The Colour of Blood [antikvár]

The car taking him back to the Residence entered Proclamation Square sometime between nine and nine-fifteen. He had not looked at his watch since leaving the meeting. It was raining, a summer shower. In the square, the statues, roofs and monumental buildings were wetted slick; the pavement glistened. He switched on the pencil lamp over his clipboard to read, not his notes, but a small book by Bernard of Clairvaux. Do you not think that a man born with reason yet not living according to his reason is, in a certain way, no better than the beasts themselves? For the beast who does not rule himself by reason has an excuse, since this gift is denied him by nature. But man has no excuse. Sometimes, reading St Bernard, he could abandon the world of his duties and withdraw into that silence where God waited and judged. But now he saw, peripherally, a black car racing very close to his. He turned to look. The driver, a woman, wore a green silk scarf tied around her head. Beside her in the passenger seat, a bearded man, holding a revolver in both hands, raised it, aiming at him. In that moment, Joseph, his chauffeur, wrenched the steering wheel around, deliberately crashing into the black car. Tumbled as in a centrifuge, he was