The Hard Life Read Online Free Page B

shields the Dominicans used in Spain, those blood-stained bowsies.
    –My own Order, Father Fahrt said modestly, was under the thumb of the Suprema in Madrid and yet I make no complaint.
    –Well, isn’t that very good of you, Father? Your own Order was kicked about by those barbarian hooligans in the cowls and you make no complaint, sitting there with a glass of malt in your hand. Faith but you’re the modest, dacent man, God bless you.
    –I merely meant, Collopy, that in a scheme to eradicate serious evil, sometimes we must all suffer.
    –And what’s wrong with that, Father? Isn’t suffering grand?
    –It is not pleasant but it is salutary.
    –You have a smart answer for everything. ‘Do you believe in the true faith?’ ‘No.’ ‘Very well. Eight hundred lashes’. If that’s the Catholic Church for you, is it any wonder there was a Reformation? Three cheers for Martin Luther!
    Father Fahrt was shocked.
    –Collopy, please remember that you belong to the true fold yourself. That talk is scandalous.
    –True fold? Do I? And doesn’t the Lord Mayor and the other gougers in the City Hall? And look at the way they’re behaving— killing unfortunate women?
    –Never mind that subject.
    –Till the day I die I’ll mind that subject, Mr Collopy retorted excitedly. Eight hundred lashes for telling the truth according to your conscience? What am I talking about—the holy friars in Spain propagated the true faith by driving red hot nails into the backs of unfortunate Jewmen.
    –Nonsense.
    –And scalding their testicles with boiling water.
    –You exaggerate, Collopy.
    –And ramming barbed wire or something of the kind up where-you-know. And all A.M.D.G., to use your own motto, Father.
    –For heaven’s sake Collopy have sense, Father Fahrt said calmly and sadly. I do not know where you have read those lurid and silly things.
    –Father Fahrt, Mr Collopy said earnestly, you don’t like the Reformation. Maybe I’m not too fond of it myself, either. But it was our own crowd, those ruffians in Spain and all, who provoked it. They called decent men heretics and the remedy was to put a match to them. To say nothing of a lot of crooked Popes with their armies and their papal states, putting duchesses and nuns up the pole and having all Italy littered with their bastards, and up to nothing but backstairs work and corruption at the courts of God knows how many decent foreign kings. Isn’t that a fact?
    –It is not a fact, Collopy. The Reformation was a doctrinal revolt, inspired I have no doubt by Satan. It had nothing to do with human temporal weaknesses in the Papacy or elsewhere.
    –Well now, do you tell me, Mr Collopy sneered.
    –Yes, I do. I hate no man, not even Luther. Indeed, by his translation of the Bible, he can take credit for having in effect invented my own language, die schöne deutsche Sprache . But he was possessed by the Devil. He was a heretic. Heresiarch would be a better word. And when he died in I545——
    –Excuse me, Father Fahrt.
    I was profoundly startled to hear the brother interjecting. He had been undisguisedly following this heated colloquy but it seemed to me unthinkable and provocative that he should intervene. Clearly Mr Collopy and Father Fahrt were equally surprised as they swung round their necks to look at him.
    –Yes, my lad? Father Fahrt said.
    –Luther did not die in 1545, said the brother. It was 1546.
    –Well, well, now, maybe you are right, Father Fahrt said good-humouredly. Maybe you are right. Alas, my old head was never very good for figures. Well, Collopy, I see you have a theologian in the family.
    –An historian, the brother said.
    –And I’ll correct that correction, Mr Collopy said acidly. A bloody young gurrier that won’t apply himself with application to his studies, that’s what we have. Give me that glass of yours, Father.
    There was another intermission while the brother with great elaboration of manner reapplied himself to his studies. After taking