Monsignor Quixote

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.

‘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

‘But to become a Trappist?’ ‘I think, you know, professor, that when one has to jump, it’s so much safer to jump into deep water.’ ‘And you don’t regret …?’ ‘Professor, there are always plenty of things to regret. Regrets are part of life. One can’t escape regrets even in a twelfth-century monastery. Can you escape from them in the University of No

So often the guests at the monastery were young people of great piety who imagined that they had a vocation for a Trappist life, and they invariably irritated him by their ignorance and by their exaggerated respect for what they believed had been his great sacrifice. They wanted in a romantic way to sacrifice their own lives. But he had come here o

‘The bishop left a letter for me.’ Father Quixote drew it from his pocket and turned it over and over. ‘Go on, man. Open it. It’s not a death warrant.’ ‘How do you know?’ ‘The days of Torquemada are over.’ ‘As long as there is a Church there will always be little Torquemadas. Give me another glass of wine.’

‘I don’t want our travels to end. Not before death, Sancho. My ancestor died in his bed. Perhaps he would have lived longer if he had stayed on the road. I’m not ready for death yet, Sancho.’ ‘I’m worrying about the Guardia’s computers. Rocinante is pretty well disguised, but at the frontier they may be looking out for the two of us.’ ‘Like it or n

Where there is a vow of silence, a wink can convey as much as a word, and no one there had taken a vow to refrain from communication by other means than the voice.

‘Father Heribert Jone found drunkenness a more serious sin than gluttony. I don’t understand that. A little drunkenness has brought us together, Sancho. It helps friendship. Gluttony surely is a solitary vice. A form of onanism.

‘Do you know what drew me to you in El Toboso, father? It wasn’t that you were the only educated man in the place. I’m not so fond of the educated as all that. Don’t talk to me of the intelligentsia or culture. You drew me to you because I thought you were the opposite of myself. A man gets tired of himself, of that face he sees every day when he s