"I never found things so complicated. I have always discovered the answer in the books you despise."
"Even in Father Jone?"
"Oh, I was never very strong at Moral Theology."
"One of my problems was that the girl's father, the chemist, died and so we could no longer get the contraceptives. Today it would be easy enough, but in those days. . . Have another glass of wine, father."
"In your company I fear if I'm not careful I shall become what I've heard called a whisky priest."
"I can say, like my ancestor Sancho, that I've never drunk out of vice in my life. I drink when I have a fancy and to toast a friend. Here's to you, monsignor. What does Father Jone say about drinking?"
"Intoxication that ends in complete loss of reason is a mortal sin, unless there is a sufficient reason, and making others drink is the same unless there is a sufficient excuse."
"How he qualifies things, doesn't he?"
"Curiously enough, according to Father Jone, it is more readily permissible to be the occasion of another's drunkenness -- what you are guilty of now -- at a banquet."
"I suppose we could regard this as a banquet?"
"I am not at all sure whether two can make a banquet and I wonder whether our rather dry sausage qualifies." Father Quixote laughed a little nervously (humour was perhaps not quite in place) and he felt the rosary in his pocket. He said, "You may laugh at Father Jone and I have laughed with you, God forgive me. But, Sancho, Moral Theology is not the Church. And Father Jone is not among my old books of chivalry. His book is only like a book of military regulations. St Francis de Sales wrote a book of eight hundred pages called The Love of God. The word love doesn't come into Father Jone's rules and I think, perhaps I am wrong, that you won't find the phrase 'mortal sin' in St Francis's book. He was the Bishop and Prince of Geneva. I wonder how he and Calvin would have got along. I think Calvin would have been more at home with Lenin -- even Stalin. Or the Guardia Civil," he added watching the jeep returning -- if it was the same jeep. His ancestor would have gone out into the road and challenged it perhaps. He felt his own inadequacy and even a sense of guilt. The jeep slowed down as it passed their car. They both had a sense of relief when it went out of their sight and they lay for a while in silence among the debris of their meal. Then Father Quixote said, "We have done nothing wrong, Sancho."
"They judge by appearances."
"But we look as innocent as lambs," Father Quixote said and he quoted his favourite saint, " 'Nothing appeases an enraged elephant so much as a sight of a little lamb, nothing breaks the force of cannon balls so well as wool.' "
"Whoever wrote that," the Mayor said, "showed his ignorance of natural history and dynamics."
"I suppose it's the wine, but I feel extremely hot."
"I can't say that I notice the heat. It seems to me a very agreeable temperature. But of course I am not wearing one of those absurd collars."
"A bit of celluloid. It's not really at all hot when you think what those Guardia are wearing. Just try and you'll see."
"All right, I will. Give it to me. If I remember right Sancho became governor of an island, and so with your help I will become a governor of souls. Like Father Jone." He balanced the collar round his neck. "No, you are right. It doesn't seem so hot. A bit constricting, that's all. It rubs a sore place on my neck. How odd, father, without your collar I would never take you for a priest and certainly not for a monsignor."
"When his housekeeper took away his spear and stripped Don Quixote of his armour you would never have taken him for a knight errant. Only for a crazy old man. Give me back my collar, Sancho."
"Let me be a governor for just a little while longer. Perhaps with this collar I might even hear a confession or two."
Father Quixote put out his hand to snatch the collar when a voice of authority spoke. "Show me your papers." It was the Guardia. He must have left his jeep round a bend in the road and then approached them on foot. He was a stout man and he was sweating from exhaustion or apprehension, for his fingers played on his holster. Perhaps he was afraid of a Basque terrorist.
Father Quixote said, "My wallet is in the car."
"We will fetch it together. And yours, father," he demanded of Sancho.
Sancho felt in his breast pocket for his identity card.
"What is that heavy object in your pocket?1
The Guardia's hand rested on his gun as Sancho removed a small green volume marked Moral Theology. "Not forbidden reading, Guardia."
"I have not said it was, father."
"I am not a father, Guardia."
"Then why are you wearing that collar?"
"I borrowed it for a moment from my friend. Look. It's not attached. Just balanced. My friend is a monsignor."
"A monsignor?"
"Yes, you can see that by his socks." The Guardia took a look at the purple socks. He asked, "This book is yours then? And the collar?"
"Yes," Father Quixote said.
"You lent them to this man?"
"Yes. You see, I was feeling hot and. . ." The Guardia signalled him to the car.
Father Quixote opened the glove compartment. For a moment he couldn't see his identity card. The Guardia breathed heavily behind him. Then Father Quixote noticed that, perhaps impelled by the heavy panting of a tired Rocinante, the card had slipped between the red covers of a book which the Mayor had left there. He pulled the book out. The author's name was marked in heavy type, LENIN.
"Lenin," the Guardia exclaimed. "Is this book yours?"
"No, no. Mine is the Moral Theology one."
"Is this your car?"
"Yes."
"But this is not your book?"
"It belongs to my friend here."
"The man to whom you lent your collar?"
"That's right."
The Mayor had followed them to the car. His voice made the Guardia jump. It was obvious that the man's nerves were not in a good state. "Even Lenin is not forbidden reading now, Guardia. This is quite an early work -- his essays on Marx and Engels. Written mainly in the respectable city of Zurich. You might say -- a little time-bomb made in the city of bankers."
"A time-bomb," the Guardia exclaimed.
"I am talking metaphorically."
The Guardia laid the book down with caution on the seat and moved a little away from the car. He said to Father Quixote. "There is nothing on your identity card about your being a monsignor."
"He is travelling incognito," the Mayor said.
"Incognito. Why incognito?"