Monsignor Quixote by Greene Graham

Author:Greene, Graham [Graham, Greene]
Format: epub, mobi
Published: 2010-05-18T23:00:00+00:00

IX

HOW MONSIGNOR QUIXOTE SAW A STRANGE SPECTACLE

Their stay in Valladolid was unexpectedly prolonged by a firm reluctance on the part of Rocinante to take the road again, so she had to be left in a garage for examination.

"Little wonder," Father Quixote said. "Yesterday the poor thing covered an immense distance."

"An immense distance! We are less than 120 kilometres from Salamanca."

"Her usual stint is ten—when I have to fetch wine from the cooperative."

"It's just as well then that we decided against Rome or Moscow. If you want my opinion, you have spoilt her. Cars, like women, should never be spoilt."

"But she's very old, Sancho. Older than we are probably.

After all—without her help... Could we have walked all the way from Salamanca?"

As they had to wait for the verdict on Rocinante until the morning, Sancho suggested that they might visit a cinema. Father Quixote agreed after some hesitation. There had once been a period when stage plays were forbidden to the priesthood, and though the regulation had never applied to the cinema, which had not then existed, there remained in Father Quixote's mind a sensation of something dangerous about a spectacle.

"I have never been to a cinema before," he told Sancho.

"You must know the world if you are to convert the world,"

Sancho said.

"You will not think me a hypocrite," Father Quixote asked, "if I remove what you call my bib?"

"All colours are the same in the dark," Sancho said, "but do as you like."

Father Quixote on second thoughts left his /pechera /on. It seemed more honest. He didn't wish to be accused of hypocrisy.

They went to a small cinema which advertised a film called /A Maiden's Prayer. /The title had attracted Father Quixote just as much as it repelled Sancho, who foresaw an evening of boredom and piety.

However, he was mistaken. The film was no masterpiece, but all the same he found it quite enjoyable though he was a little afraid of how Father Quixote would react, for the film was certainly not maidenly, and he should have noticed that the poster outside was marked with a warning "S".

In fact the maiden's prayer turned out to be a very handsome young man whose adventures with a series of young girls ended always, with the monotony of repetition, in bed. The photography at that point became soft and confusing, and it was a little bit difficult to discern whose legs belonged to whom since the private parts, which distinguish a man from a woman, were skilfully avoided by the camera. Was it the man or the girl who was on top? Whose parts were being kissed by whom? On these occasions there was no dialogue to help the viewer: only the sound of hard breathing and sometimes a grunt or a squeal, which could be either masculine or feminine. To make things even more difficult the scenes had obviously been shot for a small screen (perhaps for a home movie) and the images became still more abstract when enlarged for a cinema. Even

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