Don Camillo’s Dilemma

by Giovanni Guareschi

  Thunder did not swerve from the path, but growled lightly in reply.

  Four or five days later, Don Camillo found Pino waiting for him in the same place.

  “I’ve quit,” said the boy. “Can I go with you this time?”

  “Quit? What do you mean?” asked Don Camillo.

  “I’m not with them any longer. I resigned.”

  Don Camillo looked him over with a feeling of perplexity. The boy had a welt under his left eye and a slightly battered air.

  “What did you do?” he asked.

  “They beat me up. But I’m not with them any longer. Today, will you take me?”

  “Why do you want to go?”

  “I’d like to see some shooting.”

  Don Camillo walked on and the boy trailed him as silently as a shadow. He did not get in the way and his footsteps made no echo upon the ground. His pockets were stuffed with bread and he did not ask for a thing during all the hours they were walking. Don Camillo did a good bit of shooting, and although he made no sensational hits he gave a very creditable performance and Thunder wasn’t vexed with him too often. For when it came to his profession, Thunder was a strict taskmaster. He operated by the book and when Don Camillo made a whopping error he growled at him. On one occasion, early in their acquaintance, when the priest missed a hare almost the size of a calf, Thunder stood in front of him and bared his teeth.

  Now Don Camillo had made a better-than-average record. He was ready to call it a day and go home, when suddenly Thunder showed signs of excitement.

  “Can I have a shot?” whispered Pino, pointing to the shot-gun.

  “Of course not. You don’t even know how to hold a gun to your shoulder.”

  Thunder took a few cautious steps forward and then froze into a pointing position.

  “Give it here!” said the boy.

  Don Camillo put the gun into his hands, but it was too late. A bird rose up out of the field, and only the kind of sportsman that likes to hear the sound of his own weapon would have taken a shot at it. That is, only a perfect fool, or else a marksman of the calibre of the late Cino dei Bassi. The boy raised the gun to his shoulder and fired. And the bird fell like a stone, because this was Cino’s son, wielding his father’s gun.

  Don Camillo broke out into perspiration and there was a tight feeling about his heart as he remembered that this gun was responsible for the death of Cino. Impulsively he snatched it. Meanwhile Thunder had streaked away and come back to deposit a quail at the boy’s feet. The boy leaned over to pat his head, and a second later the dog raced off to the far end of the field to show off the power of his lungs and legs together. There he stopped and waited. At this point the boy gave out a whistle that Don Camillo hadn’t heard since the days when Cino was his hunting companion, and the dog responded instantly. A shiver ran down Don Camillo’s spine. Meanwhile the boy handed the quail over to him.

  “You shot it so it’s yours,” said the priest roughly.

  “Mother doesn’t want me to shoot,” the boy mumbled, and two minutes later he had gone away.

  Don Camillo stuffed the quail into his bag and walked homeward, with Thunder frolicking before him. All of a sudden the dog stopped in his tracks, bringing Don Camillo to a halt just behind. In the distance sounded Cino’s special whistle, and Thunder was off like a shot in reply.

  “Thunder!” Don Camillo shouted, causing the dog to pause and look around. “Thunder, come here!”

  But the whistle sounded again, and after a brief whinny of explanation, Thunder ran on, leaving Don Camillo in the middle of the narrow road. The priest did not continue straight on his way. Instead of crossing the ditch, he walked along it for at least a quarter of a mile. The evening mist was descending, filling up the rents left in the sky by the dried branches of the bare trees. Beside the ditch, at a spot marked by a wooden cross, Cino had fallen, releasing the trigger of his gun. Don Camillo bowed his head, took the quail out of the bag and laid it at the foot of the cross.

  “I see you’re still in good form, Cino,” he whispered, “but please don’t do it again.”

