but a
comprehensive peace. Peace, yes, but only after the pursuivants have
recognized Don Quixote’s right to assert that the basin is a helmet;
and, furthermore, only after the pursuivants themselves have admitted
and affirmed that in the hands of Don Quixote the basin is a helmet.
And the wretched crowd that shout “Peace! peace!” dare to take upon
their lips the name of Christ! They forget that Christ said that He
came not to bring peace but war, and that because of Him they of the
same household should be divided against one another, father against
son and brother against brother. And this should be because of Him,
because of Christ, that His kingdom might be established, the social
kingdom of Jesus--which is the very reverse of that which the Jesuits
call the social kingdom of Jesus Christ--the kingdom of real sincerity
and real truth and real love and real peace. In order that the kingdom
of Jesus may be established, there must be war.