This is a story about how St. Nicholas became Santa Claus.
It’s not the “real” story about an ad campaign by the Coca-Cola Company, which may have happened just like they say, but who knows? Who invented the Coca-Cola Company? Why should they have all the fun?
My invention is an entirely different story, and it’s entirely plausible, at least in the sense that it’s not about magic, but rather law and religion and crime and deduction. It’s essentially a murder mystery told mostly through the back-and-forth dialogue of two witty detectives. And since this story takes place at some unspecified time and place in the Middle Ages, it almost goes without saying that the two detectives are anti-Semitic in word and deed. Now that I’ve said it, it won’t go without saying, and you can consider it said.
But I made all up, everything except the three different versions of the Hollow Rod story. Oh, and the main characters, Montalbano and (Don) Matteo, are fictional detectives from Italian television shows. That year, we had been binge-watching MHz Networks using our digital TV antenna. I hope it’s kosher for me to use these names for this story, because it’s nothing if not satire, but if not, it’ll be easy enough to change their names to Del Montebanana and Don Mattelo.
The year was 2016. I was making my way through the Open Yale Courses catalog and had just finished going through my ninth course: European Civilization, 1648-1945. But my thoughts kept returning to the first two classes I had watched: Cervantes’ Don Quixote and Introduction to the Hebrew Bible. (This was before I wrote my Humanities journal article, “The Search for Dog in Cervantes.”)
I had been researching the theory that Cervantes (1547-1616) had been of Jewish ancestry, which, if true, is something his parents and grandparents and great-grandparents would have kept hidden since the Expulsion of 1492. In my research, I came across a mention of Sancho Panza showing great wisdom and perspicacity in resolving a dispute between borrower and lender (Don Quixote, II.XLV), and the story itself was a retelling of an episode from either the Babylonian Talmud (3rd to 6th c.) or The Golden Legend (Aurea Legenda) compiled by Jacobus de Voragine (1275). No doubt, Cervantes consulted one of these two sources, and since there’s no way to tell which one, I thought it would be productive to study and reflect upon all three versions.
The shortest version of the story is from the Talmud:
A man with a monetary claim upon his neighbour once came before Raba, demanding of the debtor, ‘Come and pay me.’ ‘I have repaid you,’ pleaded he. ‘If so,’ said Raba to him, ‘go and swear to him that you have repaid.’ Thereupon he went and brought a [hollow] cane, placed the money therein, and came before the Court, walking and leaning on it. [Before swearing] he said to the plaintiff: ‘Hold the cane in your hand’. He then took a scroll of the Law and swore that he had repaid him all that he [the creditor] held in his hand. The creditor thereupon broke the cane in his rage and the money poured out on the ground; it was thus seen that he had [literally] sworn to the truth.
Babylonian Talmud: Tractate Nedarim Folio 25a
Let’s play that back slowly. And to do that, I rewrote the episode in the form of a play. You can act it out in your head, or make paper figures or hand puppets, or hire a troupe of actors, whatever helps you to picture the scene.
THE HOLLOW ROD
DRAMATIS PERSONAE
BORROWER, the Christian
LENDER, the Jew
RABBI / JUDGE
MONTALBANO
MATTEO
San. NICOLÁS
Act I, Scene I. Lender and Borrower are before the Rabbi.
LENDER
Repay me!
BORROWER
I have already repaid you.
RABBI
(To Borrower) Let us go, that you may swear to him upon the Law that you have repaid.
Act I, Scene II. A court.
Enter Rabbi, Lender and Borrower, who walks with the assistance of a cane.
RABBI (holding the Law)
Swear to him, upon the Law, that you have repaid.
BORROWER
I will swear. [To Lender] Hold my cane.
Lender takes the cane.
I swear upon the Law that I have repaid him.
LENDER
Raaaaaarrrrrgggghhhh!!! (He breaks the cane, and the money pours out on the ground.)
