Monsignor Quixote

"It seems very peaceful here. Even the cows. . ."

"You haven't seen a man with a bullet hole through his right trouser leg and a false moustache? Though I expect he has thrown that away."

"No, no. Nothing of the kind."

"Scio cui credidi," Father Quixote said.

"Italian?" the Guardia asked. "The Pope's a great Pope."

"He certainly is."

"No hat or jacket. A striped shirt."

"No one like that has been around here."

"He got that bullet hole in Zamora. Narrow escape. One of ours. How long have you been here?"

"About a quarter of an hour."

"Coming from where?"

"Valladolid."

"Not passed anyone on the road?"

"No."

"He can't have got much further than this in the time."

"What's he done?"

"He robbed a bank at Benavente. Shot the cashier. Escaped on a Honda. Found abandoned -- the Honda, I mean -- five kilometres away. That's why it's not safe leaving your car unlocked like that with the key in the starter."

"Laqueus contritus est," Father Quixote said, "et nos liberati sumus."

"What's the monsignor saying?"

The Mayor said, "I'm not a linguist myself."

"You are on the way to León?"

"Yes."

"Keep an eye open and don't give a lift to any stranger." He saluted the monsignor with courtesy and a certain caution and left them.

"Why were you talking Latin to him?" the Mayor asked.

"It seemed a good thing to do."

"But why. . .?"

"I wanted if possible to avoid a lie," Father Quixote replied. "Even an officious lie, not a malicious one, to use the distinction made by Father Heribert Jone."

"What had you got to lie about?"

"I was confronted very suddenly with the possibility -- you might say the temptation."

The Mayor sighed. Father Quixote's silence had certainly been broken by the wine and he almost regretted it. He said, "Did you find any cheese?"

"I found a quite substantial piece, but I gave it to him."

"The Guardia? Why on earth. . .?"

"No, no, the man he was looking for, of course."

"You mean you've seen the man?"

"Oh yes, that was why I was afraid of questions."

"For God's sake, where is he now?"

"In the boot of the car. It was careless of me, after that, as the Guardia said, to leave the key. . . Somebody might have driven away with him. Oh well, the danger is over now."

For a long moment the Mayor was incapable of speech. Then he said, "What did you do with the wine?"

"Together we put it on the back seat of the car."

"I thank God," the Mayor said, "that I had the number plate changed at Valladolid."

"What do you mean, Sancho?"

"Those Civil Guards will have reported your number at Avila. They'll be on a computer by this time."

"But my papers. . ."

"You've got new ones. Of course it took time. That's why we stayed so long in Valladolid. The garagist there is an old friend and a member of the Party."

"Sancho, Sancho, how many years in prison have we earned?"

"Not half as many as you will get for hiding a fugitive from justice. Whatever induced you. . .?"

"He asked me to help him. He said he was falsely accused and confused with another man."

"With a revolver hole in his trousers? A bank robber?"

"Well, so was your leader, Stalin. So much depends on motive, after all. If Stalin had come to me in confession and explained his reasons honestly I would have given him perhaps a decade of the rosary to say, though I've never given so severe a penance to anyone in El Toboso. You remember what my ancestor told the galley slaves before he released them, 'There is a God in heaven, who does not neglect to punish the wicked nor to reward the good, and it is not right that honourable men should be executioners of others.' That's good Christian doctrine, Sancho. A decade of the rosary -- it's severe enough. We are not executioners or interrogators. The Good Samaritan didn't hold an inquiry into the wounded man's past -- the man who had fallen among thieves -- before he helped him. Perhaps he was a publican and the thieves were only taking back what he had taken from them."

"While you are talking, monsignor, our wounded man is probably dying for lack of air."

They hurried to the car and found the man in a grievous enough state. The false moustache, loosened by sweat, hung down from one corner of his upper lip. It was lucky for him that he was small and had folded fairly easily into the little space which Rocinante offered.

All the same he complained bitterly when they let him out. "I thought I was going to die. What kept you so long?"

"We were doing our best for you," Father Quixote said in much the same words as his ancestor had used. "We are not your judges, but your conscience should tell you that ingratitude is an ignoble sin."

"We've done a great deal too much for you," Sancho said. "Now be off. The Guardia went that way. I would advise you to keep to the fields until you can drown yourself in the city."

"How can I keep to the fields in these shoes, which are rotten from the soles up, and how can I drown myself in the city with a revolver hole in my trousers?"

"You robbed the bank. You can buy yourself a new pair of shoes."

"Who said I robbed a bank?" He pulled out his empty pockets. "Search me," he said. "You call yourselves Christians."

"I don't," the Mayor said. "I am a Marxist."

"I've got a pain in my back. I can't walk a step."

"I've got some aspirin in the car," Father Quixote said. He unlocked the car and began to look in the glove compartment. Behind him he heard a cough twice repeated. "I have some lozenges too," he said. "I suppose there was a draught in the boot." He turned with the medicine in his hand and saw to his surprise that the stranger was holding a revolver. "You mustn't point a thing like that," he said, "it's dangerous."

"What size shoe do you take?" the man demanded.

"I really forget. I think thirty-nine."

"And you?"

"Forty," Sancho said.

"Give me yours," the man commanded Father Quixote.

"They are nearly as rotten as your own."

"Don't argue. I'd take your pants too if they would only fit. Now both of you turn your backs. If one of you moves I shall shoot both."

Father Quixote said, "I don't understand why you went to rob a bank -- if that's what you were doing -- in a pair of rotten shoes."

"I took the wrong pair by mistake. That's why. You can turn round now. Get back into the car, both of you. I'll sit at the back and if you stop anywhere for any reason I shall shoot."

"Where do you want to go?" Sancho asked.

"You will drop me by the cathedral in León."

Father Quixote reversed out of the field with some difficulty.

"You are a very bad driver," the man said.

"It's Rocinante. She never likes going backwards. I'm afraid you haven't much room there with all that wine. Shall I stop and return the case to the boot?"

"No. Go on."

"Whatever happened to your Honda? The Guardia said you abandoned it."

"I ran out of petrol. I had forgotten to fill the tank."

"Wrong pair of shoes. No petrol. It really does look as though God was against your plans."

"Can't you drive any quicker?"

"No. Rocinante is very old. She is apt to break down at over forty." He looked in the driving mirror and saw the revolver pointing at him. "I wish you would relax and put the gun down," he said. "Rocinante sometimes behaves a bit like a camel. If she shakes you up suddenly that thing might go off. You wouldn't be very happy with another man's death on your conscience."

"What do you mean? Another man?"

"The poor fellow in the bank whom you killed."

"I didn't kill him. I missed."

"God does certainly seem have been working overtime," Father Quixote said, "to preserve you from grave sin."

"Anyway, it wasn't a bank. It was a self-service store."

"The Guardia said a bank."

"Oh, they would say it was a bank even if it was a public lavatory. They feel more important that way."

As they entered the city Father Quixote noticed that the gun always disappeared from view when they stopped at traffic lights. He could perhaps have jumped out of the car, but that would have left Sancho in danger, and if he tempted the man to further violence he would be sharing his sin. In any case he had no wish to be an instrument of human justice. It was a great relief when they met no Guardia or Carabinero before they drew up as close to the cathedral as he could get. "Let me look around and see that it is safe," he said.

"If you betray me," the man said, "I will shoot your friend."

Father Quixote opened the door. "All's well," he said. "You can go."

"If you are lying," the man warned, "the first bullet's for you."

"Your moustache has fallen off," Father Quixote told him. "It's stuck to your shoe -- I mean my shoe."

They watched the man out of sight.

"At least he didn't assault me like the galley slaves assaulted my forebear," Father Quixote said.

"Stay in the car while I go and buy you some shoes. You said size thirty-nine?"

"Would you mind if we went into the cathedral first? It's been rather a strain, keeping Rocinante from bucking. If he had killed us the poor man would have been in really serious trouble. I would like to sit down just for a little in the cool -- and to pray. I won't keep you long."

"I thought you were doing a lot of that while you drove."

"Oh yes, I was -- but those were prayers for the poor man. I'd like to thank God now for our safety."

The stone struck cold through his purple socks. He regretted that in Salamanca he had not chosen the woollen ones. He was dwarfed by the great height of the nave and the flood of light through a hundred and twenty windows which might have been the gaze of God. He felt as though he were an infinitely small creature set on the slide of a microscope. He escaped to a side altar and knelt down. He didn't know what to say. When he thought, "Thank you," the words seemed as hollow as an echo - he felt no gratitude for his escape, perhaps he would have been able to feel a little gratitude if a bullet had struck him -- this is the end. They would have taken his body back to El Toboso and there he would have been at home again and not on this absurd pilgrimage -- to what? Or where?

It seemed a waste of time trying and failing to pray, so he gave up the attempt and instead tried to exclude all thought, to be aware of nothing, to enter a complete silence, and after a long while he did feel himself on the threshold of Nothing with only one step to take. Then he became aware of his left big toe colder than the other on the cathedral stone, and he thought: I have a hole in my sock. The sock -- why had he not insisted on wool? -- was not worth the price at that grand establishment patronized by Opus Dei.

He made the sign of the cross and rejoined Sancho.

"Have you prayed enough?" the Mayor asked him.

"I haven't prayed at all."

They left Rocinante parked and walked at random through the streets. Just off the Burgo Nuevo they found a shoe shop. The hot pavements burnt Father Quixote's feet and the hole from which his left big toe protruded had grown considerably larger. It was a small shop and the proprietor looked at his feet with astonishment.

"I want a pair of black shoes, size thirty-nine," Father Quixote said.

"Yes, yes, please take a seat." The man produced a pair and knelt before him. Father Quixote thought: I am like the statue of St Peter in Rome. Will he kiss my toe? He laughed.

"What's funny?" the Mayor asked.

"Oh, nothing, nothing. A thought."

"You will find the leather of this pair very soft and supple, Your Excellency."

"I am not a bishop," Father Quixote said, "only a monsignor and God forgive me for that."

The man fitted the shoe over the undamaged sock. "If the monsignor would just take a few steps. . ."

"I've taken more than a few steps in León already. Your pavements are hard."

"Certainly they must have been, monsignor, walking without shoes."

"These shoes are very comfortable. I will take them."

"Would you like them wrapped or will you wear them, monsignor?"

"Of course I will wear them. Do you think I want to walk barefoot?"

"I thought perhaps. . . Well, I thought, maybe it was a penance. . ."

"No, no, I am not, I fear, a holy man."

He sat down again and let the man fit the other shoe over the protruding toe which he adjusted with gentleness and even a touch of reverence, pushing it back into the sock. It was obvious that to be in contact with a monsignor's naked toe was a new experience for him.

"And the other shoes? The monsignor does not require them wrapped?"

"What other shoes?"

"The ones that monsignor has discarded."

"I didn't discard them. They discarded me," Father Quixote said. "I don't even know where they are. Far away from here, I expect, by this time. They were old shoes anyway. Not so good as these."

The man saw them to the shop door. He asked, "If you would give me your blessing, monsignor?" Father Quixote sketched the sign of the cross and mumbled. In the street he commented, "The man was far too respectful for my liking."

"The circumstances were not normal, and I'm afraid he is likely to remember us."

On the way back to Rocinante they passed a post office. Father Quixote halted. He said, "I am anxious."

"You have reason. If that scoundrel you saved is caught and talks. . ."

"I was not thinking of him. I was thinking of Teresa. I can feel in my head like a thunderstorm that something is wrong. We have been away such a long time."

"Four days."

"It's not possible. It seems a month at least. Please let me telephone."

"Go ahead, but be quick about it. The sooner we are out of León the better."

Teresa answered the telephone. Before he had time to speak she said in a tone of fury, "Father Herrera is not here and I don't know when he will return." She cut the line.

"Something is wrong," Father Quixote said. He dialled again and this time he spoke at once. "This is Father Quixote, Teresa."

"Praise be to God," Teresa said. "Where are you?"

"León."

"Where's that?"

The Mayor said, "You shouldn't have told her."

"What are you doing there, father?"

"Telephoning to you."

"Father, the bishop is in a terrible state."

"Is he ill, poor man?"

"He's in a holy rage."

"What's wrong, Teresa?"

"He's been on the telephone twice to Father Herrera. Half an hour it was they were talking both times with no thought of expense."

"But what about, Teresa?"

"About you, of course. They said you are mad. They say you should be shut in a madhouse to save the honour of the Church."

"But why? Why?"

"The Guardia have been searching for you in Avila."

"I haven't been in Avila."

"They know that. They say you are in Valladolid. And they say you exchanged clothes with the Red Mayor to escape."

"It's not true."

"They think you might be mixed up with those mad Basques."

"How do you know all this, Teresa?"

"Do you think I'd let them use your telephone and not leave the kitchen door open?"

"Let me speak to Father Herrera."

"Give nothing away," Sancho said. "Nothing."

"Father Herrera is not here. He left yesterday before it was light to see the bishop. The bishop's in such a fetch it wouldn't surprise me if he telephoned to the Holy Father himself about you. Father Herrera said to me it was a terrible mistake that the Holy Father made appointing you a monsignor. I said to him that's blasphemy. The Holy Father can't make mistakes."

"Oh yes, he can, Teresa -- little mistakes. I think I'd better come home at once."

"You can't do that, father. The Guardia will grab you for sure and you'll end your days in the madhouse."

"But I'm no more mad than Father Herrera is. Or the bishop, come to that."

"They'll pretend you are. I heard Father Herrera say to the bishop, 'He's got to be kept out of mischief. For the sake of the Church.' Stay away, father."

"Goodbye, Teresa."

"You will stay away?"

"I must think about it, Teresa."

Father Quixote said to the Mayor, "The Guardia have been in touch with the bishop and the bishop with Father Herrera. They think I'm mad."

"Well, there's no harm in that. They thought your ancestor was mad too. Perhaps Father Herrera will behave like the Canon and start burning your books."

"God forbid. I ought to go home, Sancho."

"That would prove you mad indeed. We have to get away from here quickly, but not to El Toboso. You should never have told Teresa that you were in León."

"She has a mouth like a padlock. Don't worry. Why, she never even told me about the horse steaks."

"There's a lot else to worry about. These computers work like lightning. They may be confused for a while by the change in the number plate, but if the Guardia have fed your title into the machine, we are in for trouble. We'll have to take off your bib and your socks again. I don't suppose there are many monsignors driving around in an old Seat 600."

As they walked rapidly away to where they had parked Rocinante, Sancho said, "I think we should abandon the car and take a bus."

"We've done nothing wrong."

"The danger is not what we have done, but what they think we have done. Even if it's no longer a crime to read Marx it's still a crime to hide a bank robber."

"He was not a bank robber."

"A self-service store robber then -- it's a crime to hide him in the boot of your car."

"I won't abandon Rocinante." They had reached the car and he put his hand protectively on the wing where he could feel a dent which had been caused when he scraped once against the butcher's car in El Toboso. "Do you know Shakespeare's play Henry VIII?"

"No, I much prefer Lope de Vega."

"I wouldn't like Rocinante to reproach me as Cardinal Wolsey did his King.

"Had I but serv'd my God with half the zeal

I serv'd my king, he would not in mine age

Have left me naked to mine enemies."

You see this bruise on her bonnet, Sancho? It was seven years ago and more that she suffered it through my fault. Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa."

2

They drove out of León the quickest way, but as the road climbed Rocinante showed signs of fatigue. The mountains of León rose before them, grey, stony, jagged. The Mayor said, "You told me you wanted silence. The time has come to choose between the silence of Burgos and the silence of Osera."

"Burgos is a place of unhappy associations."

