inner natures. The more primitive and “natural” the 
     setting into which they are cast, the better are they able 
     to develop and maintain their humaneness.

          Cervantes presents an array of such marginal 
     figures and situations. There are, first, the mad people—
     Don Quixote and the Man of Glass—who though still 
     operating in the social world are in continuous conflict 
     with it by word and deed. Then in Rinconete and  
     Cortadillo , we meet petty crooks and beggars who live 
     parasitically off the social world. One step farther from 
     the centre we find the gypsies presented in The Little  
     Gypsy  (La Gitana ); they are completely outside the main 
     stream of affairs. Finally, we have the situation wherein 
     Don Quixote, the marginal Knight, speaks to the simple 
     goatherds about the Golden Age in which the unity of