The boy was off like a flash. An hour later he came back to report: “The priest said he’d telephone right away.”
* * *
The river was swollen with rain and pressing against its banks. So were all the tributaries that poured into it across the plain. In normal weather these streams are ridiculous affairs. Either their beds are completely dry or else they contain only a few spoonfuls of water and one wonders why people with any sense should throw away money building up banks on either side. But they are not only ridiculous; they are unpredictable as well, like an ordinarily temperate man who once in a while goes out and gets … well, dead drunk is too mild a phrase for it. When these valley streams rise, they are so many Mississippis, with the water surging halfway up their banks and over. Now, after the prolonged storm, even the tiniest streams were frighteningly high and people went along the banks measuring their height with a stick. And the water continued to rise.
Fontanile was divided from the “capital” by just such a stream, and for twenty years no one had seen so much water in it. Night had fallen, but Don Camillo paced nervously up and down the road leading along the bank. His nervousness did not pass until he heard the brakes of a big car. The car was full of policemen, and with their arrival Don Camillo went back to the rectory and hung his shotgun on the wall. After supper Peppone came to see him, looking very glum.
“Did you call the police?” he asked Don Camillo.
“Of course I did, after you staged that diversion at Case Nuove in order to have a free hand for your other mischief, yes, and after you cut the telephone and telegraph wires, too.”
Peppone looked at him scornfully.
“You’re a traitor!” he said. “You asked for foreign aid. A man without a country, that’s what you are!”
This was such a wild accusation that Don Camillo was left gaping. But Peppone had still more to say.
“You’re positively Godless!” he exclaimed, “but your police won’t get anywhere. In two minutes Gods justice will triumph!”
Don Camillo leaped to his feet, but before he could say a word there was a loud roar in the distance.
“The bank at Fontanile has given way,” Peppone explained. “A concealed wire attached to a mine did the job. Now that Fontanile is flooded, they can found a little Venice if they want to!”
Don Camillo grabbed Peppone by the neck, but before he could squeeze it there came another roar, followed by a splash of water. A moment later the rectory was flooded. When the water had reached the two men’s belts it stopped rising.
“Do you see what murderers they are?” Peppone shouted. “So this was their little plan!”
Don Camillo looked sadly at the liquid mess, then shook his head and sighed.
“Dear God, if this is the beginning of the Great Flood, then I bless you for wiping this idiotic human race off the face of the globe.”
But Peppone didn’t see it the same way.
“Navigare necessariorum est!” he shouted, wading toward the door. “Italy’s manifest destiny is on the seven seas!”
“Then all we have to do is wait for low tide,” concluded Don Camillo philosophically.
There were three feet of water in the church, and when the candles were lit on the altar they cast the reflection of their flames into the water.
“Lord,” said Don Camillo to the crucified Christ, “I beg your forgiveness, but if I were to kneel down, I’d be up to my neck in water.”
“Then remain standing, Don Camillo,” Christ answered, with a smile.
Bianco
NOWADAYS the people of the Po River valley go to the city by bus, in one of those cursed modern machines where a human being travels like a trunk, and even if he is sick at his stomach he cannot budge from his seat. And during the winter, when there is a heavy fog or a treacherous coating of ice on the roads, he risks, at the very least, ending up in a ditch.
And to think that once upon a time there was a steam trolley which ran smoothly along its track through fog and ice! Until one fine day a city slicker discovered that the steam trolley was out of date and substituted its fidelity for the fickleness of a vehicle supposedly more modern.
The steam trolley used to transport not only people, but sand, gravel, bricks, coal, wood, and vegetables as well. It was eminently practical and at the same time full of poetry. Then, one day a dozen workmen wearing municipal badges appeared upon the scene and proceeded to tear up the tracks. And nobody protested; in fact, the general comment was: “It’s about time.” Because nowadays even old women who go to the city no more than once a year and spend the rest of their time just waiting for time to go by are in a hurry.