"Bravo, monsignor, I had thought the memory of the Generalissimo's headquarters might have attracted you."

"I prefer the silence of peace to the silence which comes after success -- that silence is like the permanent silence of death. And not a good death either. But you, Sancho -- doesn't the thought of a monastery repel you?"

"Why should it? They can defend us against worse evils, as Marx wrote. Besides, a monastery has the same advantage for us as a brothel. If we don't stay too long. There are no forms to fill up."

"Osera then, Sancho, and the Trappists."

"We shall at least have good Galician wine there. Our manchegan will soon be running low."

They picnicked on wine only, for the cheese was gone with the robber and the sausage was finished. They were nearly a thousand metres up and the whole empty landscape lay below them, and a small wind freshened the air. They finished a bottle quickly and Sancho opened another. "Is that wise?" Father Quixote asked.

"Wisdom is not absolute," Sancho said. "Wisdom is relative to a given situation. Wisdom too varies with the individual case. For me it is wise to drink another half bottle in a situation like ours when we have no food. For you of course it may well be folly. In that case, when the time comes, I will have to judge what it is wise for me to do with your half of the bottle."

"That time is unlikely to come," Father Quixote said. "In my wisdom I must prevent you drinking more than your share," and he poured himself out a glass. He added, "I don't understand why our lack of food can affect the wisdom of our choice."

"It is obvious," Sancho said. "Wine contains sugar and sugar is a very valuable food."

"In that case if we had enough wine we should never starve."

"Exactly, but there is always a fallacy to be found in a logical argument -- even in those of your St Thomas Aquinas. If we substituted wine for food we would have to stay where we are and so we would eventually run out of wine."

"Why would we have to stay?"

"Because neither of us would be capable of driving."

"True enough. Logical thought does often lead to absurd situations. There is a popular saint in La Mancha who lost her virginity when she was raped by a Moor in her own kitchen when he was unarmed and she had a kitchen knife in her hand."

"She wanted to be raped, I suppose."

"No, no, her thought was quite logical. Her virginity was less important than the salvation of the Moor. By killing him at that moment she was robbing him of any chance of salvation. An absurd and yet, when one thinks of it, a beautiful story."

"This wine is making you talkative, monsignor. I wonder how you will put up with silence in the monastery."

"We shall not have to be silent, Sancho, and the monks have permission to speak to their guests."

"How quickly this second bottle has vanished. Do you remember -- what a long time ago it seems -- how you tried to explain the Trinity to me?"

"Yes. And I made that terrible mistake. I allowed a half bottle to represent the Holy Ghost."

"We won't make that mistake again," Sancho said as he opened a third bottle.

Father Quixote made no protest, and yet the wine was working in his brain like an irritant. He was ready to take offence as soon as an opportunity arose.

"I am glad," the Mayor said, "that unlike your ancestor you enjoy your wine. Don Quixote frequently stopped at an inn, he had at least four of his adventures at an inn, but we never hear of him drinking so much as a glass. Like us, he had many meals of cheese in the open air but never a glass of good manchegan to wash it down. As a travel companion he wouldn't have suited me. Thank God, in spite of your saintly books, you can drink deep when you choose."

"Why are you always saddling me with my ancestor?"

"I was only comparing. . ."

"You talk about him at every opportunity, you pretend that my saints' books are like his books of chivalry, you compare our little adventures with his. Those Guardia were Guardia, not windmills. I am Father Quixote, and not Don Quixote. I tell you, I exist. My adventures are my own adventures, not his. I go my way -- my way -- not his. I have free will. I am not tethered to an ancestor who has been dead these four hundred years."

"I am sorry, father. I thought you were proud of your ancestor. I never meant to offend."

"Oh, I know what you think. You think my God is an illusion like the windmills. But He exists, I tell you, I don't just believe in Him. I touch Him."

"Is he soft or hard?"

Father Quixote began to raise himself in wrath from the grass.

"No, no, father. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to joke. I respect your belief as you respect mine. Only there's a difference. I know that Marx and Lenin existed. You only believe."

"I tell you it's not a question of belief. I touch Him."

"Father, we've had a good time together. This is the third bottle. I raise my glass in honour of the Trinity. You can't refuse to drink that toast with me."

Father Quixote stared glumly into his glass. "No, I can't refuse, but. . ." He drank and this time he felt his anger dissipate and in place of the anger a great sadness grew. He said, "Do you think that I am a little drunk, Sancho?" Sancho saw tears in his eyes.

"Father, our friendship. . ."

"Yes, yes, nothing can alter that, Sancho. I only wish I had the right words."

"For what?"

"And the learning too. I am a very ignorant man. There was so much that I was supposed to teach in El Toboso that I didn't understand. I didn't think twice about it. The Trinity. Natural Law. Mortal sin. I taught them words out of textbooks. I never said to myself, do I believe these things? I went home and read my saints. They wrote of love. I could understand that. The other things didn't seem important."

"I don't understand what worries you, father."

"You worry me, Sancho. Four days of your company worry me. I think of myself laughing when I blew up that balloon. That film. . . Why wasn't I shocked? Why didn't I walk out? El Toboso seems a hundred years away. I don't feel myself at all, Sancho. There's a giddiness. . ."

"You are a little drunk, father. That's all."

"Are these the usual symptoms?"

Talking a lot. . . giddiness. . . yes."

"And sadness?"

"It takes some people that way. Others become noisy and gay."

"I think I shall have to stick to tonic water. I don't feel up to driving."

"I could take the wheel."

"Rocinante doesn't like a strange hand. I would like to sleep for a little now before we go on. If I've said anything to offend you, Sancho, forgive me. It was the wine that spoke, not me."

"You've said nothing bad. Lie down for a while, father, and I'll keep watch. Vodka has given me a good head."

Father Quixote found a patch of soft turf between the rocks and lay down, but sleep did not come immediately. He said, "Father Heribert Jone found drunkenness a more serious sin than gluttony. I don't understand that. A little drunkenness has brought us together, Sancho. It helps friendship. Gluttony surely is a solitary vice. A form of onanism. And yet I remember Father Jone writing that it is only a venial sin. 'Even if vomiting is produced.' Those are his very words."

"I wouldn't accept Father Jone as an authority on morals any more than I would accept Trotsky as an authority on Communism."

"Do people really do terrible things when they are drunk?"

"Perhaps, sometimes, if they lose control. But that's not always bad. It's good to lose control on occasions. In love for example."

"Like those people in the film?"

"Well, yes, perhaps."

"Perhaps if they had drunk a little more they would have been blowing up balloons."

An odd sound came from the rocks. It took a moment for the Mayor to recognize it as a laugh. Father Quixote said, "You are my moral theologian, Sancho," and a moment later a light snore took the place of the laugh.

3

It had been a tiring day, they had drunk well, and after a little while the Mayor too slept. He had a dream -- it was one of those final dreams one has before waking of which even the small details stay hauntingly in the memory. He was searching for Father Quixote, who was lost. The Mayor was carrying the purple socks and he was worried because the mountainous path Father Quixote had taken was very rough for a man barefooted. Indeed, he came here and there on traces of blood. Several times he tried to shout Father Quixote's name, but the sound always died in his throat. Suddenly he emerged on to a great marble paving and there in front was the church of El Toboso from which strange sounds were coming. He went into the church, carrying the purple socks, and perched up on top of the altar like a sacred image was Father Quixote, and the congregation laughed and Father Quixote wept. The Mayor woke with a sense of a final, irreparable disaster. The dark had fallen. He was alone.

He went, as in his dream, to look for Father Quixote, and he was relieved to find him. Father Quixote had moved a little way down the slope, perhaps so as to be closer to Rocinante, perhaps because the ground was softer there. He had taken off his socks and made a pillow with them for his head with the help of his shoes and he was deeply asleep.

The Mayor hadn't the heart to wake him. The hour was too late to take the by-road to Osera now and the Mayor felt it much safer not to return to León. He again found his chosen spot out of sight of Father Quixote and he soon slept, untroubled by any dream.

When he woke the sun was up and he was no longer in the shade. It was time to be off, he thought, and to seek coffee in the next village. He needed coffee. Vodka never caused him any trouble, but too much wine upset him rather as a tiresome reformist would have done in the Party. He went to wake Father Quixote, but the priest was not in the place where he had left him, although the socks and the shoes which had served as a pillow were still there. He called Father Quixote's name several times without effect and the sound of his own voice recalled his dream. He sat down and waited, thinking that Father Quixote had probably gone to get rid of the wine in a private place. But he could hardly have taken ten minutes -- no bladder could hold that quantity of liquid. Perhaps they were moving in circles and Father Quixote, after draining himself dry, had gone to find his friend's sleeping place. So the Mayor returned there with the purple socks in his hand and this again brought back his dream in a disquieting way. Father Quixote was nowhere to be seen.

The Mayor thought: He may have gone to see whether Rocinante is safe. The day before, under the Mayor's instruction, Father Quixote had driven Rocinante a little way off the road behind a heap of sand left over from some long-ago road repairs, so that she would be almost invisible to any Guardia passing by.

Father Quixote was not beside the car, but Rocinante had company now -- a Renault was parked behind her, and a young couple in blue jeans sat among the rocks with haversacks beside them which they were filling with cups and saucers and plates left over, judging by the debris, from a very good breakfast. The Mayor felt hungry at the sight. They seemed friendly, they greeted him with a smile, and he asked with some hesitation, "I wonder if you could spare me a roll?"

They gazed at him, he thought, nervously. He realized how unshaven he was and that he was still carrying the purple socks. He could tell too that they were foreigners. The man said in an American accent, "I am afraid I don't understand much Spanish. Parlez-vous Français?

"Un petit peu," the Mayor said, "très petit peu."

"Comme moi," the man said and there was an awkward pause.

"J'ai faim," the Mayor said. The quality of his French made him feel like a beggar. "J'ai pensé si vous avez fini votre --" he sought the word in vain -- "votre desayuno. . ."

"Desayuno?

It was astonishing, the Mayor thought, how many foreign tourists went travelling around Spain without even knowing the most essential words.

"Ronald," the girl said in her incomprehensible tongue, "I'll go fetch the dictionary from the car."

The Mayor noticed when she got up that she had long attractive legs and he touched his cheek -- a gesture of sadness for vanished youth. He said, "Il faut me pardonner, Señorita. . . Je n'ai pas. . ." but he realized that he didn't know the French word for "shave".

The two men stood facing each other in silence until she returned. Even then conversation was difficult. The Mayor said very slowly with a pause between each important word so that the girl had time to find it in her pocket dictionary, "If you have -- finished -- your breakfast. . ."

"Desayuno means breakfast," the girl told her companion with an air of delighted discovery.

". . . could I have a bollo?"

"Bollo -- a penny loaf, it says," the girl interpreted, "but ours cost a lot more than a penny."

"Dictionaries are always out of date," her companion said. "You can't expect them to keep up with inflation."

"I am very hungry," the Mayor told them, pronouncing the key word carefully.

The girl flicked her pages over. "Ambriento -- wasn't that the word? I can't find it."

"Try with an H. I don't think they pronounce the h's."

"Oh then, here it is. 'Eager'. But what's he eager for?"

"Isn't there another meaning?"

"Oh yes, how crazy of me. 'Hungry'. That must be it. He's hungry for a penny loaf."

"There are two left. Give him both. And look -- give the poor devil this as well," and he handed her a hundred-peseta note.

The Mayor took the loaves and rejected the money. To explain the reason he pointed first at Rocinante and then at himself.

"My goodness," the girl said, "it's his car and we go and offer him a hundred pesetas." She put both hands together and raised them in a rather Eastern gesture. The Mayor smiled. He realized that it was an apology.

The young man said sullenly, "How was I to know?"

The Mayor began to eat one of the rolls. The girl searched in the dictionary. "Mantequilla?" she asked.

"Man take what?" her companion demanded in a disagreeable tone.

"I'm asking if he'd like some butter."

"I've finished it. It wasn't worth keeping."

The Mayor shook his head and finished the roll. He put the other one in his pocket, "Para mi amigo," he explained.

"Why! I understood that," the girl said with delight. "It's for his girl. Don't you remember in Latin -- amo I love, amas you love? I've forgotten how it goes on. I bet they've been making out in the bush like us."

The Mayor put his hand to his mouth and shouted again, but there was no reply.

"How can you tell it's a girl?" the man asked. He was determined to be difficult. "In Spanish it's probably like in French. An ami can be any sex unless you see it written."

"Oh goodness," the girl said, "do you think it could be that corpse we saw them carrying. . .?"

"We don't know it was a corpse. If it was a corpse why is he keeping that roll?"

"Ask him."

"How can I? You've got the dictionary."

The Mayor tried shouting again. Only a faint echo answered.

"It certainly looked like a corpse," the girl said.

"They may have been just taking him to hospital."

"You always have such uninteresting explanations of everything. Anyway, he wouldn't need a roll in hospital."

"In underdeveloped countries the relations often have to bring food to the patient."

"Spain isn't an underdeveloped country."

"That's what you say."

They seemed to be quarrelling about something and the Mayor wandered back to Father Quixote's sleeping place. The mystery of the disappearance and the memory of his dream weighed on the Mayor's spirits, and he returned to Rocinante.

In his absence they had consulted the dictionary to some effect. "Camilla," the girl said, pronouncing it rather oddly so that the Mayor didn't at first catch the meaning.

"Are you sure that you've got it right?" the man asked. "It sounds more like a girl's name than a stretcher. I don't see why you looked up stretcher anyway. They hadn't got a stretcher."

"But don't you see it conveys the meaning?" the girl insisted. "Can you find one word in the dictionary which would describe someone being carried past us by the head and feet?"

"What about simply 'carried'?"

"The dictionary only gives the infinitive of verbs, but I'll try if you like. Transportar," she said, "Camilla." The Mayor suddenly understood what she was trying to say, but it was all he did understand.

"Dónde?" he asked with a sense of despair. "Dónde?"

"I think he means 'where'," the man said, and he became suddenly an inspired communicator. He strode to his car, he opened the door, he bent double and appeared to shovel something heavy inside. Then he waved his arms in the direction of León and said, "Gone with the wind."

The Mayor sat abruptly down on a rock. What could have happened? Had the Guardia tracked them down? But surely the Guardia would have waited to catch Father Quixote's companion? And why should they carry Father Quixote off on a stretcher? Had they shot him and then taken fright at what they had done? His head was bowed under the pressure of his thoughts.

"Poor man," the girl whispered, "he's mourning for his dead friend. I think we'd better go away quietly."

They picked up their knapsacks and tiptoed to their car.

"It's sort of exciting," the girl said as she settled herself down, "but it's terribly, terribly sad, of course. I feel like I was in church."

PART TWO

I

MONSIGNOR QUIXOTE ENCOUNTERS THE BISHOP

1

When Father Quixote opened his eyes he was surprised to see that the countryside was in rapid motion on either side, while he lay quietly in almost the same position as the one in which he had fallen asleep. Trees pelted past him and then a house. He supposed his vision had been affected by the wine which he had drunk and with a sigh at his lack of wisdom and a resolve to be more restrained in future he closed them and was immediately asleep again.

He was half woken a second time by a strange jolting motion that ceased abruptly and he felt his body sag and come to rest on what seemed like a cold sheet instead of the rather prickly ground on which he had been lying. It was all very odd. He put his hand behind his head to adjust the pillow. A woman's voice said with indignation, "And what in the name of the blessed Virgin have you done to the poor father?"

Another voice said, "Don't worry, woman. He'll wake up in a minute. Go and make him a good strong cup of coffee."

"It's tea he always takes."

