The Girl of his Dreams - Brunetti 17 by Donna Leon Read Free Book Online Page B

been told. Finally she looked back at him and asked, 'You don't believe, do you, Guido?'
    'In God?'
    'Yes.'
    In all these years, the only information he had had about the Contessa's beliefs had come from Paola, and all she had said was that her mother believed in God and had often gone to Mass while Paola was growing up. As to why Paola had, if anything, an adversarial relationship with religion, this had never been explained beyond Paola's maintaining that she had had 'good luck and good sense'.
    Because it was not a subject he had ever discussed with the Contessa, Brunetti began by saying, 'I don't want to offend you.'
    'By saying that you don't believe?'
    'Yes.'
    "That could hardly offend me, Guido, since I think it's an entirely sensible position.'
    When he failed to hide his surprise, she said, her wrinkles contracting in a soft smile, 'I've chosen to believe in God, you see, Guido. In the face of convincing evidence to the contrary and in the complete absence of p roof -well, anything a right-th inking person would consider as proof - of God's existence. I find that it makes life more acceptable, and it becomes easier to make certain decisions and endure certain losses. But it's a choice on my part, only that, and so the other choice, the choice not to believe, is entirely sensible to me.'
    'I'm not sure I see it as a choice,' Brunetti said.
    'Of course it's a choice,' she said with the same smile, as though they were talking about the children, and he'd just repeated one of Chiara's clever remarks. 'We've both been presented with the same evidence, or lack of evidence, and we each choose to interpret it in a particular way. So of course it's a choice.'
    'Do you include belief in the Church in this choice?' Brunetti couldn't stop himself from asking, knowing that the Faliers' social position often put them in contact with members of the hierarchy.
    'Good heavens, no. A person would have to be mad to trust them.'
    He laughed out loud and shook his head in confusion, encouraging her to say, 'Just look at them, Guido, in their dear little costumes, with their hats and their skirts and their rosaries and their turned around collars. All those things do is demand people's attention, and they often get their respect, as well. I'm sure if all these clerics had to walk around looking just like everyone else and earning respect the way everyone else does - only by the way they act - I'm sure that most of them would have no interest in it, that they'd go out and get jobs and work for a living. If they couldn't use it as a way to make people think they're special, and superior, most of them would have no interest in it at all.' After a long pause, she added, 'Besides, I don't think God profits from the help they offer.'
    'That's rather a severe opinion, if I may say so,' Brunetti ventured.
    ‘I s it?' she asked, seeming honestly puzzled. Tm sure there are some perfectly nice and decent ones, but I think that, as a group, clerics are best avoided.' Before he could comment, she added, 'Unless, of course, one is forced into their company, in which case they deserve common civility. I suppose.' He waited, familiar with her pauses. 'It's their interest in power, I think, that makes me so dislike them: so many of them are driven by it. I think it distorts their souls.'
    'Would you include a man like Leonardo Mutti in what you've just said?' Brunetti asked. He was never sure how to take the Contessa's opinions and wondered if this would prove to have been a long prelude to some sort of revelation about the man.
    The glance she gave him was very shrewd but quickly vanished. 'I've heard the name. I just have to remember who it was that mentioned him. When I do, I'll let you know.'
    ‘I s there any way you could ... ?' 'Refresh my memory?' she asked. 'Yes.'
    'I'll ask some of my friends who are given to that sort of association.' 'With the Church?'
    She paused for a good while before she answered him. 'No, I was thinking more of - what