  * * *

  Don Camillo had no more taste for shooting. The episode of Pino had given him such a chill that merely to look at the shotgun hanging on the wall sent a tingle down his spine. And Thunder kept him company. The dog had received a major whacking and his demeanour was so humble that it seemed as if he must have understood every word, from the first to the last, of the little speech that had gone with it. If his master went out on the church square for a breath of air, he followed, but with his tail hanging. Then one afternoon, while the dog lay on the ground looking up at Don Camillo, who was pacing up and down with the usual cigar butt between his lips, the famous whistle sounded again. Don Camillo stopped and looked down at Thunder. Thunder did not budge. The whistle sounded again, and this time, although Thunder did not move, he traitorously wagged his tail and kept on wagging it until Don Camillo shouted at him. The confounded whistle sounded for a third time, and just as Don Camillo was about to grab his collar and pull him indoors, Thunder slipped away, jumped over the hedge and disappeared.

  When he came to the field behind the church Thunder stopped to wait for further orders. Sure enough, he heard another whistle, which led him farther. The boy was waiting for him behind an elm, and they walked on together in the direction of an old mill which for the last fifty years had been nothing but a pile of stones beside a dried-up canal. When a dike had been thrown up to prevent floods, the course of the river had been changed, and the mill served no longer.

  Now the boy climbed among the ruins, with Thunder at his heels. When they came to a half-collapsed arcade, he took away a few stones, revealing a long, narrow box behind them. Out of this he took an object wrapped in oily rags. Thunder looked on with a puzzled air, but in a minute he saw what it was all about. Enveloped in the rags was an old musket, as highly polished as if it had just come from the maker.

  “I found it in the attic,” the boy explained. “It belonged to my great-grandfather, who was a keen shot in his day. It takes a while to load it, but it shoots perfectly well.” With which, he proceeded to load it. Then he put the powder-horn in his pocket, hid the musket under his coat and led the dog away.

  Thunder had very little confidence in this strange contraption. And when he heard a bird stir in the grass, he pointed without any particular enthusiasm. But when he saw the bird drop to the ground he put his heart into his work, because he knew that it was worthwhile. This boy shot as Thunder had never seen anyone shoot before, and when they came to tuck the musket away in its hiding-place at the old mill the boy’s pockets were bulging with quail.

  “I can’t take them home, because if my mother and grandmother were to find out that I had been shooting, they would raise the roof,” Pino explained. “I give my catch to a fellow from Castelletto who deals in poultry, and he lets me have powder, tow, buckshot, and cartridges in exchange.”

  Thunder’s reaction to the announcement of this trade was not expressed very clearly. But then boy and dog alike were true artists. They didn’t shoot for the sake of garnishing spits or frying pans, or just because they had a barbaric taste for bloodshed.

  From this time on Thunder led a double life. He stayed quietly at home for days on end, but whenever he heard Pino’s whistle he threw off all restraint and made for the field behind the church. Eventually Don Camillo took offence and put Thunder out of the front door.

  “You’re not to set foot in my house until you’ve given up this shameful behaviour,” he said, aiming a swift kick to underline his meaning.

  And Thunder rejoiced, because his newly won independence favoured the enterprise on which he had set his heart.

  Pino got it into his head that he must bring down a pheasant.

  “I’m tired of these small pickings,” he explained to the dog. “Now I want to do some real shooting. We’ve got to find a pheasant. To have bagged a pheasant is the badge of a true shot.”

  Thunder did the bes
t he could, but even a blue-ribbon shooting dog can’t find a pheasant where none is to be found. And yet there were some pheasants not too far away. They had only to go to the game preserve and worm their way through the wire fence. There thousands of pheasants awaited them.

  But three wardens reigned over the preserve, and they were no joking matter.

  However the prospect of bringing down a pheasant was overwhelmingly attractive. And so one day Pino and Thunder found themselves up against the fence. They had chosen just the right sort of weather, for there was a mist in the air just thick enough to afford vision combined with invisibility and to muffle the sound of gunshot. Pino had a pair of pincers and he lay down on the ground to loosen just enough of the wire to allow himself and the dog to squeeze under. They stalked silently through the tall grass, and before they had gone very far Pino found a pheasant to shoot at. The bird came down like a ton of bricks, but once it hit the ground it recovered sufficient strength to make a last flight which ended in a thicket. Thunder was just about to go for it when the boy called him back. Someone was running after them and calling upon them to halt or else. Pino ran like a demon holding his head low, and Thunder followed after. The thickness of the mist and the general excitement caused the boy to strike the fence at a point slightly to the right of where he had made the hole. He realized this too late and lost time finding the right place. Just as he was bending down to slip through he was felled by the warden’s gun.

