The Little World of Don Camillo

by Giovanni Guareschi

  “He’d have to reach Switzerland first!” growled Peppone threateningly.

  “Exactly!” exclaimed Don Camillo. “It’s about time we did away with that fifth commandment which forbids us to kill! And when one eventually comes face to face with Almighty God one will only have to speak out bluntly: ‘that’s quite enough from you, my dear Eternal Father, or Peppone will proclaim a general strike and make everyone fold their arms!’ By the way, Peppone, how are you going to get the angels to fold their arms? Have you thought of that?”

  Peppone’s roar vied with that of the expecting cow whose complaints were heart-rending. “You are no priest!” he vociferated. “You are the chief of the Gestapo!”

  “The Gestapo is your affair,” Don Camillo corrected him.

  “You go around by night, in other people’s houses, clutching a Tommy gun like a bandit!”

  “And what about you?”

  “I am in the service of the people!”

  “And I in God’s service!”

  Peppone kicked a stone. “No use trying to argue with a priest! Before you have uttered two words they drag in politics!”

  “Peppone,” began Don Camillo gently, but the other cut him short.

  “Now don’t you begin jawing about the national patrimony and rubbish of that kind or as sure as there is a God in Heaven I’ll shoot you!” he exclaimed.

  Don Camillo shook his head. “No use trying to argue with a red. Before you have uttered two words they drag in politics!”

  The cow that was about to calve complained loudly.

  “Who goes there?” came a sudden voice from someone very close to the ditch. Then Brusco and two others appeared.

  “Go and take a walk along the road to the mill,” Peppone ordered them.

  “All right,” replied Brusco, “but who are you talking to?”

  “To your damned soul,” roared Peppone furiously.

  “That cow that is going to calve is bellowing,” muttered Brusco.

  “Go and tell the priest about it!” bawled Peppone, “and let her rot! I am working for the interests of the people, not of cows!”

  “Keep your hair on, chief,” stammered Brusco, making off hastily with his companions.

  “Very well, Peppone,” whispered Don Camillo, “and now we are going to work for the interests of the people.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  Don Camillo set out quietly along the ditch toward the farm, and Peppone told him to halt or he would get what he was asking for between the shoulders.

  “Peppone is as stubborn as a mule,” said Don Camillo calmly, “but he doesn’t shoot at the backs of poor priests who are doing what God has commanded.”

  Then Peppone swore blasphemously and Don Camillo turned on him in a flash. “If you don’t stop behaving like a goat, I’ll give you one on the jaw just as I did to your celebrated federal champion…”

  “You needn’t tell me: I knew all along that it was you. But that was different.”

  Don Camillo walked along quietly, followed by the other, muttering and threatening to shoot. As they approached the cowbarn, another voice called to them to halt.

  “Go to hell!” replied Peppone. “I am here myself now, so you can get along to the dairy.”

  Don Camillo did not even glance at the cowbarn door with its seals. He went straight up the stairs to the hayloft above it and called in a low voice: “Giacomo.”

  The old cowman who had come to see him earlier and had related the story of the cow, got up out of the hay. Don Camillo had a flashlight and by shifting a bale of hay they found a trap door.

  “Go down,” said Don Camillo to the old man, who climbed down and disappeared for some time.

  “She’s had her calf all right,” he whispered when he returned. “I’ve seen a thousand of them through it and I know more than any vet.”

  “Now go along home,” Don Camillo told the old man and the old man went.

  Then Don Camillo opened the trap door again and sent a bale of hay through the opening. “What do you think you are doing?” asked Peppone who had so far remained hidden.

  “Help me to throw down these bales and I’ll tell you.”

  Grumbling as he did so Peppone set to work chucking down the bales, and when Don Camillo jumped down after them into the cowbarn, Peppone followed him.

  Don Camillo carried a bale to the right-hand manger. “You’d better attend to the left-hand mangers,” he said to Peppone.

  “Not if you murder me!” shouted Peppone, seizing a bale and carrying it to the manger.

  They worked like an army. Then there was the problem of watering the animals and, since they were dealing with a modern cowbarn with drinking troughs placed along the outer walls, it involved turning one hundred cows right around and then trying to stop them from drinking themselves to death.

  When they finished it was still pitch dark in the cow house but that was merely because all the shutters of the windows had been sealed from the outside.

  “It’s three o’clock in the afternoon,” said Don Camillo, looking at his watch. “We’ll have to wait until evening before we can get out!”

  Peppone was in a fury, but there was nothing for it but patience. When evening fell, Peppone and Don Camillo were still playing cards by the light of an oil lamp.

  “I’m so hungry I should swallow a bishop whole!” exclaimed Peppone savagely.

  “Hard on the digestion, Mr. Mayor,” replied Don Camillo quietly, though he himself was faint with hunger and could have devoured a cardinal. “Before saying you’re hungry you should fast for as many days as these cows.”

  Before leaving, they again filled the mangers with hay. Peppone tried to resist, saying that it was betraying the people, but Don Camillo was inflexible.

