‘The professor seems to regard all that as nonsense.’
‘So does the bishop, which inclines me to think that it may be true.’
‘I am sorry and beg pardon for the half bottle. It was a sin against the Holy Ghost.’
‘What does he mean by that?’
‘It would take too long to explain now.’
‘Man has learned many important things from the beasts: from storks the enema, from elephants chastity, and loyalty from the horse.’
‘That sounds like St Francis de Sales,’ Father Leopoldo whispered.
‘No. I think it is Cervantes,’ Professor Pilbeam corrected them as he entered the room.
For a while there was silence. ‘He sleeps again,’ Father Leopoldo whispered. ‘Perhaps he will be more peaceful when he wakes.’
‘Silence with him is not always a sign of peace,’ Sancho said. ‘It sometimes means an agony of spirit.’
The voice that came from the bed however sounded strong and firm. ‘I don’t offer you a governorship, Sancho. I offer you a kingdom.’
‘Speak to him,’ Father Leopoldo urged.
‘A kingdom?’ Sancho repeated.
‘Come with me, and you will find the kingdom.’
‘I will never leave you, father. We have been on the road together too long for that.’
‘By this hopping you can recognize love.’
Father Quixote sat up on the bed and threw off the sheets. ‘You condemn me, Excellency, not to say my Mass even in private. This is a shameful thing. For I am innocent. I repeat openly to you the words I used to Dr Galván – “Bugger the bishop.”’ He put his feet to the ground, staggered for a moment and stood firm. ‘By this hopping,’ he repeated, ‘you can recognize love.’
He walked to the door of the room and fumbled for a moment with the handle. He turned and looked through the three of them as though they were made of glass. ‘No balloons,’ he remarked in a note of deep sadness, ‘no balloons.’
‘Follow him,’ Father Leopoldo told the Mayor.
‘Shouldn’t we wake him?’
‘No. It might be dangerous. Let him play out his dream.’
Father Quixote walked slowly and carefully out into the passage and moved towards the great staircase, but perhaps some memory of the route by which they had carried him from the church made him pause. He addressed one of the wooden painted figures – pope or knight? – and asked quite lucidly, ‘Is this the way to your church?’ He seemed to receive an answer, for he turned on his heel and passed Sancho without a word, going this time in the right direction for the private stair. They followed him cautiously so as not to disturb him.
‘Suppose he falls on the stairs,’ the Mayor whispered.
‘To wake him would be even more dangerous.’
Father Quixote led them down into the shadows of the great church lit only by the half moon which shone through the east window. He walked firmly to the altar and began to say the words of the old Latin Mass, but it was in an oddly truncated form. He began with the response, ‘Et introibo ad altare Dei, qui laetificat juventutem meam.’
‘Is he conscious of what he is doing?’ Professor Pilbeam whispered.
‘God knows,’ Father Leopoldo answered.
The Mass went rapidly on – no epistle, no gospel: it was as though Father Quixote were racing towards the consecration. Because he feared interruption from the bishop? the Mayor wondered. From the Guardia? Even the long list of saints from Peter to Damien was omitted.
‘When he finds no paten and no chalice, surely he will wake,’ Father Leopoldo said. The Mayor moved a few steps nearer to the altar. He was afraid that, when the moment of waking came, Father Quixote might fall, and he wanted to be near enough to catch him in his arms.
‘Who the day before He suffered took bread . . .’ Father Quixote seemed totally unaware that there was no Host, no paten waiting on the altar. He raised empty hands,‘Hoc est enim corpus meum,’ and afterwards he went steadily on without hesitation to the consecration of the non-existent wine in the non-existent chalice.
Father Leopoldo and the professor had knelt from custom at the words of consecration: the Mayor remained standing. He wanted to be prepared if Father Quixote faltered.
‘Hic est enim calix sanguinis mei.’ The empty hands seemed to be fashioning a chalice out of the air.
‘Sleep? Delirium? Madness?’ Professor Pilbeam whispered the question. The Mayor edged his way a few more steps towards the altar. He was afraid to distract Father Quixote. As long as he was speaking the Latin words he was at least happy in his dream.