  He sank noiselessly to the ground and in spite of his ebbing strength tried to squeeze himself under. Just then the warden overtook him. Thunder stood in front of the boy, barking and baring his teeth. The man stopped short and when he saw the boy’s bloodstained body on the ground he turned pale and did not know what to do. Pino was still trying to propel himself with his hands across the ground and Thunder, without taking his eyes off the warden, took the lapel of his jacket between his teeth and pulled him along. The warden stood there in a daze until at last he ran away. Pino had reached the other side of the fence, but he lay still and was apparently no longer breathing.

  Thunder ran up and down, howling like one of the damned, but no one came by and finally he ran straight as an arrow to the village. Don Camillo was in the process of baptizing a baby when the dog rushed into the church, caught hold of his cassock and dragged him to the door. There Thunder let go, ran ahead, paused to bark, came back to take the priest’s cassock between his teeth again, pull him forward and then dash on ahead to show the way. Now Don Camillo followed of his own free will, wearing his vestments and with his book in hand. And as he ran along the road, people from the village came after him.

  Don Camillo brought the boy back in his arms, accompanied by a silent procession. He laid him down on his bed, while the old grandmother stared at him and murmured:

  “There’s fate for you! All of them died the same way.”

  The doctor said there was nothing to do but let him die in peace, and the onlookers lined up against the wall like so many statues. Thunder had disappeared, but he came back all of a sudden and took up his place in the middle of the room. In his mouth was the pheasant, which he had fetched from the thicket where it had fallen inside the preserve. He went over to the bed and put up his front legs and laid it on the boy’s right hand which lay motionless on the bedcover. Pino opened his eyes, saw the bird, moved his fingers to stroke it and died with a smile on his face.

  Thunder made no fuss but remained lying on the floor. When they came the next day to put Pino into his coffin they had to call upon Don Camillo to take the dog away, because he would not let anyone come near. Don Camillo put the body into the coffin himself and Thunder realized that if his master did it then it must be done. The whole village came to the funeral, and Don Camillo walked before the coffin, saying the office of the dead. At a certain moment his eyes fell upon the ground, and there was Thunder with the pheasant between his teeth. When they threw the first handfuls of earth over the coffin, Thunder let the pheasant drop among them. Everyone was scared by the dogs uncanny behaviour and left the cemetery in a hurry. Don Camillo was the last to go, and Thunder followed him, with his head hanging low. Once they were outside he disappeared.

  * * *

  The three wardens of the game preserve were grilled for forty-eight hours by the carabinieri, but every one of them made the same reply: “I know nothing about it. There was a heavy mist, and I saw and heard nothing in the course of my rounds. Some other poacher must have shot him.” Finally they were all dismissed for lack of proof.

  Thunder lay all day in the rectory, but when night came he ran away and did not come back until dawn. For twenty nights in succession he did the same thing, and for twenty nights a dog howled under the window of one of the three wardens. He howled uninterruptedly and yet no one could find the place where he was hiding. On the twenty-first morning the warden gave himself up to the sergeant of the carabinieri.

  “You may as well lock me up,” he said. “I didn’t mean to kill him, but the shot was mine. Do what you like with me, because I can’t stand that confounded dog’s howling.” After this everything returned to normal, and Don Camillo resumed his shooting. But every now and then, in the middle of some remote, deserted meadow, Thunder came to a sudden stop. And in the silence there rang out the whistle that was peculiar to Cino dei Bassi.