  And so it happened that during the night there was a deathly silence in the cowbarn and old Pasotti, hearing no more lowing from the cows, was afraid that they were so far gone that they hadn’t even the strength to complain. In the morning, he made a move to settle with Peppone, and with some give and take on both sides the strike was settled.

  In the afternoon, Peppone turned up at the rectory.

  “Well,” said Don Camillo in honeyed tones. “You revolutionaries should always listen to your old parish priest. You really should, my dear children.”

  Peppone stood with folded arms, speechless. Then he blurted out: “But my Tommy gun, reverendo!”

  “Your Tommy gun?” replied Don Camillo with a smile. “I’m afraid I don’t understand. You had it yourself.”

  “Yes, I had it when we were leaving the cowbarn, but then you took advantage of my exhaustion and stole it from me.”

  “Now that you mention it, I believe you’re right,” replied Don Camillo with disarming candor. “You must forgive me, Peppone, but the truth is that I am getting old and I don’t seem able to remember where I’ve put it.”

  “Reverendo!” exclaimed Peppone indignantly. “But that’s the second one you’ve swiped from me!”

  “Never mind, my son. Don’t worry. You will easily find another. Who knows how many you have even now lying around your house!”

  “You are one of those priests that, one way or another, compel a decent man to become a Mohammedan!”

  “Very possibly,” replied Don Camillo, “but then you, Peppone, are not a decent man.” Peppone flung his hat on the ground.

  “If you were a decent man,” the priest went on, “you would be thanking me for what I have done for you and for the people.”

  Peppone picked up his hat, jammed it on his head and turned away. “You can rob me of two hundred thousand Tommy guns, but when the time comes I will always have a ’75 to train on this infernal house!”

  “And I’ll always find an 81 mortar with which to retaliate,” replied Don Camillo calmly.

  As Peppone was passing the open door of the church he could see the altar, and angrily pulled off his hat and then crammed it on again quickly for fear someone should see him.
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br />   But Christ saw it, and when Don Camillo came in He said gaily: “Peppone went by just now and took off his hat to Me.”

  “You be careful, Lord,” replied Don Camillo. “Remember someone kissed You and then sold You for thirty pieces of silver. That fellow who took off his hat told me only three minutes before that when the time came he would always find a ’75 to fire on the house of God!”

  “And what did you reply?”

  “That I would always manage to find an 81 mortar to fire on his headquarters.”

  “I understand, Don Camillo. But the trouble is that you have that mortar already.”

  Don Camillo spread out his arms. “Lord,” he said, “there are so many odds and ends a man hates to throw away because of old memories. All of us are a bit sentimental. And then, in any case, isn’t it better that a thing like that be in my house rather than in someone else’s?”

  “Don Camillo is always right,” smiled Christ, “just as long as he plays fair.”

  “No fear about that; I have the best adviser in the universe,” replied Don Camillo, and to this Christ could make no reply.

  The Procession

  Once every year, for the blessing of the village, the crucifix from above the altar was carried in procession as far as the river bank, where the river also was blessed so that it would refrain from excesses and behave decently.

  This year, as Don Camillo was thinking over the final touches to be given to the celebrations, Smilzo stopped in at the rectory.

  “The secretary of our local section,” said Smilzo, “sends me to inform you that the entire section will take part in the procession complete with all its banners.”

  “Convey my thanks to Secretary Peppone,” replied Don Camillo. “I am only too happy to have all the men of the section present. But they must be good enough to leave their banners at home. Political banners have no place in religious processions. Those are the orders that I have received.”

  Smilzo retired and very soon Peppone arrived, red in the face and with his eyes popping out of his head. “We are just as much Christians as the rest of them!” he shouted, bursting in without even knocking on the door. “In what way are we different from other people?”

  “In not taking off your hats when you come into other people’s houses,” said Don Camillo quietly.

  Peppone snatched his hat from his head.

  “Now you are just like any other Christian,” said Don Camillo.

  “Then why can’t we join the procession with our flag?” shouted Peppone. “Is it the flag of thieves and murderers?”

  “No, Comrade Peppone,” Don Camillo explained, lighting his cigar. “But the flag of a party cannot be admitted. This procession is concerned with religion and not with politics.”

  “Then the flags of Catholic Action should also be excluded!”

  “And why? Catholic Action is not a political party, as proved by the fact that I am its local secretary. Indeed I strongly advise you and your comrades to join it.”

  Peppone jeered. “If you want to save your black soul, you had better join our party!”

  Don Camillo raised his hands. “Supposing we leave it at that,” he replied, smiling. “We all stay as we are and remain friends.”

  “You and I have never been friends,” Peppone asserted.

  “Not even when we were in the mountains together?”

  “No! That was merely a strategic alliance. For the triumph of our arms one can make an alliance even with priests.”

  “Very well,” said Don Camillo calmly. “Nevertheless, if you want to join in the procession, you must leave your flag at home.”

  Peppone ground his teeth. “If you think you can play the dictator, reverendo, you’re making a big mistake!” he exclaimed. “Either our flag marches or there won’t be any procession!”

