Don Camillo’s Dilemma

by Giovanni Guareschi

  Christ made no answer.

  “Lord,” Don Camillo continued. “He insulted me right here in the church.”

  Still Christ was silent.

  Don Camillo got up and paced anxiously to and fro. Every now and then he turned around in discomfort, because he felt two eyes staring at him. He went to make sure that both doors to the church were locked fast; then he looked among the pillars and in the confessionals. No one was to be found, and yet Don Camillo felt sure that someone in the church was watching. He wiped the perspiration off his cheeks.

  “Lord, help me,” he murmured. “Someone’s staring at me. I can’t see him, but someone’s here; I can feel his eyes.”

  He wheeled around, because he thought he could feel the stranger breathing down his neck. There was nothing but empty semi-darkness around him, but he did not feel the least bit reassured. He opened the gate of the chancel and went beyond the rail to the steps of the altar.

  “Lord!” he cried out. “I am afraid. Protect me!”

  Then, turning his back on the altar, he looked slowly around. All at once he jumped.

  “The eyes!”

  The stranger’s eyes lurked in the Chapel of Saint Anthony Abbot. It was from there that they were staring at him. Never in his life had he seen two eyes like these. The blood froze in his veins and then rushed hot and tumultuous through them again as he clenched his fists and swept forward. When he came to the chapel, his fists were thrust out ready to grab the intruder. He went one, two, three steps farther, and when he thought the stranger must be within his grasp he rushed at him. But his nails only scratched the walls, and the eyes were still staring.

  Don Camillo took the lighted candle from the altar and held it near to the staring eyes. Really, there was nothing so mysterious about it. The hammer which Divine Providence had mercifully deflected against the wall had knocked down a big piece of plaster. And underneath this there was a fresco, which some priest of times gone by had covered over when he decided to pierce a window.

  Don Camillo proceeded to scrape off more pieces of plaster and thus to enlarge his vision of the past. Finally he uncovered the brown face and mocking smile of a devil. Was it an ingenuous figure from Hell or a symbol of temptation? This was no time for research; Don Camillo was interested above all in the staring eyes. His foot brushed against an object on the floor, and stooping down he found at the devil’s feet the ill-starred hammer. Just then the clock in the tower struck ten.

  “It’s late,” Don Camillo reflected. And he added: “But it’s never too soon for an act of humility.”

  He walked rapidly through the darkness. Most of the village houses had gone to sleep but there was still a light in the workshop of Peppone. Don Camillo groped for the catch of the iron grille. The shutters were open and he could hear Peppone breathe heavily as he hammered out a red-hot iron bar.

  “I’m sorry,” said Don Camillo.

  Peppone stared, but quickly took hold of himself and continued to hammer without lifting his head.

  “You took me by surprise,” Don Camillo went on. “I was nervous…. When I realized what I had done, the hammer was already out of my hands.”

  “You must be slow-witted, Father, if you don’t wake up to your misdeeds until after you’ve committed them.”

  “There’s some merit in admitting a mistake,” said Don Camillo cautiously. “That’s the sign of an honest man. When a man won’t admit that he was wrong, then he’s dishonest.”

  Peppone was still angry and went on pounding the iron, which had by now lost its red glow.

  “Are we going to begin all over?” he roared.

  “No,” said Don Camillo. “I came to put an end to it. That’s why I began by asking you to excuse the unforgivable gesture I made against you.”

  “You’re still a coward and a liar. And I’ll put all those hypocritical excuses of yours right here!” And Peppone slapped the base of his spine.

  “Quite right!” said Don Camillo. “That’s where stupid fellows like you keep everything sacred.”

  Peppone couldn’t stomach it, and the hammer flew out of his hand. It was aimed with diabolical accuracy at Don Camillo’s head, but God willed that it strike one of the narrow bars of the grille. The bar was bent, and the hammer fell on to the workshop floor. Don Camillo stared in amazement at the bent bar and as soon as he could move he set off at full speed for home and arrived, all choked up, at the foot of the altar.

