Don Camillo’s Dilemma

by Giovanni Guareschi

  “I say he’s a wretched creature,” his wife repeated. “For two whole hours they talked of nothing but politics; political parties, party papers, Russia, America, and other such ridiculous things. And she lapped it up! Poor wretches, both of them, that’s what I say.”

  “What do you expect them to talk about?” said Brusco. “That’s what interests the youth of today.”

  “Chattering about politics doesn’t lead anyone to get married. Marriage means starting a family, not a political party. No, I don’t like the fellow at all.”

  “Well, you don’t have to marry him,” said Brusco, starting upstairs. “The main thing is that he’s a thoroughly good boy.”

  “No one that belongs to your godless party can be a good boy!”

  “Well, your daughter belongs to my godless party, too,” Brusco countered. “And isn’t she a good girl?”

  “She’s not my daughter, she’s yours,” answered his wife, throwing out her arms in despair.

  As she thrashed about in her bed, trying vainly to sleep, a suspicion came into her mind. Perhaps they had talked about those ridiculous things simply because she was there. When they were alone, they might talk of something completely different.

  She decided to put this suspicion to the test, and when Marco came to call she said she was dead tired and supposedly went up to bed. Once upstairs, she lifted up a board which she had previously loosened from the floor, and was able to hear everything they were saying below. Marco and Giulietta talked quietly for some ten minutes or so, and then Marco raised his voice to say:

  “Now that your mother’s gone to bed, we can talk more freely. I say that if we go on with the half-way methods of Peppone and your father, we’ll never get anywhere. We’ve got to get tough with the landowners if we want results.”

  “I agree with you a hundred per cent,” said Giulietta gravely. “Next time there’s a meeting, we’ll have to let Peppone know what’s what. As for my father, I’ve been trying to put it over for some time, but it’s no use. They’re getting old, and you can’t expect them to have any flexibility in their thinking.”

  Upstairs, the woman held her breath. This was even looser talk than that of the night before. But it was so boring that she couldn’t keep her eyes open, and when Brusco came up he found her asleep, with her ear glued to the floor.

  “Fine ideas they have, those two!” she exclaimed, pulling herself together. “If you want to know, your daughter told that wretched boy that you and Peppone are old fuddy-duddies and the landowners twist you around their fingers.”

  “These young people are full of enthusiasm,” said Brusco, shaking his head, “but of course they carry everything to extremes. And as far as Peppone and myself are concerned, we’re in perfect harmony with the Party.”

  Things went on in very much the same way, but Brusco’s wife had lost all interest in Giulietta and her young man. Whenever he appeared upon the scene, she simply said:

  “Here comes the committee.”

  Finally something different did happen, and it was brought about by Giulietta. One evening she came late to supper, waving a magazine in her hand.

  “Look at this,” she shouted, opening it up before them, “I’m in the finals!”

  Brusco looked at the magazine and passed it over to his wife.

  “Do you know who this is?” he asked, pointing to a photograph.

  “It looks like her,” his wife answered.

  “It looks like me so much that it is me,” said the girl, laughing. “And there’s my name underneath to prove it.”

  Still her mother didn’t understand.

  “What’s it all about?”

  “It’s the contest for ‘Miss New Life’. I’m in the final round.”

  Her mother looked again at the magazine and shook her head uncomprehendingly.

  “Anyone can see,” said Giulietta. “New Life is our Party magazine and it runs a contest every year. Girls from all over the country send in their pictures and a jury decides among them. Those that last as far as the finals are called to Rome to be looked over in person, and then the winner is proclaimed ‘Miss New Life’. Now I’m one of the eight called to Rome for the final selection.”

  There was still something her mother didn’t understand.

  “But what’s the basis of the selection? What sort of a contest is it?”

  “A beauty contest, of course!” Giulietta exclaimed. “The prettiest girl wins the title and a whole lot of prizes. It’s a serious business, I tell you. The jury is made up of artists, moving-picture directors, newspapermen, and so on. And you can be sure it’s conducted the way it should be, since it’s sponsored by the Party.”