RABBI
(Aside) Listen up. The point of this story is that you’re not allowed to swear an oath according to your own private definitions of the relevant terms.
Let’s say someone swears an oath: “If I did not see on this road as many as departed from Egypt, may all the fruit in the world be forbidden me.”
If, while on the road, that person had seen an ant farm, and if the teeming insect hordes were as numerous as the 600 Israelite families who left Egypt during the Exodus, would that fulfill the terms of the oath?
One who swears does not swear in his own sense, thinking of “ants.”
One who swears, swears in our sense. We’re thinking “people,” not “ants.”
It’s the same with the hollow cane. Get it?
OK, now it’s time for the Medieval version. It’s the same story with a few new twists, because this time, instead of the ruse being discovered at court, the borrower gets away with it, but not for long.
There was a man that had borrowed of a Jew a sum of money, and sware upon the altar of S. Nicholas that he would render and pay it again as soon as he might, and gave none other pledge. And this man held this money so long, that the Jew demanded and asked his money, and he said that he had paid him. Then the Jew made him to come tofore the law in judgment, and the oath was given to the debtor. And he brought with him an hollow staff, in which he had put the money in gold, and he leant upon the staff. And when he should make his oath and swear, he delivered his staff to the Jew to keep and hold whilst he should swear, and then sware that he had delivered to him more than he ought to him. And when he had made the oath, he demanded his staff again of the Jew, and he nothing knowing of his malice delivered it to him. Then this deceiver went his way, and anon after, him list sore to sleep, and laid him in the way, and a cart with four wheels came with great force and slew him, and brake the staff with gold that it spread abroad. And when the Jew heard this, he came thither sore moved, and saw the fraud, and many said to him that he should take to him the gold; and he refused it, saying, But if he that was dead were not raised again to life by the merits of S. Nicholas, he would not receive it, and if he came again to life, he would receive baptism and become Christian. Then he that was dead arose, and the Jew was christened.
Medieval Sourcebook: The Golden Legend: St. Nicholas
We now return to the puppet show, already in progress.
Act II, Scene I. An altar of St. Nicholas.
BORROWER
Jew, I wish to borrow a sum of money from you.
LENDER
This we can arrange. What is my pledge?
BORROWER
I give no other pledge but this:
BORROWER (turns to the altar of St. Nicholas)
St. Nicholas, I swear to you that should the Jew lend me the money, I will render and pay my debt to him as soon as I might, and as I am a Christian, I need give no other pledge.
LENDER
What can I say? Okay, it’s a loan.
Act II, Scene II. A court.
Enter BORROWER, carrying staff; LENDER, JUDGE.
LENDER
You have held my money so long that you are an old man leaning upon a staff, and as you swore to St. Nicholas that you would repay me as soon as you might, we must now come to accounts. I demand to be repaid.
BORROWER
(to LENDER) I swore to St. Nicholas that I would repay you as soon as I might, and I have repaid you.
JUDGE
Swear now before the Court, on this Holy Object, that you have repaid him.
BORROWER
(He hands Lender the staff and places his hand on the holy object.) I swear on this Holy Object that I have delivered to him more than I owed. Now return my staff to me! (He takes back the staff and exits.)
Act II, Scene III. A roadway at dawn.
Enter MONTALBANO and MATTEO
MONTALBANO
Fresh air, a tonic to our health, Matteo! After being cooped within the fetid air of court and its hapless and quarrelsome citizens hectoring each other to exhaustion, there is nothing better for the finest officers in the kingdom than to spend our days in the pastoral outdoors.
MATTEO
Such unworthy civic entertainment as we have in these times. The public claims to love justice, but they clamor to court only to satiate themselves on tales of thievery and bloodshed.
MONTALBANO
Hark, what ails that man lying in the roadway! Either he’s the ugliest, misshapen wretch in creation, or those are cart-tracks freshly impressed upon his face.
MATTEO
(He inspects the BORROWER’s body.) Dead. Deep impressions on the skull, neck, torso and pelvis. Injuries consistent with the wheels of a four-wheeled, horse-drawn cart.
