A Solomon Comes to Judgment
ONE DAY, after Don Camillo and Peppone had settled a slight misunderstanding to the mutual satisfaction of both, the mayor turned to the priest and said, “There’s no sense in turning everything in life into a tragedy. If we reason things out, we can always compromise.”
“Right you are,” said Don Camillo warmly. “Why did God give us brains if He didn’t expect us to reason?”
The two men parted on this note, and a few days later something happened in the valley which clearly proves that man is a reasoning creature, especially when it comes to living peacefully with his neighbor. First, however, you need to know the local geography of the little world or you won’t understand a thing about it.
The Po river rolls on its mighty way without so much as an if-you-please and on either side it is fed by countless streams and tributaries. The Tincone is one of these little streams. Now the Molinetto road, running parallel to the Po, connects the tiny communities of Pieve and La Rocca. At a certain point the road crosses the Tincone. Here there is a bridge; it is, in fact, a structure of some size because at this point the Tincone is fairly wide, being only a mile or so away from where it flows into the big river. Pieve and La Rocca are each about three miles from the bridge over the Tincone which is, indeed, the boundary line between them.
This is the topography of the story and its point of departure is the problem of public education. The school that served both communities was at La Rocca, and for the people of Pieve this was a serious matter. Every day their children had to travel six miles, and six miles are thirty thousand feet, even in the flat river valley. Children can’t resist taking short-cuts, and since the road they traveled was straight as an arrow, the shortcuts always led them a longer way around.
One day a committee of women from Pieve came to the mayor of the whole township, Peppone, and announced that unless they were given a schoolhouse of their own, they wouldn’t send their children to school. Now the township was about as rich as a traveling rabbit and a new school would have entailed not only building costs but double the amount of teachers’ salaries as well. So, having by hook or crook raised some funds, Peppone decided to build the new schoolhouse at the bridge over the Tincone, halfway between Pieve and La Rocca, and send the children from both communities there. But at this point the problem became thorny.
“That’s all very well,” they said at La Rocca, “as long as it’s on our side of the bridge.”
“All well and good,” they said at Pieve, “but of course it must be on our side.”
To be exact, both of them were in the wrong (or in the right, as you prefer), because the real halfway point was not on either side of the bridge but in the middle.
“You don’t want the school built on the bridge, do you?” Peppone shouted, after a long discussion with committees from both villages.
“You’re the mayor,” they answered, “and it’s up to you to find a fair solution.”
“The only real solution would be to lead you all to the bridge, tie millstones around your necks and throw you into the water,” said Peppone. And he wasn’t so wrong either.
“It’s not a question of a hundred yards one way or the other,” they told him. “Social justice is at stake.” And that silenced the mayor very effectively, because whenever he heard the phrase “social justice,” Peppone drew himself up as if he were witnessing the miracle of creation.
Meanwhile trouble began to brew. Some boys from La Rocca went by night to the bridge and painted a red line across the middle. Then they announced that anyone from Pieve would find it healthier to stay on his own side. The next evening, boys from Pieve painted a green line parallel to the red one and intimated that anyone from La Rocca would be better of at home. The third evening, boys from both villages arrived at the middle of the bridge at the same time. One of those from La Rocca spat over the green line and one of those from Pieve spat over the red one. A quarter of an hour later, three boys were in the river and five had severe wounds on the head. The worst of it was that of the three boys in the river, two were from Pieve and only one was from La Rocca, so to even up the score another boy from La Rocca would have to be thrown in. And of the five boys with head wounds, three were from La Rocca and two from Pieve and so another boy from Pieve needed a beating. All, of course, for the sake of social justice.
The number of head wounds and boys thrown into the river increased daily, and soon the numbers were swelled by grown men, both old and young. Then one day Smilzo, who hung about the bridge as an observer, brought Peppone a piece of really bad news.
“There’s been a fist fight between a woman from Pieve and a woman from La Rocca.”
Now when women get mixed up in an affair of this land, the trouble really starts. Women are always the ones to stick a gun into the hand of husband, brother, lover, father or son. Women are the plague of politics, and alas, politics is about ninety-five percent of the world’s occupation. So it was that knives were drawn and shots began to fly.
“Something’s got to be done,” said Peppone, “or else we won’t need a school but a cemetery.”
Aside from the fact that there’s more to be learned in the cool tomb than in a school room, this was no joking matter, and Peppone handled it in masterful fashion. Out on the Po there had lain for years an old floating water mill, made of two big hulks with the millwheel between and a cabin bridging them over. Peppone had these towed under the central arch of the bridge across the Tincone. He chained them to the supporting columns and then remodeled them in such a way as to make them into one, joined by gangplanks to both banks of the river. So it was that one day there was a solemn opening of the new floating school. A large crowd was present, including a group of newspapermen from the big city.
The only accident ever recorded took place when Beletti, a boy who had to repeat the third grade for six years in succession, threw his teacher into the water. But this did not upset Peppone.
“Italy is in the middle of the Mediterranean,” he said, “and everybody must know how to swim.”
