Father Quixote said, "I'm a very new monsignor. Are you sure about the rules?"
"Anyway, in an emergency any priest. . . This is an emergency."
"But there are many priests in Valladolid. Go to any church. . ."
"I could see from your eyes that you were a priest who would understand."
"Understand what?" The man began quickly to mumble the Act of Contrition, but at least he got the words right. Father Quixote felt himself at a loss. Never before had he heard a confession in such surroundings. He had always been seated in that box like a coffin. . . It was almost automatically that he took refuge in the only box available and sat down on a closed lavatory seat. The stranger would have got down on his knees, but Father Quixote stopped him, for the floor was not at all clean. "Don't kneel," he said. "Just stand as you are." The man held out the large brass handle. He said, "I have sinned and I ask the forgiveness of God through you, father. I mean monsignor."
"I'm not a monsignor in this box," Father Quixote said. "There are no ranks in the confessional. What have you done?"
"I have stolen this handle and another handle like it."
"Then you must give them back."
"The owner is dead. I buried him this morning."
Father Quixote shielded, as the custom is, his eyes with a hand for the sake of secrecy, but a vision of the dark vulpine face remained clearly in his mind. He was a priest who liked to hear a quick confession in the simple abstract words that penitents usually employed. They seldom entailed more than one simple question -- how many times. . .? I have committed adultery, I have neglected my Easter duties, I have sinned against purity. . . He was not used to a sin in the form of a brass handle. Surely a handle like that could have little value.
"You should return the handle to the heirs."
"Father Gonzalez left no heirs."
"But what are these handles? When did you steal them?"
"I charged for them in my bill and then I took them off the coffin so that I could use them again."
"Do you often do that?" Father Quixote could not restrain the fatal curiosity which was his recurring fault in the confessional.
"Oh, it's a common practice. All my competitors do it."
Father Quixote wondered what Father Heribert Jone would have written about this case. He would certainly list it among sins against justice, the category to which adultery also belongs, but Father Quixote seemed to remember that in the case of theft the gravity of the sin had to be judged by the value of the object stolen -- if it was equivalent to one seventh of the owner's monthly wage it must be treated seriously. If the owner were a millionaire there would be no sin at all -- at least not against justice. What would Father Gonzalez have earned monthly and indeed was he the true owner if he had only come into possession of the handles after death? A coffin surely belonged to the earth in which it was laid.
He asked -- more to allow himself time to think than for any other reason -- "Have you confessed to the other occasions?"
"No. I told you, monsignor, it is a recognized practice in my profession. We charge extra for brass handles, that's true, but it's only a kind of rent. Till the interment is over."
"Then why are you confessing to me now?"
"Perhaps I am a too scrupulous man, monsignor, but it seemed somehow different when I buried Father Gonzalez. He would have been so proud of the brass handles. You see, it showed how esteemed he was in the parish, because, naturally, it was the parish which paid."
"And you contributed?"
"Oh yes. Of course. I was very fond of Father Gonzalez."
"So in a way you are stealing from yourself?"
"Not stealing, monsignor."
"I've told you not to call me monsignor. You say that you have not stolen, that it is the practice of your colleagues to remove these handles. . ."
"Yes."
"Then what is troubling your conscience?"
The man gave a gesture which could have been one of bewilderment. Father Quixote thought: How many times I have felt guilty as he does without knowing why. Sometimes he envied the certitude of those who were able to lay down clear rules -- Father Heribert Jone, his bishop, even the Pope. Himself he lived in a mist, unable to see a path, stumbling. . . He said, "Don't worry about such little things. Go home and have a good sleep. Perhaps you have stolen. . . Do you think God cares so much about a small thing like that? He has created a universe -- we don't know how many stars and planets and worlds. You have stolen two brass handles -- don't feel so important. Say you are sorry for your pride and go home."
The man said, "But please -- my absolution."
Father Quixote unwillingly muttered the unnecessary formula. The man put the handle back in the briefcase, closed it, and made a kind of duck in the direction of Father Quixote before he went out. Father Quixote sat on the lavatory seat with a sense of exhaustion and inadequacy. He thought: I didn't say the right words. Why do I never find the right words? The man needed help and I recited a formula. God forgive me. Will someone only give me a formula too when I come to die?
After a while he went back into the bar. Sancho was there waiting for him and drinking another brandy.
"What on earth have you been up to?"
"Practising my profession," Father Quixote replied.
"In a lavatory?"
"In a lavatory, in a prison, in a church. What's the difference?"
"You got rid of that man?"
Father Quixote said, "I suppose I did. I'm a bit tired, Sancho. I know it's extravagant, but could I have just one more bottle of tonic water?"
IX
HOW MONSIGNOR QUIXOTE SAW
A STRANGE SPECTACLE
Their stay in Valladolid was unexpectedly prolonged by a firm reluctance on the part of Rocinante to take the road again, so she had to be left in a garage for examination.
"Little wonder," Father Quixote said. "Yesterday the poor thing covered an immense distance."
"An immense distance! We are less than 120 kilometres from Salamanca."
"Her usual stint is ten -- when I have to fetch wine from the cooperative."
"It's just as well then that we decided against Rome or Moscow. If you want my opinion, you have spoilt her. Cars, like women, should never be spoilt."
"But she's very old, Sancho. Older than we are probably. After all -- without her help. . . Could we have walked all the way from Salamanca?"
As they had to wait for the verdict on Rocinante until the morning, Sancho suggested that they might visit a cinema. Father Quixote agreed after some hesitation. There had once been a period when stage plays were forbidden to the priesthood, and though the regulation had never applied to the cinema, which had not then existed, there remained in Father Quixote's mind a sensation of something dangerous about a spectacle.
"I have never been to a cinema before," he told Sancho.