Don Fregose Sarpi, you may file these ministerial documents; I will keep that of the king. (To Fontanares) Well, my fine fellow, the letter of the king seems to me to be positive. You are undertaking, I see, to achieve the impossible! However great you may be, perhaps it would be well for you to take the advice, in this affair, of Don Ramon, a philosopher of Catalonia who, on this subject, has written some famous treatises—
Fontanares In a matter of this kind, your excellency, the finest dissertations in the world are not worth so much as a practical achievement.
Don Fregose That sounds presumptuous. (To Sarpi) Sarpi, you must place at the disposal of this gentleman whatever vessel in the harbor he may choose.
Sarpi (to the viceroy)
Are you quite sure that such is the king's wish?
Don Fregose We shall see. In Spain it is best to say a paternoster between every two steps we take.
Sarpi
Other letters on the same subject have reached us from Valladolid.
Faustine (to the viceroy)
What are you talking about?
Don Fregose
Oh, it is nothing but a chimera.
Faustine
But don't you know that I am rather fond of chimeras?
Don Fregose This is the chimera of some philosopher which the king has taken seriously on account of the disaster of the Armada. If this gentleman succeeds, we shall have the court at Barcelona.