Jaime Rodriguez (up to now he has spoken in a mincing, self-conscious voice, but from this point on his voice is shrill and excited): Yes, yes, but that can also be interpreted as the love of godly men for sermons and edification and grave seemly discourse on the beautitudes of eternal life, and the holy deeds of men and women long since departed....
Sister Assumcion: The love, in short, of such discourse as yours, father? (She tries in vain to catch Sister Pilar’s eye and wink at her.)
Jaime Rodriguez (pouting like a cross child, sotto voce): Honey is not for the mouth of the ass.
Sister Assumcion: Well, when you joined us, we were in the midst of just such a discourse. ’Twas touching the sin of a religious, which Sister Pilar was likening to a stone of small dimensions, but so heavy that a mighty giant could not move it.
Jaime Rodriguez (turning eagerly to Sister Pilar): Where did you read that exemplum, daughter? I have not come upon it.
Sister Pilar: Sister Assumcion has drawn her own meaning from a little foolish tale. She must surely be fresh from pondering the Fathers that she is so quick to find spiritual significations. Is that volume lying by you (pointing to “Amadis”) one of the works of the Fathers, sister?
Sister Assumcion (staring at her insolently): No, Sister, it is not.
The other nuns titter.
Jaime Rodriguez: Well, ’tis doubtless true that a little sin shows blacker on the soul of a religious than a great sin on a layman’s soul ... but when it comes to the weighing in the ghostly scales, a religious has very heavy things to throw into the balance—Aves and Paters, though made of nought but air, are heavy things. Then, there is the nourishment of Christ’s body every day, making our souls wax fat, and—and—(impatiently) oh, all the benefits of a religious weigh heavily. The religious, like a peasant, has a treasure hid ’neath his bed that will for ever keep the wolf from the door. (Looks round to see if his conceit is appreciated.) In Bestiaries, the wolf, you know, is a figure of the devil.