Don Camillo’s Dilemma

by Giovanni Guareschi

  “Strong hands aren’t lacking,” said Don Camillo calmly. “We can handle a pack easily enough. But what shall we do when there are sixty or more? We’re still on top, but they’re working day and night to put us down. And they have powerful weapons.”

  “Weapons? And you haven’t any? I’ll send you plenty of those!”

  “That’s not the sort of weapons I mean. The Reds’ chief weapon is other people’s selfishness. People who are well off think only of holding on to their possessions; they show no concern for their neighbours. The richest people are often the more stingy; they fail to see that by clinging to their individual piles the whole lot of them will lose everything. But don’t let’s worry over that, Signor Del Cantone. Have another glass of wine.”

  “There’s the Old World for you!” sighed the stranger, turning down the offer of a second drink. “I want to speak with the mayor right away. I see a way of killing three birds with one stone. I’ll raise an enduring monument to my father and mother, save Western civilization, and madden those damned souls of Casalino by making this village the seat of my institution.”

  Don Camillo saw stars. Then he hastily pulled himself together.

  “The mayor’s not here today. But I’ll have him on deck here at the rectory tomorrow morning.”

  “Good. I’ll be here. Remember I have very little time, and be ready to present your choice of a location. I have the building plans in my pocket. And my agent has rounded up several big farms for raising all the produce the institution can consume.”

  * * *

  “No,” said Peppone, “I won’t take part in any such dirty comedy. I am what I am and I’m proud of it.”

  “There’s nothing dirty about it,” said Don Camillo. “All you have to do is pretend to be a decent sort of person.”

  “And there’s no use your trying to be funny, either. I’m no puppet. It’ll turn up at the rectory tomorrow morning, if you like, but with my red kerchief around my neck and three Party membership pins.”

  “Then you may as well save yourself the trouble. I’ll tell him to hang onto his million, because the mayor has no use for it. Our mayor intends to build a children’s and old people’s home with the funds they send him from Russia. In fact, I’ll have the whole story put into print so that everyone can know.”

  “That’s blackmail!” said Peppone angrily.

  “I’m only asking you to be quiet and let me do the talking. Politics shouldn’t come into it. Here’s a chance to do something for the poor, and we must make the best of it.”

  “But it’s a fraud!” said Peppone. “Among other things, I have no intention of tricking that poor old man.”

  “All right,” said Don Camillo, throwing out his arms. “Instead of tricking a millionaire, let’s trick the poor! To think that you claim to be fighting for a fairer distribution of rich people’s money! Come, come is there any trickery in persuading a madman that you’re not a Communist, in order to obtain funds for the needy? I see nothing wrong. Anyhow, I leave it up to the Last Judgement, and if I am found guilty I shall pay. Meanwhile our old people and children will have shelter and a crust of bread. This madman wants to build something to commemorate his parents. Why shouldn’t we help him?”

  “No! I say it’s dishonest and I won’t have any part of it!”

  “Very well,” said Don Camillo. “You’re sacrificing a cool million to Party pride. Perhaps tomorrow, when you’re polishing up the weapons you’ve stowed away for the Revolution a bomb will explode in your hands, leaving your son an orphan.”

  “I hope you explode first,” retorted Peppone. “And my son will never beg for your reactionary charity!”

  “That’s true. He’ll have your pension from Malenkov. But what if you live long enough to achieve second childhood and there’s no old people’s home to take you in?”

  “By that time Malenkov will have fixed things so that every old person has a home of his own.”

  “What if Malenkov disappoints you?”

  “I’m not worried about that. Meanwhile, I’ll have nothing to do with this plan.”

  “All right, Peppone. I have to admit that you’re right. I was so carried away by the idea of doing something for the poor that I lost my head completely, and it took a hardened unbeliever like yourself to remind me of God’s law against lying. It’s never permissible to sacrifice principle to profit. Come along tomorrow morning, and we’ll tell that madman the truth. I have sinned and it’s up to me to atone.”

