"If he's young let him sleep in the armchair."
"For the time being he is my guest, Teresa."
"What do you mean -- for the time being?"
"I think that the bishop is likely to make him my successor in El Toboso. I am getting old, Teresa."
"If you are that old you shouldn't go gallivanting off -- the good God alone knows where. Anyway, don't expect me to work for another priest."
"Give him a chance, Teresa, give him a chance. But don't on any account tell him the secret of your admirable steaks."
Three days passed and Father Herrera arrived. Father Quixote, who had gone to have a chat with the ex-Mayor, found the young priest on the doorstep carrying a smart black suitcase. Teresa was barring his entrance, a kitchen cloth in her hand. Father Herrera was perhaps naturally pale, but he looked agitated and the sun gleamed on his clerical collar. "Monsignor Quixote?" he asked. "I am Father Herrera. This woman won't let me in."
"Teresa, Teresa, this is very unkind of you. Where are your manners? This is our guest. Go and get Father Herrera a cup of coffee."
"No. Please not. I never drink coffee. It keeps me awake at night."
In the sitting-room Father Herrera took the only armchair without hesitation. "What a very violent woman," he said. "I told her that I was sent by the bishop and she said something very rude."
"Like all of us, she has her prejudices."
"The bishop would not have been pleased."
"Well, he didn't hear her, and we won't tell him, will we?"
"I was quite shocked, monsignor."
"I wish you wouldn't call me monsignor. Call me father if you like. I'm old enough to be your father. Have you experience of parish work?"
"Not directly. I've been His Excellency's secretary for three years. Since I left Salamanca."
"You may find it difficult at first. There are many Teresas in El Toboso. But I am sure you will learn very quickly. Your doctorate was in. . . let me remember."
"Moral Theology."
"Ah, I always found that a very difficult subject. I very nearly failed to pass -- even in Madrid."
"I see you have Father Heribert Jone on your shelf. A German. All the same, very sound on that subject."
"I am afraid I haven't read him for many years. Moral Theology, as you can imagine, doesn't play a great part in parish work."
"I would have thought it essential. In the confessional."
"When the baker comes to me -- or the garagist -- it's not very often -- their problems are usually very simple ones. Well, I trust to my instinct. I have no time to look their problems up in Jone."
"Instinct must have a sound basis, monsignor -- I'm sorry -- father."
"Oh yes, of course, a sound basis. Yes. But like my ancestor, perhaps I put my trust most in old books written before Jone was born."
"But your ancestor's books were only ones of chivalry, surely?"
"Well, perhaps mine -- in their way -- are of chivalry too. St John of the Cross, St Teresa, St Francis de Sales. And the Gospels, father. 'Let us go up to Jerusalem and die with Him.' Don Quixote could not have put it better than St Thomas."
"Oh, of course, one accepts the Gospels, naturally," Father Herrera said in the tone of one who surrenders a small and unimportant point to his adversary. "All the same, Jone on Moral Theology is very sound, very sound. What's that you said, father?"
"Oh, nothing. A truism which I haven't the right to use. I was going to add that another sound base is God's love."
"Of course, of course. But we mustn't forget His justice either. You agree, monsignor?"
"Yes, well, yes, I suppose so."
"Jone makes a very clear distinction between love and justice."
"Did you take a secretarial course, father? After Salamanca, I mean."
"Certainly. I can type and without boasting I can claim to be very good at shorthand."
Teresa put her head round the door. "Will you have a steak for lunch, father?"
"Two steaks, please, Teresa."
The sunlight flashed again on Father Herrera's collar as he turned: the flash was like a helio signal sending what message? Father Quixote thought he had never before seen so clean a collar or indeed so clean a man. You would have thought, so smooth and white was his skin, that it had never required a razor. That comes from living so long in El Toboso, he told himself, I am a rough countryman. I live very, very far away from Salamanca.
3
The day of departure came at last. Rocinante had been passed by the garagist, though rather grudgingly, as fit to leave. "I can guarantee nothing," he said. "You should have turned her in five years ago. All the same she ought to get you as far as Madrid."
"And back again, I hope," Father Quixote said.
"That is another matter."
The Mayor could hardly contain his impatience to be gone. He had no desire to see his successor installed. "A black Fascist, father. We shall soon be back in the days of Franco."
"God rest his soul," Father Quixote added with a certain automatism.
"He had no soul. If such a thing exists."
Their luggage filled the boot of Rocinante and the back seat was given up to four cases of honest manchegan wine. "You can't trust the wine in Madrid," the Mayor said. "Thanks to me we have at least an honest cooperative here."
"Why should we go to Madrid?" Father Quixote asked. "I remember I disliked the city a great deal when I was a student and I have never been back. Why not take the road to Cuenca? Cuenca, I am told, is a beautiful town and a great deal nearer to El Toboso. I don't want to overtire Rocinante."
"I doubt if you can buy purple socks in Cuenca."
"Those purple socks! I refuse to buy purple socks. I can't afford to waste money on purple socks, Sancho."
"Your ancestor had a proper respect for the uniform of a knight errant, even though he had to put up with a barber's basin for a helmet. You are a monsignor errant and you must wear purple socks."
"They say my ancestor was mad. They will say the same of me. I will be brought back in disgrace. Indeed I must be a little mad, for I am mocked with the title of monsignor and I am leaving El Toboso in charge of that young priest."
"The baker has a poor opinion of him and I've seen him myself in close talk with that reactionary of the restaurant."
Father Quixote insisted on taking the wheel. "Rocinante has certain tricks of her own which only I know."
"You are taking the wrong road."
"I have to go to the house once more. I have forgotten something."
He left the Mayor in the car. The young priest, he knew, was at the church. He wanted to be alone for the last time in the house where he had lived for more than thirty years. Besides, he had forgotten Father Heribert Jone's work on Moral Theology. St John of the Cross was in the boot and so was St Teresa and St Francis de Sales. He had promised Father Herrera, although a little unwillingly, to balance these old books with a more modern work of theology which he had not opened since the days when he was a student. "Instinct must have a sound basis in belief," Father Herrera had correctly said. If the Mayor began to quote Marx to him Father Heribert Jone might perhaps prove useful in reply. Anyway it was a small book which fitted easily into a pocket. He sat down for a few moments in his armchair. The seat had been shaped by his body through the years and its shape was as familiar to him as the curve of the saddle must have been to his ancestor. He could hear Teresa move pans in the kitchen, keeping up the angry mutter which had been the music of his morning solitude. I will miss even her ill humour, he thought. Outside the Mayor impatiently sounded the horn.