"You are sitting on it. And don't talk so scornfully of altar wine. I don't know what Father Herrera will buy, but I use a perfectly good manchegan. Of course, if the Pope is going to allow Communion in both kinds, I will have to buy something cheaper, but I trust he will consider the poverty of the priesthood. The baker has a great thirst. He would lap up a whole chalice."
"Let us raise another glass, father. To hope again."
"To hope, Sancho." And they clicked their glasses. The night was beginning to turn from cool to cold, but the wine still warmed them, and Father Quixote had no desire to hasten towards the city he disliked and to breathe the fumes of the lorries, which continued to pass along the road in a chain of headlights.
"Your glass is empty, father."
"Thank you. A drop more. You are a good fellow, Sancho. I seem to remember that our two ancestors lay down for the night under the trees more than once. There are no trees here. But there is a castle wall. In the morning we will demand entrance, but now. . . Give me a little more of the cheese."
"I am happy to be lying under the great symbol of the hammer and the sickle."
"The poor sickle has been rather neglected in Russia, don't you think, or they wouldn't have to buy so much wheat from the Americans?"
"A temporary shortage, father. We cannot yet control the climate."
"But God can."
"Do you really believe that?"
"Yes."
"Ah, you indulge too much, father, in a dangerous drug -- as dangerous as the old Don's books of chivalry."
"What drug?"
"Opium."
"Oh, I understand. . . That old saying of your prophet Marx -- 'Religion is the opium of the people.' But you take it out of context, Sancho. Just as our heretics have twisted the words of our Lord."
"I don't follow you, monsignor."
"When I was a student in Madrid I was encouraged to read a little in your holy book. One must know one's enemy. Don't you remember how Marx defended the monastic orders in England and condemned Henry VIII?"
"I certainly do not."
"You should look at Das Kapital again. There is no talk of opium there."
"All the same, he wrote it -- though I forget for a moment where."
"Yes, but he wrote it in the nineteenth century, Sancho. Opium then was not an evil drug -- laudanum was a tranquillizer -- nothing worse. A tranquillizer for the well-to-do, one which the poor could not afford. Religion is the valium of the poor -- that was all he meant. Better for them than a visit to a gin palace. Better for them perhaps even than this wine. Man can't live without a tranquillizer."
"Then perhaps we should kill another bottle?"
"Say half a bottle if we are to arrive safely in Madrid. Too much opium might be dangerous."
"We will make a Marxist of you yet, monsignor."
"I have packed some half bottles to fill up the corners."
The Mayor went to the car, and returned with a half bottle.
"I have never denied that Marx was a good man," Father Quixote said. "He wanted to help the poor, and that want of his will certainly have saved him at the last."
"Your glass, monsignor."
"I have asked you not to call me monsignor."
"Then why not call me comrade -- I prefer it to Sancho."
"In recent history, Sancho, too many comrades have been killed by comrades. I don't mind calling you friend. Friends are less apt to kill each other."
"Isn't friend going a little bit far between a Catholic priest and a Marxist?"
"You said a few hours back that we must have something in common."
"Perhaps what we have in common is this manchegan wine, friend."
They both had a sense of growing comfort as the dark deepened and they teased each other. When the lorries passed on the road the headlights gleamed narrowly for a moment on the two empty bottles and what remained in the half bottle.
"What puzzles me, friend, is how you can believe in so many incompatible ideas. For example, the Trinity. It's worse than higher mathematics. Can you explain the Trinity to me? It was more than they could do in Salamanca."
"I can try."
"Try then."
"You see these bottles?"
"Of course."
"Two bottles equal in size. The wine they contained was of the same substance and it was born at the same time. There you have God the Father and God the Son and there, in the half bottle, God the Holy Ghost. Same substance. Same birth. They're inseparable. Whoever partakes of one partakes of all three."
"I was never even in Salamanca able to see the point of the Holy Ghost. He has always seemed to me a bit redundant."
"We were not satisfied with two bottles, were we? That half bottle gave us the extra spark of life we both needed. We wouldn't have been so happy without it. Perhaps we wouldn't have had the courage to continue our journey. Even our friendship might have ceased without the Holy Spirit."
"You are very ingenious, friend. I begin at least to understand what you mean by the Trinity. Not to believe in it, mind you. That will never do."
Father Quixote sat in silence looking at the bottles. When the Mayor struck a match to light a cigarette he saw the bowed head of his companion. It was as though he had been deserted by the Spirit he had praised. "What is the matter, father?" he asked.
"May God forgive me," Father Quixote said, "for I have sinned."
"It was only a joke, father. Surely your God can understand a joke."
"I have been guilty of heresy," Father Quixote replied. "I think -- perhaps -- I am unworthy to be a priest."
"What have you done?"
"I have given wrong instruction. The Holy Ghost is equal in all respects to the Father and the Son, and I have represented Him by this half bottle."
"Is that a serious error, father?"
"It is anathema. It was condemned expressly at I forget which Council. A very early Council. Perhaps it was Nicaea."
"Don't worry, father. The matter is easily put right. We will throw away and forget this half bottle and I will bring a whole bottle from the car."
"I have drunk more than I should. If I hadn't drunk so much I would never, never have made that mistake. There is no sin worse than the sin against the Holy Ghost."
"Forget it. We will put the matter right at once."
So it was they drank another bottle. Father Quixote felt comforted and he was touched too by the sympathy of his companion. The manchegan wine was light, but it seemed wiser to them both to stretch out on the grass and sleep the night away where they were, and when the sun rose Father Quixote was able to smile at the sadness he had felt. There was no sin in a little forgetfulness and an inadvertent error. The manchegan wine had been the guilty party -- it was not, after all, quite so light a wine as they had believed.