Don Camillo’s Dilemma

by Giovanni Guareschi

  Don Camillo threw out his arms helplessly.

  “Lord, punish me! I’ve said too many stupid things.”

  “No,” Christ answered. “I’m concerned not with your words but with your intentions. Your heart’s in the right place, even if your tongue does trick you. Watch that tongue of yours, Don Camillo; it has a way of getting you into trouble.”

  Don Camillo thanked Christ for his indulgence, and feeling somewhat reassured he went out into the village. Everything was going the way it should. Busloads of people were arriving to hear the speech and their numbers were rapidly filing the square.

  “Efficiency, that’s what did it,” someone said behind Don Camillo.

  Don Camillo turned around and found just the person he was expecting, that is, Peppone, flanked by Smilzo, Brusco and three or four other members of his general staff.

  “Were you speaking to me, Mr Mayor?” asked Don Camillo.

  “No sir,” Peppone said with a smile. “I was speaking to Smilzo. I was saying that the success of the meeting is due to the efficiency of the postal system. If it weren’t for that the pink notification cards wouldn’t produce such a remarkable result.”

  Don Camillo took the cigar butt out of his mouth and flicked the ashes away with his little finger.

  “Take it from me, Mr Mayor,” he said heartily, “an efficient postal service isn’t the whole story. Sometimes an organization can send out thousands of cards and yet get no more than two hundred and twenty-seven people together.”

  Peppone gritted his teeth. The last meeting he had summoned, the “Peace Assembly”, had been a complete flop, with no more than two hundred and twenty-seven people present.

  “I don’t agree with you,” he retorted, “on the matter of the relationship between the number of notices sent out and the number of people actually in attendance. You can count those that turn up for the meeting, but how can you know how many notices were distributed?”

  “That’s easy,” said Don Camillo, pulling a notebook out of his cassock: “two thousand nine hundred and fifty-seven!”

  Peppone turned indignantly to his henchmen.

  “There you are!” he shouted. “See what’s become of the privacy of the mails!”

  “Thanks for bearing out the exactness of my calculations!” said Don Camillo slyly.

  “Exactness, my eye!” shouted Peppone. “We sent out exactly two hundred and thirty!”

  Don Camillo put the notebook back in his cassock.

  “Good! That shows the privacy of the mails is inviolate and the anonymous information given me was all wrong. As far as we’re concerned, there’s nothing to hide. We sent out two thousand four hundred and seven postcards, exactly.”

  “Six thousand nine hundred and forty-three!” shouted Peppone.

  Don Camillo looked at him with a preoccupied air.

  “I can draw only one of two conclusions: either the privacy of the mails has been violated or else you’re telling a lie.”

  Peppone paled. He had fallen into the trap like a perfect simpleton.

  “I heard mention of some such figure,” he muttered. “I’m only telling you what people say.”

  “Just as I thought,” said Don Camillo triumphantly. “The number of notices sent out is two thousand four hundred and seven, as I was saying a short tine ago. I’m very happy to see that about three times as many people have chosen to come. And they’re not all here yet.”

  Peppone turned around to go away, but Don Camillo called him back to look at a mimeographed sheet.

  “Here’s something that just happened to fall into my hands,” he explained. “This is a copy of the notice of today’s meeting. Since your notice wasn’t very effective, I’ll let you copy this one. I have an idea that the secret of success is in the letterhead. If you put ‘Christian Democrat’ in the place of ‘Communist Party’, you might have better luck.”

  Peppone let Don Camillo speak without opening his mouth to reply, but his general staff had to lay hold of him and drag him away.

