“Return of Don Quixote” Chesterton in brief
The amateur performance, set in the halls of the former medieval abbey and now the estate of Baron Sivud, changed the fate of its participants and many other people, contributed to the age-old struggle of socialist revolutionaries and conservative aristocrats, proved to be a very instructive episode in British history and, at the end he turned his life to the only organic state for her – ordinary happiness.
A lover of antiquity, young and thoughtful Olivia Ashley was the author of the play “Troubadour Blondel”. This historically known troubadour traveled, singing, throughout Europe in the hope that King Richard the Lionheart, captured in Austria on the way from the Holy Land, would hear his songs and respond. He found a king after some hesitation makes a firm decision to return to his homeland, so that under his hand, “the good old England” was preserved and flourished.
The problem of staging the performance is, first of all, the lack of performers.
Then follows the truly heroic comic story of the exploits of Douglas Merrell. He finds an old scientist who knows the secret of medieval scarlet paint. He gets acquainted with his theory of the death of European civilization due to the epidemic of blindness that has affected the Western world and makes to prefer boring modern dyes to inspiring paints of the Middle Ages. He saves this holy defender of brightness from a madhouse. He defeats the demonic psychiatrist, who as a result finds himself in the only worthy place – a cage for the mentally ill. He falls in love with the beautiful daughter of a learned old man. Finally, after ten weeks, Merrell returned to the Sivudian manor with a jar of magical scarlet paint he had extracted. His head is decorated with a coachman’s hat, and he himself runs an old cab – all this he once acquired as a means,
Meanwhile, something extraordinary happens on the huge green meadow of the estate of Siyvud. Above the motley heraldic crowd of nobles, dressed in medieval clothes and armed with medieval weapons, the throne is seated by the king, surrounded by a lush retinue. The extraordinary seriousness and solemnity of the king does not immediately allow him to recognize in him a scientist, a Sylvian librarian. Next to him is the red-haired Rosamund with a gorgeously sparkling award weapon in his hands. In a crowd that looks with astonishment and slight contempt at the strange sight of Douglas Merrell – an inappropriate representative of the Victorian era – he learns many of his secular acquaintances. “What is this? Is the performance dragged on for two and a half months?” “Do you not know?” They answered, “Did not you read the newspapers?” Merrell did not read them. He rolled in his cab on the country roads, bringing only lonely, nowhere in a hurry travelers. Meanwhile, Britain’s political system has radically changed. His Majesty’s Government transferred all the power to the League of Leo, an organization truly born of the amateur play “Troubadour Blondel” due to the fact that the librarian Hern did not want to part with the role of the king. He was supported by a group of like-minded people headed by a passionate Rosamund. In the context of the political crisis that arose due to a powerful strike by miners and workers, the government came to the decision that only a new force, supported by the romantic impulse of love for the good old traditions, can resist the pressure of the socialists led by the untiring, honest and talented John Braintree embodied in the most reactionary league league. Once in power, The League of Leo returned medieval laws and established the rule of England with three battle kings. The King of Western England became Michael Hearn. At the moment, a royal court took place on this meadow, where the king was to resolve the dispute between the striking workers and the owners of the mines and factories. The strikers demanded to transfer the enterprises to those who work for them. The owners of coal and dye enterprises, supported by all the propertied class, stood here, clothed in noble class suits and ready to defend their property and privileges with weapons in their hands. who works for them. The owners of coal and dye enterprises, supported by all the propertied class, stood here, clothed in noble class suits and ready to defend their property and privileges with weapons in their hands. who works for them. The owners of coal and dye enterprises, supported by all the propertied class, stood here, clothed in noble class suits and ready to defend their property and privileges with weapons in their hands.
Before the trial, the king listened to the story of Douglas Merrell. To the great indignation of his adherents, who firmly and unshakably stood for the idea of a medieval masquerade, the king presented Merrell with a premium weapon designed for a true knight who accomplished an unselfish and wonderful feat. And this despite all the obvious absurdity and comic of his adventures!
But the king’s next decision leads the brilliant crowd into such a determined outrage that inevitably puts an end to Hern’s power. First, the king recognized the noble and chivalrous enemy in the “anarchist” Braintree, and secondly, he decided that the factories and mines belong to the workers much more corresponds to the laws of the Middle Ages, than their belonging to former owners who are not even masters of professional shops. Thirdly, the king said that, according to the latest genealogical research, only an insignificant part of the aristocracy gathered here has a genuine right to be called it. Basically, these are the descendants of shopkeepers and millers.
“Enough!” – exclaimed the Lord Prime Minister, who first spoke so recently with the initiative of transferring power to the League of Leo. “Enough!” “Lord Sivud repeated resolutely. “Enough! Enough!” Flashed over the crowd of noble knights. “Take this acter! Take him! Lock him in the book depository!”
The King’s swift retinue disappeared. Only John Braintree, Olivia Ashley and Rosamund Severn were left behind. Douglas Merrell joined them. “Marrel, stop, remember who you really are!” they shouted at him. “I am the last liberal,” the man in the cap of the cabman answered firmly.
It was dawn. A lean horseman with a spear went out to the misty road, followed by a ridiculous rumbling cab. “Why are you following me, Douglas?” asked the knight sternly, an image of sadness. “Because I do not mind being called simply Sancho Panza,” the cabman said from a high place.
How they roamed the roads of England, trying to protect the destitute, discussing the destinies of civilization, helping the weak, reading lectures on history, preaching, fighting not with the mills but with the millers and performing many similar and absolutely unmatched exploits – all of this, perhaps someone else will tell. It is important for us now that in wanderings and adventures their convictions have finally cleared up. Here they are: stop the doctor if you see that he is insane to the patient; do it yourself, for only an honest struggle brings results. And then it followed that Don Quixote needed to return. In the end, they turned to the west, forbidden to them, toward Sivud.
Dreamy Olivia Ashley was convinced that the wonderful color of her childhood completely reproduces the color of the tie of John Braintree. Their noble hearts joined. Douglas Merrell for a long time did not dare to make an offer to the daughter of the old scientist rescued by him: he feared that the feeling of gratitude would not leave her the possibility of refusal. But simplicity won, now they are happy. The return of Michael Hearn, his meeting with Rosamund doomed to happiness and these two. Rosamund, having inherited Siyvud after the death of her father, returned it to a monastic order. There again arose the abbey. Legend has it that the sad knight Michael Herne almost joked for the first time in his life: “When celibacy returns, the true meaning of marriage returns.” And in this joke he was serious, as always.
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