MONTALBANO
Here are the tracks. The cart didn’t stop. The driver would have suspected a trap, a gang of robbers in the shadows.
MATTEO
Is not this unfortunate the very man who we heard in court today swearing that he repaid the Jew?
MONTALBANO
The man himself! And he left us a generous bequest as a reward for discovering his body. Here’s his staff, and here’s the gold that was hidden inside of the staff.
MATTEO
Why then, this is the gold owed to the Jew, is it not?
MONTALBANO
And we will repay the Jew with our silent thanks as we spend the gold.
MATTEO
Recall this – at the exact point where this dead man made his oath, he gave his staff to the Jew for just long enough to say, under oath, “I delivered to him more than I owed.” And then he regained the staff.
MONTALBANO
And because God doesn’t like overcooked oaths, he sends down from the heavens a pillar of smote. A clever turn of phrase, is it not?
Man lies down on a pillow of straw,
A fortune of gold in a hollow of rod.
Our Lord in heaven sends a pillar of smote,
A cart crushing bones in a billow of smoke.
God loves us for our verses, and to show his gratitude, He kills this guy in our path, and now the gold is right here. Why are we standing around?
MATTEO
We must call for the Jew.
MONTALBANO
Wait, you want to take this gold and…
MATTEO
…call for the Jew, yes.
MONTALBANO
So we’re going to take these very small nuggets, these highly valuable, entirely untraceable pieces of precious metal scattered here all over the roadway, and we’re going to collect all these pieces, put them into a nice little pile and then…
MATTEO
…call for the Jew, yes.
MONTALBANO
There’s nobody else here, right? Just us and the dead guy and the gold.
MATTEO
It’s just us.
MONTALBANO
What’s your angle?
MATTEO
What do you mean?
MONTALBANO
OK, I get it. We get the Jew to come here to look at the gold, we kill the Jew, then we take the Jew’s purse and the gold. Just one problem with that plan.
MATTEO
That’s not my plan.
MONTALBANO
Wait, are you asking me to go fetch the Jew? What do I look like, the village idiot, leaving you alone with the gold?
MATTEO
We are friends and partners in all we do, are we not?
MONTALBANO
Some friend. The minute I turn my back, you’re off buying a title, Don Matteo, forgetting poor Montalbano.
MATTEO
That’s not my plan either.
MONTALBANO
Okay, fine. I got a great idea. You want the Jew, you go get the Jew.
MATTEO
Ah, my friend, you intend to do that which you accuse me of plotting, and as you are my friend, I will not allow you to submit to base instincts for precious metals. Do you not see? By taking the gold for ourselves, we would lose even greater fortune.
MONTALBANO
Enlighten me.
MATTEO
Recall – the dead man swore to St. Nicholas that he would repay the Jew. Then, in front of the court, he swore that he did repay – and technically, he did repay.
MONTALBANO
This we have established. As far as the law’s concerned, the Jew was repaid. And so according to the law, this money belongs to the dead guy free and clear. Now, it seems to me that God doesn’t like lawyers and smart guys, so God says, “You know what, smart guy? You’re dead.” God hates him; loves us. God kills him; gives us gold. “Thank you, God, for this good fortune,” and let’s move it along already.
MATTEO
Indulging you for a moment, does not this man’s family deserve consideration?
MONTALBANO
They deserve nothing. They already got paid the first time when he borrowed from the Jew. Why do they deserve a windfall more than we do? Were they in court with the old man? Does he even have a family? The poor guy couldn’t even get home by himself. He had nobody looking out for him, not a single son or daughter to accompany him, to say, ”Long day, huh, Pop? You know what? Let’s stop for a meal or maybe put up at the inn for the night.” I would hope that if I get to be a ripe old age and for whatever reason I got dragged into court by some Jew, one of the kids would come along to give me a hand.
MATTEO
Maybe he did stop at an inn, and such was his fatal error.
