“What makes us different,” he began a moment later, speaking with his mouth full, “is experience and practical wisdom. What you do instinctively, driven by an outright childish desire to satisfy your sexual urges, I carry out deliberately, according to a plan. But the same drive lies at the heart of both behaviours. Namely, the conviction that what counts is me, my welfare and my pleasure, and the rest can go to hell if it doesn’t serve my interests. Don’t interrupt. To you, your dear Adèle’s charms were like a sticky bun to a child. In order to taste it, you forgot everything else—all that mattered was your own pleasure. No, don’t try bringing love into this, quoting Petrarch and Wolfram of Eschenbach. Love is also a pleasure, and one of the most selfish I know.”

“I will not listen to this.”

“In summa,” continued the penitent adamantly, “our existential beliefs don’t differ at all, since they are based on the same principium: everything I do should serve me. Where we do differ, though—”

“So we do differ, then?”

“—is the ability to think long term. In spite of frequent temptations, I refrain as far as I am able from bedding other men’s wives, because long-term thinking suggests that in addition to not benefitting me, it will cause me problems. I don’t pamper the poor with alms, not out of miserliness, but simply because such charity doesn’t achieve anything. In fact, it is blatantly harmful—you lose a penny and gain the reputation of a fool. And since numerus fools infinitus est, I swindle them whenever I can, including foolish Benedictines. Got it?”

“I understand what you were imprisoned for,” said Reynevan, biting off a mouthful of apple.

“You’ve understood nothing. But there’s time for you to learn—it’s a long way to Hungary.”

“Do you think I’ll make it there? In one piece?”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Because the more I listen to you, the bigger an idiot I feel. An idiot who any moment may become the victim on the sacrificial altar of his own convenience.”

“You see, you’re making progress,” Scharley said happily. “You’re beginning to reason sensibly. Apart from your unwarranted sarcasm, you’re now beginning to grasp the fundamental principle of life: the principle of limited trust, which teaches us that the surrounding world is ceaselessly lying in wait for us, and never passes up an opportunity to cause you insult, distress or harm. That it’s only waiting until you drop your breeches to kick you in your bare arse.”

Reynevan snorted.

“From which two conclusions can be drawn,” continued the penitent, without faltering. “Primo: never trust or believe people’s intentions. Secundo: if you ever cause anyone harm or distress, don’t fret over it. You were simply quicker, you acted preventatively—”

“Be quiet!”