"Tea, then, and make it strong. I'll stay here till he wakes and so will. . ." But Father Quixote slid again into the peace and the pleasure of sleep. He dreamt of the three balloons which he had inflated and released into the air: two were big and one was small. This worried him. He wanted to catch the small one and blow it up to match the others. He woke again, blinked twice and realized quite clearly that he was home in El Toboso lying on his old bed. Fingers felt his pulse.

"Dr Galvan," he exclaimed. "You! What are you doing in El Toboso?"

"Don't worry," the doctor said soothingly. "You will soon be yourself again."

"Where is Sancho?"

"Sancho?"

"The Mayor."

"We left the fellow in his drunken sleep."

"Rocinante?"

"Your car? No doubt he'll bring it back. Unless, of course, he slips across the border."

"How did I come here?"

"I thought it best to give you a little injection. To calm you."

"Wasn't I calm?"

"You were asleep, but I thought that in the circumstances your reaction to our coming might make you -- excitable."

"Who was the other?"

"What do you mean -- the other?"

"You said 'our coming'."

"Oh, your good friend, Father Herrera, was with me, of course."

"And you brought me here -- against my will?"

"This is your home, my old friend -- El Toboso. Where better could you stay and rest awhile?"

"I don't need any rest. You've even undressed me."

"We took off your outer things, that's all."

"My trousers!"

"You mustn't get excited. It's bad for you. Trust me -- you need a short period of repose. The bishop himself appealed to Father Herrera to find you and bring you home before things went too far. Father Herrera telephoned me in Ciudad Real. Teresa gave him my name and as I have a cousin in the Ministry of the Interior the Guardia were very understanding and helpful. It was so lucky that you telephoned Teresa from León."

Teresa came into the room carrying a cup of tea. "Father, father," she said, "what a blessed thing it is to see you alive and well. . ."

"Not quite well yet, Teresa," Dr Galvan corrected her, "but after a few weeks of quiet. . ."

"Weeks of quiet indeed. I shall get up at once." He made an effort and sank down again on the bed.

"A bit giddy, eh? Don't worry. That merely comes from the injections. I had to give you two more on the road."

There was the gleam of a white collar catching the sun and Father Herrera stood in the doorway. "How is he?" he asked.

"Getting along nicely, nicely."

"You two have been guilty," Father Quixote said, "of a criminal action. Abduction, medical treatment without the patient's consent. . ."

"I had clear instructions from the bishop," Father Herrera replied, "to bring you home."

"Que le den por el saco al obispo," Father Quixote said, and a deathly silence followed his words. Even Father Quixote was shocked at himself. Where on earth could he have learnt such a phrase, how was it that it came so quickly and unexpectedly to his tongue? From what remote memory? Then the silence was broken by a giggle. It was the first time Father Quixote had ever heard Teresa laugh. He said, "I must get up. At once. Where are my trousers?"

"I have them in my care," Father Herrera said. "The words you have just used. . . I could never bring myself to repeat them. . . such words in the mouth of a priest, a monsignor. . ."

Father Quixote felt a wild temptation to use the same unrepeatable phrase about his title of monsignor, but he resisted it. "Bring me my trousers at once," he said, "I want to get up."

"An obscene expression like that proves that you are not in your right mind."

"I told you to bring me my trousers."

"Patience, patience," Dr Galvan said. "In a few days. Now you need to rest. Above all, no excitement."

"My trousers!"

"They will remain in my care until you are better," Father Herrera said.

"Teresa!" Father Quixote appealed to his only friend.

"He's locked them up in a drawer. God forgive me, father. I didn't know what he intended."

"What do you expect me to do, lying here in bed?"

"A little meditation would not be amiss," Father Herrera said. "You have been behaving in a very curious way."

"What do you mean?"

"The Guardia at Avila reported that you had exchanged clothes with your companion and given a false address."

"A total misunderstanding."

"A bank robber arrested in Leon said that you gave him your shoes and hid him in your car."

"He wasn't a bank robber. It was only a self-service store."

"His Excellency and I had a lot of trouble persuading the Guardia to take no action. The bishop even had to telephone His Excellency at Avila to intercede. Dr Galvan's cousin was of great help also. And Dr Galvan too, of course. We were able at least to convince them that you were suffering from a nervous breakdown."

"That's nonsense."

"It's the most charitable explanation possible for your conduct. Anyway, we have narrowly avoided a great scandal in the Church." He qualified his statement. "So far at least."

"And now sleep a little," Dr Galvan told Father Quixote. "A little soup at midday," he instructed Teresa, "and perhaps an omelette in the evening. No wine for the moment. I'll drop in this evening and see how our patient is doing, but don't wake him up if he is asleep."

"And mind," Father Herrera told her, "to tidy up the sitting-room while I am at Mass tomorrow morning. I don't know at what hour the bishop will be arriving."

"The bishop?" Teresa exclaimed and her question was echoed by Father Quixote.

Father Herrera did not bother to reply. He went out, closing the door not with a bang, but with what one might perhaps describe as a snap. Father Quixote turned his head on the pillow towards Dr Galvan. "Doctor," he said, "you are an old friend. You remember that time when I had pneumonia?"

"Of course I do. Let me think. It must have been nearly thirty years ago."

"Yes, I was very afraid to die in those days. I had so much on my conscience. I expect you've forgotten what you said to me."

"I suppose I told you to drink as much water as you could."

"No, it wasn't that." He searched in his memory, but the exact words wouldn't come. "You said something like this -- think of the millions who are dying between one tick of the clock and the next -- thugs and thieves and swindlers and schoolmasters and good fathers and mothers, bank managers and doctors, chemists and butchers -- do you really believe He has the time to bother or to condemn?"

"Did I really say that?"

"More or less. You didn't know what a great comfort it was to me. Now you have heard Father Herrera -- it's not God but the bishop who's coming to see me. I wish you had a word of comfort for his visit."

"That's altogether a more difficult problem," Dr Galvan said, "but perhaps you have already said it. 'Bugger the bishop.' "

2

Father Quixote strictly obeyed the advice of Dr Galvan. He slept as much as he could, he drank soup at midday, he ate half his omelette in the evening. He thought how much better cheese had tasted in the open air with a bottle of manchegan wine.

He woke automatically in the morning at a quarter past five (for more than thirty years he had said Mass at six in the almost empty church). Now he lay in bed and listened for the sound of a door closing which would signal the departure of Father Herrera but it was nearly seven before the clap came. Father Herrera had obviously altered the time of Mass. The pain this gave him he knew was quite unreasonable. Father Herrera in doing that might even add two or three to the congregation.

Father Quixote waited five minutes (for Father Herrera might possibly have forgotten something -- a handkerchief perhaps) and then he stole on tiptoe to the living-room. A sheet had been neatly folded on the armchair underneath a pillow. Father Herrera certainly had the virtue of tidiness if tidiness be a virtue. Father Quixote looked along his bookshelves. Alas! He had left his favourite reading in the care of Rocinante. St Francis de Sales, his usual comforter, was off somewhere on the roads of Spain. He picked out the Confessions of St Augustine and the Spiritual Letters of the eighteenth-century Jesuit, Father Caussade, which he had sometimes found consoling when he was a seminarian, and returned to bed. Teresa had heard his movements and brought him a cup of tea with a roll and butter. She was in a very bad mood.

"Who does he think I am?" she demanded. "Tidy up while he is at Mass. Haven't I tidied up for you for twenty years and more? I don't need him or the bishop to teach me my duty."

"You really think the bishop is coming?"

"Oh, they are thick as thieves, those two. On the telephone morning, noon and night ever since you left. Always Excellency, Excellency, Excellency. You would think he was talking to God himself."

"My ancestor," Father Quixote said, "was at least spared the bishop when the priest brought him home. And I prefer Dr Galvan to that stupid barber who told my ancestor all those tales about madmen. How could such stories of madmen have cured him if he had been really mad, which I don't for a moment believe. Oh well, we must look on the bright side, Teresa. I don't think they will try to burn my books."

"Not burn them perhaps, but Father Herrera told me how I was to keep your study locked. He said he didn't want you tiring your head with books. Anyway, not till after the bishop had been."

"But you didn't lock the door, Teresa. You can see I have two books with me."

"Is it me who would lock you out of your own room, when it hurts me to see that young priest sit there as though it belonged to him? But better hide the books under the sheet when the bishop comes. They are two of a kind, those two."

He heard Father Herrera return from Mass: he heard the clatter of plates for the priest's breakfast -- Teresa was making twice the noise in the kitchen that she would have made for him. He turned to Father Caussade who was a more comforting presence to have at his bedside than Father Heribert Jone. He pretended to himself that Father Caussade was sitting beside his bed to hear his confession. Was it four days that had passed or five?

"Father, since my last confession ten days ago. . ." He was worried again by the laughter which had so nearly come to him, as he watched the film in Valladolid, and by the absence of any kind of desire which would prove him human and give him a sense of shame. Was it possible that he had even picked up in the cinema the vulgar phrase which he had used in talking of the bishop? But there had been no bishop in the film. The obscene words had caused Teresa to laugh and Dr Galvan had even repeated them. He said to Father Caussade: "If there was a sin in her laughter or in Dr Galvan's counsel, the sin was mine, mine only." There was a worse sin. Under the influence of wine he had minimized the importance of the Holy Ghost by comparing it to a half bottle of manchegan. It was certainly a black record with which he had to face the reprobation of the bishop, but it was not really the bishop he feared. He feared himself. He felt as though he had been touched by the wing-tip of the worst sin of all, despair.

He opened Father Caussade's Spiritual Letters at random. The first passage he read had no relevance at all as far as he could understand it. "In my opinion your too frequent contacts with your many relations and others in the world are a stumbling block to your advancement." Father Caussade, it was true, was writing to a nun, but all the same. . . A priest and a nun are closely allied. I never wanted to be advanced, he protested to the empty air, I never wanted to be a monsignor, and I have no relatives except a second cousin in Mexico.

Without much hope he opened the book a second time, but this time he was rewarded, although the paragraph he had fixed on began discouragingly. "Have I ever in my life made a good confession? Has God pardoned me? Am I in a good or a bad state?" He was tempted to close the book but he read on. "I at once reply: God wishes to conceal all that from me, so that I may blindly abandon myself to His mercies. I do not wish to know what He does not wish to show me and I wish to proceed in the midst of whatever darkness He may plunge me into. It is His business to know the state of my progress, mine to occupy myself with Him alone. He will take care of all the rest; I leave it to Him."

"I leave it to Him," Father Quixote repeated aloud and at that moment the door of his room opened and Father Herrera's voice announced, "His Excellency is here."

Father Quixote had for a moment the odd impression that Father Herrera had suddenly grown old -- the collar was the same blinding white, but the hair was white too and Father Herrera of course did not wear a bishop's ring or a big cross slung round his neck. But he would in time wear both, he certainly would in time, Father Quixote thought.

"I am sorry, Excellency. If you will give me a few minutes grace I will be with you in the study."

"Stay where you are, monsignor," the bishop said. (He rolled out the title monsignor with an obvious bitterness.) He took from his sleeve a white silk handkerchief and dusted the chair beside the bed, looked carefully at the handkerchief to see how far it might have been soiled, lowered himself into the chair and put his hand on the sheet. But as Father Quixote was not in a position in which he could genuflect he thought it was permissible to leave out the kiss and the bishop after a brief pause withdrew his hand. Then the bishop pursed his lips and following a moment's reflection blew out the monosyllable: "Well!"

Father Herrera was standing in the doorway like a bodyguard. The bishop told him, "You can leave me and the monsignor --" the word seemed to burn his tongue for he made a grimace -- "to have our little discussion alone." Father Herrera withdrew.

The bishop clutched the cross on his purple pechera as though he were seeking a higher than human wisdom. It seemed an anti-climax to Father Quixote when he said, "I trust you are feeling better."

"I am feeling perfectly well," Father Quixote replied. "My holiday has done me much good."

"Not if the reports I have received are true."

"What reports?"

"The Church always struggles to keep above politics."

"Always?"

"You know very well what I thought of your unfortunate involvement with the organization In Vinculis."

"It was an impromptu act of charity, Excellency. I admit that I didn't really think. . . Perhaps with charity one shouldn't think. Charity like love should be blind."

"You have been promoted for reasons quite beyond my comprehension to the rank of monsignor. A monsignor should always think. He must guard the dignity of the Church."

"I did not ask to be a monsignor. I do not like being a monsignor. The dignity of the parish priest of El Toboso is difficult enough to support."

"I do not pay attention to every rumour, monsignor. The mere fact that a man is a member of Opus Dei does not necessarily make him a reliable witness. I will take your word if you give it to me that you didn't go into a certain shop in Madrid and ask to buy a cardinal's hat."

"That was not me. My friend made a harmless little joke. . ."

"Harmless? That friend of yours, I believe, is a former Mayor of El Toboso. A Communist. You choose very unsuitable friends and travelling companions, monsignor."

"I don't need to remind Your Excellency that Our Lord. . ."

"Oh yes, yes. I know what you are going to say. The text about publicans and sinners has always been very carelessly used to justify a lot of imprudence. St Matthew, chosen by Our Lord, was a tax gatherer -- a publican, a despised class. True enough, but there's a whole world of difference between a tax gatherer and a Communist."

"I suppose in some Eastern countries it's possible to be both."

"I would remind you, monsignor, that Our Lord was the Son of God. To Him all things were permissible, but for a poor priest like you and me isn't it more prudent to walk in the footsteps of St Paul? You know what he wrote to Titus -- 'There are many rebellious spirits abroad, who talk of their own fantasies and lead men's minds astray: they must be silenced.' "

The bishop paused to hear Father Quixote's response but none came. Perhaps he took this for a good sign, for when he spoke next, he dropped the "monsignor" and used the friendly and companionable "father". "Your friend, father," he said, "had apparently been drinking very heavily when you were both found. He didn't even wake when they spoke to him. Father Herrera noticed too that there was a great deal of wine in your car. I realize that in your nervous condition wine must have proved a serious temptation. Personally, I always leave wine to the Mass. I prefer water. I like to pretend when I take a glass that I am drinking the pure water of Jordan."

"Perhaps not so pure," Father Quixote said.

"What do you mean, father?"

"Well, Excellency, I can't help thinking of how Naaman, the Syrian, bathed seven times in the Jordan and left all his leprosy behind him in the water."

"An old Jewish legend from a very long time ago."

"Yes, I know that, Excellency, but still -- after all, it may be a true history -- and leprosy is a mysterious disease. How many good Jewish lepers may have followed the example of Naaman? Of course I agree with you that St Paul is a reliable guide and you will certainly remember that he also wrote to Titus -- no, I am wrong, it was to Timothy: "Do not confine thyself to water any longer: take a little wine to relieve thy stomach.""

A period of silence descended on the bedroom. Father Quixote thought that perhaps the bishop was seeking another quotation from St Paul, but he was wrong. The pause represented a change of subject rather than of mood. "What I don't understand, monsignor, is that the Guardia found that you had exchanged clothes with this -- this ex-Mayor, the Communist."

There was not an exchange of clothes, Excellency, only of a collar."

The bishop closed his eyes. Impatience? Or he might have been praying for understanding.

"Why even a collar?"

"He thought I must be suffering from the heat in that kind of collar, so I gave it to him to try. I didn't want him to think I was claiming any special merit. . . A military uniform or even a Guardia's must be more difficult to endure in the heat than a collar. We are the lucky ones, Excellency."

"A story came to the ears of the parish priest in Valladolid that a bishop -- or a monsignor -- had been seen coming out of a scandalous film there -- you know the kind of films which are shown now since the Generalissimo died. . ."

