er had achieved precisely this by going from house to house asking the residents if they would be prepared to provide shelter that night for a few of his men, who thus ended up sleeping in kitchens, stables and haylofts, but this time with a full belly, which made up for these and other inconveniences. With them went a few villagers, too, most of them men, who had walked over to the camp, attracted by the novelty of seeing an elephant, although, out of fear, they dared not approach nearer than twenty paces. Coiling his trunk around a bundle of forage that would have been enough to take the edge off the appetite of a squadron of cows, solomon, despite his poor sight, shot them a stern glance, making it clear that he was not some fairground animal, but an honest worker who had been deprived of his job by unfortunate circumstances too compli cated to go into, and had, so to speak, been forced to accept public charity. At first, one of the village men, out of bravado, went a few steps beyond the invisible line that would soon become a closed frontier, but solomon shooed him away with a warning kick, which, even though it didn't hit its target, gave rise to an interesting debate among the men about animal families and clans. John mules and molly mules, jacks and jennies, stallions and mares, are all quadrupeds who, as everyone knows, some by painful experience, can deliver a kick, and that's perfectly understandable, since they have no other weapons, either offensive or defensive, but an elephant, with that trunk and those tusks, with those huge great legs that look like steam-hammers, can also, as if this weren't enough, kick with the best of them. He may appear to be mildness incarnate, but, when necessary, he can turn into a wild beast. It's odd, though, that, belonging as he does to the aforementioned family of animals, namely, the family that kicks, he doesn't wear horseshoes. One of the villagers said, There's not much to an elephant really. The others agreed, When you've walked round him once, you've seen all there is to see. They could have returned to their homes then, but one of them said he was going to stay a little longer, that he wanted to hear what was being talked about around the fire. His companions went with him. At first, they couldn't understand what the topic of conversation was, they couldn't catch the names, which had strange pronunciations, then all became clear when they reached the conclusion that these men were talking about the elephant and that the elephant was god. They were walking back to their houses now, to the comfort of their own hearth, each one taking with him two or three guests, both soldiers and laborers. Two cavalrymen stayed behind to guard the elephant, which reinforced in the villagers the idea that they needed to talk to the priest urgently. The doors closed and the village shrank into the darkness. Shortly afterwards, a few of those doors swung cautiously open again, and the five men who emerged from them set off for the well in the square, where they had agreed to meet. They had decided to go and talk to the priest, who would, at that hour, doubtless be asleep in his bed. The priest was known to have a foul temper if woken at an inconvenient hour, and that, for him, was any hour during which he was safe in the arms of morpheus. One of the men suggested an alternative, Why don't we come back in the morning, he asked, but another, more determined, or simply more susceptible to the logic of caution, objected, If they've decided to leave at dawn, we risk finding no one, and then we'll look a right bunch of fools. They were standing at the gate to the priest's garden, and it seemed that none of the night visitors dared lift the knocker. There was also a knocker on the door of the priest's house, but it was too small to wake the inhabitant. Finally, like a cannon shot in the stony silence of the village, the knocker on the garden gate boomed into life. They had to knock twice more before they heard, coming from within, the hoarse, angry voice of the priest, Who is it. Obviously, it was neither prudent nor comfortable to talk about god in the middle of the street, with thick walls and a heavy wooden door between the two parties to the conversation. It would not be long before the neighbors were pricking up their ears to listen to the loud voices in which both sides of the dialogue would be obliged to speak, transforming a very serious theological matter into the latest piece of gossip. The door of the house finally opened and the priests round head appeared, What do you want at this hour of the night. The men left the other door and walked reluctantly up the path to the house. Is someone dying, asked the priest. They all said No, sir. So what is it then, insisted this servant of god, drawing the blanket covering his shoulders more tightly about him, We can't talk out here in the street, said one of the men. The priest grumbled, Well, if you can't talk in the street, come to the church tomorrow, We have to talk to you now, father, tomorrow might be too late, the matter that brings us here is very serious, a