:17:01
I've never had the courage
to believe in nothing.
:17:05
A bad poet?
:17:09
This comes from a painful ear.
:17:11
Have you finished your defense?
:17:13
No, no, scarcely begun.
:17:16
With your permission,
I will continue...
:17:19
in the manner I know best.
:17:20
In the form of a charade.
:17:22
Charade?
:17:23
An entertainment, if you will.
:17:25
An entertainment?
:17:27
At worst,
it may beguile the time.
:17:30
And since my cast
of characters is large...
:17:34
I call upon you all
to enter in...
:17:36
and play whatever role
may suit your fancy.
:17:40
Governor,
I shall like to protest.
:17:41
No!
:17:46
Let's hear him out.
:17:49
If you've no objection...
:17:50
and with
your kind permission...
:17:52
may I set the stage?
:17:54
Proceed!
:17:59
I will impersonate a man.
:18:02
His name... Alonso Quijana.
:18:06
A country gentleman,
no longer young.
:18:09
Being retired,
he has much time for books.
:18:12
He studies them
from morn till night...
:18:13
and often through the night
till morn again.
:18:16
And all he reads
oppresses him...
:18:18
fills him with indignation...
:18:19
at man's murderous ways
towards man.
:18:22
He ponders the problem...
how to make better a world...
:18:25
where evil brings profit
and virtue none at all.
:18:30
Where fraud,
deceit, and malice...
:18:32
are mingled
with truth and sincerity.
:18:35
He broods and broods
and broods and broods...
:18:38
and broods and finally
his brains dry up.
:18:43
He lays down the melancholy
burden of sanity...
:18:48
and conceives the strangest
project ever imagined...
:18:52
to become a knight-errant,
and sally forth...
:18:56
to roam the world
in search of adventures...
:18:59
to right all wrongs,
to mount a crusade...