Day 16 (December 3) Part II, Chapter IV, 3-4

“He turned and looked through the three of them as though they were made of glass.”

A quintessential Greene sentence in a less quintessential Greene novel: This is like returning to the home key. This reader only feels the chill.

The nonexistent wine in the nonexistent chalice in the hands of an offspring of a fictional character: The duel between fact and fiction goes on and on to this day.

Read the last paragraph of the novel alongside the final few lines of Don Quixote: “For my only desire has been to have people reject and despise the false and nonsensical histories of the books of chivalry, which are already stumbling over the history of my true Don Quixote, and will undoubtedly fall to the ground. Vale.” That adjective “true” stands out: arguing for fiction and giving birth to Monsignor Quixote and many other fictional offspring of the Don.