In the years which had passed since his youth at Salamanca the Mayor had forgotten most of the Mass. What remained in his head were certain key passages which had appealed to him emotionally at that distant time. Father Quixote seemed to be suffering from the same lapse of memory – perhaps in all the years of saying the Mass, almost mechanically, by heart, it was only those sentences which, like the night-lights of childhood, had lit the dark room of habit, that he was recalling now.
So it was he remembered the Our Father, and from there his memory leapt to the Agnus Dei. ‘Agnus Dei qui tollis peccata mundi.’ He paused and shook his head. For a moment the Mayor thought he was waking from his dream. He whispered so softly that only the Mayor caught his words, ‘Lamb of God, but the goats, the goats,’ then he went directly on to the prayer of the Roman centurion: ‘Lord, I am not worthy that thou shouldst enter under my roof; say but the word and my soul shall be healed.’
His Communion was approaching. The professor said, ‘Surely when he finds nothing there to take, he will wake up.’
‘I wonder,’ Father Leopoldo replied. He added, ‘I wonder if he will ever wake again.’
For a few seconds Father Quixote remained silent. He swayed a little back and forth before the altar. The Mayor took another step forward, ready to catch him, but then he spoke again: ‘Corpus Domini nostri’, and with no hesitation at all he took from the invisible paten the invisible Host and his fingers laid the nothing on his tongue. Then he raised the invisible chalice and seemed to drink from it. The Mayor could see the movement of his throat as he swallowed.
For the first time he appeared to become conscious that he was not alone in the church. He looked around him with a puzzled air. Perhaps he was seeking the communicants. He remarked the Mayor standing a few feet from him and took the non-existent Host between his fingers; he frowned as though something mystified him and then he smiled. ‘Compañero,’ he said, ‘you must kneel, compañero.’ He came forward three steps with two fingers extended, and the Mayor knelt. Anything which will give him peace, he thought, anything at all. The fingers came closer. The Mayor opened his mouth and felt the fingers, like a Host, on his tongue. ‘By this hopping,’ Father Quixote said, ‘by this hopping,’ and then his legs gave way. The Mayor had only just time to catch him and ease him to the ground. ‘Compañero,’ the Mayor repeated the word in his turn, ‘this is Sancho,’ and he felt over and over again without success for the beat of Father Quixote’s heart.
4
The guest master – a very old man called Father Felipe – told the Mayor that he thought he might find Father Leopoldo in the library. It was visiting hour and Father Felipe was leading a straggling group of tourists round the parts of the monastery open to the public. There were elderly ladies who listened to every word with what seemed deep respect, some obvious husbands who by their detached air deliberately communicated the fact that they were only following the procession to please their wives, and three youths who had to be restrained from smoking – they were obviously crestfallen because the two pretty girls in the party showed not the least interest in their presence. Their masculinity seemed to have no appeal to the girls, but the celibacy and the silence in the old building were like a provocative perfume and they gazed with fascination at the notice ‘Clausura’, which at one point stopped their progress like a traffic sign, as though beyond it there might be secrets more interesting and perver
se than anything the young men could offer.
One young man tried a door and found it locked. To draw attention to himself he called, ‘Hi, father, what’s in here?’
‘One of our guests who is sleeping late,’ Father Felipe replied.
A very long and very late sleep, the Mayor thought. It was the room where the body of Father Quixote lay. He stood and watched the party as it passed down the long corridor of guest rooms and then he turned towards the library. There he found the professor and Father Leopoldo walking up and down. ‘Fact and fiction again,’ Father Leopoldo was saying, ‘one can’t distinguish with any certainty.’
The Mayor said, ‘I have come, father, to say goodbye.’
‘You are very welcome to stay here awhile.’
‘I suppose Father Quixote’s body will be taken off to El Toboso today. I think I would do better in Portugal where I have friends. If you would allow me to use the telephone for a taxi to Orense where I can hire a car?’
The professor said, ‘I will drive you in. I have to go to Orense myself.’
‘You don’t want to attend Father Quixote’s funeral?’ Father Leopoldo asked the Mayor.
‘What one does with the body is not very important, is it?’
‘A very Christian thought,’ Father Leopoldo remarked.
‘Besides,’ the Mayor said, ‘I think my being there would disturb the bishop who will certainly be present if he is to be buried in El Toboso.’