  The square was crowded to capacity, and when the Honourable Betio appeared in the grandstand, he was greeted by a thunderous ovation. He began by speaking of the general political situation and the platforms of the various parties. When it came to the royalists, he pulled out all the stops:

  “Speaking of the royalists, who want to overturn our democratic republic and restore a monarchy which in its time betrayed us, let them take note that the sovereign people…”

  But here he was interrupted by the loud notes of the Royal March. He tried to protest against this seditious act, but the music rang out from somewhere overhead, all the louder. Meanwhile the vastly annoyed public was aroused to commotion. Some people started to sing the republican song, Brothers of Italy, while others embarked upon the Christian Democrat party anthem. The resulting confusion made it difficult to identify the place from which the disturbance had come. Actually it came from the fourth-storey window of the very house against which the grandstand was erected, and therefore was a real stab in the back of the republic. At least, so the Honourable Betio defined it.

  Once the window was identified, a carabinieri sergeant ran up to locate the door of the apartment to which it belonged. He found it easily enough, but it was so strong and securely locked that he could not smoke out the offender and decided to call upon the blacksmith to help him. He turned around and found the blacksmith at his elbow. Peppone had availed himself of his office of mayor to come through the barrier which the sergeant had hastily thrown up at the downstairs door in order to prevent mob justice from taking over a governmental function. Now he stood on the landing, with Smilzo at his side.

  “For heaven’s sake, open that door!” the sergeant exclaimed excitedly.

  “In my capacity as mayor or in my capacity as blacksmith?” asked Peppone.

  “As blacksmith,” the sergeant answered promptly.

  While the criminal behind the armoured door went merrily on playing a record of the Royal March, Smilzo dashed off to fetch the proper tools from Peppone’s workshop. Because of the crowd in the square, it took him some time to get there, but he finally made it. When he came back, Peppone peeled off his jacket and hesitantly fingered the tools.

  “Why don’t you get to work?” the sergeant asked him.

  “The blacksmith in me is arguing a point with the mayor,” said Peppone, “and they can’t seem to reach an agreement.”

  “Mr Mayor,” the sergeant muttered, “tell the blacksmith that if he doesn’t hurry he’ll find himself in trouble with the police.”

  Peppone set to work at taking the door off its hinges, while the record went right on playing the provocative tune. At last, when the door was unhinged, the sergeant made his way in. But in the presence of the disturber his anger faded to irritation. For Colonel Mavelli, an eighty-year-old retired army officer, had nothing of a dangerous rebel about him.

  “Stop that gramophone, and come along with me,” the sergeant ordered.

  The old man obeyed, but when he had removed the record he broke it over one knee, as if it were a sword, and consigned it to his captor.

  “Sergeant,” he said, in a voice that seemed to come straight from the front lines, “do your duty!”

  Before this unexpected demonstration of nineteenth-century heroics, the sergeant was so embarrassed that he thought it was his duty to draw himself to attention. And he was not altogether mistaken. Finally, however, he remembered the circumstances and recovered his aplomb sufficiently to tell the colonel to hold himself at the disposal of the law. And Peppone, before going downstairs, managed to whisper into the rebel’s ear:

  “As mayor, I told the blacksmith he’d better open your door if he didn’t want to get in trouble with the police. Now, as an ordinary citizen, I shall request the mayor to order the blacksmith to repair it.”

  * * *

  Don Camillo was thoroughly indignant.

  “Lord,” he said to the Christ over the altar, “that old fool of a Monarchist
ruined a magnificent meeting. I can’t see where he got the idea of debating a point by means of a gramophone record.”

  “I’m sure I don’t know,” Christ answered. “Unless he got it from someone I know who once rang the church bells when the Red commissar was speaking and thereby wrecked the rally.”

  Don Camillo bowed his head and walked back through the sacristy.

  “For they have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind,” Christ called after him.

  * * *

  Naturally enough, Peppone wanted his revenge, and he tried to work it out so as to kill two birds with one stone. He organized a mammoth meeting, to be addressed by an important speaker who had previously come to celebrate the Red victory in the last local election. It was upon this occasion that Don Camillo had interrupted the speech by ringing the church bells.

  “I want the meeting to be of historical proportions,” Peppone told his henchmen. “I want to crush the enemy to a pulp.”

