"The Civil Guard today," Sancho said, "would know how to answer that. They would put you to sleep fast enough with one blow." He added with gloom, "I could do with some sleep."
"Ah, but your ancestor, Sancho, was a kindly man and he let the youth go. And the magistrate did the same with Cervantes."
Now in the patio, while the sunlight touched with gold the white wine in his glass, Father Quixote's thoughts returned to Marx. He said, "You know, I think my ancestor would have got on well with Marx. Poor Marx -- he had his books of chivalry too that belonged to the past."
"Marx was looking to the future."
"Yes, but he was mourning all the time for the past -- the past of his imagination. Listen to this, Sancho," and Father Quixote took The Communist Manifesto out of his pocket. " 'The bourgeoisie has put an end to all feudal, patriarchal idyllic relations. . . It has drowned the most heavenly ecstasies of religious fervour, of chivalrous enthusiasm, in the icy water of egotistical calculation.' Can't you hear the very voice of my ancestor mourning for lost days? I learnt his words by heart when I was a boy and I remember them, though a bit roughly, still. 'Now idleness triumphs over labour, vice over virtue, presumption over valour, and theory over the practice of arms, which only lived and flourished in the golden age of knights errant. Amadis of Gaul, Palmerin of England, Roland. . .' And listen to The Communist Manifesto again -- you can't deny that this man Marx was a true follower of my ancestor. 'All fixed, fast-frozen relations, with their chain of ancient and venerable prejudices and opinions, are swept away, all newfound ones become antiquated before they can ossify.' He was a true prophet, Sancho. He even foresaw Stalin. 'All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned. . .' "
A man who was lunching alone in the little patio paused with a fork raised to his lips. Then, as Sancho looked across the floor at him, he bowed his head and began again hurriedly to eat. Sancho said, "I wish you wouldn't read quite so loudly, father. You are intoning as though you were in church."
"There are many holy words written which are not in the Bible or the Fathers. Those words of Marx demand in a way to be intoned. . . 'Heavenly ecstasies of religious fervour. . . chivalrous enthusiasm.' "
"Franco is dead, father, but all the same do please show a bit of prudence. That man over there is listening to every word you say."
"Of course, like all the prophets, Marx does make mistakes. Even St Paul was liable to error."
"I don't like the man's brief-case. It's an official sort of brief-case. I can smell the secret police from thirty metres away."
"Let me read you what I think is his biggest mistake. The origin of all the other mistakes to come."
"For God's sake, father, if you must read, read in a low voice."
To please the Mayor, Father Quixote almost whispered the words. Sancho had to lean close to him in order to hear, and they must have had the air of two conspirators. " 'The proletarian is without property; his relation to his wife and children has no longer anything in common with the bourgeois family relations; modern industrial labour has stripped him of every trace of national character.' Perhaps that seemed true when he wrote, Sancho, but surely the world has taken a very different route. Listen to this too: 'The modern labourer, instead of rising with the progress of industry, sinks deeper and deeper below the conditions of existence of his own class. He becomes a pauper.' You know, once some years ago I took a holiday with a friend -- a priest -- his name was -- oh dear, how one forgets names after a glass or two of wine. He had a parish on the Costa Brava (it was when Rocinante was very young) and I saw the English paupers -- so Marx calls them -- lying in the sun on the beaches there. As for not having a national character, they had forced the local people to open what they called fish-and-chip shops: otherwise they would have taken their custom elsewhere, perhaps to France or Portugal."
"Oh, the English," Sancho said, "forget the English -- they never conform to any rules, not even of economics. The Russian proletariat are no longer paupers either. The world has learnt from Marx and Russia. The Russian proletariat have their holidays paid for them in the Crimea. It's just as good as the Costa Brava."
"The proletariat I saw on the Costa Brava were paying for their own holidays. You have to look at the Third World, Sancho, to find any paupers now. But that's not because of the triumph of Communism. Don't you think all this would have happened without Communism? Why, it was already beginning to happen when Marx wrote, but he didn't notice. So that's why Communism had to be spread by force -- force not only against the bourgeoisie, force against the proletariat too. It was humanism, not Communism, which turned the pauper into the bourgeois and behind humanism there's always the shadow of religion -- the religion of Christ as well as the religion of Marx. We are all bourgeois today. Don't tell me that Brezhnev is not just as much a bourgeois as you and me. If the whole world becomes bourgeois, will it be so bad -- except for dreamers like Marx and my ancestor?"
"You make the world of the future sound like Utopia, father."
"Oh no, humanism and religion have not done away with either nationalism or imperialism. It's those two that cause the wars. Wars are not merely for economic reasons -- they come from the emotions of men, like love does, from the colour of a skin or the accent of a voice. From unhappy memories too. That's why I'm glad to have the short memory of a priest."
"I never thought you occupied yourself with politics."
"Not 'occupied'. But you've been my friend a long time, Sancho, and I want to understand you. Das Kapital has always defeated me. This little book is different. It's the work of a good man. A man as good as you are -- and just as mistaken."
"Time will show."
"Time can never show. Our lives are far too short."
The man with the brief-case had put down his knife and fork and was signalling for his bill. When it came he paid rapidly without paying attention to the details.