‘Ah yes, the bishop. He has been on the telephone already this morning. He wanted me to tell the abbot to make quite sure that Father Quixote would not be allowed to say Mass even in private. I explained the sad circumstances which made it quite certain that his order would be obeyed – in future, that is.’
‘What did he say?’
‘Nothing, but I thought I heard a sigh of relief.’
‘Why did you say “in future”? What we listened to last night could hardly be described as a Mass,’ the professor said.
‘Are you sure of that?’ Father Leopoldo asked.
‘Of course I am. There was no consecration.’
‘I repeat – are you sure?’
‘Of course I’m sure. There was no Host and no wine.’
‘Descartes, I think, would have said rather more cautiously than you that he saw no bread or wine.’
‘You know as well as I do that there was no bread and no wine.’
‘I know as well as you – or as little – yes, I agree to that. But Monsignor Quixote quite obviously believed in the presence of the bread and wine. Which of us was right?’
‘We were.’
‘Very difficult to prove that logically, professor. Very difficult indeed.’
‘You mean,’ the Mayor asked, ‘that I may have received Communion?’
‘You certainly did – in his mind. Does it matter to you?’
‘To me, no. But I’m afraid in the eyes of your Church I’m a very unworthy recipient. I am a Communist. One who has not been to confession for thirty years or more. What I’ve done in those thirty years – well, you wouldn’t like me to go into details.’
‘Perhaps Monsignor Quixote knew your state of mind better than you do yourself. You have been friends. You have travelled together. He encouraged you to take the Host. He showed no hesitation. I distinctly heard him say, “Kneel, compañero.”’
‘There was no Host,’ the professor persisted in a tone of deep irritation, ‘whatever Descartes might have said. You are arguing for the sake of arguing. You are misusing Descartes.’
‘Do you think it’s more difficult to turn empty air into wine than wine into blood? Can our limited senses decide a thing like that? We are faced by an infinite mystery.’
The Mayor said, ‘I prefer to think there was no Host.’
‘Why?’
‘Because once when I was young I partly believed in a God, and a little of that superstition still remains. I’m rather afraid of mystery, and I am too old to change my spots. I prefer Marx to mystery, father.’
‘You were a good friend and you are a good man. You don’t want my blessing, but you will have to accept it all the same. Don’t be embarrassed. It’s just a habit we have, like sending cards at Christmas.’
While the Mayor waited for the professor he bought a small bottle of liqueur and two picture postcards from Father Felipe because they had refused to take money for lodging him or even for the telephone call. He didn’t want to be grateful – gratitude was like a handcuff which only the captor could release. He wanted to feel free, but he had the sense that somewhere on the road from El Toboso he had lost his freedom. It’s only human to doubt, Father Quixote had told him, but to doubt, he thought, is to lose the freedom of action. Doubting, one begins to waver between one action and another. It was not by doubting that Newton discovered the law of gravity or Marx the future of capitalism.
He went over to the wrecked carcass of Rocinante. He felt glad that Father Quixote had not seen her in that state, half on her side against the wall, the windscreen in smithereens, one door wrenched off its hinges, the other caved in, her tyres flattened by the bullets of the Guardia: there was no more of a future for Rocinante than for Father Quixote. They had died within a few hours of each other – a broken mass of metal, a brain in fragments. He insisted with a kind of ferocity on the likeness, fighting for a certainty: that the human being is also a machine. But Father Quixote had felt love for this machine.
A horn sounded and he turned his back on Rocinante to join Professor Pilbeam. As he took his seat the professor said, ‘Father Leopoldo is a little absurd about Descartes. I suppose in that silence, which they all have to keep here, strange ideas get nourished like mushrooms in a dark cellar.’
‘Yes. Perhaps.’
The Mayor didn’t speak again before they reached Orense; an idea quite strange to him had lodged in his brain. Why is it that the hate of man – even of a man like Franco – dies with his death, and yet love, the love which he had begun to feel for Father Quixote, seemed now to live and grow in spite of the final separation and the final silence – for how long, he wondered with a kind of fear, was it possible for that love of his to continue? And to what end?
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Copyright © Graham Greene 1982
First published in Great Britain in 1982 by The Bodley Head Limited
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Graham Greene, Monsignor Quixote
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