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Tomás Bilbatúa: Forgive me, Father Lorenzo, but um, have you ever been put to the... to the Question, yourself?
Brother Lorenzo: Have I ever been?
Tomás Bilbatúa: Yes. Have you ever been subjected to the Question?
Brother Lorenzo: Of course not.
Tomás Bilbatúa: Do you think that if you were, and they asked you to confess something grotesquely absurd... say... say you were told to confess that you're really a monkey.
[laughter around the table]
Tomás Bilbatúa: You're sure that god would grant you the fortitude to deny it? Or would you rather confess to being a monkey? To avoid the pain.
Goya: I know I would.
Tomás Bilbatúa: I know you would. So would I.
Tomás Bilbatúa: [to Lorenzo] Would you?
Goya: What is this Tomás, are you playing some sort of silly game with you guest? Nobody would ever ask Father Lorenzo to confess something so absurd.
Tomás Bilbatúa: I would.
[leaves the table]
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Tomás Bilbatúa: [reading from a freshly prepared document] I, Lorenzo Casamares, hereby confess, that contrary to my human appearance, I am in fact, the bastard son of a chimpanzee and an orangutan, and I have schemed to join the church, in order to do harm to the holy office.
Tomás Bilbatúa: [places the parchment and quill in front of Lorenzo, then sits down] Sign it.
Manuel de Blas
Extended Reading