MONTALBANO
Even more reason to blame the absent sons. “Hey Dad, I see you’re tired, but you know what? Let’s not go to the inn. I know you don’t like inns, they’re smelly and dangerous, and we’ll both end up passing out drunk with the whores and once again waking up with empty pockets. Plus, we don’t want someone stealing that nice staff of yours that I saw you messing around with in the barn, now I don’t know what you put in there, but you’ve been fiddling your staff more than I fiddle mine. Anyway, if you want to sleep rough, maybe we avoid the middle of the roadway on top of the tracks made by the horse-drawn carts?”
MATTEO
Now, what events led to this broken old man? He walks home from court along the same road he took to get to court. He tires during the journey.
MONTALBANO
“How exhilarating to deceive a Jew! And so exhausting! I’ll just take a nap right here.”
MATTEO
Look at this area, he brushed the stones away. Takes his shoes off, lines them up nice and neat. He folds over and lays down a blanket – fatally so –over the cart tracks. And here’s a straw pillow. He goes to sleep and doesn’t even hear the horses coming.
MONTALBANO
Maybe he drank the Jew’s money one flask at a time, and then after the victory in court, celebrated some more.
MATTEO
Yes, he may well have been a drinker, but when carrying a small fortune in gold? What was the reputation of the dead man?
MONTALBANO
If his hollow staff is any indication, a hollow character.
MATTEO
What kind of man borrows without surety from a Jew?
MONTALBANO
A desperate man, lacking resources of his own, without family willing to stake him. Someone with debts.
MATTEO
Desperate. And what manner of moneylender gives without surety to a desperate man?
MONTALBANO
An idiot? How about a wealthy idiot? Inheritance spawns idiocy.
MATTEO
Or a soft touch. Did he believe the man’s sincerity in his oath to St. Nicholas? A man professes his belief in St. Nicholas, swearing an oath on St. Nicholas. The second man, a Jew, does not believe in St. Nicholas, but believes in the first man. He says, “I do not believe what he believes, but I believe that he believes.” He believed himself to be a judge of character, and he believed he’d be repaid.
MONTALBANO
Or maybe the Jew was as desperate as the borrower. Two desperados, making a deal. Maybe the borrower had something on him, a threat over his head that only recently disappeared. Maybe they were exchanging stolen goods. The Jew steals some precious heirlooms and entrusts them to the man to carry out of the country for sale. The man has nothing to pledge in return for the stolen items, but what choice does the Jew have?
“I’ll pay you when I get paid,” says the man. And then he takes his time. Neither of them can reveal the other but they bicker and argue.
“Where’s my money?”
“You’re going to have to be patient, I can’t move the heirloom just yet.”
“Where’s my money?”
“It’s not the right time, you’re going to have to wait.”
“Where’s my money?”
“Glad we’re having this conversation. I sold the heirloom, but it turns out I needed the money for an emergency.”
“You said you’re going to pay me as soon as you could.”
“And I will, I swore on St. Nicholas, do you have any idea what that means to me? Are you saying that my oath was insincere?”
“Calm down, you’re sincere, you’re sincere.”
“I don’t know. It sounds to me that you’re implying that I’m a liar and a thief. And why stop there, right? if you think I’m a liar and a thief, I’d have no problem killing someone, right? After all, if I’m going to get on the wrong side of St. Nick, killing doesn’t matter, right? Is that the kind of person you think I am?”
“Of course not, of course not, you’re on the good side of St. Nicholas. Don’t get upset. Just get the money as soon as you can.”
“Don’t push me.”
“I’m not pushing.”
“You’re not pushing. Let me make something clear. This thing goes wrong with you and me, you know what happens, right? I know where the heirloom is. You don’t know. I know. And you ought to know that if the heirloom turns up, you, personally, are implicated up to your thick Jew beard in this thing.”
“Oy, who’s pushing who?”