The steam trolley ran from the city to the River, and no farther, although this was not the end of the line. The largest villages of the region are strung out along the highway followed by the trolley, except for a particularly important one, two or three miles away, which the trolley could not have reached except by making a long detour among the canals. On the road which linked this village to the highway, a special horse-drawn car carried passengers to and fro.
Bianco, the last horse to perform this service, was the handsomest of the lot, a beast so noble that he seemed to have stepped down from some public monument. On the village road the ties between the two rails of the trolley line had been covered with lightly packed dirt and along this path Bianco trotted six times a day. A few minutes before the car came to a stop, that is, as soon as he heard the brake grinding, Bianco stepped out from between the rails and trotted alongside them. Then, as soon as the driver called: “Whoa!” he slowed down, without any danger of the cars bumping into his hindquarters.
Bianco was on the job for a number of years and knew it thoroughly. He had extraordinarily keen ears and could hear the trolley’s steam whistle long before anyone knew that it was coming. He heard the whistle announcing the trolley’s arrival at Trecaselli and pawed the stable floor to signify that it was time to hitch him to his car, pick up the village passengers, and start for the highway, in order to reach it with five minutes to spare. The first day that the whistle failed to sound because the steam trolley was no longer running, Bianco seemed to be bewitched. He stood tensely, with his ears sticking straight up into the air, and waited. For a whole week he behaved the same way, until finally he set his mind at rest.
Yes, Bianco was a fine creature, and when the trolley company put him up at auction everyone wanted to buy him Barchini was the highest bidder, and he hitched Bianco to a brand-new red wagon. Even between the wagon shafts, Bianco cut a handsome figure. The first time that he was hitched to the wagon, Bianco almost upset his new master, who was sitting on top of a load of beets. For when Barchini called out: “Whoa!” and pulled the reins, Bianco stepped to one side so abruptly that Barchini almost toppled over. But this was the only time that Bianco’s memory tricked him; he caught on at once to the fact that the wagon was very different from a car running on rails. He had a touch of nostalgia every time he went along the road between the village and the highway. On the way out, nothing happened, but when he started home Bianco had a way of walking on the extreme left-hand side of the road, beside the ditch where the track had formerly been laid. The years went by, but, as he grew older, Bianco was such a good fellow that Barchini considered him one of the family, and even when he was completely run down no one dreamed of getting rid of him. He was given light work, and one day when Barchini caught a hired man giving him a beating, he got after him with a pitchfork, and if the fellow hadn’t run up into the hayloft, he would have found himself speared.
With the passage of the years, Bianco became increasingly weary and indifferent. There came a time when he did not swish his tail to scare off the flies, and he never had to be tied up because there was no likelihood that he would move from the place where anyone left him. He stood stock-still, with his head hanging, like a stuffed horse instead of a real one.
One Saturday afternoon Bianco was hitched to a light cart to take a bag of flour to Don Cam
illo. While the driver carried the bag into the rectory on his shoulder, Bianco waited outside with his head hanging. All of a sudden he raised his head and pricked up his ears. The sight was so unexpected that Don Camillo, who was standing at the door lighting a cigar, let the match drop from his hand. Bianco stood tautly on the alert for several minutes, and then, wonder of wonders, bolted away. Be galloped across the square, and it was sheer luck that nobody was run down. Then he turned into the road leading to the highway and disappeared, leaving a cloud of dust in his wake.
“Bianco’s gone crazy,” people shouted.
Peppone came by on his motorcycle, and Don Camillo tucked up his cassock and mounted behind him.
“Fast!” Don Camillo shouted, and Peppone threw out the clutch and stepped on the gas.
Bianco galloped down the road, with the cart swaying behind, as if it were tossed on a stormy sea. If it didn’t smash to pieces, it must have been because the patron saint of carts had his eye on it. Peppone drove his motorcycle at full speed, and halfway up the road the horse was overtaken.