  Don Camillo was not impressed. “He’ll get over it,” he said to himself. And in fact, during the three days preceding the Sunday of the blessing nothing more was said about the flag. But on Sunday, an hour before Mass, scared people began to arrive at the rectory. Early that morning, Peppone’s gang had called at every house in the village with the warning that anyone who took part in the procession would do so at the risk of life and limb.

  “No one has said anything of the kind to me,” replied Don Camillo. “I am therefore not interested.”

  The procession was to take place immediately after Mass, and while Don Camillo was vesting for it in the sacristy he was interrupted by a group of parishioners.

  “What are we going to do?” they asked him.

  “We are going in procession,” replied Don Camillo quietly.

  “But those ruffians are quite capable of throwing bombs,” they objected. “In our opinion you ought to postpone the procession, give notice to the public authorities of the city and have the procession as soon as there are enough police on the spot to protect the people.”

  “I see,” remarked Don Camillo. “And in the meantime we might explain to the martyrs of our Faith that they made a big mistake in behaving as they did and that instead of going off to spread Christianity when it was forbidden, they should have waited quietly until they had police to protect them.”

  Then Don Camillo showed his visitors the way to the door and they went off, muttering and grumbling.

  Shortly afterward a number of aged men and women entered the church. “We are coming along, Don Camillo,” they said.

  “You are going straight back to your houses!” replied Don Camillo. “God will take note of your pious intentions, but this is decidedly one of those occasions when old men, old women and children should remain at home.”

  A number of people lingered in front of the church, but when the sound of firing was heard in the distance (Smilzo had let off a Tommy gun into the air as a demonstration), even the group of survivors melted away. Don Camillo found the square as bare as a billiard table.

  “Are we going now, Don Camillo?” asked Christ from above the altar. “The river must be beautiful in this sunshine. I’ll enjoy seeing it.”

  “We’re going all right,” replied Don Camillo. “But I am afraid that this time I shall be the entire procession. If You can put up with that…”

  “Where there is Don Camillo he is sufficient in himself,” said Christ, smiling.

  Don Camillo hastily put on the leather harness with the support for the foot of the cross, lifted the enormous crucifix from the altar and adjusted it in the socket. Then he sighed: “All the same, they need not have made this Cross quite so heavy.”

  “You’re telling Me!” replied the Lord smiling. “And I never had shoulders such as yours.”

  A few moments later Don Camillo, bearing his enormous crucifix, emerged solemnly from the door of the church. The village was completely deserted; people were cowering in their houses and watching through the cracks of the shutters.

  “I must look like one of those friars who used to carry a big black cross through villages smitten by the plague,” said Don Camillo to himself. Then he began a psalm in his ringing baritone, which seemed to acquire volume in the silence.

  After crossing the Square he began to walk down the main street, and here again was emptiness and silence. A small dog came out of a side street and began quietly to follow Don Camillo.

  “Go away!” muttered Don Camillo.

  “Let it alone,” whispered Christ from His Cross. “Then Peppone won’t be able to say that not even a dog walked in the procession.”

  The street curved and then came the lane that led to the river bank. Don Camillo had no sooner turned the bend when he found the way unexpectedly obstructed.

  Two hundred men had collected and stood silently across it with folded arms. In front of them stood Peppone, his hands on his hips.

  Don Camillo wished he were a tank. But since he could only be Don Camillo, he advanced until he was within a yard of Peppone and then halted. Then he lifted the enormous crucifix from its socket and raised it in his hands, brandishing it as thoug
h it were a club.

  “Lord,” cried Don Camillo. “Hold on tight; I am going to strike!”

  But there was no need, because the men scattered before him and the way lay open. Only Peppone, his arms akimbo and his legs wide apart, remained in the middle of the road. Don Camillo put the crucifix back in its socket and marched straight at him and Peppone moved to one side.

  “I’m not shifting myself for your sake, but for His,” said Peppone, pointing to the crucifix.

  “Then take that hat off your head!” replied Don Camillo without so much as looking at him. Peppone pulled off his hat, and Don Camillo marched solemnly through two rows of Peppone’s men.

  When he reached the river bank he stopped. “Lord,” said Don Camillo in a loud voice, “if the few decent people in this filthy village could build themselves a Noah’s Ark and float safely upon the waters, I would ask You to send a flood that would break down this dike and submerge the whole countryside. But as these few decent folk live in brick houses exactly like those of their rotten neighbors, and as it would not be just that the good should suffer for the sins of scoundrels like Mayor Peppone and his gang of Godless brigands, I ask You to save this countryside from the river’s waters and to give it every prosperity.”

  “Amen,” came Peppone’s voice from just behind him.

  “Amen,” came the response of all the men who had followed the crucifix.

  Don Camillo set out on the return journey and when he reached the doorway of the church and turned around so that Christ might bestow a final blessing upon the distant river, he found standing before him: the small dog, Peppone, Peppone’s men and every inhabitant of the village, not excluding the druggist, who was an atheist, but who felt that never in his life had he dreamed of a priest like Don Camillo, who could make even the Eternal Father quite tolerable.

  The Meeting

  As soon as Peppone read a notice posted at the street corners announcing that a stranger from the city had been invited by the local section of the Liberal Party to hold a meeting in the Square, he leaped into the air.