"Perhaps the poor monsignor did not know the kind of film he was attending. Sometimes titles are misleading."

"What was so shocking in the story is that -- the bishop or the monsignor, you know how people can be confused by the pechera which you and I both wear -- was seen coming out of this disreputable cinema laughing."

"Not laughing, Excellency. Perhaps smiling."

"I don't understand your presence at such a film."

"I was deceived by the innocence of the title."

"Which was?"

"A Maiden's Prayer."

The bishop gave a deep sigh. "I sometimes wish," he said, "that the title of maiden were confined to Our Lady -- and perhaps to members of religious orders. I realize you have been leading a very retired life in El Toboso, and you do not realize that the word 'maiden' used in our great cities in its purely temporary sense is often an incitement to lust."

"I admit, Excellency, that it had not occurred to me."

"Of course these are very minor matters in the eyes of the Guardia Civil, however scandalous they may appear in the eyes of the Church. But I and my colleague at Avila have had very great difficulty in persuading them to shut their eyes for what was a grave criminal offence. We had to approach a high authority in the Ministry of the Interior - luckily a member of Opus Dei. . ."

"And a cousin, I believe, of Dr Galvan?"

"That is hardly relevant. He saw at once that it would do the Church untold harm if a monsignor appeared in the dock charged with helping a murderer to escape. . ."

"Not a murderer, Excellency. He missed."

"A bank robber."

"No, no. It was a self-service store."

"I wish you wouldn't interrupt me with petty details. The Guardia in León found the man in possession of your shoes clearly marked inside with your name."

"It's a stupid habit of Teresa's. Poor thing, she means well, but she never trusts the cobbler to give the right pair back when he resoles them."

"I don't know whether it's deliberate, monsignor, but you always seem to bring into our serious discussion quite trivial and irrelevant details."

"I am sorry -- it wasn't my intention -- I thought it might seem odd to you, my shoes being marked that way."

"What seems odd to me is your helping this criminal to escape the law."

"He did have a gun -- but of course he would not have used it. Shooting us would hardly have helped him."

"The Guardia in the end accepted that explanation, although the man had got rid of the gun and denied ever having had one. All the same, they seem to have established that first you had hidden the man in the boot of your car and lied to a Guardia. You can't have done that under threat."

"I didn't lie, Excellency. Perhaps -- well, I indulged in a little equivocation. The Guardia never directly asked whether he was in the boot. Of course I could plead a "broad mental restriction". Father Heribert Jone points out that an accused criminal -- I was, legalistically speaking, a criminal -- may plead "not guilty" which is only a conventional way of saying, "I am not guilty before law until I am proved guilty." He even allows the criminal to say that the accusation is a calumny and to offer proofs for his pretended innocence -- but there I think Father Heribert Jone goes a little too far."

"Who on earth is Father Heribert Jone?"

"A distinguished German moral theologian."

"I thank God that he's not a Spaniard."

"Father Herrera has a great respect for him."

"Anyway, I haven't come here to talk about Moral Theology."

"I have always found it a very confusing subject, Excellency. For instance I can't help wondering now about the concept of Natural Law. . ."

"Nor have I come to talk about Natural Law. You have a remarkable talent, monsignor, for straying from the real subject."

"Which is, Excellency?"

"The scandals you have been causing."

"But if I am accused of lies. . . surely we are somewhere in the realm of Moral Theology?"

"I am trying very, very hard to believe --" and the bishop gave another prolonged sigh which made Father Quixote wonder with pity and not with satisfaction whether the bishop might possibly be suffering from asthma -- "I repeat very hard, that you are too ill to realize what a dangerous situation you are in."

"Well, I suppose that applies to all of us."

"To all of us?"

"When we begin to think, I mean."

The bishop gave a curious sound -- it reminded Father Quixote of one of Teresa's hens laying an egg. "Ah," the bishop said, "I was coming to that. Dangerous thought. Your Communist companion no doubt led you to think in ways. . ."

"It wasn't that he led me, Excellency. He gave me the opportunity. You know, in El Toboso -- I'm very fond of the garagist (he looks after Rocinante so well), the butcher is a bit of a scoundrel -- I don't mean that there's anything profoundly wrong in scoundrels, and of course there are the nuns who do make excellent cakes, but on this holiday I have felt a freedom.. . "

"A very dangerous freedom it seems to have been."

"But He gave it to us, didn't He -- freedom? That was why they crucified Him."

"Freedom," the bishop said. It was like an explosion. "Freedom to break the law? You, a monsignor? Freedom to go to pornographic films? Help murderers?"

"No, no, I told you that he missed."

"And your companion -- a Communist. Talking politics. . ."

"No, no. We've discussed much more serious things than politics. Though I admit I hadn't realized that Marx had so nobly defended the Church."

"Marx?"

"A much misunderstood man, Excellency. I promise you."

"What books have you been reading on this -- extraordinary -- expedition?"

"I always take with me St Francis de Sales. To please Father Herrera I took Father Heribert Jone with me too. And my friend lent me The Communist Manifesto -- no, no, Excellency, it's not at all what you think it is. Of course I cannot agree with all his ideas, but there is a most moving tribute to religion -- he speaks of 'the most heavenly ecstasies of religious fervour'."

"I cannot sit here any longer and listen to the ravings of a sick mind," the bishop said and rose.

"I have kept you here far too long, Excellency. It was a great act of charity on your part to come to see me in El Toboso. Dr Galvan will assure you that I am quite well."

"In the body perhaps. I think you need a different kind of doctor. I shall consult Dr Galvan, of course, before I write to the archbishop. And I shall pray."

"I am very grateful for your prayers," Father Quixote said. He noticed that the bishop did not offer him his ring before leaving. Father Quixote reproached himself for having spoken too freely. I have upset the poor man, he thought. Bishops, just like the very poor and the uneducated, should be treated with a special prudence.

Whispers were to be heard from the passage outside his door. Then the key turned in the lock. So I am a prisoner, he thought, like Cervantes.

II

MONSIGNOR QUIXOTE'S

SECOND JOURNEY

1

It was the toot-toot-toot of a car which woke Father Quixote. Even in his sleep he had recognized the unmistakable tone of Rocinante -- a plaintive tone without the anger, the petulance or the impatience of a big car -- a tone which simply said encouragingly, "I am here if you want me." He went at once to the window and looked out, but Rocinante must have been parked somewhere out of his view, for the only car in sight was coloured a bright blue and not a rusty red. He went to the door, quite forgetting that it was locked, and shook the handle. Teresa's voice answered him, "Hush, father. Give him another minute."

"Give who another minute?"

"Father Herrera's gone off to confession, but he never stays long in the box if there's no one waiting, so I've told the young fellow at the garage he had to go quickly up to the church before Father Herrera leaves and keep him busy with a long confession."

Father Quixote felt completely at sea. This was not the life he had known for so many decades in El Toboso. What had brought about the change?

"Can you unlock the door, Teresa? Rocinante has returned."

"Yes. I know. I would never have recognized her, poor dear, with all that bright blue paint she had on and a new number even."

"Please, Teresa, unlock the door. I must see what has happened to Rocinante."

"I can't, father, for I haven't the key, but don't worry, he'll manage all right if you give him another minute."

"Who?"

"The Mayor, of course."

"The Mayor? Where is he?"

"He's in your study, where else would he be? Breaking open your cupboard which Father Herrera locked -- with one of my hairpins and a bottle of olive oil."

"Why olive oil?"

"I wouldn't know, father, but I trust him."

"What's in the cupboard?"

"Your trousers, father, and all your upper clothes."

"If he can open the cupboard can't he open this door?"

"It's what I said to him, but he spoke of what he calls priorities."

Father Quixote tried to wait with a patience hardly encouraged by a running commentary from Teresa. "Oh, I thought he got it open, but it's still stuck fast and now he's got one of Father Herrera's razor blades. There'll be hell to pay because Father Herrera keeps a regular count of them. . . Now he's broken the blade and God's sakes he's at work with Father Herrera's nail scissors. . . Wait a bit -- be patient -- God be thanked, it's coming open. Only I hope he does your door quicker or we'll be having Father Herrera back -- the young boy at the garage hasn't all that imagination."

"Are you all right, father?" came the Mayor's voice from the other side of the door.

"I'm all right, but what have you been doing to Rocinante?"

"I stopped off with my friend at Valladolid and fixed her so that the Guardia won't recognize her -- not at first sight, anyway. Now I'm going to work on your door."

"You don't have to. I can get through the window."

It was lucky, he thought, that there was no one there to see the parish priest climbing through the window in pyjamas and knocking on his own front door. Teresa retired discreetly to the kitchen and Father Quixote dressed hurriedly in his study. "You've certainly made a mess of that cupboard door," he said.

"It was more difficult to open than I thought. What are you looking for?"

"My collar."

"Here's one. And I've got your bib in the car."

"It has caused me a lot of trouble already. I'm not going to wear it, Sancho."

"But we'll take it with us. It may prove useful. One never knows."

"I can't find any socks."

"I have your purple socks. And your new shoes too."

"It was the old ones I was looking for. I'm sorry. Of course they've gone for ever."

"Yes. I forgot. The bishop told me. I suppose we must go. I hope the poor bishop won't have a stroke."

A letter caught his eye. It should have caught his eye before because it was propped up against one of his old seminary volumes and enthroned on two others. The writer had obviously intended it to be conspicuous. He looked at the envelope and put it into his pocket.

"What's that?" the Mayor asked.

"A letter from the bishop, I think. I know his writing too well."

"Aren't you going to read it?"

"Bad trouble can wait until we've had a bottle of manchegan."

He went into the kitchen to say goodbye to Teresa. "I really don't know how you are going to explain matters to Father Herrera."

"It's he who will have to do all the explaining. What reason had he got to lock you up in your very own room in your own house and take your own clothes?"

He kissed Teresa on her forehead, something which he had never ventured to do before in all the years they had been together. "God bless you, Teresa," he said. "You have been very good to me. And patient. For a very long time."

"Tell me where you are going, father?"

"It's better you shouldn't know because they'll all be asking you that. But I can tell you I'm going, God willing, to take a long rest in a quiet place."

"With that Communist?"

"Don't talk like the bishop, Teresa. The Mayor has been a good friend to me."

"I don't see the likes of him taking a long rest in a quiet place."

"You never know, Teresa. Stranger things have happened on the road already."

He turned, but her voice called him back. "Father, I feel as though we are saying goodbye for ever."

"No, no, Teresa, for a Christian there's no such thing as goodbye for ever."

He raised his hand from habit to make the sign of the cross in blessing, but he didn't complete it.

I believe what I told her, he told himself as he went to find the Mayor, I believe it of course, but how is it that when I speak of belief, I become aware always of a shadow, the shadow of disbelief haunting my belief?

2

"Where do we go from here?" the Mayor asked.

"Do we have to make plans, Sancho? Last time we went a bit here and a bit there, at random. You won't agree, of course, but in a way we left ourselves in the hands of God."

"Then he wasn't a very reliable guide. You were brought back here, a prisoner, to El Toboso."

"Yes. Who knows? -- God moves very mysteriously -- perhaps He wanted me to meet the bishop."

"For the bishop's sake -- or yours?"

"How can I tell? At least I learnt something from the bishop, though I doubt if he learnt anything from me. But who can be sure?"

"So where does your God propose we go now?"

"Why don't we just follow our old route?"

"The Guardia might have the same idea. When the bishop warns them that we are loose again."

"Not exactly the same route. I don't want to go back to Madrid -- nor Valladolid. They haven't left very happy memories -- except the house of the historian."

"Historian?"

"The great Cervantes."

"We have to decide quickly, father. South is too hot. So do we go north towards the Basques or to the Galicians?"

"I agree."

"Agree to what? You didn't answer my question."

"Let's leave the details to God."

"And who drives? Are you sure that God has passed his driving test?"

"Of course I must drive. Rocinante would never understand if I sat in the car as a passenger."

"At least let us go at a reasonable speed. My friend at Valladolid said she was quite capable of eighty kilometres or even a hundred."

"He can't judge Rocinante from a brief inspection."

"I won't argue now. It's time to be off." But they were not able to leave El Toboso so easily. Father Quixote had only just ground his way into low gear when a voice called, "Father, father." A boy was running up the road behind them.

"Don't pay any attention," the Mayor said. "We've got to get out of here."

"I must stop. It's the boy who works the pumps at the garage."

He was quite out of breath when he reached them.

"Well, what is it?" Father Quixote asked.

"Father," he said between pants, "father."

"I said, what is it?"

"I've been refused absolution, father. Shall I go to Hell?"

"I very much doubt it. What have you done? Have you murdered Father Herrera? I don't mean that would necessarily entail going to Hell. If you had a good enough reason."

"How could I have murdered him when it's him that's refused me?"

"Logically put. Why did he refuse you?"

"He said I was making a mock of the confessional."

"Oh dear, I was forgetting. It was you that Teresa sent. . . It was very wrong of her. All the same she meant it in a good cause and I'm sure you'll both be forgiven. But she did tell me that you had no imagination. Why did Father Herrera refuse you absolution? What on earth did you go and invent?"

"I only told him I'd slept with a lot of girls."

"There aren't all that many in El Toboso except for the nuns. You didn't tell him you slept with a nun, did you?"

"I would never say such a thing, father. I'm secretary of the Children of Mary."

"And Father Herrera will surely end up in Opus Dei," the Mayor said. "For God's sake, let's be gone."

"What exactly did you say and he say?"

"I said, 'Bless me, father. I have sinned. . .' "

"No, no, leave out all those preliminaries."

"Well, I told him I'd been late at Mass and he asked me how many times and I said twenty and then I told him I'd lied a bit and he asked how many times and I said forty-five."

"You did go in for rather big figures, didn't you? And then?"

"Well, I couldn't think of anything more to say and I was afraid Teresa would be angry if I couldn't keep him any longer."

"You tell her from me when you see her that she'd better be on her knees tomorrow at confession."

"And then he asked me if I had sinned against purity and that gave me an idea, so I said, well, I had slept with some girls, and he asked me how many girls and I said, 'Around sixty-five,' and it was then he got angry and he turned me out of the box."

"I don't wonder."

"Is it Hell I'll be going to?"

"If anyone is going to Hell it will be Teresa and you can tell her I said so."

"It's an awful lot of lies I told in the confessional. I was only late for Mass the once and I had good reason -- there were so many tourists at the pumps."

"And the lies?"

"Two or three at most."

"And the girls?"

"You won't find one of them who'll do anything serious in El Toboso for fear of the nuns."

The Mayor said, "I can see Father Herrera coming down the street from the church."

"Listen to me," Father Quixote said, "make an Act of Contrition and promise me you won't lie any more in the confessional, not even if Teresa asks you to."

He was silent while the boy mumbled something. "And your promise?"

"Oh, I promise, father. Why shouldn't I? I don't go to confession anyway more than once a year."

"Say 'I promise before you, father, to God.' "

The boy repeated the words and Father Quixote gave him absolution, speaking rapidly.

The Mayor said, "That damned priest is only about a hundred paces away, father, and he's putting on speed."

Father Quixote started the engine and Rocinante responded with the jump of an antelope.

"Only just in time," the Mayor said. "But he's running nearly as fast as Rocinante. Oh, thank God, that boy's a treasure. He's put out his foot and tripped him up."

"If there was anything wrong about that confession, the fault was mine," Father Quixote said. Whether he was addressing himself, God or the Mayor will always remain uncertain.

"At least push Rocinante up to fifty. The old girl's not even trying. That priest will be on to the Guardia in no time.