“Run along beside him,” said Don Camillo, “and I’ll try to catch the rein near the bit.”
Peppone steered close, and Don Camillo stretched out his hand toward the rein. For a moment Bianco seemed to remember that he was a very old nag and consented to being caught; then suddenly he speeded up and Don Camillo had to let go.
“Let him run!” Don Camillo shouted into Peppone’s ear. “Go faster, and we’ll wait for him at the highway.”
Peppone stepped on the gas, and the motorcycle shot ahead. When they reached the highway, Peppone braked. He tried to say something, but Don Camillo motioned to him to be silent. A few seconds later Bianco galloped into sight. Soon he threatened to join the highway traffic and Peppone had an impulse to give the alarm. But he didn’t move in time, and then, after all, it turned out to be unnecessary. When Bianco reached the highway he came to a halt and dropped down on one side. He lay there sprawling in the dust, while the cart fell, with its shafts broken, into the ditch. Along the highway came the steam-roller, which was flattening out a coat of macadam. As the steamroller passed by it whistled and then from the bag of bones—which was all that was left of Bianco—came a whinny. That was the end; now Bianco was a bag of bones indeed. Peppone stood looking down at the carcass, then he tore off his cap and threw it down on the ground.
“Just like the State!” he shouted.
“What do you mean, the State?” asked Don Camillo. Peppone turned around with a fierce look on his face. “The State! A man may say he’s against it, but when the whistle calls him he comes forward, and there he is.”
“Where is he?” asked Don Camillo.
“Here! There! Everywhere!” shouted Peppone, “With his helmet on his head, his gun in hand and a knapsack over his shoulder… And then it turns out that the call came not from the trolley but from a steamroller. But meanwhile he’s a dead duck!”
Peppone wanted to say a great many things, but he didn’t know where to begin. He picked up his cap, put it on his head and then lifted it again in salutation.
“A salute to the People!” he exclaimed.
People began to arrive, in carts and on bicycles, and among them was Barchini.
“He heard the whistle of the steam-roller,” Don Camillo explained, “and believed it was the trolley. That was plain from the way he stopped at the highway.”
Barchini nodded. “The main thing is that he should have died believing,” he said.
The Ugly Madonna
DON CAMILLO had a thorn in the flesh, one that had annoyed him intensely for a very long time. Once a year it was particularly painful, and that was during the procession in honor of the Assumption. For three hundred and sixty-four days the dim, shadowy chapel afforded concealment, but under the pitiless sun of August fifteenth the true state of affairs was visible to everybody. And it was a serious matter.
She was known as the “ugly Madonna,” a phrase which smacked of collective blasphemy. But actually no disrespect toward the Mother of God was intended; this was merely an accurate description of the statue which was the cause of Don Camillo’s pain. The statue was a six-foot-tall terracotta affair, as heavy as lead, and painted in colors so offensive as to give anyone an eye-ache. The sculptor—God rest his soul!—must have been one of the most miserable cheats the world has ever known. If an ignorant but honest man had done the job, no one would have called it ugly. Ignorance is not detrimental to a work of art, because a simple-minded craftsman may put his heart and soul into it and these count for infinitely more than his technical ability. But in this case the sculptor was obviously able and had turned all his skill to the creation of something ugly.
On that day long ago when Don Camillo had set foot in the church for the first time, he was shocked by the statue’s ugliness and he determined then and there to replace it with some more fitting image of God’s Mother. He declared this intention on the spot, and was told to forget it. It was pointed out to him that the statue dated from 1693, and there was a date on the pedestal to prove it.
“I don’t care about the date,” Don Camillo objected. “It’s downright ugly.”
“Ugly, but venerably antique,” they insisted.
“Venerably antique, but ugly,” retorted Don Camillo.
“Historical, Father,” they said, insisting upon having the last word.