  Don Camillo did not have the courage to speak to the Crucified Christ over the altar that evening. He slept uncomfortably and waited for the next morning to restore his peace of mind. Sure enough, the big American car pulled up in front of the rectory and the stranger walked in. Peppone, who was waiting outside with Brusco, Smilzo and Bigio, followed after.

  “Here are the mayor and three members of the village council,” said Don Camillo.

  “Good!” said the old man, shaking hands all around. “I suppose that Don Camillo has already told you my story….”

  “Yes,” said Peppone.

  “Splendid. I presume you belong to the clerical party.”

  “No,” said Peppone.

  “We’re independents,” put in Smilzo.

  “So much the better!” said the old man. “I don’t hold particularly with the priests. If you’re free and independent, then of course you’re against the Reds. Castor oil and a beating, those are the only treatments for them. Don’t you agree?”

  His slightly wild eyes were fastened upon Peppone.

  “Yessir,” Peppone answered.

  “Yessir,” echoed Bigio, Brusco and Smilzo.

  “These cursed Reds…” the old man continued, but Don Camillo broke in.

  “No more!” he said firmly. “This comedy has gone far enough.”

  “Comedy? What comedy do you mean?” the old man asked in amazement.

  “You were so excited when I saw you yesterday, that in order to calm you down I said some things that are not exactly true,” explained Don Camillo. “Things are just the same here as they are at Casalino. The mayor and most of the members of the Village Council are Reds.”

  “Did you want to make a fool of me?” the stranger asked with a grim laugh.

  “No,” answered Peppone calmly. “We simply wanted to help the poor. For their sake we were willing to stoop to almost anything.”

  “And what about those famous tactics of yours?” the stranger said ironically to Don Camillo.

  “They’re still valid,” the priest answered determinedly.

  “Then why don’t you explain them to the mayor?” the old man asked vindictively.

  Don Camillo gritted his teeth and took a pack of cards from a desk drawer.

  “Look,” he said. “Even a tiny child can tear them up one by one, whereas if they’re all together it’s almost impossible….”

  “Just a minute,” said Peppone. And taking the pack out of Don Camillo’s hands he tore it in two with his own.

  “Amazing!” exclaimed the old man. “Record-breaking!” And he insisted that Peppone give him a split card with an autograph upon it.

  “I’ll display them both in the window of my shop in America,” he said, putting the whole pack in his pocket. “On one side the priest’s and on the other the mayors. And in between their story. The fact that both of you can split a pack of cards is important,” he added. “Likewise the fact that you can league together for the good of the village against an outsider. I still have the same low opinion of you cursed Reds. But I don’t care if they burst with envy at Casalino this is the place where I want to build my institution. Draw up a charter for it tomorrow and choose a board of directors with no politicians among them. All decisions made by this board must be approved by two presidents, who have a lifelong term and the power to choose their successors. The first two men to hold this office shall be Don Camillo and (if I have the name right) Giuseppe Bottazzi. Before we American businessmen embark upon any enterpris
e we obtain a thorough report on the people and places with which we expect to be concerned. Yesterday when your priest told me that the local government was not predominantly Communist in character, I had a good laugh. Today I didn’t find it quite so funny. But I have learned something I didn’t know before and I shall go home happy. Push this thing through fast, because I want to settle it tomorrow. I’m buying the farm today.”

  * * *

  Don Camillo went to kneel before the Crucified Christ over the main altar.

  “I’m not especially pleased with you, Don Camillo,” Christ said. “The old man and Peppone and his friends behaved themselves more creditably than you did.”

  “But if I hadn’t stirred up the situation a bit, nothing would have come out of it,” protested Don Camillo weakly.

  “That doesn’t matter. Even if some good comes out of your evil-doing, you’re responsible to God for what you did. Unless you understand this, you’ve misunderstood God’s word completely.”