Thunder on the Right
PEPPONE’S passion to show moving-pictures was inherited straight from his father. His father, too, was mechanically minded, and he had brought the first threshing-machine to the Valley, as all the old inhabitants remembered very well. Young people may laugh, because they fail to see any connection between moving-pictures and a threshing-machine. But the young people of today are benighted creatures born with their telephone numbers imprinted on their brains, and where passion is concerned they have about as much grace as a pig in a cornfield.
In the old days electric power was a luxury confined to the city and since a moving-picture projector has to be run electrically, country people had no chance to see any pictures. But Peppone’s father mounted a dynamo on the steam engine that powered the thresher, and when his machine wasn’t needed in the fields he hitched two oxen to it and went from village to village, giving picture shows. So many years have gone by that the young people of today can’t possibly visualize a steam engine drawn by two oxen. It was painted green with magnificent bands of shiny brass around it and had an enormous fly-wheel and a tall smokestack, which was lowered while it was traveling from one place to another. It didn’t smell or make any noise, and it had a very wonderful whistle.
So Peppone’s ambition to show moving-pictures was quite legitimately in his blood. As soon as the auditorium of the newly built “People’s Palace” was at his disposal, this was the first thing that came into his mind. One fine morning the village awoke to find itself plastered with posters announcing the opening of the moving-picture season at the People’s Palace the next Sunday.
Now Don Camillo’s father had never even thought about going around the countryside to show moving pictures, but for some time Don Camillo had been set upon the idea of acquiring a projector for his Recreation Center and Peppone’s announcement made his stomach turn over. He was somewhat consoled on Sunday by a fierce storm and a f
loodlike downpour of rain. At ten o’clock in the evening he was still waiting to hear what had happened when his friend Barchini, dripping but happy, appeared at the door.
“There were only a few waifs and strays at the People’s Palace,” Barchini told him. “The rain kept the people from the outskirts away. What’s more, the lights kept going on and off, and finally they had to stop the show. Peppone was fit to be tied.”
Don Camillo went to kneel before Christ on the altar.
“Lord, I thank You…” he began.
“What for, Don Camillo?”
“For sending a storm and disrupting the electric current.”
“Don Camillo, I had nothing to do with the lights going off. I’m a carpenter not an electrician. And as for the storm, do you really think that Almighty God would inconvenience winds, clouds, lightning and thunder simply in order to prevent Peppone from showing his pictures?”
Don Camillo lowered his head.
“No, I don’t really think so,” he stammered. “We men have a way of thanking God for anything that falls in with our plans, as if it had come to pass just for our pleasure.”
* * *
At midnight the storm died down, but at three o’clock in the morning it came back more fiercely than before, and an unearthly noise awakened Don Camillo. He had never heard a crash so loud and so close, and when he reached the window and looked out he was left gaping. The spire of the church tower had been struck by lightning and shattered into pieces. It was just as simple as all that, but to Don Camillo it was so incredible that he rushed to tell Christ about it.
“Lord,” he said in a voice shaky with emotion, “the church spire has been struck by lightning.”
“I understand, Don Camillo,” Christ answered calmly. “Buildings are often struck that way in the course of a storm.”
“But this was the church!” Don Camillo insisted.
“I heard you, Don Camillo.”
Don Camillo looked up at the crucified Christ and threw out his arms in dismay.
“Why did it have to happen?” he asked bitterly.
“A church spire has been struck by lightning in the course of a storm,” said Christ “Does God have to justify Himself for this in your sight? A short time ago you thanked Him for sending a storm that damaged your neighbor, and now you reproach Him because the same storm has damaged you.”
“It hasn’t damaged me,” said Don Camillo. “It has damaged the house of God.”
“The house of God is infinite and eternal. Even if every planet in the universe were to be reduced to dust, the house of God would still stand. A church spire has been struck by lightning, that is all anyone is entitled to think or say. The lightning had to strike somewhere.”
Don Camillo was talking to Christ but during the conversation the thought of the mutilated tower was uppermost in his mind.
“Surely that particular stroke could have stayed away,” he said. And Christ took pity on his sorrow and continued to reason gently with him.
“Calm yourself, Don Camillo, and think it out clearly. God created the universe, and the universe is a perfect and harmonious system, in which every element is indissolubly bound, whether directly or indirectly, to all the rest. Everything that happens in the universe is necessary and foreordained, and if this stroke of lightning had not fallen exactly where and when it did, the harmony of the universe would have been troubled. This harmony is perfect, and if the lightning struck at this time and place, then it is a meet and right thing and we must thank God for it. We must thank Him for everything that takes place in the universe, for everything is a proof of His infallibility and the perfection of His creation. The stroke of lightning had to fall just where it did and not an inch in any other direction. The fault is man’s, for having chosen to build the tower in that place. He could quite as well have built it a couple of yards farther over.”
Don Camillo thought of his mutilated tower and there was bitterness in his heart.
“If everything that happens in the universe is foreordained and a manifestation of Gods will, and otherwise the system would not be perfect, then the church tower had to be built where it is and not a couple of yards farther over.”
“Yes, it could have been built a couple of yards farther over,” Christ answered with a smile, “but then man would unconsciously have violated God’s law. And that God didn’t allow.”
