“The Lord is my shepherd.” But if we are sheep why in heaven’s name should we trust our shepherd? He’s going to guard us from wolves all right, oh yes, but only so that he can sell us later to the butcher.’

What a hypocrite! Oh well, I suppose hypocrisy in a bishop is almost necessary and would be considered by Father Heribert Jone a very venial sin.

We can’t always believe. Just having faith. Like you have, Sancho. Oh, Sancho, Sancho, it’s an awful thing not to have doubts. Suppose all Marx wrote was proved to be absolute truth and Lenin’s works too.’ ‘I’d be glad, of course.’ ‘I wonder.’

He was a true prophet, Sancho. He even foresaw Stalin. “All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned …” ’ A man who was lunching alone in the little patio paused with a fork raised to his lips. Then, as Sancho looked across the floor at him, he bowed his head and began again hurriedly to eat. Sancho said, ‘I wish you wouldn’t read

‘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.

‘I have something to confess to you, father. Oh, not in the confessional. I’m not asking any forgiveness from that myth of yours or mine up there, only from you.’

Father Quixote had always been inquisitive in small ways. His greatest temptation in the confessional box was to ask unnecessary and even irrelevant questions.

‘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.’

‘Ah but, Sancho, I’m trained to forget what I’m told.’ ‘It wasn’t in the confessional.’ ‘No, but it’s very much easier if one is a priest to treat anything one is told as a confession. I never repeat what anybody tells me – even to myself if possible.’