  He worked over it for a month, until finally the great day came. The speech was scheduled for four o’clock in the afternoon, but the square was teeming by three. At half past three Don Camillo was striding nervously up and down the empty church. Finally he stopped and looked up at the altar.

  “Lord,” he said, “don’t You think I might go and look out of the window?”

  “Of course,” Christ answered, “but as far as I know, the rose window above the main door of the church is the only one with a view over the square.”

  “There is one other,” said Don Camillo, “but it’s up in the bell tower.”

  “I wouldn’t go up there,” said Christ. “For one thing, it’s very draughty.”

  “Oh, I’ve plenty of warm clothes on,” said Don Camillo reassuringly.

  “I appreciate the fact, Don Camillo, but I’d be sorry to see you repeat what you did last time and ring the bells in the middle of the speech.”

  Don Camillo spread out his arms in rueful assent.

  “Errare humanum est, diabolicum perseverare,” he admitted.

  “Let’s hope you don’t forget that on your way up the stairs.”

  “My memory’s good enough,” said Don Camillo.

  He was panting when he arrived at the top of the tower and it was only natural that he should fan himself with his big white handkerchief. And it was equally natural that when Peppone saw the handkerchief from the grandstand below he should be stricken with apprehension.

  “He’s up there again, just as he was the time before,” the speaker from the city whispered into his ear. I trust you’ve taken measures to prevent a repetition of the bell-ringing.”

  “Don’t worry, Comrade,” said Peppone. “Two husky boys are hiding on the next-to-last landing, just below the bells. If he tries to start anything, I don’t think he’ll get very far.”

  Everyone in the square was aware of Don Camillo’s presence, and nervousness spread through the crowd. When it was time to begin, Peppone made a welcoming speech, but the proximity of Don Camillo caused him to stutter, and when he passed the microphone to his guest, he was swimming in perspiration.

  “Comrades!” said the speaker. “This is the second time I have addressed you here, and once more I see the black buzzards of Reaction perched in their nests, ready to swoop down and cloud the blue sky with the beating of their lugubrious wings.”

  Peppone looked upwards, but the black buzzard was perfectly quiet and only his huge white handkerchief was stirring.

  “Comrades!” went on the speaker, emboldened by the calm of his adversary, “today skies everywhere are darkened by black buzzards, and the dove of peace has a hard time surviving….”

  The crowd looked upwards, too, but neither buzzards nor doves were to be seen. Instead, an aeroplane flew over the scene, spiralling lower and lower and releasing tiny parachutes, which fluttered down among the crowd. The crowd became restless, because everyone wanted to grab one of them. And the restlessness grew when it was discovered that attached to every parachute were smoked sausages, tins of fruit and meat, cigarettes, and chocolate bars. Except for the sausages and cigarettes, these things were all from America. The speaker proceeded at once to decry such provocatory and offensive propaganda, but he was interrupted by another visit from the aeroplane, whose second batch of parachutes met with even more acclaim than the first. A moment later the aeroplane came back a third time, but failed to calculate distances correctly, with the result that three quarters of the parachutes fell onto the street leading from the square into the country. People started to rush down this street, and on the fourth and fifth round (it turned out that two planes were involved), the parachutes were dropped even farther from the centre of the village. Now it was plain that the purpose of the whole manoeuvre was to draw the crowd away from the meeting. And the manoeuvre was eminently successful, for at a certain point no one remained in the square except Peppone and the visiting speaker. The surrounding houses, too, were left empty, while their occupants joined the wild chase into the surrounding fields. Peppone was foaming at the mouth with rage; he shook his fist and when he was able to speak he shouted through the microphone at the placid Don Camillo:

  “This is political banditry! Come on down, if you dare, you big black buzzard!”

  Don Camillo came as fast as if he had flown rather than walked down the stairs and stood defiantly in front of the grandstand.

  “Come down, yourself!” he shouted to Peppone.

  But the visiting speaker tugged at Peppone’s shoulder.