“Then there’s no free will,” protested Don Camillo.
Christ continued to smile and to speak in the same gentle tone.
“Woe to the man who out of anger or grief or sensual excitement forgets those things that deep down inside he cannot help but know. God points out the right way, but man has a choice whether to follow it or not. In His infinite kindness God leaves man free to choose the wrong way and yet, by repentance and recognition of his mistake, to save his soul. A church spire has been struck by lightning in the course of a storm. The lightning had to strike there, and so the man who built the tower is to blame. Yet the tower had to be built where it is and man must thank God for it.”
Don Camillo sighed.
“Lord, I thank You. But if with Your help I manage to put up another spire, I am going to arm it with a lightning rod.”
“Yes, Don Camillo, if it is foreordained that you are to put a lightning rod on the tower, then you will surely do so.”
Don Camillo bowed his head. Then in the first light of dawn he climbed up to examine the damaged tower more closely.
“Exactly,” he said to himself at last. “The tower had to be built just where it is!”
Soon people began to crowd into the square to see the tower. They stood there in the torrential rain and looked at it in bewilderment, without speaking. When the square was full, Peppone and his crew appeared on the scene. He pushed his way to the front of the crowd and stood there for some time staring at the sight. Then he solemnly pointed one finger to the sky.
“Here is a proof of God’s wrath!” he exclaimed. “This is God’s answer to your boycott. Lightning strikes where God wills, and God wills it to accomplish a purpose.”
Don Camillo listened from the rectory window. Peppone spied him there and pointed him out to the crowd.
“The priest is silent,” he shouted, “because the lightning struck his church. If it had struck our People’s Palace, he’d have plenty to say.”
Smilzo looked up at Don Camillo too.
“This is God’s answer to the warmongers!” he shouted. “Hurrah For Mao Tse-tung!”
“Hurrah for peace and the Confederation of Labor!” chorused his followers.
Don Camillo counted to fifty-two before saying what was boiling up inside him. Then he said nothing. He took a half-smoked cigar out of his pocket and lit it.
“Look at that!” shouted Peppone. “Nero fiddling while Carthage burns!”
With which slightly garbled historical reference, he and his gang stalked proudly away.
* * *
Toward evening Don Camillo took his bitterness to the altar.
“Lord,” he said at the end of his prayer, “what maddens me is to hear those scoundrels speak of Your divine wrath. I wouldn’t dream of destroying the harmony of the universe, but after the blasphemous things they said this morning it would serve them right if lightning were to strike their People’s Palace. Their blasphemies were enough to provoke divine wrath in earnest!”
“You’re going in for pretty loose talk yourself, Don Camillo,” said Christ with a smile. “Have you the nerve to inconvenience God in all His majesty just in order to knock down the four walls of a village shack? You must respect your God more than that, Don Camillo!”
Don Camillo went back to the rectory. The distance was a short one, but at night, even within the space of a few steps there’s no telling what may happen. It was still raining, and at midnight the rain was coming down harder than ever. At one o’clock the stormy cacophony of the night before was repeated, and at two a clap of thunder aroused the whole village. By two-ten everyone w
as awake, because a building on the square was afire, and the building was the People’s Palace. When Don Camillo arrived the square was crowded with people, but Smilzo and his followers had already extinguished the flames. The roof had caved in, most of the framework was destroyed and the rest was a heap of smoldering ashes. Don Camillo edged up as if by accident to Peppone.
“A neat job,” he observed casually. “Lightning seems to have a conscience.”
Peppone wheeled around.
“Have half a cigar?” said Don Camillo.
“I don’t smoke,” answered Peppone darkly.
“You’re quite right. The People’s Palace is doing enough smoking. But I’m sorry. If you don’t smoke, how can I say ‘Nero fiddling while Carthage burns?’ Only, for your information, it wasn’t Carthage, it was Rome.”
“That’s good news! With every priest in it, I trust!” Don Camillo shook his head and said gravely and in a loud voice: “You mustn’t provoke God’s wrath. Don’t you see what you’ve brought upon yourself with the sacrilegious words you uttered this morning?”
Peppone almost jumped out of his skin with rage.
“Don’t lose your temper,” Don Camillo advised him; “the Marshall Plan might help you out.”
Peppone stood face to face with Don Camillo, his fists clenched.
“The roof will be fixed in a few days,” he shouted. “We don’t need any plans; we’ll take care of it ourselves.”
“Good for you, Mr. Mayor,” said Don Camillo, dropping his voice. “That way you can kill two birds with one stone. When you get the Council to appropriate money for the People’s Palace, you can allot something for the repair of the church tower as well.”
“Over my dead body!” said Peppone. “Ask your Americans for that. The People’s Palace is a public utility, and the church is a private corporation.”
Don Camillo lit the butt of his cigar.
“It was quite a stroke of lightning,” he observed, “much more powerful than mine. It made a magnificent noise and did quite a bit of damage. Someone really ought to study it from a scientific point of view. I think I’ll speak to the police sergeant about it.”
Don Camillo and his Flock Page 6