  “God will forgive me,” murmured Don Camillo, lowering his head.

  “No, Don Camillo, because when you think of all the good which your sin has done for the poor you won’t ever honestly repent.”

  Don Camillo threw out his arms and felt very sad, because he knew that Christ was quite right.

  Peppone Has a Diplomatic Illness

  “THIS is an outrageous hour,” grumbled Don Camillo when Peppone’s wife came to the rectory.

  “I thought priests and doctors were available twenty-four hours a day,” she answered.

  “All right, all right, but say what you have to say without sitting down. That way you won’t stay too long. What is it you want?”

  “It’s about the new house. I want you to bless it.”

  Don Camillo clenched his fists.

  “You’ve come to the wrong counter,” he said sternly. “Goodnight.”

  The woman shrugged her shoulders.

  “You must forgive him, Father. He had something on his mind.”

  Don Camillo shook his head. The matter was too serious to be forgotten, even after six months had gone by. Peppone had had an irresistible impulse to make a change; he had sold his shabby, run-down workshop, borrowed money until he was in debt up to his ears and built himself a new house just outside the village, on the main road running parallel to the river. The workshop was as well equipped for making repairs as that of any big city garage, and there were living quarters on the second floor. He had acquired the franchise for a well-known brand of petrol, and this promised to bring him many customers from the heavy traffic on the highway.

  Of course Don Camillo couldn’t resist his curiosity, and one fine morning he went to see. Peppone was deep in a disembowelled engine and decidedly not in talkative mood.

  “Fine place you’ve got here, Peppone,” said Don Camillo, looking around.

  “Yes it is, isn’t it.”

  “A big courtyard, a flat on the second floor, a petrol pump and everything,” Don Camillo continued. “There’s only one thing missing.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Once upon a time, when a man moved into a new house he called upon the priest to bless it….”

  Peppone drew himself up, wiping the sweat off his forehead.

  “Here’s the holy water of our day and age,” he said aggressively, “consecrated by good hard work instead of by one of your priestlings.”

  Don Camillo went away without saying a word. There was something alarming in Peppone’s words, something he had never heard before. Now this request from Peppone’s wife carried him back to the feeling of disgust he had suffered six months before.

  “No,” he told her.

  “You’ve simply got to come,” she said, no whit discouraged. “My husband’s not the only one in the house. There’s myself and my children. It’s not our fault if Peppone was rude to you. If Christ were to…”

  “Christ doesn’t come into it at all,” interrupted Don Camillo.

  “He does, though,” she insisted.

  And so, after pacing for several minutes around the room, Don Camillo answered:

  “All right, then. I’ll come tomorrow.”

  “No, not tomorrow,” she said, shaking her head. “You must come right now, while Peppone’s out. I don’t want him to know, or the neighbours to see and report to him, either.”

  This was too much for Don Camillo.

  “So I’m to be an underground priest, am I? Perhaps in order to bless a house I should disguise myself as a plumber. As if it were something shameful that had to be hidden! You’re more of a heathen than your wretched husband!”

  “Just try to understand, Don Camillo. People would say that we were having the house blessed because we’re in trouble.”

  “Because you’re in trouble, eh? And actually you want it blessed for some totally different reason. Out with it, woman!”

  “Because we are in trouble, to tell the truth,” she explained. “We’ve had bad luck ever since we moved into the new house.”

  “So because you don’t know where to turn, you thought you might try God, is that it?”

  “Well, why shouldn’t I? When things go well, we can look out for ourselves, without bothering God Almighty.”

  Don Camillo took a stick out of the pile beside the fireplace. “If you aren’t at least as far away as the square in the next two seconds, I’ll break this over your head!” he told her.

  She went away without a word, but a second later she stuck her head through the door.

  “I’m not afraid of your stick,” she shot at him. “I’m afraid of your unkindness and bad temper.”