MATTEO
And then the Jew initiated a lawsuit? To what end? For the futility of suing a blackmailer? To drag a thief in front of a judge and make him swear an oath? Would a blackmailer have any difficulty swearing a false oath? Why do you sue someone who’s not going to pay, other than to damage that person’s reputation? And for a Jew to sue a prominent person well-regarded in the community, such a fool would be in mortal danger for making a false accusation.
MONTALBANO
Equally dangerous for a true accusation.
MATTEO
For the Jew to stand in front of the court and say, “One of us is a liar, and it is he,” that other would have to be a man with an even lower reputation than a Jew. And so the court appearance was futility itself on two levels – the Jew could neither get the man to pay, nor damage a reputation that was already beyond repair. Why, then, this recourse to a lawsuit?
MONTALBANO
For entertainment? Because he knows we enjoy watching bearded guys in skullcaps boiling with impotent Hebraic rage?
MATTEO
What if the Jew just wanted his man in town? The summons pulls him away from home, away from the countryside where he lives, and into the city, where lives the Jew.
MONTALBANO
Are you suggesting… murder?
MATTEO
And why not? Is God so vigilant that even one who cheats a Jew must pay the price of death?
MONTALBANO
The Jew gets our tired traveler into town and has him killed, making it look like an accident. There’s just this: What about the gold? Who kills someone and leaves treasure near his body?
MATTEO
Suppose we found this body without the gold. The man walks out of court into the public square with his obligations to his debtor fully and fraudulently discharged. He turns up dead the next morning. What would you say to that?
MONTALBANO
Arrest the Jew.
MATTEO
But here we are, same situation, except now there’s gold. We both saw the old man hand off the staff to the Jew, swear an oath, and then take it back. And now we find gold inside the staff. Which leads us to believe what?
MONTALBANO
That God struck the old man dead for being a smart guy in court.
MATTEO
A good alibi for the Jew.
MONTALBANO
“Wasn’t me, goyim, it was God did it.” How did it go down?
MATTEO
Quiet, man, I’m thinking. Get me a stick.
MONTALBANO
What am I, your dog? (MONTALBANO fetches a stick.)
MATTEO
Thank you. No, but you’re as loused as one. Before we jump to a hasty conclusion, let us examine the possibilities. (In the dirt, he draws a square and divides it into quadrants.) The dead man repaid or he did not. He was a believer or he was not. Four possibilities. Sometimes I think you can describe all of creation using nothing but binary divisions of this sort.
MONTALBANO
Let the quadrants be quick.
MATTEO
Now, our initial assumptions were here in this first quadrant – he never repaid, and he was not a believer.
MONTALBANO
And yet here is gold.
MATTEO
Here is gold. If he is not a believer who holds oaths as sacred, why go through the charade of foisting a staff of gold upon your creditor? No, if he does not believe, he would have known nothing of the gold inside the staff. Which would mean the gold was placed inside by another. Tell me, use your investigator’s imagination. How might the Jew have engineered not only the staff-stuffing of the gold, but the precise circumstances of the oath?
MONTALBANO
Jew sees him limping around and says “OK, he’s got a staff in his right hand. He can’t swear an oath while holding a staff. And so I’ll make sure that during the oath, I’m the one holding the staff.”
MATTEO
But by what Jewish sorcery does he manage to lay hold of the staff during the oath? The old man might have easily switched it to his left hand or set it aside.
MONTALBANO
The Jew stood right next to him. The old man’s not thinking about the staff, he’s convincing himself of the truth of the lie he’s about to tell. The judge says, “Swear.” And before the old man makes a conscious choice about what to do with the staff, the Jew lays his hand on it. And underneath all the robes, who can really tell which of the two initiated the hand-off? It looked like the man handed the staff to the Jew, but maybe it was the other way around. What can the man do? Improvise an angry scene? “Get your hands off my staff!” Makes him look petty and grasping. No, he gives up the staff.
MATTEO
What if the man had replied instead, “Look at the grasping Jew, he would even lay hands not only upon more of my money, but on my very staff!” A highly risky strategy, to rely upon a certain improvisation of another.
