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Monsignor Quixote

by Graham Greene

a.b.e-book v3.0 / Notes at EOF

Back Cover:

            His faithful Rocinante an antiquated motor-car, his Sancho Panza a deposed communist mayor, his windmills the Guardia Civil. . . this is

MONSIGNOR QUIXOTE

            A wonderfully picaresque and profoundly moving tale of innocence at large amidst the shrines and fleshpots of modern Spain, Graham Greene's novel, like Cervantes's seventeenth-century classic, is also a brilliant fable for our times.

            "A powerful late work...a mixture of entertainment and deep human awareness" -- Malcolm Bradbury in Vogue

            "A deliciously funny novel and an affectionate offering to all that is noblest and least changing in the people and life of Spain." -- Michael Ratcliffe in The Times

            "A devastating blend of humour and sharp insight" -- New Statesman

            "Droll and poignant. . . wonderfully moving" -- The New York Times Book Review

PENGUIN BOOKS

Published by the Penguin Group

27 Wrights Lane, London W8 5TZ, England

Viking Penguin Inc., 40 West 23rd Street, New York, New York 10010, USA

Penguin Books Australia Ltd, Ringwood, Victoria, Australia

Penguin Books Canada Ltd, 2801 John Street, Markham, Ontario, Canada L3R IB4

Penguin Books (N.Z.) Ltd, 182-190 Wairau Road, Auckland 10, New Zealand

Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England

First published by The Bodley Head 1982

First published in Canada by Lester & Orpen Dennys Ltd 1982

Published in Penguin Books 1983

15 17 19 20 18 16 14

Copyright © Graham Greene, 1982

All rights reserved

Made and printed in Great Britain by

Richard Clay Ltd, Bungay, Suffolk

Filmset in Monophoto Time

Except in the United States of America,

this book is sold subject to the condition

that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise,

be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated

without the publisher's prior consent in any form of

binding or cover other than that in which it is

published and without a similar conditioa

including this condition being imposed

on the subsequent purchaser

"There is nothing either good or bad,

but thinking makes it so."

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

For Father Leopoldo Duran, Aurelio Verde, Octavio Victoria

and Miguel Fernandez,

my companions on the roads of Spain,

and to Tom Burns who inspired my

first visit there in 1946.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I acknowledge with gratitude my debt to

J. M. Cohen's translation in the Penguin

Classics of Cervantes' Don Quixote.

                                                G.G.

CONTENTS

PART ONE

            I. How Father Quixote became a Monsignor

            II. How Monsignor Quixote set off on his travels

            III. How a certain light was shed upon the Holy Trinity

            IV. How Sancho in his turn cast new light on an old Faith

            V. How Monsignor Quixote and Sancho visit a Holy Site

            VI. How Monsignor Quixote and Sancho visit another Holy Site

            VII. How in Salamanca Monsignor Quixote continued his studies

            VIII. How Monsignor Quixote had a curious encounter in Valladolid

            IX. How Monsignor Quixote saw a strange spectacle

            X. How Monsignor Quixote confronted Justice

PART TWO

            I. Monsignor Quixote encounters the Bishop

            II. Monsignor Quixote's second journey

            III. How Monsignor Quixote had his last adventure among the Mexicans

            IV. How Monsignor Quixote rejoined his ancestor

PART ONE

I

HOW FATHER QUIXOTE BECAME

A MONSIGNOR

            It happened this way. Father Quixote had ordered his solitary lunch from his housekeeper and set off to buy wine at a local cooperative eight kilometres away from El Toboso on the main road to Valencia. It was a day when the heat stood and quivered on the dry fields, and there was no air-conditioning in his little Seat 600 which he had bought, already second hand, eight years before. As he drove he thought sadly of the day when he would have to find a new car. A dog's years can be multiplied by seven to equal a man's, and by that calculation his car would still be in early middle age, but he noticed how already his parishioners began to regard his Seat as almost senile. "You can't trust it, Don Quixote," they would warn him and he could only reply, "It has been with me through many bad days, and I pray God that it may survive me." So many of his prayers had remained unanswered that he had hopes that this one prayer of his had lodged all the time like wax in the Eternal ear.

            He could see where the main road lay by reason of the small dust puffs raised by the passing cars. As he drove he worried about the fate of the Seat which he called in memory of his ancestor "my Rocinante". He couldn't bear the thought of his little car rusting on a scrap heap. He had sometimes thought of buying a small plot of land and leaving it as an inheritance to one of his parishioners on condition that a sheltered corner be reserved for his car to rest in, but there was not one parishioner whom he could trust to carry out his wish, and in any case a slow death by rust could not be avoided and perhaps a crusher at a scrapyard would be a more merciful end. Thinking of all this for the hundredth time he nearly ran into a stationary black Mercedes which was parked round the corner on the main road. He assumed that the dark-clothed figure at the wheel was taking a rest on the long drive from Valencia to Madrid, and he went on to buy his jar of wine at the collective without pausing; it was only as he returned that he became aware of a white Roman collar, like a handkerchief signalling distress. How on earth, he wondered, could one of his brother priests afford a Mercedes? But when he drew up he noticed a purple bib below the collar which denoted at least a monsignor if not a bishop.

            Father Quixote had reason to be afraid of bishops; he was well aware how much his own bishop, who regarded him in spite of his distinguished ancestry as little better than a peasant, disliked him. "How can he be descended from a fictional character?" he had demanded in a private conversation which had been promptly reported to Father Quixote.

            The man to whom the bishop had spoken asked with surprise, "A fictional character?"

            "A character in a novel by an overrated writer called Cervantes -- a novel moreover with many disgusting passages which in the days of the Generalissimo would not even have passed the censor."

            "But, Your Excellency, you can see the house of Dulcinea in El Toboso. There it is marked on a plaque; the house of Dulcinea."

            "A trap for tourists. Why," the bishop went on with asperity, "Quixote is not even a Spanish patronymic. Cervantes himself says the surname was probably Quixada or Quesada or even Quexana, and on his deathbed Quixote calls himself Quixano."