"Since my childhood, monsignor. Except during my studies for the priesthood."
"Where did you study?"
"In Madrid. I would have preferred Salamanca, but the standard there was beyond me."
"A man of your ability is wasted in El Toboso. Surely your bishop. . ."
"My bishop, alas, knows how small my abilities are."
"Could your bishop have mended my car?"
"My spiritual abilities I meant."
"In the Church we have need of men of practical abilities too. In the world of today astucia -- in the sense of worldly wisdom -- must be allied to prayer. A priest who can set before an unexpected guest good wine, good cheese and a remarkable steak is a priest who can hold his own in the highest of circles. We are here to bring sinners to repentance and there are more sinners among the bourgeois than among peasants. I would like you to go forth like your ancestor Don Quixote on the high roads of the world. . ."
"They called him a madman, monsignor."
"So many said of St Ignatius. But here is one high road I have to take and here is my Mercedes. . ."
"He was a fiction, my bishop says, in the mind of a writer. . ."
"Perhaps we are all fictions, father, in the mind of God."
"Do you want me to tilt at windmills?"
"It was only by tilting at windmills that Don Quixote found the truth on his deathbed," and the bishop, seating himself at the wheel of the Mercedes, intoned in Gregorian accents, " 'There are no birds this year in last year's nests.' "
"It's a beautiful phrase," Father Quixote said, "but what did he mean by it?"
"I have never quite made it out myself," the bishop replied, "but surely the beauty is enough," and as the Mercedes purred with gentle health on the road towards Madrid, Father Quixote realized with his nose that the bishop had left behind him for a brief instant an agreeable smell compounded of young wine, of cognac, and of manchegan cheese, which before it dispersed a stranger might well have mistaken for an exotic incense.
Many weeks passed with all the comforting, unbroken rhythms of former years. Now that Father Quixote knew that his occasional steak consisted of horse-meat he would greet it with an unguilty smile -- no need to reproach himself for luxury -- in memory of the Italian bishop who had shown such kindness, such courtesy, such love of wine. It seemed to him that one of the pagan gods he had read about in his Latin studies had rested for an hour or two under his roof-tree. He read very little now except his breviary and the newspaper, which had never informed him that the breviary was no longer required reading; he was interested particularly in the accounts of the cosmonauts since he had never quite been able to abandon the idea that somewhere in the immensity of space existed the realm of God -- and occasionally he would open one of his old theological textbooks to make sure that the short homily which he would be making in the church on Sunday was properly in accordance with the teaching of the Church.
He also received once a month from Madrid a theological magazine. There were criticisms in it referring sometimes to dangerous ideas -- spoken even by a cardinal, in Holland or Belgium, he forgot which -- or written by a priest who had a Teutonic name which put Father Quixote in mind of Luther -- but he paid little attention to such criticisms, for it was very unlikely that he would have to defend the orthodoxy of the Church against the butcher, the baker, the garagist or even the restaurant keeper who was the most educated man in El Toboso except for the Mayor, and as the Mayor was believed by the bishop to be an atheist and a Communist, he could safely be ignored as far as the doctrine of the Church was concerned. Indeed, Father Quixote enjoyed the Mayor's company for a street-corner chat more than that of his parishioners. In the company of the Mayor, he ceased to feel himself a kind of official superior; they had the equality of a common interest in the progress through space of the cosmonauts, and they were tactful with each other. Father Quixote did not speak of the possibility of an encounter between a sputnik and the angelic host and the Mayor showed a scientific impartiality between the Russian and the American achievements, not that Father Quixote saw much difference between the crews from a Christian point of view -- both crews seemed to him to consist of good people, probably good parents and good husbands, but in their helmets and space suits, which might well have been provided by the same haberdasher, he couldn't imagine either of them in the company of Gabriel or Michael, and certainly not of Lucifer, if instead of rising to the realm of God their spaceship should take a headlong spin towards the infernal regions.
"You've got a letter," Teresa told him with suspicion. "I didn't know where to find you."
"I was up the street talking to the Mayor."
"That heretic."
"If there were no heretics, Teresa, there would be little for a priest to do."
She snarled at him, "It's a letter from the bishop."
"Oh dear, oh dear." He sat with it for a long time in his hand, fearing to open it. He couldn't remember a single letter from his bishop which hadn't included a complaint of one kind or another. There had been, for example, the time when he had diverted the Easter offering which traditionally belonged in his own pocket to the pocket of a representative of a charity with the worthy Latin name of In Vinculis, purporting to look after the spiritual needs of poor imprisoned men. It was a private act of benevolence which had somehow reached the bishop's ears after the collector had been arrested for organizing the escape of certain incarcerated enemies of the Generalissimo. The bishop had called him a fool -- a term which Christ had deprecated. The Mayor on the other hand had clapped him on the back and called him a worthy descendant of his great ancestor who had released the galley slaves. And then there was the time. . . and that other time. . . he would have given himself a glass of malaga to give him courage had there been any left after he had entertained the Bishop of Motopo.
With a sigh he broke the red seal and opened the envelope. As he had feared the letter seemed to have been written in a cold rage. "I have received an utterly incomprehensible letter from Rome," the bishop wrote, "which at first I took for a joke in the worst of taste imitating an ecclesiastical style and possibly inspired by a member of that Communist organization which you thought it your duty to support from motives which have always been obscure to me. But on asking for confirmation I have today received an abrupt letter confirming the first missive and asking me at once to communicate to you that the Holy Father has seen fit -- for what strange stirring of the Holy Spirit it is not for me to inquire -- to promote you to the rank of Monsignor, apparently on the recommendation of a Bishop of Motopo, of whom I have never heard, without any reference to me, through whom such a recommendation should naturally have come -- a most unlikely action on my part, I need hardly add. I have obeyed the Holy Father in passing on the news to you, and I can only pray that you will not disgrace the title he has seen fit to grant you. Certain scandals which were only forgiven because they originated in the ignorance of the parish priest of El Toboso would have far greater resonance if caused by the imprudence of Monsignor Quixote. So prudence, my dear father, prudence, I beg of you. I have written to Rome, however, pointing out the absurdity of a small parish like El Toboso being in the hands of a monsignor, a title which will be resented by many deserving priests in La Mancha, and asking for aid in finding a wider scope for your activities, perhaps in another diocese or even in the mission field."