  “Don’t do it, Comrade. He’s only trying to make trouble. I order you not to go down.”

  Peppone gritted his teeth.

  “Come up here, if you’re so brave!” he shouted, while the Party satrap tried to shut his mouth.

  Don Camillo rolled up his sleeves and mounted the grandstand. By now, both men were beside themselves, and they leaped at one another, in spite of the efforts of the visitor, who was caught between them. Peppone got in the first blow which landed on the left side of the speaker’s head. And Don Camillo countered with a swat which hit it on the right. The poor man collapsed like a rag doll on the grandstand floor. Peppone and Don Camillo stared at one another. Then Don Camillo threw out his arms and said:

  “There you are! Every time this fellow comes out here from the city, he seems to suffer a ringing defeat!”

  He walked slowly back to his base of operations and then tried to slip noiselessly by the main altar. But Christ called him back.

  “Where are you going, Don Camillo?”

  “Lord,” Don Camillo replied. “I didn’t have any lunch, and now I’m going to bed without any supper. That way, I shan’t be able to sleep a wink, and I’ll have plenty of time to think over my mistakes!”

  Hammering It in

  AFTER the incident on the grandstand, the atmosphere grew increasingly heated. The political truce was over and the Reds were on the warpath again. But Don Camillo seemed serene.

  Only when he read in the bulletin nailed to the wall of the People’s Palace Peppone’s comment on the Pope's last speech did he lose patience and set forth in plain terms from the pulpit exactly what he thought of Peppone and his irresponsible band.

  He must have thought and said plenty, because as soon as Peppone was told of the contents of the sermon he marched upon the rectory with the avowed intent of “bumping off that cursed priest”, so as to settle once and for all the question between them.

  But he found no priest to be “bumped off” in the rectory, for the simple reason that Don Camillo was in the church, in fact standing in the pulpit from whence he had thundered at Peppone a short time before. He was equipped with a hammer and chisel and intent on boring a hole in the stone column which supported the pulpit. In the course of his vehement sermon he had heard the old wood of the pulpit creak ominously, and now he was making place for a solid iron rod which was to run from the supporting column to the upper edge of the pulpit and eliminate any chance of a collapse.

  Peppone, having
received no answer to his knock at the rectory door was just about to return to his home base, when the sound of hammering from inside the church caused him to change his mind. The main door of the church was closed and so was the smaller one leading through the tower but the window of the Chapel of Saint Anthony was open. Peppone made a small pile of bricks and stones below it and stood on top of this to look through. The pulpit was directly across the nave from where he was standing and at once he recognized the nocturnal worker. His anger redoubled in intensity.

  “Father, are you pulling the church down?”

  Don Camillo looked up with a start and in the light of the candle burning before the statue of Saint Anthony he saw the face of Peppone.

  “Not I,” he answered. “Other people make that their business, as well you know. But it’s no use. The foundation is solid.”

  “I wouldn’t be so sure of that,” said Peppone. “Solid as it may be, it isn’t strong enough to protect the deceivers who hide behind it in order to insult honest men.”

  “Quite right,” Don Camillo replied. “There’s no salvation for the deceivers who insult honest men. Only here there’s no such deceiver.”

  “You’re here, aren’t you?” Peppone shouted. “And you’re a hundred deceivers rolled into one.”

  Don Camillo clenched his teeth and kept his self-control. But once Peppone had started, there was no limit to what he would say.

  “You’re a coward and a liar!” he shouted.

  Don Camillo could contain himself no longer, and hurled the hammer at the chapel window. His aim was terrifyingly exact, but God willed that a gust of wind should cause a hanging lamp to swing in such away as to deflect the hammer from its course and send it into the wall, a foot from its destination. Peppone disappeared, leaving Don Camillo in the pulpit, with his nerves strained to the breaking-point. Finally he shook himself and went to confide in the Crucified Christ over the main altar.

  “Lord,” he said breathlessly, “did You see that? He provoked and insulted me. It wasn’t my fault.”