  “Lord,” he said, kneeling before the Crucified Christ, “we’re even; a hammer for a hammer.”

  “One stupidity plus another stupidity makes two stupidities,” Christ answered.

  But this simple addition was too much for Don Camillo, who by now had a raging fever.

  “Lord,” he stammered, “I’m just a poor lone priest, and I can’t take it.”

  After this, Don Camillo spent one of the worst nights of his life, pursued by a nightmare of hammers whistling out of his hand and then whistling back at him. The devil with the fearful eyes had emerged from the chapel wall, with a whole crowd of other devils in his train, and one of these rode astride the handle of every ricocheting hammer. He dodged them as well as he could, until weariness overcame him and they pounded his head with a monotonous “bang … bang … bang…” that finally sent him off to sleep.

  Only at six o’clock in the morning did the banging cease, simply because at that hour Don Camillo woke up. His head was still so fuzzy that he hardly knew what he was doing and did not recover his self-possession until he stood saying mass at the altar. The celebration of this mass required truly epical courage, and God seemed to appreciate his effort, for he rewarded him by giving him the strength to stand on his two feet. When he had taken off his vestments, after mass, Don Camillo went to look at the Chapel of Saint Anthony. The maleficent eyes were still there and the cursed hammer lay in a pile of plaster on the floor below.

  “Aha!” said a voice behind him. “The criminal is drawn back to the scene of his crime.”

  Don Camillo wheeled around and of course found himself looking into the eyes of Peppone.

  “Are we beginning again?” asked the priest wearily.

  Peppone shook his head and slumped on to a bench. His eyes were bleary and his hair glued to his forehead, and he was breathing heavily.

  “I can’t stand it any longer,” he said. “Fix things whatever way you like.”

  Don Camillo suddenly realized that Peppone was laboriously handing him something wrapped up in a newspaper. When he took the object into his hands, it seemed to weigh a ton. He unwrapped it and discovered an elaborate wrought-iron frame which enclosed, instead of a commonplace picture, a copper sheet, and attached to it with brass wire an ordinary hammer. On the copper sheet were engraved the words:

  To Saint Anthony for making me miss

  “Lord,” Don Camillo said the next day, when he was feeling stronger and more hopeful. “Thank You for Your help.”

  “Thank Saint Anthony,” Christ answered; “he’s the protector of dumb animals.”

  Don Camillo looked up anxiously.

  “Is that how you judge me, Lord, at this moment?” he asked.

  “At this moment, no. But it was the unreasonable animal in you that threw the hammer. And Saint Anthony protected that animal.”

  Don Camillo bowed his head.

  “But I wasn’t the only one, Lord,” he stammered. “Peppone…”

  “That doesn’t matter, Don Camillo. One horse plus one horse makes two horses.”

  Don Camillo checked the count with his fingers. “Lord, that’s not correct, because I’m a jackass.” And he said it so very earnestly that the Lord was moved to forgive him.

  Don Camillo Returns

  IN spite of help from Saint Anthony, Don Camillo found himself increasingly provoked by the Reds as the pre-election campaigns got under way. Peppone managed to create a number of incidents in the centre of which a certain party found himself with fists flying. These incidents were deemed “unfortunate”
by the bishop who sent Don Camillo (and it was not the first time) for a period to an isolated village in the mountains. There the air was cooler. Don Camillo’s days were so monotonous that it was hardly worthwhile tearing the leaves off the calendar, for they were perfect blanks, bare of any event worth recording.

  “Lord,” Don Camillo complained to the Crucified Christ from the altar, “this will drive me mad! Nothing ever happens!”

  “I don’t understand you, Don Camillo,” Christ answered. “Every day the sun rises and sets, every night you see billions of stars wheeling their way overhead, and all the while grass grows and one season succeeds another. Aren’t these the most important of all happenings?”

  “Forgive my stupidity, Lord,” said Don Camillo, hanging his head, “I’m only a poor priest from the plains.”