"There's not so much hurry as you think," Father Quixote said. "He'll have an awful lot to say to that boy and after that he'll want to speak to the bishop and the bishop won't be home for quite a while."

"He might speak to the Guardia first."

"Not on your life. He has the prudent soul of a secretary."

They reached the high road to Alicante and the Mayor broke silence. "Left," he said sharply.

"Not to Madrid, surely? Anywhere but to Madrid."

"No cities," the Mayor said. "Wherever there's a country road we'll take it. I'll feel safer when we reach the mountains. I suppose you haven't a passport?"

"No."

"Then Portugal is no refuge."

"Refuge from what? From the bishop?"

"You don't seem to realize, father, what a grave crime you have committed. You've freed a galley slave."

"Poor fellow. All he got was my shoes and they were not much better than his own. He was doomed to failure. I always feel that those who always fail -- he even ran out of petrol -- are nearer to God than we are. Of course I shall pray to my ancestor for him. How often the Don knew failure. Even with the windmills."

"Then you'd better pray hard to him for both of us."

"Oh, I do. I do. We haven't failed enough yet, Sancho. Here we are again, you and I and Rocinante on the road, and at liberty."

It took them more than two hours to reach a small town called Mora travelling by a roundabout route. There they found themselves on the main road to Toledo, but only for a matter of minutes. "We have to get into the mountains of Toledo," the Mayor said. "This road is not for us." They turned and twisted and for a while, on a very rough track, they seemed, judging from the sun, to be making a half circle.

"Do you know where we are?" Father Quixote asked.

"More or less," the Mayor replied unconvincingly.

"I can't help feeling a little hungry, Sancho."

"Your Teresa has given us enough sausage and cheese for a week."

"A week?"

"No hotels for us. No main roads."

They found a spot high in the mountains of Toledo, a comfortable place for eating, where they could drive off the road and conceal themselves and Rocinante. There was a stream too to chill their bottles as it trickled down to a lake below them which with difficulty the Mayor identified on the map as the Torre de Abraham -- "Though why they named it after that old scoundrel I wouldn't know."

"Why do you call him a scoundrel?"

"Wasn't he prepared to kill his son? Oh, of course, there was a much worse scoundrel -- the one you call God -- He actually performed the ugly deed. What an example He set, and Stalin killed his spiritual sons in imitation. He very nearly killed Communism along with them just as the Curia has killed the Catholic Church."

"Not entirely, Sancho. Here beside you is at least one Catholic in spite of the Curia."

"Yes, and here is one Communist who is still alive in spite of the Politburo. We are survivors, you and I, father. Let us drink to that," and he fetched a bottle from the stream.

"To two survivors," Father Quixote said and raised his glass. He had a very healthy thirst, and it always surprised him to think how seldom his ancestor's biographer had spoken of wine. One could hardly count the adventure of the wine skins which the Don had broached in mistake for his enemies. He refilled his glass. "It seems to me," he told the Mayor, "that you have more belief in Communism than in the Party."

"And I was just going to say almost the same, father, that you seem to have more belief in Catholicism than in Rome."

"Belief? Oh, belief. Perhaps you are right, Sancho. But perhaps it's not belief that really matters."

"What do you mean, father? I thought. . ."

"Did the Don really believe in Amadis of Gaul, Roland and all his heroes -- or was it only that he believed in the virtues they stood for?"

"We are getting into dangerous waters, father."

"I know, I know. In your company, Sancho, I think more freely than when I am alone. When I am alone I read -- I hide myself in my books. In them I can find the faith of better men than myself, and when I find that my belief is growing weak with age like my body, then I tell myself that I must be wrong. My faith tells me I must be wrong -- or is it only the faith of those better men? Is it my own faith that speaks to me or the faith of St Francis de Sales? And does it so much matter anyway? Give me some cheese. How wine makes me talk."

"Do you know what drew me to you in El Toboso, father? It wasn't that you were the only educated man in the place. I'm not so fond of the educated as all that. Don't talk to me of the intelligentsia or culture. You drew me to you because I thought you were the opposite of myself. A man gets tired of himself, of that face he sees every day when he shaves, and all my friends were in just the same mould as myself. I would go to Party meetings in Ciudad Real when it became safe after Franco was gone, and we called ourselves "comrade" and we were a little afraid of each other because we knew each other as well as each one knew himself. We quoted Marx and Lenin to one another like passwords to prove we could be trusted, and we never spoke of the doubts which came to us on sleepless nights. I was drawn to you because I thought you were a man without doubts. I was drawn to you, I suppose, in a way by envy."

"How wrong you were, Sancho. I am riddled by doubts. I am sure of nothing, not even of the existence of God, but doubt is not treachery as you Communists seem to think. Doubt is human. Oh, I want to believe that it is all true -- and that want is the only certain thing I feel. I want others to believe too -- perhaps some of their belief might rub off on me. I think the baker believes."

"That was the belief I thought you had."

"Oh no, Sancho, then perhaps I could have burnt my books and lived really alone, knowing that all was true. 'Knowing'? How terrible that might have been. Oh well, was it your ancestor or mine who used to say 'Patience and shuffle the cards'?"

"Some sausage, father?"

"I think today I'll stick to cheese. Sausage is for stronger men."

"Perhaps today I'll stick to cheese too."

"Shall we open another bottle?"

"Why not?"

It was over the second bottle as the afternoon advanced that Sancho said, "I have something to confess to you, father. Oh, not in the confessional. I'm not asking any forgiveness from that myth of yours or mine up there, only from you." He brooded over his glass. "If I hadn't come to fetch you, what would have happened?"

"I don't know. I think the bishop believes I am mad. Perhaps they would have tried to put me in an asylum, though I don't think Dr Galvan would have agreed to help them. What is the legal position for a man with no relations? Can he be put away against his will? Perhaps the bishop with Father Herrera to help him. . . And then in the background, of course, there is always the archbishop. . . They will never forget that time when I gave a little money to In Vinculis."

"My friendship for you began then, though we'd hardly spoken."

"It's like learning to say the Mass. In the seminary one learns never to forget. Oh, my goodness, I had quite forgotten. . ."

"What?"

"The bishop left a letter for me." Father Quixote drew it from his pocket and turned it over and over.

"Go on, man. Open it. It's not a death warrant."

"How do you know?"

"The days of Torquemada are over."

"As long as there is a Church there will always be little Torquemadas. Give me another glass of wine." He drank it slowly to delay the moment of truth.

Sancho took the letter from him and opened it. He said, "It's short enough anyway. What does Suspensión a Divinis mean?"

"As I thought, it's the sentence of death," Father Quixote said. "Give me the letter." He put his glass down unfinished. "I'm not afraid any longer. After death there's nothing more they can do. There remains only the mercy of God." He read the letter aloud.

" 'My dear Monsignor, it was a great grief to me to hear you confirm the truth of the accusations which I had felt almost sure must have been due to misunderstanding, exaggeration or malice.' What a hypocrite! Oh well, I suppose hypocrisy in a bishop is almost necessary and would be considered by Father Heribert Jone a very venial sin. 'All the same, under the circumstances I am ready to think that your exchange of clothes with your Communist companion was not a symbolic act of defiance towards the Holy Father but was due to some severe mental disturbance, which also induced you to help a felon to escape and to visit without shame in your purple pechera as a monsignor a disgusting and pornographic film clearly denoted with an "S" to mark its true character. I have discussed your case with Dr Galvan who agrees with me that a long rest is indicated and I shall be writing to the Archbishop. In the meanwhile I find it my duty to announce to you a Suspensión a Divinis." "

"What does that sentence of death mean exactly?"

"It means I mustn't say the Mass -- not in public, not even in private. But in the privacy of my room I shall say it, for I am innocent. I must hear no confessions either -- except in an extreme emergency. I remain a priest, but a priest only to myself. A useless priest forbidden to serve others. I'm glad you came to fetch me. How could I have borne that sort of life in El Toboso?"

"You could appeal to Rome. You are a monsignor."

"Even a monsignor can be lost in those dusty Curia files."

"I told you I had something to confess, father. I nearly didn't come." It was the Mayor now who drank to give himself the courage to speak. "When I found you gone -- there were two Americans nearby who saw what happened, they thought you were dead but I knew better -- I thought, 'I'll borrow Rocinante to make for Portugal.' I have good friends in the Party there and I thought I would stay a while until all the fuss was over."

"But you didn't go."

"I drove to Ponferrada and there I took the main road to Orense. On my map there was a side road which I meant to take, for it was less than sixty kilometres from there to the frontier." He shrugged his shoulders. "Oh well, I got to the side road and I turned and I drove back to Valladolid and I asked my comrade in the garage to paint the car and change the number again."

"But why didn't you go on?"

"I looked at your damn purple socks and your bib and your new shoes which we had bought in Leon, and I remembered suddenly the way you had blown up that balloon."

"They seem insufficient reasons."

"They were sufficient for me."

"I'm glad you came, Sancho. I feel safe here with you and with Rocinante, safer than back there with Father Herrera. El Toboso is no longer home to me and I have no other, except here on this spot of ground with you."

"We've got to find you another home, father, but where?"

"Somewhere quiet where Rocinante and I can rest for a while."

"And where the Guardia and the bishop won't find you."

"There was that Trappist monastery you spoke of in Galicia. . . But you wouldn't feel at home there, Sancho."

"I could leave you with them and hire a car in Orense to take me across the border."

"I don't want our travels to end. Not before death, Sancho. My ancestor died in his bed. Perhaps he would have lived longer if he had stayed on the road. I'm not ready for death yet, Sancho."

"I'm worrying about the Guardia's computers. Rocinante is pretty well disguised, but at the frontier they may be looking out for the two of us."

"Like it or not, Sancho, I think you will have to stay for a week or two with the Trappists."

"The food will be bad."

"And the wine too perhaps."

"We had better stock up with some Galician wine on the road. The manchegan is nearly finished."

III

HOW MONSIGNOR QUIXOTE

HAD HIS LAST ADVENTURE

AMONG THE MEXICANS

1

They slept out for three nights, making their way with caution by little-frequented roads, from the mountains of Toledo, over the Sierra of Guadalupe, where Rocinante found it a strain when she climbed to over eight hundred metres only to find a yet greater strain when they reached the Sierra de Credos, where the road wound up to over fifteen hundred metres, for they avoided Salamanca and headed for the Duero river which separated them from the safety of Portugal. It was a very slow progress which they made through the mountains, but the Mayor preferred the mountains to the plains of Castile because of the long perspectives where an official jeep could be seen from far away and the villages were too small to contain a Guardia post. A sinuous progress it was on third-class roads, for they avoided even the dangerous second-class yellow ones on the map. As for the great red roads, these they banned completely.

It was always cold when the dark fell and they were glad to substitute whisky for wine to drink with the cheese and sausage. They slept afterwards with difficulty curled up in the car. When at last they were forced to come down into the plain the Mayor looked with longing at a signpost which pointed to Portugal. "If you only had a passport," he said, "we would make for Braganga. I prefer my comrades there to the Spanish ones. Cunhal is a better man than Carrillo."

"I thought Carrillo was a good man as Communists go."

"You can't trust a Euro-Communist."

"Surely you are not a Stalinist, Sancho?"

"I'm not a Stalinist, but at least you know where you are with them. They are not Jesuits. They don't turn with the wind. If they are cruel, they are cruel also to themselves. When you come to the end of the longest road of all you have to lie down and take a rest -- a rest from arguments and theories and fashions. You can say, "I don't believe but I accept," and you fall into silence like the Trappists do. The Trappists are the Stalinists of the Church."

"Then you would have made a good Trappist, Sancho."

"Perhaps, though I don't like getting up early in the morning."

After they had crossed into Galicia they halted at a village so that the Mayor could inquire where there was a vineyard at which they could buy good wine, for they were down to the last bottles of manchegan, and the Mayor distrusted all wine with labels. He was away for a full ten minutes and he had a sombre air when he returned, so that Father Quixote asked with anxiety, "Bad news?"

"Oh, I have an address," he said and he described the route they must follow, and for the next half an hour he said nothing, indicating the turnings to take with his hand, but his silence was so heavily loaded that Father Quixote insisted on piercing through it. "You are worried," he said. "Is it about the Guardia?"

"Oh, the Guardia," the Mayor exclaimed. "We can deal with the Guardia. Haven't we dealt with them well enough near Avila and on the road to León? I spit on the Guardia."

"Then what's upsetting you?"

"I don't like anything that I cannot understand."

"And what's that?"

"These ignorant villagers and their atrocious accents."

"They are Galicians, Sancho."

"And they know that we are foreigners. They think we will believe anything."

"What have they told you?"

"They pretended to be very solicitous about the wine. They argued among themselves about three vineyards -- the white was better in one, the red in another, and their last words were a warning -- they pretended to be very earnest about it. They took me for a fool because I was a foreigner. The insularity of these Galicians! You will find the best wine in Spain, they told me, as though our manchegan was just horses' piss."

"But what was the warning?"

"One of the vineyards was near a place called Learig. They said, 'Keep away from that one. The Mexicans are everywhere.' These were their last words to me.

They shouted them after me. "Stay away from the land of the Mexicans. Their priests spoil even the wine.""

"Mexicans! Are you sure you heard right?"

"I'm not deaf."

"What could they possibly mean?"

"I suppose Pancho Villa has risen from the dead and is sacking Galicia."

Another half an hour and they had entered the land of wine. On their right hand the southern slopes were green with vines, and on their left a decrepit village lay, like an abandoned corpse, along a cliffside, a house here and there in ruins, a mouth of broken teeth.

The Mayor said, "We don't take the road to the village. We go fifty yards on and leave the car and take a path up."

"Up to where?"

"They called him Señor Diego. In the end those fools agreed that his was the best wine. 'The Mexicans haven't got there yet,' they said."

"The Mexicans again. I begin to be a little nervous, Sancho."

"Courage, father. You were not daunted by the windmills, why be daunted by a few Mexicans? That must be the path, so we leave the car here." They parked Rocinante behind a Mercedes which had already usurped the best place.

As they began to climb the path a stout man who wore a smart suit and a startling striped tie came hurrying down it. He was muttering angry words to himself. They narrowly avoided a collision when he stopped abruptly and blocked their way. "Are you going up there to buy wine?" he snapped at them.

"Yes."

"Give it up," the man said. "He's mad."

"Who's mad?" the Mayor asked.

"Señor Diego, of course. Who else? He's got a cellar full of good wine up there and he won't let me try a single glass, though I was ready to take a dozen cases. He said he didn't like my tie."

"There could be a difference of opinion about your tie," the Mayor said with caution.

"I'm a business man myself, and I tell you it's not the way to do business. But now it's too late to get the wine elsewhere."

"Why all the hurry?"

"Because I promised the priest. I always keep a promise. It's good business to keep a promise. I promised the priest to get the wine. It's a promise to the Church."

"What does the Church want with a dozen cases of wine?"

"It's not only my promise. I may lose my place in the procession. Unless the priest will accept cash instead. He won't take cheques. Get out of my way, please. I can't stay here talking, but I wanted to warn you. . ."

"I don't understand what's going on," Father Quixote said.

"Nor do I."

At the head of the path there was a house much in need of repair and a table under a fig tree on which lay the remains of a meal. A young man in blue jeans came hurriedly towards them. He said, "Señor Diego will see nobody today."

"We have only come to buy a little wine," the Mayor said.

"I'm afraid that's not possible. Not today. And there's no use telling me about the feast. Señor Diego will have nothing to do with the feast."

"We don't want it for any feast. We are simple travellers and we've run out of wine."

"You are not Mexicans?"

