In Monsignor Quixote, the priest begins a journey with the Communist mayor (Sancho), who lost his re-election. Father Quixote responds mildly to the mayor’s insult in line three.
“What will you do, father, away from El Toboso?”
“I shall obey orders. I will go where I am sent.”
“To preach to the converted as you do here?”
“That is an easy sneer, Sancho. I doubt if anyone is ever fully converted.”
“Not even the Pope?”
“Perhaps, poor man, not even the Pope. Who knows what he thinks at night in his bed when he has said his prayers?”
(page 19)
Lately, it feels as if I’m always rising to the bait in my conversations, whether it has been extended or not. I’d rather be like Father Quixote, nosing a conversation forward without undue emotion or rancor.
11/20/2024
I didn’t know how much I needed a comic novel. Monsignor Quixote by Graham Greene (read in company with A Public Space) is a tonic.
He couldn’t bear the thought of his little car rusting in a scrap heap. He had sometimes thought of buying a small plot of land and leaving it as an inheritance to one of his parishioners on condition that a sheltered corner be reserved for his car to rest in, but there was not one parishioner whom he could trust to carry out his wish, and in any case a slow death by rust could not be avoided and perhaps a crusher at a scrapyard would be a more merciful end. (page 3)
How could I not find this gentle Father adorable?
11/19/2024