  But the next day he repeated the same complaint. There was an ache deep down inside him, which grew every day, and was indeed the only thing to impinge upon his attention. Meanwhile, down in the little world of the river valley nothing very remarkable happened either except for a multitude of petty things, which would have distressed Don Camillo had he known anything about them.

  The young priest sent to hold the fort during Don Camillo’s political convalescence was a splendid fellow in spite of his theoretical outlook and his polished big-city vocabulary, he did wonders in adapting himself to circumstances and made a mighty effort not to rub the villagers the wrong way. People of every political colour responded to his courtesy and goodwill and flocked to church in large numbers, but with this gesture they drew the line. No one, for instance, went to confession. “Don’t worry, Father,” they explained. “It’s just that we’re so used to Don Camillo. We’ll catch up when he returns.” And weddings were put off in the same way. It seemed as if even birth and death were engaged in a conspiracy, for since Don Camillo’s departure no one had either come into the little world or gone out of it. Things went on like this for months, until finally a woman came to the rectory one day to say that old man Tirelli was dying. The young priest mounted his bicycle and hastened to the bedside.

  Old Tirelli had lived so many years that even a bank teller would have tired of counting them and he himself had lost track of them long ago. He had always been hale and hearty, that is until the atomic blast upset climatic conditions and a mammoth attack of pneumonia laid him low. Before entering his bedroom, the young priest questioned the doctor, who was just coming away.

  “Is it serious?” he asked.

  “Technically speaking he should be dead. It’s an affront to medical science that he should still be breathing.”

  The priest went in, sat down by the bed and began to pray. Just then the old man opened his eyes and gave him a long stare.

  “Thanks,” he sighed, “but I’ll wait.”

  The priest felt perspiration break out on his forehead.

  “While God gives you time, you’d better put your conscience in order,” he advised.

  “I know,” said the old man, “but I’ll wait for his return.” The priest couldn’t bear to argue with a dying man, so he went to talk to the members of his family, in the next room. They knew the seriousness of his condition and how miraculous it was that he should still be alive. It was up to them to persuade him to make his confession. They went to the bedside and informed the old man of the doctor’s verdict, but although he respected the doctor and was in full possession of his usual common sense, he only answered:

  “Yes, I know it’s a serious matter. There’s not a moment to be lost. Go and call Don Camillo, because I want to leave this world with my conscience clear.”

  They told him that, first of all, Don Camillo could not abandon his new parish in order to give one sick man his blessing, and second, it would be a matter of hours to fetch him from so far away. And this was a question of minutes. The old man saw the point of these objections.

  “Quite right,” he said: “we must cut down the time. Put me in a car and take me to him.”

  “Look here, Tirelli,” said the doctor, who had overheard the parley from the next room, “if you hold my opinion in any esteem, listen to me. This is utter madness. You wouldn’t last more than a mile. And surely you don’t want to die like a dog, on the road. Stay in your bed and take advantage of this borrowed time to set your conscience at rest. God is the same down here in the plains as up there in the mountains and this young man is just as much of a priest as Don Camillo….”

  “I know,” murmured Tirelli, “but I can’t be unfair to Don Camillo. Surely the young priest understands. Let him come along, and if I give way during the trip, I’ll make my confession to him. Let’s hurry.”

  The old man was still alive and hence in his own house he was the master. They called an ambulance and loaded him into it, with the priest at his side. His son and the youngest of his grandchildren followed after on a motorcycle. The ambulance went as speedily as the power of its four cylinders would allow, and every now and then the old man exclaimed:

  “Faster! Faster! I’m racing against time.”

  When the car reached the mule track leading up to Monterana, the old man was still alive. His son and grandson pulled out the stretcher and proceeded to carry it up the mountain. The old man was only a sack of bones, some nerve, and an inordinate amount of obstinacy, and so the weight was not too much for their shoulders. The priest followed after, and in this way they walked for two hours, until the village and its church were no more than two hundred yards away. The old man’s eyes were shut, but he saw them just the same.