"No, we are not Mexicans," Father Quixote said with a note of conviction. "Of your charity, father. . . Just a few bottles of wine. We are on our way to the Trappists of Osera."

"The Trappists. . .? How do you know I am a priest?"

"When you have been a priest as long as I have you will recognize a colleague. Even without his collar."

"This is Monsignor Quixote of El Toboso," the Mayor said.

"A monsignor?"

"Forget the monsignor, father. A parish priest, as I suspect you are."

The young man ran towards the house. He called, "Señor Diego, Señor Diego. Come quickly. A monsignor. We have a monsignor here."

"Is it so rare to see a monsignor in this place?" the Mayor asked.

"Rare? It certainly is. The priests round here -- they are all friends of the Mexicans."

"That man we met on the path -- was he a Mexican?"

"Of course he was. One of the bad Mexicans. That's why Señor Diego wouldn't sell him any wine."

"I thought perhaps it was because of his tie."

An old man with great dignity came out on to the terrace. He had the sad and weary face of a man who has seen too much of life for far too long. He hesitated a moment between the Mayor and Father Quixote before, holding out both hands towards the Mayor, he made the wrong choice. "Welcome, monsignor, to my house."

"No, no," the young priest exclaimed, "the other one." Señor Diego turned his hands first and then his eyes towards Father Quixote. "Forgive me," he said, "my sight is not what it was. I see badly, very badly. I was walking with this grandson of mine only this morning in the vineyard and it was always he who spotted the weeds -- not me. Sit down, please, both of you, and I will bring you some food and wine."

"They are going to Osera to the Trappists."

"The Trappists are good men, but their wine, I believe, is less good and as for the liqueur they make. . . You must take a case of wine for them, and for yourselves too, of course. I've never had a monsignor here under my fig tree before."

"Sit down with them, Señor Diego," the young priest said, "and I will fetch the ham and the wine."

"The white and the red -- and bowls for all of us. We will have a better feast than the Mexicans." When the priest was out of hearing he said, "If all the priests here were like my grandson. . . I could trust him even with the vineyard. If only he had not chosen to be a priest. It was all his mother's fault. My son would never have allowed it. If he hadn't died. . . I saw Jose today pulling up the weeds, but I couldn't see them clearly any longer and I thought, 'It is time for me and the vineyard to go.' "

"Is this your grandson's parish?" Father Quixote asked.

"Oh no, no. He lives forty kilometres away. The priests here have driven him from his old parish. He was a danger to them. The poor people loved him because he refused to take money and say the Responses when anyone died. Responses, what nonsense! To gabble a few words and ask a thousand pesetas. So the priests wrote to the bishop and even though there were good Mexicans who defended him he was sent away. You would understand, if you stayed here a little while; you would see how greedy the priests are for the money the Mexicans have brought to these poor parts."

"Mexicans, Mexicans. But who are these Mexicans?"

The young priest came back to the fig tree carrying a tray with plates of ham, four large earthenware bowls and bottles of red and white wine. He filled the bowls with wine. "Start with the white," he said. "Make yourselves at home. Señor Diego and I had eaten before the Mexican arrived. Help yourselves to the ham -- it is a good ham, home cured. You will not get such ham with the Trappists."

"But these Mexicans. . . please explain, father."

"Oh, they come here and build rich houses and the priests are corrupted by the sight of money. They even think they can buy Our Lady. Don't let's talk about them. There are better things to speak of."

"But who are these Mexicans. . .?"

"Oh, there are good men among them. I don't deny it. Many good men, but all the same. . . I just don't understand. They have too much money and they have been away too long."

"Too long away from Mexico?"

"Too long away from Galicia. You are not taking any ham, monsignor. Please. . ."

"I am very happy," Señor Diego said, "to welcome under this fig tree Monsignor. . . Monsignor. . ."

"Quixote," the Mayor said.

"Quixote? Not surely. . ."

"An unworthy descendant," Father Quixote interrupted him.

"And your friend?"

"As for myself," the Mayor said, "I cannot claim to be a true descendant of Sancho Panza. Sancho and I have a family name in common, that's all, but I can assure you that Monsignor Quixote and I have had some curious adventures. Even if they are not worthy to be compared. . ."

"This is a very good wine," Señor Diego said, "but, José, go and fetch from the second barrel on the left. . . you know the one. . . only the very best is worthy of Monsignor Quixote and his friend Señor Sancho. And it is only in the best wine of all that we should toast damnation to the priests here."

When Father José had gone, Señor Diego added with a note of deep sadness, "I never expected a grandson of mine to be a priest." Father Quixote saw that there were tears in his eyes. "Oh, I am not running down the priesthood, monsignor, how could I do that? We have a good Pope, but what a suffering it must be at Mass every day even for him if he has to drink such bad wine as José's old priest buys."

"One takes the merest drop," Father Quixote said, "you hardly notice the taste. It's no worse than the wine that you get dolled up with a fancy label in a restaurant."

"Yes, you are quite right there, monsignor. Oh, every week there are scoundrels who come here to buy my wine so that they can mix it with other wine and they call it Rioja and advertise it along all the roads of Spain to deceive the poor foreigners who don't know a good wine from a bad."

"How can you tell the scoundrels from the honest men?"

"By the quantity they want to buy and because they often don't even ask for a glass first to taste it." He added, "If only José had married and had had a son. I started teaching José about the vineyard when he was six years old and now he knows nearly as much as I do and his eyesight is so much better than mine. Soon he would have been teaching his son. . ."

"Can't you find a good manager, Señor Diego?" the Mayor asked.

"That's a foolish question, Señor Sancho -- one I would expect a Communist to ask."

"I am a Communist."

"Forgive me, I am not saying anything against Communists in their proper place, but their proper place is not a vineyard. You Communists could put managers in all the cement works of Spain if you liked. You could have managers over your brickworks and your armament firms, you could put them in charge of your gas and electricity, but you can't let them manage a vineyard."

"Why, Señor Diego?"

"A vine is alive like a flower or a bird. It is not something made by man -- man can only help it to live -- or to die," he added with a deep melancholy, so that his face lost all expression. He had shut his face, as a man shuts a book which he finds he doesn't wish to read.

"Here is the best wine of all," Father José said -- they had not heard him approach -- and he began to pour into their bowls from a large jug.

"You are sure you took from the right barrel?" Señor Diego demanded.

"Of course I did. The second on the left."

"Then now we can drink damnation to the priests of these parts."

"Perhaps -- I am really very thirsty -- you would allow me to drink a little of this good wine before we decide on the toast?"

"Of course, monsignor. And let us have another toast first. To the Holy Father?"

"To the Holy Father and his intentions," Father Quixote said, making a slight amendment. "This is a truly magnificent wine, Señor Diego. I have to admit that our cooperative in El Toboso cannot produce its equal, though ours is an honest wine. But yours is more than honest -- it is beautiful."

"I notice," Señor Diego said, "that your friend did not join in our toast. Surely even a Communist can toast the Holy Father's intentions?"

"Would you have toasted Stalin's intentions?" the Mayor demanded. "One can't know a man's intentions and one can't toast them. Do you think that the monsignor's ancestor really represented the chivalry of Spain? Oh, it may have been his intention, but we all make cruel parodies of what we intend." There was a note of sadness and regret in his voice which surprised Father Quixote. He had been accustomed to aggression from the Mayor: an aggression which was only perhaps a form of self-defence, but regret was surely a form of despair, of surrender, even perhaps of change. He thought for the first time: Where will this voyage of ours finally end?

Señor Diego said to his grandson, "Tell them who the Mexicans are. I thought all Spain knew of them."

"We haven't heard of them in El Toboso."

"The Mexicans," Father José said, "have come from Mexico, but they were all born here. They left Galicia to escape poverty and escape it they did. They wanted money and they found money and they have come back to spend money. They give money to the priests here and they think they are giving to the Church. The priests have grown greedy for more -- they prey on the poor and they prey on the superstition of the rich. They are worse than the Mexicans. Perhaps some of the Mexicans really believe they can buy their way into Heaven. But whose fault is that? Their priests know better and they sell Our Lady. You should see the feast they are celebrating in a town near here today. The priest puts Our Lady up to auction. The four Mexicans who pay the most will carry her in the procession."

"But this is unbelievable," Father Quixote exclaimed.

"Go and see for yourself."

Father Quixote put down his bowl. He said, "We must go, Sancho."

"The procession will not have started yet. Finish your wine first," Señor Diego urged him.

"I am sorry, Señor Diego, but I have lost my taste for even your best wine. You have told me my duty -- 'Go and see for yourself.' "

"What can you do, monsignor? Even the bishop supports them."

Father Quixote remembered the phrase he had used against his own bishop and he resisted the temptation to repeat it, though he was sorely tempted to use the words of his ancestor: "Under my cloak a fig for the King." "I thank you for your generous hospitality, Señor Diego," he said, "but I must go. Will you come with me, Sancho?"

"I would like to drink more of Señor Diego's wine, father, but I can't let you go alone."

"Perhaps in this affair it would be better if I went alone with Rocinante. I will come back for you. It is the honour of the Church which is concerned, so there is no reason for you. . ."

"Father, we have travelled the roads long enough together not to be parted now."

Señor Diego said, "José, put two cases of the best wine in their car. I shall always remember how under this fig tree I was able to entertain for a short while a descendant of the great Don."

2

They knew they were approaching the town when they began to pass many village folk on their way to the feast. It proved to be a very small town, hardly more than a village, and they could see the church, built on a hill, from far away. They passed a bank, the Banco Hispano Americano, which was closed like all the shops. "A big bank for so small a place," the Mayor commented, and a little further down the road they passed five more. "Mexican money," the Mayor said.

"There are moments," Father Quixote replied, "when I am inclined to address you as compañero, but not yet, not yet."

"What do you propose to do, father?"

"I don't know. I am frightened, Sancho."

"Frightened of them?"

"No, no, frightened of myself."

"Why are you stopping?"

"Give me my perchera. It's behind you under the window. My collar too."

He got out of the car and a small group gathered in the street to watch him dress. He felt like an actor who is watched by friends in his dressing-room.

"We are going into battle, Sancho. I need my armour. Even if it is as absurd as Mambrino's helmet."

He sat again behind the wheel of Rocinante and said, "I feel more ready now."

There must have been a hundred people waiting outside the church. Most of these were poor and they hung shyly back to give Father Quixote and Sancho better places near the entrance, where there was a group of men and women who were well dressed -- tradesmen perhaps or employees of the banks. As the poor separated to allow Father Quixote to pass, he asked one of them, "What is happening?"

"The auction is over, monsignor. They are fetching Our Lady from the church."

Another told him, "It went better than last year. You should have seen the money they paid."

"They started the auction at a thousand pesetas."

"The winner paid forty thousand."

"No, no, it was thirty."

"That was the second-best bid. You wouldn't think there was so much money in all Galicia."

"And the winner?" Father Quixote asked. "What does he win?"

One of the crowd laughed and spat on the ground. "Salvation for his sins. It's cheap at the price."

"Don't listen to him, monsignor. He laughs at all holy things. The winner -- it's only fair -- he has the best place among those who carry Our Lady. There is great competition."

"What is the best place?"

"In front on the right."

"Last year," the jester said, "there were only four bearers. The priest has made the stand bigger this year, so that there will be six."

"The last two paid only fifteen thousand."

"They had fewer sins to pay for. Next year, you will see, there will be eight bearers."

Father Quixote made his way nearer to the church door.

A man plucked his sleeve. He held out two fifty-peseta pieces. "Monsignor, would you give me a hundred-peseta note?"

"Why?"

"I want to give to Our Lady."

They were singing a hymn now in the church and Father Quixote could feel the tension and expectation in the crowd. He asked, "Won't Our Lady accept coins?"

Over their shoulders he could see the sway to and fro of a crowned head, and he crossed himself in union with those around him. The coins slipped from the fingers of his neighbour who scrabbled on the ground to retrieve them. Between the heads of this man and that he got a glimpse of one of the bearers. It was the man with the striped tie. Then as the crowd retreated to make room the whole statue came for a moment into view.

Father Quixote could not understand what he saw. He was not offended by the customary image, with the plaster face, and the expressionless blue eyes, but the statue seemed to be clothed entirely in paper. A man pushed him to one side, waving a hundred-peseta note, and reached the statue. The carriers paused and gave him time to pin his note on the robes of the statue. It was impossible to see the robes for all the paper money -- hundred-peseta notes, thousand-peseta notes, a five-hundred-franc note, and right over the heart a hundred-dollar bill. Between him and the statue there were only the priest and the fumes of the incense from his censer. Father Quixote gazed up at the crowned head and the glassy eyes which were like those of a woman dead and neglected -- no one had bothered even to lower her lids. He thought: Was it for this she saw her son die in agony? To collect money? To make a priest rich?

The Mayor -- he had quite forgotten that the Mayor was there behind him -- said, "Come away, father."

"No, Sancho."

"Don't do anything foolish."

"Oh, you are talking like that other Sancho, and I say to you as my ancestor said when he saw the giants and you pretended they were windmills -- "If you are afraid, go away and say your prayers.""

He took two steps forward and confronted the priest as he swung his censer to and fro. He said, "This is blasphemy."

The priest repeated, "Blasphemy?" Then he noticed Father Quixote's collar and his purple pechera and he added, "monsignor."

"Yes. Blasphemy. If you know the meaning of the word."

"What do you mean, monsignor? This is our feast day. The feast day of our church. We have the blessing of the bishop."

"What bishop? No bishop would allow. . ."

The bearer with the extravagant tie interrupted. "The man is an impostor, father. I saw him earlier today. He wore no pechera then and no collar, and he was buying wine from that atheist Señor Diego."

"You have made your protest, father," the Mayor said. "Come away."

"Call the Guardia," the Mexican called to the crowd.

"You, you. . ." Father Quixote began, but the right word failed him in his anger. "Put down Our Lady. How dare you," he told the priest, "clothe her like that in money? It would be better to carry her through the streets naked."

"Fetch the Guardia," the Mexican repeated, but the situation was far too interesting for anyone in the crowd to stir.

The dissident called out, "Ask him where the money goes."

"For God's sake come away, father."

"Go on with the procession," the priest commanded.

"Over my dead body," Father Quixote said.

"Who are you? What right have you to interrupt our feast? What is your name?"

Father Quixote hesitated. He hated to use the title to which he felt he had no real claim. But his love for the woman whose image loomed above him conquered his reluctance. "I am Monsignor Quixote of El Toboso," he announced with firmness.

"It's a lie," the Mexican said.

"Lie or not, you have no authority in this diocese."

"I have the authority of any Catholic to fight blasphemy."

"Ask him where the money goes," the voice, which sounded too arrogant in his ears, called again from the crowd, but one cannot always choose one's allies. Father Quixote took a step forward.

"That's right. Hit him. He's only a priest. This is a republic now."

"Call the Guardia. The man's a Communist." It was the Mexican who spoke.

The priest tried to swing his censer between the statue and Father Quixote as though he expected that the smoke might hold him back, and the censer struck Father Quixote on the side of his head. A trickle of blood curved round his right eye.

"Father, we've got to go," the Mayor urged him.

Father Quixote thrust the priest aside. He pulled the hundred-dollar bill off the statue's robe, tearing the robe and the bill. There was a five-hundred-franc note pinned on the other side. This one came away easily and he let it drop. Several hundred-peseta notes were split into pieces when he snatched at them. He rolled them into a ball and tossed it away into the crowd. The dissident cheered and there were three or four voices which joined him. The Mexican lowered the pole of the statue's stand which he was supporting and the whole affair reeled sideways so that Our Lady's crown tipped drunkenly over her left eye. The weight was too much for another Mexican who let go of his pole and Our Lady went crashing to the earth. It was like the end of an orgy. The dissident led a group forward to salvage some of the notes and there was a confused struggle with the bearers.