MONTALBANO
Maybe it wasn’t premeditated. Maybe the Jew’s also improvising. He knows the guy’s a cheat, and there’s nothing he can do about it except this limp lawsuit. He prays, “God, give me the means to kill this man.”
And then, lo and behold, the old man hands him a cane during the oath. “Am I this man’s valet?” And yet the Jew holds the cane, what’s he going to do, throw the old man’s cane to the ground? But he’s furious. He has to watch with his own eyes this man here swear to high heaven that he repaid the debt, and he knows it’s a lie. “You know what I’d like to do with this staff? I’d like to take a carving knife, see? And cut jagged little splinters out of it, so that when I shove it…”
MATTEO
A torture itself, hearing you imagining imagined tortures. Your speculation, do continue.
MONTALBANO
And then it comes to him. The Jew says to himself, “Wouldn’t it be a perfect evasion of an oath were this staff filled with gold?” Now, he’s inspired. Now, he improvises. He wanted to kill the man before, but he didn’t know how. Now he has an idea, a legalistic, hair-splitting, Jewish-at-the-core idea, an idea only a Talmudic scholar would invent. The old man finishes his oath and takes back his entirely ordinary staff. He figures he’s done with the whole business and starts walking home. He feels safe. Everyone saw him in court. If an accident happens, everyone suspects the Jew. And so he’s careless. The Jew follows him, knocks out the old man, throws him in the cart, drives out of town and sets the scene here on the road. Breaks into a full gallop over the unconscious body, leaving us to believe that God struck the old man down as divine retribution.
MATTEO
Excellent, excellent. But why spend so much gold on revenge?
MONTALBANO
It’s not about the money anymore. Maybe it’s not a lot of money for the Jew, maybe it’s nothing to him. And what’s gold compared to reputation? Now he can keep his enforcers idle. “Look what happened to the last man who didn’t pay me. God struck him dead. So pay me.” Even better, maybe the Jew thinks to have his money back.
MATTEO
We discovered this tableau, and what was your first thought upon seeing the gold on the roadway?
MONTALBANO
My first thought, my present thought, one and the same: To take the gold, every last piece. At first, just for the found wealth. And now, even sweeter, to burn the Jew. He thought the gold would exonerate him – so for justice’s sake let’s take the gold.
MATTEO
Is it justice, now? At the side of every rationalization, there is justice. A plan you imagine depends upon the public discovery of hidden gold inside of a staff. A questionable plan given that the first person to come upon the scene might quietly and discreetly sweep up the gold for himself. Now, what if the Jew was not the painter of this tableau?
MONTALBANO
You think someone else left the gold on the dead man?
MATTEO
He borrowed from the Jew, he borrowed from others. Another creditor hears in court that the Jew has been paid ahead of him. He approaches the old man after the hearing:
“So, you paid the Jew first?”
“No, no, I didn’t really pay him.”
“That’s not what I heard in court. You swore that you paid!”
“I lied, that wasn’t true.”
“You lied in court, under oath, and I’m supposed to believe you now?”
“You have to believe me, I would never make you wait behind the Jew to get paid.”
The creditor sees his opportunity. He figures he’s never going to collect, so he strikes down the old man. One killing, two bodies: With the murder, he puts the Jew under the gravest suspicion, and the Jew is arrested, tortured and killed. He allows a debtor to avoid payment through death, but eliminates a competitor in the moneylending trade.
MONTALBANO
Why would he leave the gold to exonerate the Jew?
MATTEO
You’re right, he wouldn’t. If he was killed by a creditor, there would be no gold here unless the creditor knew nothing of it. We are now in the next quadrant, where the man was a believer who knew about the gold.