  Don Camillo threw the stick on to the fire and watched it go up in flames. Then brusquely he threw his overcoat over his shoulders and went out. He walked through the darkness until he came to Peppone’s house and there he knocked on the door.

  “I knew you’d come,” said the wife of Peppone.

  Don Camillo took the breviary out of his pocket, but before he could open it, Peppone came like a whirlwind into the hall.

  “What are you doing here at this hour?”

  Don Camillo hesitated, and Peppone’s wife spoke up: “I asked him to come and bless the house.”

  Peppone looked at her darkly. “I’ll settle accounts with you later. As for you, Don Camillo, you can go at once. I don’t need you or your God either.”

  This time Peppone’s voice was hardly recognizable. To tell the truth, Peppone was not the man he had been before. He had bitten off more than he could chew, and in throwing himself into this new venture he had borrowed on everything he had and some things he hadn’t. Now he was in really hot water and didn’t see how he was ever going to get out of it. That evening, for the first time in his life, he had surrendered and asked for help.

  * * *

  After Don Camillo had left, Peppone exploded. “So you’d betray me too, would you?”

  “I wouldn’t betray you. There’s a curse on this house and I wanted to break it. I didn’t do anything wrong.”

  Peppone went into the large kitchen and sat down at the table.

  “Bless the home, indeed!” he shouted. “He didn’t come to bless the home; he came to spy on us, don’t you understand? To see how things are going and dig up some proof of our desperate situation. If he’d got into the workshop, he’d have noticed that my new lathe is gone…”

  “Tell me, what happened?” his wife broke in.

  “Well, the lathe’s taken care of, and no one saw me carrying it away.”

  “Someone will notice tomorrow,” his wife sighed. “The first man to come in will see that it’s not there.”

  “No one will see a thing,” Peppone reassured her. “With the money I got for the lathe, I paid off our two most pressing creditors, and tomorrow I won’t open the shop for business. I’ve taken care of that too.”

  His wife looked at him questioningly.

  “I called the village council together and told them that I was ill and needed a long rest. I
’m going to shut myself up in the house and not let anyone see me.”

  “That won’t do any good,” she answered. “Notes will fall due, no matter how tightly you shut yourself up.”

  “The notes will fall due in another month. Meanwhile, the lathe is gone, and that’s a fact we must cover up. There are all too many people who’d be happy to know that I’m in trouble.”

  Then Peppone asked his wife for a big sheet of paper and printed on it in big letters:

  WORKSHOP TEMPORARILY CLOSED

  DUE TO ILLNESS OF OWNER

  “Go and stick that on the door,” he ordered.

  His wife took a bottle of glue and started out, but Peppone stopped her.

  “That won’t do,” he said sadly. “Owner is far too bourgeois a word.”

  He sought in vain for some less reactionary term and finally had to content himself with a vague:

  CLOSED, DUE TO ILLNESS

  As a matter of fact, the whole business was sick, and not just Peppone.

  Peppone did not stick his nose outside, and his wife explained to everyone that he was in a state of exhaustion and mustn’t be disturbed until he got better. Ten days went by in this way, but on the eleventh day there was bad news. In the local column of the farm paper there was an item that ran:

  LOCAL CITIZEN IN THE LIMELIGHT

  We are happy to say that the popularity of our mayor, Giuseppe Bottazzi, is always on the increase. Today’s list of called-in promissory notes carries three mentions of his name. Congratulations on the well-deserved publicity.

  * * *

  Peppone ran a genuine temperature and went to bed, asking his wife to leave him completely alone.

  “I don’t want to see any letters or newspapers. Just let me sleep.”

  But three days later she came sobbing into the room and woke him up.

  “I’ve got to tell you something,” she said. “They’ve seized all the new tools in your workshop.”

  Peppone buried his head in the pillow, but he heard what she was saying. He sweated all the fever he could out of himself and then suddenly decided to jump out of bed.