"By the quantity they want to buy and because they often don't even ask for a glass first to taste it." He added, "If only José had married and had had a son. I started teaching José about the vineyard when he was six years old and now he knows nearly as much as I do and his eyesight is so much better than mine. Soon he would have been teaching his son. . ."
"Can't you find a good manager, Señor Diego?" the Mayor asked.
"That's a foolish question, Señor Sancho -- one I would expect a Communist to ask."
"I am a Communist."
"Forgive me, I am not saying anything against Communists in their proper place, but their proper place is not a vineyard. You Communists could put managers in all the cement works of Spain if you liked. You could have managers over your brickworks and your armament firms, you could put them in charge of your gas and electricity, but you can't let them manage a vineyard."
"Why, Señor Diego?"
"A vine is alive like a flower or a bird. It is not something made by man -- man can only help it to live -- or to die," he added with a deep melancholy, so that his face lost all expression. He had shut his face, as a man shuts a book which he finds he doesn't wish to read.
"Here is the best wine of all," Father José said -- they had not heard him approach -- and he began to pour into their bowls from a large jug.
"You are sure you took from the right barrel?" Señor Diego demanded.
"Of course I did. The second on the left."
"Then now we can drink damnation to the priests of these parts."
"Perhaps -- I am really very thirsty -- you would allow me to drink a little of this good wine before we decide on the toast?"
"Of course, monsignor. And let us have another toast first. To the Holy Father?"
"To the Holy Father and his intentions," Father Quixote said, making a slight amendment. "This is a truly magnificent wine, Señor Diego. I have to admit that our cooperative in El Toboso cannot produce its equal, though ours is an honest wine. But yours is more than honest -- it is beautiful."
"I notice," Señor Diego said, "that your friend did not join in our toast. Surely even a Communist can toast the Holy Father's intentions?"
"Would you have toasted Stalin's intentions?" the Mayor demanded. "One can't know a man's intentions and one can't toast them. Do you think that the monsignor's ancestor really represented the chivalry of Spain? Oh, it may have been his intention, but we all make cruel parodies of what we intend." There was a note of sadness and regret in his voice which surprised Father Quixote. He had been accustomed to aggression from the Mayor: an aggression which was only perhaps a form of self-defence, but regret was surely a form of despair, of surrender, even perhaps of change. He thought for the first time: Where will this voyage of ours finally end?
Señor Diego said to his grandson, "Tell them who the Mexicans are. I thought all Spain knew of them."
"We haven't heard of them in El Toboso."
"The Mexicans," Father José said, "have come from Mexico, but they were all born here. They left Galicia to escape poverty and escape it they did. They wanted money and they found money and they have come back to spend money. They give money to the priests here and they think they are giving to the Church. The priests have grown greedy for more -- they prey on the poor and they prey on the superstition of the rich. They are worse than the Mexicans. Perhaps some of the Mexicans really believe they can buy their way into Heaven. But whose fault is that? Their priests know better and they sell Our Lady. You should see the feast they are celebrating in a town near here today. The priest puts Our Lady up to auction. The four Mexicans who pay the most will carry her in the procession."
"But this is unbelievable," Father Quixote exclaimed.
"Go and see for yourself."
Father Quixote put down his bowl. He said, "We must go, Sancho."
"The procession will not have started yet. Finish your wine first," Señor Diego urged him.
"I am sorry, Señor Diego, but I have lost my taste for even your best wine. You have told me my duty -- 'Go and see for yourself.' "
"What can you do, monsignor? Even the bishop supports them."
Father Quixote remembered the phrase he had used against his own bishop and he resisted the temptation to repeat it, though he was sorely tempted to use the words of his ancestor: "Under my cloak a fig for the King." "I thank you for your generous hospitality, Señor Diego," he said, "but I must go. Will you come with me, Sancho?"
"I would like to drink more of Señor Diego's wine, father, but I can't let you go alone."
"Perhaps in this affair it would be better if I went alone with Rocinante. I will come back for you. It is the honour of the Church which is concerned, so there is no reason for you. . ."
"Father, we have travelled the roads long enough together not to be parted now."
Señor Diego said, "José, put two cases of the best wine in their car. I shall always remember how under this fig tree I was able to entertain for a short while a descendant of the great Don."
2
They knew they were approaching the town when they began to pass many village folk on their way to the feast. It proved to be a very small town, hardly more than a village, and they could see the church, built on a hill, from far away. They passed a bank, the Banco Hispano Americano, which was closed like all the shops. "A big bank for so small a place," the Mayor commented, and a little further down the road they passed five more. "Mexican money," the Mayor said.
"There are moments," Father Quixote replied, "when I am inclined to address you as compañero, but not yet, not yet."
"What do you propose to do, father?"
"I don't know. I am frightened, Sancho."
"Frightened of them?"
"No, no, frightened of myself."
"Why are you stopping?"
"Give me my perchera. It's behind you under the window. My collar too."
He got out of the car and a small group gathered in the street to watch him dress. He felt like an actor who is watched by friends in his dressing-room.
"We are going into battle, Sancho. I need my armour. Even if it is as absurd as Mambrino's helmet."
He sat again behind the wheel of Rocinante and said, "I feel more ready now."
There must have been a hundred people waiting outside the church. Most of these were poor and they hung shyly back to give Father Quixote and Sancho better places near the entrance, where there was a group of men and women who were well dressed -- tradesmen perhaps or employees of the banks. As the poor separated to allow Father Quixote to pass, he asked one of them, "What is happening?"
"The auction is over, monsignor. They are fetching Our Lady from the church."
Another told him, "It went better than last year. You should have seen the money they paid."
"They started the auction at a thousand pesetas."
"The winner paid forty thousand."