Faldoni, parts 2920 - 2923

 2920. The friar expected Faldoni to offer him a long list of explanations and justifications for the theft of the ultramarine blue pigment, and he was prepared to attempt to select some ideas to use for a defense for obviously he would be expected to say something. But what he found was a prisoner completely ready to accept his condemnation, and not willing in any way to defend himself.

 2921. But the friar had to do his job in one way or another so he began to describe the fate that awaited his client, hoping that fear of this event would spur Faldoni into offering some explanations. Faldoni’s reaction was to say nothing, but a shiver passed over him from head to foot. The friar was unable to go on with that approach and so he tried something else.

 2922. He began to suggest, in a roundabout way, that the Church authorities and the judges were perhaps not really qualified to decide questions of right and wrong, even though they had set themselves up in these positions of authority, giving themselves the right to determine questions of life and death of  whomever came into their grasp.

2923. The friar did not come out and actually say anything so dangerous, for this reason. He considered Faldoni to be a simpleton, and since he was a simpleton, if the friar said anything obviously critical of the judges then Faldoni might simply turn around and go and report him to the same police officers that had locked him up to begin with.