  The woman turned to her husband. “Are you letting your daughter get her picture into print and then show herself off in Rome?”

  “Don’t turn it into a tragedy,” said Brusco, shrugging his shoulders. “There are plenty of contests of this kind, and I don’t see anything the matter with them. Haven’t there been beauty queens as long as we can remember?”

  “There’ve been no-good girls as long as we can remember, too,” she said, “but that doesn’t mean we have to encourage ours to be one.”

  “Don’t be stupid, Mother!” cried Giulietta angrily.

  The woman looked at her husband, but he went right on eating. Finally she got up and went over to the stairs. Brusco wolfed down the rest of his supper and hurried out, mumbling something about a meeting. Giulietta cleared the table, washed the dishes and sat down to wait for Marco. This was his regular evening, and he arrived promptly.

  “Have you seen this?” she said at once, showing him the magazine.

  “Yes, I have,” he answered. “Your picture came out very well. I didn’t know you’d sent it in.”

  Giulietta was still in a state of excitement. She leafed through the magazine pages.

  “Look at the other girls in the finals,” she said, “and tell me what you think.”

  “It’s hard to judge from a print on cheap paper,” he said, after a thorough examination.

  “That’s why they call us to Rome,” said Giulietta. “There they’ll look us over from head to toe. And all modesty aside, it seems to me I have a chance.”

  “When do you go to Rome?” he asked.

  “On the twentieth, it says here. That’s just four days away.”

  “It’s a long trip,” Marco observed.

  “Four hundred miles. And all expenses paid. It’s the opportunity of a lifetime to see the city.”

  Marco agreed that it was an opportunity.

  “But this whole idea of a beauty contest has something terribly bourgeois about it,” he added.

  “Beauty isn’t a bourgeois monopoly,” laughed Giulietta. “Beauty’s universal.”

  “Right,” Marco admitted, “but you don’t catch them holding beauty contests in Russia.”

  “Russia’s different,” she protested. “They don’t have strikes or seizures of factories there, either. In Russia everything’s done for the People. There’s not a beastly bourgeoisie whose propaganda paints all Communists as monsters, as creatures with three nostrils and the like. New Life’s contest will prove there are plenty of pretty girls in the Party, much prettier than your bourgeois young ladies. If the contest didn’t have a serious purpose, the Party wouldn’t permit it. The Party knows its business, after all.”

  Marco agreed that the Party was always right.

  “But, personally, I’m a little sorry that you sent in your picture.”

  “Marco,” she said severely, “what sort of silly talk is this? Are you giving in to ordinary masculine conventions?”

  “You misunderstood me,” answered Marco. “I’ve always admired you because you weren’t like other women. You didn’t seem to have their vanity and petty ambition … now your idea of going into this contest makes me wonder…” Giulietta drew herself up proudly.

  “If the Party’s sponsoring it, that means it’s beneficial to the Party. And if I can benefit a
cause that benefits the Party, it’s my obligation to do so.”

  “Forgive me, Giulietta,” Marco said, blushing. “To tell the truth, I have feelings I’ve never had before. It bothers me to see your picture on display and it bothers me to think of your going to Rome.”

  Giulietta gave a sarcastic laugh.

  “Control yourself, Comrade, or you’ll turn into one of those idiots that lose their head every time they see a pretty girl. And I don’t want you to disappoint me. After you’ve led me to believe you were different from other men and capable of a platonic friendship, please don’t show yourself up as the kind that thinks only of putting over a fast one.”

  “Giulietta!” cried Marco, turning very pale. “Now you’ve hurt my feelings.”

  “No, Marco, you’ve hurt mine. And beside that, you’ve insulted my father. Because, remember, my father hasn’t breathed a word of opposition.”