  “Thank you, Father,” he whispered to his escort. “You’ll receive some compensation for all the trouble I’ve caused you.”

  The young priest blushed, and leaped like a goat back down the mountain.

  Don Camillo sat smoking his usual cigar butt in front of the hut which bore the name of rectory. At the sight of the stretcher borne on the two Tirellis’ shoulders, his mouth dropped open.

  “He insisted that we bring him here,” explained the son, “in order that you might hear his confession.”

  Don Camillo lifted up the old man and all his covers, carried him into the house and laid him gently on the bed.

  “What shall we do?” asked the old man’s son, peering through the window. Don Camillo motioned to him to go away and then sat down beside his father. The old man seemed to be in a stupor, but he was aroused by Don Camillo’s prayers.

  “I couldn’t be unfair to you,” he murmured.

  “Now you’re being unfair to God,” Don Camillo protested. “Priests are ministers of God, not shopkeepers. The confession is what matters, not the confessor; that’s why the priest stays behind a grating which serves to hide his face. When you make your confession you don’t tell your life-story to one priest or another; you speak to God…. What if you had died on the way?”

  “I had your substitute along with me,” murmured old Tirelli, “and I shouldn’t really have minded unburdening my conscience to him. When a man’s spend his life at hard labour, he hasn’t much time left for sin…. The fact is that I wanted to say good-bye and ask you to accompany my body to the grave, wherever you may be. When you have a send-off from Don Camillo, you’re sure of a safe arrival.”

  After this, he confessed his sins, and as might have been expected they were so trivial that he received an immediate absolution and blessing.

  “Don Camillo,” the old man said at the end, “do you mind if I don’t die right away?” And he was quite serious about it.

  “Suit yourself,” said Don Camillo, “if you live two thousand years longer, you won’t disturb me.”

  “Thank you,” the old man sighed.

  It was a fine day, with a warm sun and a blue, blue sky. Don Camillo threw open the window and went out, leaving the old man asleep with a smile on his face.

  * * *

  “Lord,” Don Camillo said to Christ, “something happened today that I can’t understand.”

  “Don’t torment yourself about it,” Christ answe
red. “There are things which don’t require understanding. And don’t go forgetting that old man. He may need you.”

  “He needs You rather than me!” exclaimed Don Camillo. “Aren’t you content with the fact that he came so far in safety?”

  “I’m always content with what God gives me. If He holds out His finger, I don’t grab His hand…. And yet often I wish I could.”

  Don Camillo remembered that the old man’s son and grandson were waiting outside and went to speak to them.

  “He’s made his peace with God and is sleeping,” he explained. “Do whatever you think best.”

  “The miracle’s done now,” said the grandson; “there’s no use expecting another. I’ll go down the mountain and tell the ambulance to wait. We’ll carry him back and bury him at home.” Before Don Camillo could say that the old man had expressed a wish to be buried in this his new parish, the boy’s father put in:

  “Go down, if you like, but tell the ambulance to go away. I’ll come after you and we’ll go home together.”

  The grandson ran off, and the son turned to Don Camillo:

  “We’ll leave everything up to you,” he said.

  Don Camillo spent the night near old Tirelli. When he had to go and say mass the next morning he called the old woman that took care of the house to replace him. After mass he rested for a while and then, having assured himself that the old man was still alive, he went to a house near the public fountain where he had to take something to a boy that had broken his leg. On the way back he heard someone calling him from a second-storey window. Looking up he saw a face which he was so unwilling to see that at first he actually didn’t recognize it. But finally he called up to its smiling owner:

  “What on earth are you doing here?”

  Beside the girl’s face popped up that of a sullen youth.

  “We’re here for a holiday,” he said. “Must we have your permission?”

  “Watch your tongue, young man,” said Don Camillo. “If you’ve come here to spread propaganda, I’m warning you that the place isn’t healthy.”