The Mayor grasped Father Quixote by the shoulder and pushed him out of the way. Only the Mexican with the tie noticed and screamed above the noise of the fray, "Thief! Blasphemer! Impostor!" He took a deep breath and added, "Communist!"

"You've done quite enough for today," the Mayor said.

"Where are you taking me? Forgive me. I am confused. . ." Father Quixote put his hand to his head and took it away blood-stained. "Did somebody hit me?"

"You can't start a revolution without bloodshed."

"I didn't really mean. . ." In his confusion he allowed the Mayor to lead him away to the place where Rocinante waited. "I feel a little giddy," he said. "I don't know why."

The Mayor looked back. He saw that the Mexican had detached himself from the fight and was talking to the priest, flailing his arms.

"Get in quick," the Mayor said, "we have to be off."

"Not that seat. I have to drive Rocinante."

"You can't drive. You are a casualty."

"But she doesn't like a strange hand."

"My hands are no longer strange to her. Didn't I drive her all the way back to rescue you?"

"Please don't overstrain her. She's old."

"She's young enough to do a hundred."

Father Quixote gave way without further protest. He sank back in his seat as far as Rocinante permitted. Anger had always exhausted him -- and even more the thoughts which were liable to come after. "Oh dear, oh dear," he said, "whatever will the bishop say if he hears?"

"He certainly will hear, but what worries me is what the Guardia will say -- and do."

The needle on the speedometer approached a hundred.

"Causing a riot. That's the most serious crime you've committed so far. We have to find sanctuary." The Mayor added, "I would have preferred Portugal, but the monastery of Osera is better than nothing."

They had driven in silence for more than half an hour before the Mayor spoke again. "Are you asleep?"

"No."

"It's not like you to be so silent."

"I am suffering from one indisputable aspect of the Natural Law. I very much want to relieve myself."

"Can't you hold on for another half hour? We should be at the monastery by then."

"I'm afraid I can't."

Unwillingly the Mayor brought Rocinante to a halt beside a field and what looked like an ancient Celtic cross. While Father Quixote emptied his bladder the Mayor read the inscription which was nearly worn away.

"That's better. I feel able to talk again now," Father Quixote told him when he returned.

"It's very odd," the Mayor said. "Did you notice that old cross in the field?"

"Yes."

"It's not as old as you might think. 1928 is the date and it's been put up in that field far from anywhere in memory of a school inspector. Why there? Why a school inspector?"

"Perhaps he was killed at that spot. A motor accident?"

"Or perhaps the Guardia," the Mayor said with a glance in his mirror, but the road was empty behind them.

IV

HOW MONSIGNOR QUIXOTE

REJOINED HIS ANCESTOR

1

The great grey edifice of the Osera monastery stretches out almost alone within a trough of the Galician hills. A small shop and a bar at the very entrance of the monastery grounds make up the whole village of Osera. The carved exterior which dates from the sixteenth century hides the twelfth-century interior -- an imposing stairway, perhaps twenty metres wide, up which a platoon could march shoulder to shoulder, leads to long passages lined with guest rooms above the central courtyard and the cloisters. Almost the only sound during the day is the ring of hammers where half a dozen workmen are struggling to repair the ravages of seven centuries. Sometimes a white-robed figure passes rapidly by on what is apparently a serious errand, and in the dark corners loom the wooden figures of popes and of the knights whose order founded the monastery. They take on an appearance of life, as sad memories do, when the dark has fallen. A visitor has the impression of an abandoned island which has been colonized only recently by a small group of adventurers, who are now trying to make a home in the ruins of a past civilization. The doors of the church, which open on to the little square before the monastery, are closed except during visiting hours and at the time of Sunday Masses, but the monks have their private staircase which leads from the corridor, where the guest rooms lie, down to the great nave as large as many a cathedral's. Only during visiting hours or when guests are present do human voices sound among the ancient stones, as though a pleasure boat has deposited a few tourists on the shore.

2

Father Leopoldo was only too well aware that he had cooked a very bad lunch for the guest room. He had no illusions about his ability as a chef, but his fellow Trappists were used to even worse cooking and there was no real occasion for them to complain - each of them in turn would have to do his best or his worst. All the same, most guests must have been accustomed to better food and Father Leopoldo felt unhappy when he thought of the meal he had served that afternoon, all the more because he had a real reverence for the only guest at the moment who was the Professor of Hispanic Studies at Notre Dame University in the United States. Professor Pilbeam had taken -- it would appear from the plate -- not more than a spoonful or two of soup, and his fish had been left almost untouched. The lay brother who was helping Father Leopoldo in the kitchen had raised his eyebrows ostentatiously when the professor's dishes were brought in to be cleaned and he had winked at Father Leopoldo. Where there is a vow of silence, a wink can convey as much as a word, and no one there had taken a vow to refrain from communication by other means than the voice.

Father Leopoldo was glad when at last he was able to leave the kitchen and go to the library. He hoped that he would find the professor there, for then he could tell him in words how sorry he was about the meal. Speech was not forbidden with a guest, and he felt sure that Professor Pilbeam would understand his absent-mindedness with the salt. He had been thinking, as happened very often, of Descartes. The presence of Professor Pilbeam, whose second visit to Osera this was, had removed Father Leopoldo from the peace of a routine to a more confused world, the world of intellectual speculation. Professor Pilbeam was perhaps the greatest living authority on the life and works of Ignatius Loyola, and any intellectual discussion, even on a subject as unsympathetic to Father Leopoldo as a Jesuit saint, was like giving food to a starving man. It could be dangerous. So often the guests at the monastery were young people of great piety who imagined that they had a vocation for a Trappist life, and they invariably irritated him by their ignorance and by their exaggerated respect for what they believed had been his great sacrifice. They wanted in a romantic way to sacrifice their own lives. But he had come here only to find a precarious peace.

The professor was not in the library and Father Leopoldo sat down and again he thought of Descartes. It was Descartes who had led him out of scepticism into the Church in much the same way as he had led the Queen of Sweden. Descartes would certainly not have put too much salt in the soup, nor would he have over-grilled the fish. Descartes was a practical man who had worked on spectacles to find cures for blindness and on wheel-chairs to aid cripples. Father Leopoldo when a young man had had no thought of becoming a priest. He had attached himself to Descartes without thought of where he might be led. He wanted to question everything, in the manner of Descartes, searching for an absolute truth, and in the end, like Descartes, he had accepted what seemed to him the nearest thing to truth. But it was then that he had taken a greater leap than Descartes -- a leap into the silent world of Osera. He was not unhappy -- except about the soup and the fish -- but all the same he was glad of the opportunity to talk to an intelligent man, even if he had to talk about Saint Ignatius rather than Descartes.

After a while, when there was no sign of Professor Pilbeam, he made his way along the guests' corridor and down to the great church which was likely to be empty at this hour when the outer doors were closed. There were few, except during tourist hours, who visited the church -- even on a Sunday -- so that to Father Leopoldo it was like a close family home, almost free from the intrusion of strangers. He could pray there his individual prayer and it was there he would often pray for Descartes, and sometimes he would even pray to Descartes. The church was ill-lit, and as he entered by the private door from the monastery he did not at first recognize a figure which stood examining the rather grotesque painting of a naked man stuck in a thorn bush. Then the man spoke in his American accent -- it was Professor Pilbeam.

"I know you are not very fond of Saint Ignatius," he said, "but at least he was a good soldier and a good soldier would find more useful ways of suffering than throwing himself into a lot of thorns."

Father Leopoldo abandoned the thought of private prayer, and in any case the rare opportunity to speak was a greater privilege. He said, "I am not so sure that Saint Ignatius was all that concerned with what was useful. A soldier can be very romantic. I think it is for that reason he is a national hero. All Spaniards are romantic, so that sometimes we take windmills for giants."

"Windmills?"

"You know that one of our great modern philosophers compared Saint Ignatius to Don Quixote. They had a lot in common."

"I haven't read Cervantes since I was a boy. Too fanciful for my taste. I haven't much time for fiction. Facts are what I like. If I could unearth one undiscovered document about Saint Ignatius I would die a happy man."

"Fact and fiction -- they are not always easy to distinguish. As you are a Catholic. . ."

"A rather nominal one, father, I'm afraid. I haven't bothered to change the label that I was born with. And of course being a Catholic helps me in my research -- it opens doors. Now you, Father Leopoldo, you are a student of Descartes. That's hardly likely to open many doors for you, I should imagine. What brought you here?"

"I suppose Descartes brought me to the point where he brought himself -- to faith. Fact or fiction -- in the end you can't distinguish between them -- you have just to choose."

"But to become a Trappist?"

"I think, you know, professor, that when one has to jump, it's so much safer to jump into deep water."

"And you don't regret. . .?"

"Professor, there are always plenty of things to regret. Regrets are part of life. One can't escape regrets even in a twelfth-century monastery. Can you escape from them in the University of Notre Dame?"

"No, but I decided long ago that I was not a jumper."

It was an unfortunate remark, for at that moment jump he did as an explosion outside was followed seconds later by two more, and the sound of a crash.

"A tyre gone," Professor Pilbeam exclaimed. "I'm afraid there's been a motor accident."

"That was no tyre," Father Leopoldo said. "Those were gun shots." He made for the stairs and called back over his shoulder, "The church doors are locked. Follow me." He ran down the passage by the guest rooms as fast as his long robe would allow him and arrived out of breath at the head of the great ceremonial staircase. The professor was close behind. "Go and find Father Enrique. Tell him to open the church doors. If someone's been hurt we can't carry him up all these stairs."

Father Francisco, who was in charge of the little shop near the entrance, had left his picture postcards, rosaries and liqueur bottles. He looked frightened, and scrupulously he waved his hand towards the door without breaking his vow of silence.

A small Seat car had smashed against the wall of the church. Two Guardia had left their jeep and were approaching with caution with their guns at the ready. A man with blood on his face was trying to open the door of the Seat. He called angrily to the Guardia, "Come and help, you assassins. We are not armed."

Father Leopoldo said, "Are you hurt?"

"Of course I'm hurt. That's nothing. I think they've killed my friend."

The Guardia put away their guns. One of them said, "We only shot at the tyres." The other explained, "We had our orders. These men were wanted for causing a riot."

Father Leopoldo looked at the passenger through the shattered glass of the windscreen. He exclaimed, "But he's a priest," and a moment later, "a monsignor."

"Yes," the stranger said with anger, "a monsignor -- and if the monsignor hadn't stopped to piss we would have been safe in your monastery by now."

The two Guardia managed to wrench the passenger door open. "He's alive," one of them said.

"No thanks to you."

"You are both under arrest. Get into the jeep while we pull your friend out."

The doors of the church swung open and Professor Pilbeam joined them.

Father Leopoldo said, "These men are injured. You can't take them away like this."

"They are wanted for causing a riot and stealing money."

"Nonsense. The man in the car is a monsignor. Monsignors don't steal money. What's your friend's name?" he asked the stranger.

"Monsignor Quixote."

"Quixote! Impossible," Professor Pilbeam said.

"Monsignor Quixote of El Toboso. A descendant of the great Don Quixote himself."

"Don Quixote had no descendants. How could he? He's a fictional character."

"Fact and fiction again, professor. So difficult to distinguish," Father Leopoldo said.

The Guardia had succeeded in removing Father Quixote from the wrecked car and they laid him on the ground. He was trying to speak. The stranger leant over him. "If he dies," he told the Guardia, "by God, I'll see you pay for this."

One of the Guardia looked uneasy, but the other demanded sharply, "What is your name?"

"Zancas, Enrique, but monsignor," he rolled the title as though it were a salute or a drum, "prefers to call me Sancho."

"Profession?"

"I am the former Mayor of El Toboso."

"Your papers."

"You are welcome to them if you can find them in this wreck."

"Señor Zancas," Father Leopoldo said, "can you make out what the monsignor is trying to say?"

"He is asking if Rocinante is all right."

"Rocinante?" Professor Pilbeam exclaimed. "But Rocinante was a horse."

"He means the car. I daren't tell him. The shock might be too great."

"Professor, will you please telephone to Orense for a doctor? Father Francisco knows the number."

The surly Guardia said, "We can see about the doctor. We are taking them to Orense."

"Not in this condition. I forbid it."

"We will have an ambulance sent."

"You can send your ambulance if you want, but it may have to wait a long time: these two will stay here in the monastery until the doctor allows them to leave. I shall speak to the bishop in Orense and I am sure he will have something to say to your commanding officer. Now don't you dare to finger your gun at me."

"We'll go and report," the other Guardia said.

Professor Pilbeam returned with a monk. They carried a mattress between them. He said, "Father Francisco is telephoning. This will have to do for a stretcher."

Father Quixote was shifted with some difficulty on to the mattress and the four of them carried him into the church and up the nave. He was muttering what might have been prayers, but might equally well have been curses. As they turned in front of the altar towards the stairs he made an attempt to cross himself, but the cross remained uncompleted. He had fainted again. The stairs were a difficulty and they had to take a rest at the top.

Professor Pilbeam said, "Quixote is not a Spanish family name. Cervantes himself said that the real name was probably Quexana and that his home was not in El Toboso."

The Mayor said, "Nor was Monsignor Quixote born there."

"Where was he born?"

The Mayor quoted, ""In a certain village in La Mancha, which I do not wish to name.""

"But the whole story is absurd. And Rocinante. . ."

Father Leopoldo said, "Let us put him safely to bed in number three guest room before we discuss the difficult distinction between fact and fiction."

Father Quixote opened his eyes. "Where am I?" he asked. "I thought. . . I thought. . . I was in a church."

"You were, monsignor. The church of Osera. Now we are taking you to a guest room where you can sleep comfortably till the doctor comes."

"Again a doctor. Oh dear, oh dear, is my health so bad. . .?"

"A little rest, and you will be yourself again."

"I thought. . . in the church. . . and then there were some stairs. . . I thought if I could only say a Mass. . ."

"Perhaps. . . tomorrow. . . when you are rested."

"Too long since I said one. Sick. . . travelling. . ."

"Don't worry, monsignor. Perhaps tomorrow." They got him safely into his room and presently the doctor from Orense came and told them he thought there was nothing seriously wrong -- shock and a minor cut on his forehead from the broken windscreen. Of course at his age. . . Tomorrow he would examine him more thoroughly. Perhaps an X-ray might be necessary. Meanwhile he should be kept quiet. It was the Mayor who needed more attention, more attention in more than one way because after the doctor had finished with him (a half dozen or so stitches) the head of the Guardia in Orense telephoned. The Guardia had checked up on Father Quixote by telephone to La Mancha -- his bishop there had told them that he was in fact a monsignor (by some oversight of the Holy Father), but his mental health made him irresponsible for his actions. As for his companion -- that was quite another matter. It was true that he had been Mayor of El Toboso, but he had been defeated at the last election and he was a notorious Communist.

Luckily it was Father Leopoldo who answered the telephone. He said, "At Osera we are not concerned with a man's politics. He will stay here until he is fit to travel."

3

The doctor had given Father Quixote a sedative. He slept deeply and it was one o'clock in the morning before he woke. He couldn't make out where he was. He called, "Teresa," but there was no reply. Somewhere there were voices -- male voices, and an idea came to him that Father Herrera and the bishop were discussing him in the sitting-room. He got out of his bed, but his legs folded under him and he sank down again and cried out more urgently for Teresa.