For several years Don Camillo struggled in vain. If the statue had such historical importance, then it could be sent to a museum and replaced by one with a decent face. Or if this wouldn’t do, it could be moved into the sacristy and thus make way for a more suitable successor. Of course the purchase of another statue would require money. When Don Camillo started to make the rounds with fund-raising in view, he came upon more opposition.
“Replace the ugly Madonna? That statue is historical, and nothing can take its place. It wouldn’t be right. Who ever heard of crowding out history?”
Don Camillo gave the project up, but the statue remained a thorn in his flesh, and every now and then he exploded to Christ at the main altar about it.
“Lord, why don’t You help me? Aren’t You personally offended by the sight of Your Mother in such an unworthy guise? How can you bear for people to call her the ‘ugly Madonna’?”
“Don Camillo,” Christ answered, “true beauty does not reside in the face. That, as we all know, must one day return to the dust from which it sprang. True beauty is eternal and does not die with the flesh. And the beauty of the Mother of God is in her soul and hence incorruptible. Why should I take offense because someone has carved a woman with an ugly face and set her up as a Madonna? Those who kneel before her aren’t praying to a statue but to the Mother of God in Heaven.”
“Amen” said Don Camillo.
There was no other answer, but it still troubled him to hear people refer to the “ugly Madonna.” He became accustomed to the thorn in his flesh, but every August fifteenth when the statue was taken down and carried in the procession, the pain was more than he could bear. Once removed from the kindly shadows of the chapel and exposed to the sunlight, the face stood out all too clearly. It was not only an ugly face but an evil one as well; the features were heavy and vulgar, and the eyes expressionless rather than ecstatic. And the Infant Jesus in the Madonna’s arms was just a bundle of rags with an empty doll’s head sticking out of them, Don Camillo had tried to mask the ugliness of the statue with a crown and necklace and veil, but these had served only to accentuate it. Finally he removed all extraneous ornaments and let the vile coloring show for exactly what it was.
Then war came to the river valley, leaving in its wake death and destruction. Bombs fell upon churches and thieving, sacrilegious hands plundered their altars as they passed by. Don Camillo didn’t dare admit it but he secretly hoped that someone would “liberate” him from the “ugly Madonna.” When foreign soldiers first appeared upon the scene Don Camillo hurried to the proper authorities to say:
“Our ugly Madonna
is a masterpiece dating from 1693, an object of both historical and artistic importance. Shouldn’t it be evacuated to a safe place of storage for the duration?”
But they told him to set his mind at rest. Historically and artistically important as the Madonna might be, the fact remained that she was ugly, and this was her best defense. If she hadn’t been ugly, she would never have stayed in place for so many years.
The war came to an end, and the first post-war years went by, and then a time came when the thorn in Don Camillo’s flesh bothered him most acutely. He had painted the church walls, varnished the imitation marble columns and the wooden railings and gilded the candlesticks on the various altars. As a result, the “ugly Madonna” simply didn’t belong. A dark spot on a gray background is not too conspicuous, but on a white one it stands out like a black eye.
“Lord,” said Don Camillo, on his knees before Christ. “This time You simply must help me. I’ve spent all the money I had and some I didn’t have on fixing up the church. In order to pay my debts, I’ve rationed my food and given up cigars. And I rejoice not so much in the beauty of the church as in the God-given strength to sacrifice a few of my comforts. Now, won’t You deliver me of the thorn in my flesh? Won’t You do something to stop people from calling Don Camillo’s church the ‘Church of the Ugly Madonna’?”
“Don Camillo, do I have to tell you the same thing over and over?” Christ answered. “Do I have to tell you again that true beauty does not reside in the face, that true beauty cannot be seen, because it is a thing of the spirit, which defies the erosion of time and does not return to the dust whence the body sprang?”
Don Camillo lowered his head without answering. And this was a bad sign.
* * *
The feast of the Assumption was drawing near, and one day Don Camillo summoned those who would carry the statue in the procession.
Don Camillo and his Flock Page 15