  “Don’t take it so hard, Giulietta,” said Marco, throwing out his arms in despair. “I don’t want to hurt or insult a soul. I’m only asking whether, for my sake, you’re not willing to give up the trip to Rome. Why do you care about being the New Life beauty queen, when you’re the queen of my heart?”

  He spoke in a most unusually gentle voice, which caused Giulietta to stare at him in disgust.

  “You fool!” she shouted.

  Marco turned even more pale and came towards her, attempting to grasp her hand.

  “Go away, and don’t hurry back!” shouted Giulietta, pushing him back roughly and pointing to the door.

  Marco lowered his head and started to go. But he wasn’t really such a fool; in fact, he was a young man of considerable character. So it was that he wheeled around and said sternly:

  “Giulietta, I forbid you to go to Rome. I won’t have you take part in a beauty contest or anything of the kind. Your father may be an idiot, but I’m not.”

  Giulietta planted herself in front of him with her hands on her hips.

  “Forbid me?” she shouted. “What right have you to do that? Who do you think you are?”

  “I’m somebody that loves you,” said Marco, losing his usual self possession. “I’m not the kind that puts his wife on public display.”

  Giulietta giggled, and after a minute or so Marco clenched his fists and said:

  “You’re not going to Rome, I tell you!”

  Giulietta stopped giggling and looked him straight in the eye.

  “Instead of waiting four days, I’m going tomorrow,” she said defiantly, “and I’ll appear before the jury in a bathing-suit. I have a new one right here in the drawer, if you want to see it, in two pieces.”

  She could not finish because Marco tore the package out of her hands, threw the contents on the floor and stepped on them.

  “There are plenty more where that came from,” said Giulietta angrily. “You’ll see my picture in a bathing-suit in all the papers. And now get out of my house! I’ll send you a postcard from Rome.”

  Marco was beside himself with rage and despair, but there was nothing he could do. He looked around without knowing exactly what for, and saw a shotgun, with a hunting bag and cartridge belt hanging up on the wall beside it. And on the mantelpiece another sinister object was gleaming. Giulietta didn’t have time to escape because Marco had reached out with one hand while with the other he grabbed Giulietta by the neck. His fingers were like iron bands, and Giulietta could barely breathe. Marco raised the weapon and brought it down on her head. The girl couldn’t even cry out, because fright had caused her to faint away.

  When Giulietta came to, she was sitting on the floor and Marco was watching over her. She didn’t yet know what had happened, because her head felt quite empty. No wonder, for the object that Marco had taken from the mantelpiece was a pair of shears and with it he had shorn all the long, silky hair from her head. Now he threw the scissors at her feet and Giulietta began to realize what he had done.

  “Go to Rome, if you like,” said Marco fiercely. And he disappeared through the door.

  Lying on the floor of their upstairs room, Brusco’s wife had through the aperture left by the removed board followed every detail of the scene.

  “I told you he was a good boy, didn’t I?” murmured Brusco, who had sneaked home through the garden and in by the back door and was now on watch beside his wife.

  The next day the whole village had heard about the shearing. There was no way of knowing who told the tale but in the river country of the little world everyone knows everyone else’s business. And, of course, a girl friend came to see Giulietta in the afternoon and told her that the whole village was buzzing.

  “Listen, Giulietta,” her friend said through a crack in the door; “nobody’s actually seen you. If I were you, I’d clear out and go to your uncle’s up in the mountains for a couple of months. While you’re there you can wear a little wig and tie a scarf around it. And meanwhile your hair will grow back.”

  “Thanks for the good advice,” said Giulietta coldly.

  She stayed at home all day, but after supper she went to sit on the side of the bridge. It was a magnificent August evening, with an enormous moon in the sky, and the first passer-by could see Giulietta’s condition quite clearly. He ran to spread the news, and soon a whole procession of people came by. And at the end of the crowd came Marco. He stood there hesitatingly until Giulietta said:

  “Well, aren’t you coming to see the show?”

  Marco swallowed hard and then said “Giulietta, if you want your revenge, take it right away. But don’t throw vitriol in my face. I’d rather you shot me.”

