Read Online Monsignor Quixote by Graham Greene - Free Book Online

emergency . . .’
    â€˜I’ve explained that to you – the state of the roads these days . . .’
    While the assistant did up the package, which he closed carefully with a scotch tape of the same ecclesiastical purple as the socks and the pechera , the Mayor, who had obviously taken a dislike to the man, began a needling conversation. ‘I suppose,’ he said, ‘you supply pretty well everything the Church needs – in the way of decoration.’
    â€˜If you mean vestments, well, yes.’
    â€˜And hats – birettas and the like?’
    â€˜Of course.’
    â€˜And cardinals’ hats? The monsignor has not reached that stage yet, of course. I’m just asking for interest . . . One must be prepared . . .’
    â€˜Cardinals’ hats are always received from His Holiness.’
    Rocinante had one of her moods and took a little time to start. ‘I’m afraid I went too far,’ the Mayor said, ‘and aroused suspicion.’
    â€˜What do you mean?’
    â€˜That man came to the door. I think he took the number of the car.’
    â€˜I don’t want to be unkind,’ Father Quixote said, ‘but he looked the kind of man who might belong to Opus Dei.’
    â€˜They probably own the shop.’
    â€˜Of course I’m sure they do a lot of good in their own way. Like the Generalissimo did.’
    â€˜I would like to believe in Hell if only to put the members of Opus Dei there with the Generalissimo.’
    â€˜He has my prayers,’ Father Quixote said and stiffened his fingers round the wheel of Rocinante.
    â€˜He’ll need more than your prayers if there’s a Hell.’
    â€˜Since there is a Hell it will need only the prayers of one just man to save any of us. Like Sodom and Gomorrah,’ Father Quixote added, with some uncertainty whether he had got the statistics right.
    It was a very hot evening. The Mayor suggested that they should have dinner at the Poncio Pilato, but Father Quixote was firm in his refusal. He said, ‘Pontius Pilate was an evil man. The world has almost canonized him because he was a neutral, but one cannot be neutral when it comes to choosing between good and evil.’
    â€˜He was not neutral,’ the Mayor retorted. ‘He was nonaligned – like Fidel Castro – with a slant in the right direction.’
    â€˜What do you mean by the right direction?’
    â€˜The Roman Empire.’
    â€˜You – a Communist – support the Roman Empire?’
    â€˜Marx tells us that to arrive at the possibility of developing a revolutionary proletariat we have to pass through the stage of capitalism. The Roman Empire was developing into a capitalist society. The Jews were held back by their religion from ever becoming industrialists, so . . .’
    The Mayor then suggested that they eat at the Horno de Santa Teresa: ‘I don’t know about her oven, but she was a saint very much admired by your friend, the Generalissimo.’ Father Quixote could see no reason why food and religion had to be linked together, and he was irritated when the Mayor then proposed the San Antonio de la Florida, a saint of whom Father Quixote had no knowledge. He suspected the Mayor of teasing him. In the end they ate a rather bad meal at Los Porches where the open air made up a little for the deficiencies of the menu.
    They killed one bottle of wine while they waited and a second with their meal, but when the Mayor suggested that they complete the Holy Trinity, Father Quixote refused. He said he was tired, the siesta had done him no good, but these were excuses – it was really his dream that weighed on him. He longed to communicate it, though Sancho would never understand the distress it had caused him. If only he had been at home . . . and yet what difference would that have made? Teresa would have said, ‘It was only a dream, father,’