"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.