  “Shoot you?” said Giulietta in amazement. “If I shoot you while I’m in this condition, where can I find another fool ready to marry me right away?”

  Giulietta wore a Party-approved grey tailored suit and a blouse with a black bow to the wedding, and when Don Camillo found this strange pair standing before him he looked in perplexity from one to the other, with his eyes coming to a pause on Giulietta’s shorn head.

  “Which one of you is the groom?” he asked.

  “He is,” sighed Giulietta, covering her baldness with a veil.

  A Country Priest’s Diary

  BRUSCO looked at the wall and shrugged his shoulders.

  “Well, what do you say?” asked Don Camillo.

  “I don’t know,” Brusco answered.

  “If a mason doesn’t know whether or not he can make a door through a wall, then he’d better change trades!” exclaimed Don Camillo. “Perhaps I should call Neri.”

  “This wall is as old as the hills,” Brusco explained, “and an old wall can be very tricky. Unless you let me knock off a bit of plaster and explore underneath, I can’t give you any definite reply.”

  And so Don Camillo authorized him to make an exploration.

  “Just remember you’re in a sacristy,” he admonished him; “try to do a neat job and not cover the place with litter.”

  Brusco took a hammer and chisel out of his bag and began to knock plaster off the wall.

  “It looks bad,” he said after two or three strokes of the hammer. “The wall’s filled with clay and stones. If it were made of bricks, we could put a reinforced cement architrave in just at the point of the first break-through and then carry the break down to the floor. But this way, it looks like trouble.” Don Camillo borrowed the hammer and knocked some plaster off another part of the wall. But here, too, he came upon a conglomeration of stones and clay.

  “Queer,” he observed. “The outside walls of the church are all brick. Why should they have put stones inside?”

  Brusco threw out his arms with a baffled air.

  “They may have made the supporting columns and an outer layer of bricks,” he said, “and then stuffed the rest with stones. But let’s take it easy and explore a little deeper.”

  By means of a big nail he loosened the clay around an uncovered stone and pulled it out. Then he hammered at the clay behind it and came to another stone. While he was trying to dig this out too,
it disappeared.

  “There must be an empty space behind the stones, and I don’t understand it. You’d expect the stones to go all the way to the brick outer wall.”

  Don Camillo widened the hole and soon they found an enormous wardrobe which the secondary wall had been built to conceal. Of course the priest was feverishly anxious to open it, and when they had come back down into the sacristy he said to Brusco:

  “Thanks. I don’t need you any more.”

  “I’m afraid you do,” said Brusco calmly. “A wall fifteen feet long, nine feet high and eighteen inches thick makes a considerable mass of stones and clay. And if you want to open the wardrobe, the whole thing will have to come down.”

  “And what makes you think I’ll tackle that wall?” Don Camillo asked. “I’m not totally mad.”

  “You’re worse than that; you’re Don Camillo!” Brusco retorted.

  But when Don Camillo had thought twice about the dimensions of the wall he had to acknowledge that it was too much for him.

  “Very well,” he said. “Go and get enough men to tear it down and wagons to carry the debris away. But once the work is done, I want it understood that you will all go home. I want to open the wardrobe myself.”

  Ten minutes later most of the people of the village were on the church square and all of them for this reason:

  “Don Camillo has discovered a hidden treasure in the sacristy.”

  They imagined pots and pans filled with gold ducats, paintings and all sorts of other objects of art, and so great was the excitement that everyone wanted to see. Brusco’s eight helpers soon turned into eighty, and a long line of volunteers passed buckets full of debris from one hand to another. The wall came down very fast and the majestic wardrobe began to stand out in all its mystery. Darkness fell, but no one thought of going away, and soon after the last bucketful of clay and stones was carried away. Don Camillo took up his stand right in front of the wardrobe and said to the crowd in the sacristy:

  “Thanks for your help, and good night to you!”

  “Open it up! Open it up! We want to see!” they shouted at him.