  The Excommunicated Madonna

  ONE morning a young man rode up on a bicycle to the square in front of the church and began to look inquiringly around him. Having apparently found what he wanted, he leaned his bicycle up against a pillar of the arcade and unpacked the bundle on the carrier behind the saddle. He took out a folding stool, an easel, a paint box and a palette, and a few minutes later he was hard at work. Fortunately the village children were all at school and he had a good half hour of peace and quiet. But gradually people crowded around and a hundred pairs of curious eyes followed his every brush-stroke. Just then Don Camillo came along, walking as casually as if he just happened to be passing that way. Someone asked him what he thought of the painting.

  “It’s too early to say,” the priest answered.

  “I don’t see why he chose the arcade for a subject,” said a member of the would-be intelligentsia. “There are far more picturesque scenes along the river.”

  The painter heard this remark and said without turning around:

  “Picturesque scenes are for penny postcards. I came here to paint just because it isn’t picturesque.”

  This statement left the villagers puzzled, and they continued to stare somewhat mistrustfully at the artist’s work for the rest of the morning. At noon they went away and he was able to put in two solid hours without interruption. When the villagers returned they were so agreeably surprised that they ran to the rectory.

  “Father, you must come and see. His picture’s a beauty.” The painter was, indeed, a talented fellow, and Peppone, who happened to be among the onlookers, summed it up aptly by saying:

  “There’s art for you. I’ve been looking at that arcade for almost fifty years and I never realized that it was so beautiful!”

  The painter was tired and packed his painting things away.

  “Have you finished?” someone asked.

  “No, I’ll finish tomorrow. The light’s changed and I can’t get the same effects at this hour.”

  “If you’d like to leave your things at the rectory, there’s plenty of room and I can answer for their safety,” said Don Camillo, who saw that the young man didn’t know what to do with his wet canvas.

  “I knew the clergy would try to take him over,” said Peppone disgustedly, as the artist gratefully accepted Don Camillo’s offer.

  After the young man had put his things in the hall closet he asked Don Camillo to recommend some simple lodgings.

  “You can stay here,” said Don Camillo. “I’m happy to have an artist under my roof.”

  A fire was lit in the rectory and supper was on the table. The young man was cold and hungry, but after he had eaten the c
olour came back into his cheeks.

  “I don’t know how to thank you,” he said.

  “You mustn’t even try,” said Don Camillo. “Will you be staying in these parts for long?”

  “Tomorrow afternoon I must go back to the city.”

  “Has your enthusiasm for the river country suddenly left you?”

  “No, it’s a question of money,” sighed the young man.

  “Have you work waiting for you?” the priest asked him.

  “Oh, I just scrape along from one day to the next,” the artist told him.

  “Well, I have no money,” said Don Camillo, “but I can give you board and lodging for a month if you do some work in the church for me. Think it over.”

  “That’s quickly done,” said the young man. “It’s a bargain. That is, if you let me have some time to paint for myself.”

  “Of course,” said Don Camillo. “I need you for only a couple of hours a day. There’s not so much to be done.”

  The church had undergone some repairs a month before and where the workmen had replaced some fallen plaster there was a gap in the decoration.

  “Is that all?” asked the painter. “I can do that in a single day. You’re offering me too much in return and it would be dishonest to accept it. You’ll have to find something more for me to do.”

  “There is something more,” said Don Camillo, “but it’s such a big job, I haven’t the courage to mention it.”

  “Let’s hear.”

  Don Camillo went over to the rail of a side-chapel and threw on the light. A great spot filled the space above the altar.

  “There was a leak,” Don Camillo explained. “We caught on to it too late, and even though we mended the roof, the seepage had loosened the plaster. And so the painting of the Madonna was completely destroyed. The first thing to do, of course, is to replace the plaster. But I’m much more concerned over the repainting of the Madonna.”

  “You can leave that to me,” said the artist. “Go ahead and get the plaster put in order, and meanwhile I’ll make a sketch and have it ready to transfer to the wall when the mason gives me the word. I’ve had some experience in frescoes already. But I’ll have to insist upon some privacy. You can see the job when it’s done, but I can’t bear to work with people staring at me.”