The Mayor came in, closely followed by Father Leopoldo. Professor Pilbeam watched from the door without entering. "Are you in pain, monsignor?" Father Leopoldo asked.

"Please do not call me monsignor, Dr Galvan. I have no right even to say Mass. The bishop forbids it. He would even like to burn my books."

"What books?"

"The books I love. St Francis de Sales, St Augustine, Senorita Martin of Lisieux. I don't think he trusts me even with St John." He put his hand to the bandage on his head. "I am glad to be back in El Toboso. But perhaps at this very moment Father Herrera is burning my books outside."

"Don't worry. In a day or two -- father -- you will feel yourself again. For the moment you must rest."

"It's difficult to rest, doctor. There is so much in my head that wants to come out. Your white coat -- you are not going to operate, are you?"

"Of course not," Father Leopoldo reassured him, "just another pill to make you sleep."

"Why, Sancho, is that you? I'm glad to see you. You found your way home all right. How is Rocinante?"

"Very tired. She's resting in the garage."

"What an old pair we are. I am tired too."

Without resistance he took the pill and almost immediately fell asleep.

"I'll sit up with him," Sancho said.

"I'll stay with you. I wouldn't be able to sleep for worrying," Father Leopoldo said.

"I'll lie down for a while," Professor Pilbeam told them. "You know my room. Wake me if I can be of any use."

It was around three in the morning when Father Quixote spoke and awoke the two of them from a shallow drowse. He said, "Excellency, a lamb may be able to tame an elephant, but I would beg you to remember the goats in your prayers."

"Dreaming or delirium?" Father Leopoldo wondered.

Sancho said, "I seem to remember. . ."

"You have no right to burn my books, Excellency. The sword, I beg you, not death by pin stabs."

There was a short period of silence, then, "A fart," Father Quixote said, "can be musical."

"I fear," Father Leopoldo whispered, "that he is in a worse state than the doctor told us."

"Mambrino," came the voice from the bed, "Mambrino's helmet. Give it me."

"What does Mambrino's helmet mean?"

Sancho said, "It was the barber's basin which Don Quixote wore. His ancestor, as he believes."

"The professor seems to regard all that as nonsense."

"So does the bishop, which inclines me to think that it may be true."

"I am sorry and beg pardon for the half bottle. It was a sin against the Holy Ghost."

"What does he mean by that?"

"It would take too long to explain now."

"Man has learned many important things from the beasts: from storks the enema, from elephants chastity, and loyalty from the horse."

"That sounds like St Francis de Sales," Father Leopoldo whispered.

"No. I think it is Cervantes," Professor Pilbeam corrected them as he entered the room.

For a while there was silence. "He sleeps again," Father Leopoldo whispered. "Perhaps he will be more peaceful when he wakes."

"Silence with him is not always a sign of peace," Sancho said. "It sometimes means an agony of spirit."

The voice that came from the bed however sounded strong and firm. "I don't offer you a governorship, Sancho. I offer you a kingdom."

"Speak to him," Father Leopoldo urged.

"A kingdom?" Sancho repeated.

"Come with me, and you will find the kingdom."

"I will never leave you, father. We have been on the road together too long for that."

"By this hopping you can recognize love."

Father Quixote sat up on the bed and threw off the sheets. "You condemn me, Excellency, not to say my Mass even in private. This is a shameful thing. For I am innocent. I repeat openly to you the words I used to Dr Galvan -- 'Bugger the bishop.' " He put his feet to the ground, staggered for a moment and stood firm. "By this hopping," he repeated, "you can recognize love."

He walked to the door of the room and fumbled for a moment with the handle. He turned and looked through the three of them as though they were made of glass. "No balloons," he remarked in a note of deep sadness, "no balloons."

"Follow him," Father Leopoldo told the Mayor.

"Shouldn't we wake him?"

"No. It might be dangerous. Let him play out his dream."

Father Quixote walked slowly and carefully out into the passage and moved towards the great staircase, but perhaps some memory of the route by which they had carried him from the church made him pause. He addressed one of the wooden painted figures -- pope or knight? -- and asked quite lucidly, "Is this the way to your church?" He seemed to receive an answer, for he turned on his heel and passed Sancho without a word, going this time in the right direction for the private stair. They followed him cautiously so as not to disturb him.

"Suppose he falls on the stairs," the Mayor whispered.

"To wake him would be even more dangerous."

Father Quixote led them down into the shadows of the great church lit only by the half moon which shone through the east window. He walked firmly to the altar and began to say the words of the old Latin Mass, but it was in an oddly truncated form. He began with the response, "Et introibo ad altare Dei, qui laetificat juventutem meam."

"Is he conscious of what he is doing?" Professor Pilbeam whispered.

"God knows," Father Leopoldo answered.

The Mass went rapidly on -- no epistle, no gospel: it was as though Father Quixote were racing towards the consecration. Because he feared interruption from the bishop? the Mayor wondered. From the Guardia? Even the long list of saints from Peter to Damien was omitted.

"When he finds no paten and no chalice, surely he will wake," Father Leopoldo said. The Mayor moved a few steps nearer to the altar. He was afraid that, when the moment of waking came, Father Quixote might fall, and he wanted to be near enough to catch him in his arms.

"Who the day before He suffered took bread. . ." Father Quixote seemed totally unaware that there was no Host, no paten waiting on the altar. He raised empty hands, "Hoc est enim corpus meum," and afterwards he went steadily on without hesitation to the consecration of the non-existent wine in the non-existent chalice.

Father Leopoldo and the professor had knelt from custom at the words of consecration: the Mayor remained standing. He wanted to be prepared if Father Quixote faltered.

"Hic est enim calix sanguinis mei." The empty hands seemed to be fashioning a chalice out of the air.

"Sleep? Delirium? Madness?" Professor Pilbeam whispered the question. The Mayor edged his way a few more steps towards the altar. He was afraid to distract Father Quixote. As long as he was speaking the Latin words he was at least happy in his dream.

In the years which had passed since his youth at Salamanca the Mayor had forgotten most of the Mass. What remained in his head were certain key passages which had appealed to him emotionally at that distant time. Father Quixote seemed to be suffering from the same lapse of memory -- perhaps in all the years of saying the Mass, almost mechanically, by heart, it was only those sentences which, like the night-lights of childhood, had lit the dark room of habit, that he was recalling now.

So it was he remembered the Our Father, and from there his memory leapt to the Agnus Dei. " Agnus Dei qui tollis peccata mundi." He paused and shook his head. For a moment the Mayor thought he was waking from his dream. He whispered so softly that only the Mayor caught his words, "Lamb of God, but the goats, the goats," then he went directly on to the prayer of the Roman centurion: "Lord, I am not worthy that thou shouldst enter under my roof; say but the word and my soul shall be healed."

His Communion was approaching. The professor said, "Surely when he finds nothing there to take, he will wake up."

"I wonder," Father Leopoldo replied. He added, "I wonder if he will ever wake again."

For a few seconds Father Quixote remained silent. He swayed a little back and forth before the altar. The Mayor took another step forward, ready to catch him, but then he spoke again: "Corpus Domini nostri", and with no hesitation at all he took from the invisible paten the invisible Host and his fingers laid the nothing on his tongue. Then he raised the invisible chalice and seemed to drink from it. The Mayor could see the movement of his throat as he swallowed.

For the first time he appeared to become conscious that he was not alone in the church. He looked around him with a puzzled air. Perhaps he was seeking the communicants. He.remarked the Mayor standing a few feet from him and took the non-existent Host between his fingers; he frowned as though something mystified him and then he smiled. "Compañero," he said, "you must kneel, compañero." He came forward three steps with two fingers extended, and the Mayor knelt. Anything which will give him peace, he thought, anything at all. The fingers came closer. The Mayor opened his mouth and felt the fingers, like a Host, on his tongue. "By this hopping," Father Quixote said, "by this hopping," and then his legs gave way. The Mayor had only just time to catch him and ease him to the ground. "Compañero," the Mayor repeated the word in his turn, "this is Sancho," and he felt over and over again without success for the beat of Father Quixote's heart.

4

The guest master -- a very old man called Father Felipe -- told the Mayor that he thought he might find Father Leopoldo in the library. It was visiting hour and Father Felipe was leading a straggling group of tourists round the parts of the monastery open to the public. There were elderly ladies who listened to every word with what seemed deep respect, some obvious husbands who by their detached air deliberately communicated the fact that they were only following the procession to please their wives, and three youths who had to be restrained from smoking -- they were obviously crestfallen because the two pretty girls in the party showed not the least interest in their presence. Their masculinity seemed to have no appeal to the girls, but the celibacy and the silence in the old building were like a provocative perfume and they gazed with fascination at the notice "Clausura", which at one point stopped their progress like a traffic sign, as though beyond it there might be secrets more interesting and perverse than anything the young men could offer.

One young man tried a door and found it locked. To draw attention to himself he called, "Hi, father, what's in here?"

"One of our guests who is sleeping late," Father Felipe replied.

A very long and very late sleep, the Mayor thought. It was the room where the body of Father Quixote lay. He stood and watched the party as it passed down the long corridor of guest rooms and then he turned towards the library. There he found the professor and Father Leopoldo walking up and down. "Fact and fiction again," Father Leopoldo was saying, "one can't distinguish with any certainty."

The Mayor said, "I have come, father, to say goodbye."

"You are very welcome to stay here awhile."

"I suppose Father Quixote's body will be taken off to El Toboso today. I think I would do better in Portugal where I have friends. If you would allow me to use the telephone for a taxi to Orense where I can hire a car?"

The professor said, "I will drive you in. I have to go to Orense myself."

"You don't want to attend Father Quixote's funeral?" Father Leopoldo asked the Mayor.

"What one does with the body is not very important, is it?"

"A very Christian thought," Father Leopoldo remarked.

"Besides," the Mayor said, "I think my being there would disturb the bishop who will certainly be present if he is to be buried in El Toboso."

"Ah yes, the bishop. He has been on the telephone already this morning. He wanted me to tell the abbot to make quite sure that Father Quixote would not be allowed to say Mass even in private. I explained the sad circumstances which made it quite certain that his order would be obeyed -- in future, that is."

"What did he say?"

"Nothing, but I thought I heard a sigh of relief."

"Why did you say 'in future'? What we listened to last night could hardly be described as a Mass," the professor said.

"Are you sure of that?" Father Leopoldo asked.

"Of course I am. There was no consecration."

"I repeat -- are you sure?"

"Of course I'm sure. There was no Host and no wine."

"Descartes, I think, would have said rather more cautiously than you that he saw no bread or wine."

"You know as well as I do that there was no bread and no wine."

"I know as well as you -- or as little -- yes, I agree to that. But Monsignor Quixote quite obviously believed in the presence of the bread and wine. Which of us was right?"

"We were."

"Very difficult to prove that logically, professor. Very difficult indeed."

"You mean," the Mayor asked, "that I may have received Communion?"

"You certainly did -- in his mind. Does it matter to you?"

"To me, no. But I'm afraid in the eyes of your Church I'm a very unworthy recipient. I am a Communist. One who has not been to confession for thirty years or more. What I've done in those thirty years -- well, you wouldn't like me to go into details."

"Perhaps Monsignor Quixote knew your state of mind better than you do yourself. You have been friends. You have travelled together. He encouraged you to take the Host. He showed no hesitation. I distinctly heard him say, 'Kneel, compañero.' "

"There was no Host," the professor persisted in a tone of deep irritation, "whatever Descartes might have said. You are arguing for the sake of arguing. You are misusing Descartes."

"Do you think it's more difficult to turn empty air into wine than wine into blood? Can our limited senses decide a thing like that? We are faced by an infinite mystery."

The Mayor said, "I prefer to think there was no Host."

"Why?"

"Because once when I was young I partly believed in a God, and a little of that superstition still remains. I'm rather afraid of mystery, and I am too old to change my spots. I prefer Marx to mystery, father."

"You were a good friend and you are a good man. You don't want my blessing, but you will have to accept it all the same. Don't be embarrassed. It's just a habit we have, like sending cards at Christmas."

While the Mayor waited for the professor he bought a small bottle of liqueur and two picture postcards from Father Felipe because they had refused to take money for lodging him or even for the telephone call. He didn't want to be grateful -- gratitude was like a handcuff which only the captor could release. He wanted to feel free, but he had the sense that somewhere on the road from El Toboso he had lost his freedom. It's only human to doubt, Father Quixote had told him, but to doubt, he thought, is to lose the freedom of action. Doubting, one begins to waver between one action and another. It was not by doubting that Newton discovered the law of gravity or Marx the future of capitalism.

He went over to the wrecked carcass of Rocinante. He felt glad that Father Quixote had not seen her in that state, half on her side against the wall, the windscreen in smithereens, one door wrenched off its hinges, the other caved in, her tyres flattened by the bullets of the Guardia: there was no more of a future for Rocinante than for Father Quixote. They had died within a few hours of each other -- a broken mass of metal, a brain in fragments. He insisted with a kind of ferocity on the likeness, fighting for a certainty: that the human being is also a machine. But Father Quixote had felt love for this machine.

A horn sounded and he turned his back on Rocinante to join Professor Pilbeam. As he took his seat the professor said, "Father Leopoldo is a little absurd about Descartes. I suppose in that silence, which they all have to keep here, strange ideas get nourished like mushrooms in a dark cellar."

"Yes. Perhaps."

The Mayor didn't speak again before they reached Orense; an idea quite strange to him had lodged in his brain. Why is it that the hate of man -- even of a man like Franco -- dies with his death, and yet love, the love which he had begun to feel for Father Quixote, seemed now to live and grow in spite of the final separation and the final silence -- for how long, he wondered with a kind of fear, was it possible for that love of his to continue? And to what end?

About the Author

Graham Greene was born in 1904 and educated at Berkhamsted School, where his father was headmaster. On coming down from Balliol College, Oxford, where he published a book of verse, he worked for four years as a sub-editor on The Times. He established his reputation with his fourth novel, Stamboul Train, which he classed as an "entertainment" in order to distinguish it from more serious work. In 1935 he made a journey across Liberia, described in Journey Without Maps, and on his return was appointed film critic of the Spectator. In 1926 he had been received into the Roman Catholic Church and was commissioned to visit Mexico in 1938 and report on the religious persecution there. As a result he wrote The Lawless Roads and, later, The Power and the Glory.

Brighton Rock was published in 1938 and in 1940 he became literary editor of the Spectator. The next year he undertook work for the Foreign Office and was sent out to Sierra Leone in 1941-3. One of his major post-war novels, The Heart of the Matter, is set in West Africa. This was followed by The End of the Affair, The Quiet American, a story set in Vietnam, Our Man in Havana, and A Burnt-Out Case. Many of his novels have been filmed, plus two of his short stories, and The Third Man was written as a film treatment. In 1967 he published a collection of short stories under the title: May We Borrow Your Husband? His other publications include The Honorary Consul (1973), Lord Rochester's Monkey (1974), a biography, An Impossible Woman: The Memories of Dottoressa Moor of Capri (1975: edited), The Human Factor (1978), Doctor Fischer of Geneva or The Bomb Party (1980), Getting to Know the General (1984), The Tenth Man (1985) and The Captain and the Enemy. He has also published two volumes of autobiography: A Sort of Life (1971) and Ways of Escape (1980).

In all, Graham Greene has written some thirty novels, "entertainments", plays, children's books, travel books and collections of essays and short stories. He was made a Companion of Honour in 1966 and was awarded the O.M. in the 1986 New Year's Honours List.

Scan Notes, v3.0: Proofed carefully against DT, italics & special characters intact. Changed 'British Quotes' to "American Quotes".