MONTALBANO
Oh, are we in your second quadrant already? I was hoping we could spent more time in the first quadrant, subdividing it into further quadrants and quadrants beyond that to infinity, because as you know I am a man of infinite patience and fortitude, my lot in life to tallow the wheels of your plodding, mechanical mind. Think of it: we can have quadrants to divine the mind of the old man, the Jew, the judge, the other creditors, St. Nicholas, and even the mind of the hollow staff and the gold. Perhaps the gold itself decided to secret itself inside the hollow staff, just for a laugh.
MATTEO
Would you proceed differently?
MONTALBANO
Heavens, no! Quadrants, quadrants, and more quadrants!
MATTEO
Let’s suppose that the dead man believed he could swindle the Jew while still maintaining his faith to St. Nicholas. But if you are enough of a believer to go through such trouble, how could you not grasp that such sophistry would fail to escape God’s justice?
MONTALBANO
Not everybody’s as much a learned theologian as yourself.
MATTEO
Let’s follow this theological thread. By the law of man, the Jew has been repaid; and yet under the law of God, the Jew has not been repaid. Paid and unpaid, these cannot both be true at the same time, for the law of man operates by the law of God. Until the Jew is here, in person, to receive the gold from the hand of the dead man risen, we exist in a state of duality – justice and injustice contained within the same broken vessel.
MONTALBANO
Oh, I think I follow you. It’s like when you put a cat in a sealed box together with two dead rats, one poisoned and the other not, and an ordinary cat only has an appetite for one rat at a time. If the cat eats the poisoned rat, it dies; and if it eats the other rat, it lives. And so until you open the box, you don’t know whether it’s a dead cat or a live cat in there. In a sense, the cat is both living and dead at the same time. Really makes you think.
MATTEO
You need a hobby.
MONTALBANO
What can I say? I’m a dog person.
MATTEO
Here lies an unlearned theologian, as you suggest. But why, if he were so unlearned, would he risk so much gold – and his soul – on the knife-edge of logic? There’s a better answer – that he martyred himself.
MONTALBANO
The Martyr of the Cart.
MATTEO
He ponders the duality of the law of man and the law of God and endeavors to test a proposition, the proposition that St. Nicholas is real. He stakes his own soul and the reputation of St. Nicholas on a loan, and then defaults intentionally. He pulls the staff trick at court to satisfy the law of man. And then he shows up here for the second act, putting himself in the path of the cart. As a believer, he trusts that St. Nicholas will allow him to make good on his oath.
MONTALBANO
What’s in it for St. Nicholas?
MATTEO
What gift can you offer a saint? Only the soul of a man. What will happen when the Jew hears of this?
MONTALBANO
He’ll take the gold?
MATTEO
If he takes the gold, we’ll arrest him for murder.
MONTALBANO
And if he leaves the gold and backs away?
MATTEO
Then we arrest him for murder. Or we give him a third choice: To profess the veracity of a miracle that St. Nicholas will soon make, a special trip to Purgatory to bring the man back to life to make personal amends for this misdeed. It would be a true miracle, would it not? A sinner raised from the dead, a patient lender paid what he is owed, and one brought to the true faith. And the beautiful part is that the Jew need be the only witness to this miracle.
But if he chooses either of the first or second choices, then we will be compelled to start asking pointed questions about the very suspicious circumstances of this man’s death.
Act III, Scene I. MONTALBANO and MATTEO stand as witnesses. Enter LENDER, who stands by the BORROWER’s body.
MONTALBANO (to LENDER)
We’ll turn our backs, Jew, and you wait right there for St. Nicholas. I’m sure if you wait long enough, and pray hard enough – you do know how to pray hard, right? You pray like you’ve never prayed before. Now I’m not going to tell you how to pray, but if you prayed in our language, it wouldn’t hurt. Good for you, good for all of us, if you can ask St. Nick what exactly what you want him to do, which by chance is what we want him to do. You just want the dead guy to be really sorry for tricking you and you want him to hand over your money, just like that.
MATTEO
And everyone in Christendom will be overjoyed to hear about the wonderful experience you are about to have.
