Perhaps it was true, perhaps it wasn’t. Who knows? What is amusing is that the day after this accusation the Prior of the House received a summons from a surgeon seeking payment for medicines and treatment given to the old porter when the latter was suffering from an amatory ailment…

Master, you’re not listening and I know what’s distracting you. I bet it’s those gallows.

MASTER: I can’t deny it.

JACQUES: I caught you looking at me. Do you find something sinister about me?

MASTER: No, no.

JACQUES: You mean ‘Yes, yes’. Well, if I frighten you we can always go our own ways.

MASTER: Come on, Jacques, you’re losing your wits. Are you becoming insecure?

JACQUES: No, Monsieur. Who is ever secure anyway?

MASTER: Every good man. Could it be that Jacques, honest Jacques, feels revulsion for some crime he’s committed?… Come on, Jacques. Let’s finish this argument and carry on with your story.

JACQUES: As a result of this calumny or slander on the part of the porter, they thought themselves justified in doing a thousand wrongs and injuries to poor Friar Angel, who seemed to lose his wits. Then they called in a doctor whom they bribed and who certified that the priest was mad and needed to return to his home for a rest. If it had been simply a question of sending Friar Angel away or shutting him up the matter would have been quickly dealt with, but he was the darling of the female church-goers amongst whom there were a number of important ladies who had to be handled carefully. The ladies heard their spiritual director spoken of with hypocritical commiseration: ‘Alas! The poor father… It’s a terrible shame… He was the leading light of our community.’

‘What’s happened to him, then?’

The answer to this question was a deep sigh, accompanied by an upward movement of the eyes towards heaven. Further questions were met by a downward movement of the head and total silence. Occasionally they would add to this mummery: ‘Oh God! This mortal coil… He still has his surprising moments… flashes of genius… It will come back to him perhaps… But there’s little hope… What a loss for the Faith.’

Meanwhile they stepped up their nastiness. They tried everything to bring Friar Angel to the state they said he’d reached. And they would have succeeded had Friar Jean not taken pity on him. What more can I tell you? One evening when we were all asleep we heard a knocking at the door. We got up and opened to Friar Angel and my brother who were in disguise. They stayed in our house all the next day and at dawn the day after that they went off. They went away with their hands full of provisions and as he embraced me Jean’s parting words were: ‘I married off your sisters and if I had stayed in the monastery for two years longer, with the position I used to have, you would have been one of the richest farmers of the district, but everything’s changed and that’s all I can do for you. Farewell, Jacques, if ever we meet good fortune, Friar Angel and I, you will know about it…’

Then he left in my hand the five louis I’ve told you about, with five more for the last of the girls of the village, whom he had married off and who had just given birth to a bouncing baby boy who looked as much like my brother Jean as two peas in a pod.

MASTER (his snuff-box open and his watch back in his pocket): And what were they going to Lisbon for?

JACQUES: For an earthquake which couldn’t happen without them, to be crushed, swallowed up and burnt, as it was written up above.14

MASTER: Ah! Those monks!

JACQUES: Even the best of them isn’t worth much.

MASTER: I know that better than you.

JACQUES: Have you fallen into their hands as well?

MASTER: I’ll tell you about that another time.

JACQUES: But why is it they are so wicked?

MASTER: I think it’s because they’re monks. But let’s get back to your loves.

JACQUES: No, Monsieur, let’s not.

MASTER: Don’t you want me to know about them any more?

JACQUES: Of course I still want you to, but Destiny doesn’t. Can’t you see that as soon as I open my mouth on the subject the devil interferes and something always happens which cuts me off? I’ll never finish it, I tell you. That is written up above.

MASTER: Try, my friend.

JACQUES: Perhaps if you were to tell me the story of your love life, that would break the spell and mine would go better afterwards. There’s something in the back of my mind that tells me that’s what we need to do. Monsieur, I tell you, it seems to me sometimes that Destiny speaks to me.

MASTER: And do you always find it to your advantage to listen?

JACQUES: Of course. Witness the day when it told me the pedlar had your watch…

The master started to yawn and as he was yawning he tapped his snuff-box with his hand and as he tapped on his snuff-box he looked into the distance, and as he looked into the distance he said to Jacques: ‘Can you see something over there on your left?’

JACQUES: Yes, and I bet it’s something else which doesn’t want me to continue the story, or you to start yours for that matter…

Jacques was right. Since the thing they could see was coming towards them and they were going towards it, this convergence quickly shortened the distance between them and before long they could see a carriage draped in black, drawn by four black horses, in black drapes which covered their heads and hung down to their hooves. Behind them were two servants dressed in black and after them were two more servants dressed in black riding two black horses which were caparisoned in black. On the driving-seat of the carriage sat a coachman in black wearing a floppy brimmed hat with a long black ribbon which hung down his left shoulder.