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Morlin.
    ‘It wasn’t a question. The credibility of the Christian revelation?’
    Morlin didn’t answer and Fèlix Ardèvol insisted, ‘Why do you study at the Gregorian if theology doesn’t …’
    They were both far from the stream of students making the trip back from the university to the residence hall. In two years of Christology and Soteriology, Metaphysics I, Metaphysics II and Divine Revelation, and diatribes from the most demanding professors, especially Levinski in Divine Revelation, who thought that Fèlix Ardèvol wasn’t progressing in that discipline according to expectations, Rome hadn’t changed much. Despite the war that had thrown Europe into upheaval, the city wasn’t an open wound; it had just got a bit poorer. Meanwhile, the students at the Pontifical University continued their studies, oblivious to the conflict and its dramas. Almost all of them. And growing in wisdom and virtue. Almost all of them.
    ‘And you?’
    ‘Theodicy and original sin no longer interest me. I don’t want more justifications. It’s hard for me to think that God allows evil.’
    ‘I’ve been suspecting it for months.’
    ‘You too?’
    ‘No: I suspected that you’re getting yourself in a muddle. Observe the world, like I do. I have a lot of fun in the Canonical Law Faculty. Legal relationships between the church and civil society; Church Sanctions; Temporal Goods of the church; Divine gift of the Institutes of consecrated life; the canonical Consuetudine …’
    ‘What are you saying?’
    ‘Speculative studies are a waste of time; the ones based on rules are a welcome rest.’
    ‘No, no!’ exclaimed Ardèvol. ‘I like Aramaic; I love looking at manuscripts and understanding the morphological differences between Bohtan Neo-Aramaic and Jewish Barzani Neo-Aramaic. Or the reason behind Koy Sanja Surat and Mlahso.’
    ‘You know what? I don’t know what you’re talking about. Do we study at the same university? In the same faculty? Are we both in Rome? Are we?’
    ‘It doesn’t matter. As long as I don’t have to have PaterLevinski as a professor, I want to learn everything there is to know about Chaldean, Babylonian, Samaritan …’
    ‘What good will all that do you?’
    ‘What good will it do you to know the difference between ratified, consummated, legitimate, putative, valid and nullified marriage?’
    They both started to laugh in the middle of Via del Seminario. A woman dressed in dark clothes looked up, a bit frightened to see those young chaplains making a commotion and violating the most basic rules of modesty.
    ‘Why are you down, Ardevole? Now it is a question.’
    ‘What interests you, in your heart of hearts?’
    ‘Everything.’
    ‘And theology?’
    ‘That’s part of everything,’ answered Morlin, lifting his arms as if he were preparing to bless the facade of the Biblioteca Casanatense and the twenty-odd people who, unawares, were passing in front of it. Then he set off walking and Fèlix Ardèvol had trouble keeping up.
    ‘Look at the European war,’ continued Morlin, pointing energetically towards Africa. And in a softer voice, as if he worried there were spies around, ‘Italy has to remain neutral because the Triple Alliance is only a defensive pact,’ said Italy.
    ‘The allies are going to win the war,’ the Entente Cordiale responded.
    ‘I am not moved by interests beyond being true to my word,’ proclaimed Italy, with dignity.
    ‘We promise you the unredeemed regions of Trentino, Istria and Dalmatia.’
    ‘I repeat,’ insisted Italy with more dignity and rolling its eyes, ‘Italy’s honourable position is that of neutrality.’
    ‘All right: if you join today, not tomorrow, OK? If you join today, you will have the whole unredeemed package: South Tyrol, Trentino, Julian Venice, Istria, Fiume, Nice, Corsica, Malta and Dalmatia.’
    ‘Where do I sign?’ answered Italy. And with shining eyes, ‘Long live the Entente! Death to the Central European empires! And