MONTALBANO
Now don’t forget the details. Keep good track of the details, that’s important. What does this St. Nicholas look like? Young or old? Does he have a beard or is a clean-shaven fellow? What’s he wearing, is he dressed for our sunny weather or is he all bundled up? Where does he live? What kind of cart does he have and what manner of beast pulls it? Is he pleasant, like me? What? What’s funny? Oh, I’m downright jolly, make no mistake about it. We’re counting on you to make this convincing. Make it interesting, you clever fellow, we want people to remember St. Nicholas.
LENDER nods his head and stands by the body.
Act III, Scene 2.
Enter San. NICOLÁS in full regalia, handing out candy canes to the audience.
FIN
At this instant there came into court two old men, one carrying a cane by way of a walking-stick, and the one who had no stick said, “Senor, some time ago I lent this good man ten gold-crowns in gold to gratify him and do him a service, on the condition that he was to return them to me whenever I should ask for them. A long time passed before I asked for them, for I would not put him to any greater straits to return them than he was in when I lent them to him; but thinking he was growing careless about payment I asked for them once and several times; and not only will he not give them back, but he denies that he owes them, and says I never lent him any such crowns; or if I did, that he repaid them; and I have no witnesses either of the loan, or the payment, for he never paid me; I want your worship to put him to his oath, and if he swears he returned them to me I forgive him the debt here and before God.”
“What say you to this, good old man, you with the stick?” said Sancho.
To which the old man replied, “I admit, senor, that he lent them to me; but let your worship lower your staff, and as he leaves it to my oath, I’ll swear that I gave them back, and paid him really and truly.
The governor lowered the staff, and as he did so the old man who had the stick handed it to the other old man to hold for him while he swore, as if he found it in his way; and then laid his hand on the cross of the staff, saying that it was true the ten crowns that were demanded of him had been lent him; but that he had with his own hand given them back into the hand of the other, and that he, not recollecting it, was always asking for them.
Seeing this the great governor asked the creditor what answer he had to make to what his opponent said. He said that no doubt his debtor had told the truth, for he believed him to be an honest man and a good Christian, and he himself must have forgotten when and how he had given him back the crowns; and that from that time forth he would make no further demand upon him.
The debtor took his stick again, and bowing his head left the court. Observing this, and how, without another word, he made off, and observing too the resignation of the plaintiff, Sancho buried his head in his bosom and remained for a short space in deep thought, with the forefinger of his right hand on his brow and nose; then he raised his head and bade them call back the old man with the stick, for he had already taken his departure. They brought him back, and as soon as Sancho saw him he said, “Honest man, give me that stick, for I want it.”
“Willingly,” said the old man; “here it is senor,” and he put it into his hand.
Sancho took it and, handing it to the other old man, said to him, “Go, and God be with you; for now you are paid.”
“I, senor!” returned the old man; “why, is this cane worth ten gold-crowns?”
“Yes,” said the governor, “or if not I am the greatest dolt in the world; now you will see whether I have got the headpiece to govern a whole kingdom;” and he ordered the cane to be broken in two, there, in the presence of all. It was done, and in the middle of it they found ten gold-crowns. All were filled with amazement, and looked upon their governor as another Solomon. They asked him how he had come to the conclusion that the ten crowns were in the cane; he replied, that observing how the old man who swore gave the stick to his opponent while he was taking the oath, and swore that he had really and truly given him the crowns, and how as soon as he had done swearing he asked for the stick again, it came into his head that the sum demanded must be inside it; and from this he said it might be seen that God sometimes guides those who govern in their judgments, even though they may be fools; besides he had himself heard the curate of his village mention just such another case, and he had so good a memory, that if it was not that he forgot everything he wished to remember, there would not be such a memory in all the island. To conclude, the old men went off, one crestfallen, and the other in high contentment, all who were present were astonished, and he who was recording the words, deeds, and movements of Sancho could not make up his mind whether he was to look upon him and set him down as a fool or as a man of sense.
Don Quixote, Volume II, CHAPTER XLV.