church matter, A church matter, repeated the priest, suddenly uneasy, thinking that one of the church's rotten ceiling beams must finally have given way, Come in, then, come in. He herded them into the kitchen, where a few logs were still glowing in the hearth, then he lit a candle, sat down on a stool and said, Speak. The men looked at one another, unsure who should be the spokesman, but it was clear that the only legitimate candidate was the one who had said he was going to listen to what was being discussed in the group that included the commanding officer and the mahout. No vote was necessary, the man in question took the floor, God is an elephant, father. The priest gave a sigh of relief, this was certainly preferable to the roof falling in, what's more, the heretical statement was easy enough to answer, God is in all his creatures, he said. The men nodded, but the spokesman, conscious of his rights and responsibilities, retorted, But none of them is god, That's all we'd need, replied the priest, the world would be bursting with gods then, and they'd never agree, each one trying to heap up the coals beneath his particular pot, Father, what we heard, with these ears that will one day be dust, is that the elephant over there is god, Who said such an outlandish thing, asked the priest, using a word that wasn't common currency in the village, and this, in him, was a clear sign that he was angered, The cavalry officer and the man who rides on top, On top of what, Of god, of the animal. The priest took a deep breath and, suppressing the urge to take more extreme measures, merely said, You're drunk, No, father, they replied in chorus, it's really quite difficult to get drunk these days, what with the price of wine, Well, if you're not drunk, and if despite this cock-and-bull story, you're still good christians, listen to me closely. The men drew nearer so as not to miss a word, and the priest, having first cleared his throat of catarrh, the result, he thought, of being dragged so abruptly from his warm sheets into the cold outside world, launched into a sermon, I could send you home with a penance, a few our fathers and a few hail marys, and think no more of the matter, but since you seem to me men of good faith, tomorrow morning, before the sun is up, we will all go, along with your families and the other villagers, whom I leave it up to you to tell, to find this elephant, not in order to excommunicate him, since, being an animal, he has never received the holy sacrament of baptism nor could he ever have enjoyed the spiritual benefits granted by the church, but in order to cleanse him of any diabolical possession that may have been introduced into his brute nature by the evil one, as happened to those two thousand swine that drowned in the sea of galilee, as I'm sure you'll remember. He paused, then asked, Understood, Yes, father, they replied, all except the spokesman who was clearly taking his role very seriously indeed, Father, he said, I always found that story most puzzling, Why, Well, I don't understand why those swine had to die, it's good that je sus performed the miracle of driving out the unclean spirits from the body of the gadarene demoniac, but letting those spirits then enter the bodies of a few poor creatures who had nothing to do with the matter never seemed to me a good way of finishing the task, especially since demons are immortal, because if they weren't, god would have killed them off at birth, what I mean is that by the time the pigs had fallen in the water, the demons would have escaped anyway, and it just seems to me that jesus didn't really think it through, And who are you to say that jesus didn't really think it through, It's written down, father, But you don't know how to read, Ah, but I know how to listen, Is there a bible in your house, No, father, only the gospels, they were part of a bible, but someone tore them out, And who reads them, My eldest daughter, she can't read very quickly yet, but she's read the same thing to us over and over now and we're beginning to understand it better, The trouble is that if the inquisition were ever to hear that you held such ideas and opinions, you'd be the first to be consigned to the flames, Well, we all have to die of something, father, Don't talk such nonsense, leave your gospels and pay more attention to what I say in church, indicating the right path is my mission and no one else's, just remember, better to go the long way round than fall into a ditch, Yes, father, And not a word about what's been said here, if anyone outside of this group ever mentions the matter to me, then the one of you who let his tongue wag will be instantly excommunicated, even if I have to go to rome myself to give personal testimony. He paused for dramatic effect, and then asked in a portentous voice, Do you understand, Yes, father, we understand, Tomorrow, before the sun comes up, I want everyone gathered outside the church, I, your pastor, will go in front, and together, with my word and your presence, we will fight for our holy religion, and just remember, the people united will never be defeated.