Don Camillo and his Flock

by Giovanni Guareschi

  “This year the route followed by the procession will be longer than usual,” he told them, “because we must go as far as the newly built houses along the south road.”

  It was a steaming hot August, and the idea of walking an extra mile over a freshly gravelled road was enough to make even a strong man flinch.

  “We might carry the statue in two shifts,” suggested old Giarola, who was in charge of arrangements.

  “That’s dangerous,” said Don Camillo. “The sun beats down and the bearers’ hands get sweaty and may slip just at the moment of changing. No, I think we might rig up Rebecci’s small truck. As a matter of fact that would add to the dignity of the whole thing, and I don’t see any real objections.”

  In a way the bearers were half sorry, but when they thought of the length of the route and the heat of the sun, they felt relieved and gave their assent. Rebecci was glad to lend his truck, and the next day he brought it to the shed back of the rectory. Don Camillo insisted on decorating it in person and for a whole week he worked so hard that all over the village they could hear the sound of his hammer. He had built a platform on the back of the truck and then covered it with draperies and flowers, producing a truly magnificent effect. When Sunday came, the “ugly Madonna” was brought out of the church and hoisted up on to the platform. The pedestal was tied down with strong ropes and these were covered with garlands of flowers.

  “You don’t have to worry about the driving,” Don Camillo said to Rebecci. “Even if you go fifty miles an hour, I guarantee that it will hold fast.”

  “With all those decorations the Madonna is very nearly beautiful,” people said when the truck started.

  The procession began to wind its way toward the south road, with the truck moving at the speed of a man’s walk. The freshly laid gravel was bumpy and the clutch suddenly got something wrong with it, which jolted the truck so hard that if Don Camillo hadn’t tied the pedestal securely to the platform, the “ugly Madonna” would have been out of luck. Don Camillo saw that something was wrong and knew that Rebecci must be worried about it, so when they reached the south road he decided to change the route.

  “The truck can’t go so slowly over the gravel,” he said, “so we’ll cut across the fields to the highway. Rebecci will drive back at normal speed and wait for us at the bridge. There we’ll re-form the procession and march on a smooth surface all the way back to the center of the village.”

  Rebecci went dutifully back, and the “ugly Madonna” made the most uncomfortable trip of her long life. The procession re-formed at the bridge and moved smoothly along the paved road, although occasionally Rebecci’s clutch caused the truck to leap forward as if someone had given a kick from behind. The village was all decked out, especially the main street, with the arcades on either side where every house was covered with streamers and people threw handfuls of flowers out the windows. Unfortunately this street was paved with cobble-stones, and because the truck had hard tires as well as a broken clutch, it bounced up and down as if it had St. Vitus dance. But the “ugly Madonna” seemed to be glued to the platform, through Don Camillo’s particular merit. Halfway down the main street, however, there was an especially rough bit of paving, punctuated by holes left from the construction of a sewer running below it.

  “Once they’re over that, there’s no more danger,” people said. Although they had complete faith in Don Camillo, they left a considerable space between themselves and the bouncing truck.

  But the “ugly Madonna” did not get through the danger zone. She didn’t fall, because Don Camillo’s ropes held her fast, but on a particularly rough bump she just crumbled into pieces. The statue was not made out of terracotta after all; it was some infernal mixture of brick dust or plaster or who knows what, and after two or three thousand death-dealing blows such as it had just received an inevitable fate overtook it. But the shout which rose from the bystanders was not occasioned by the crumbling of the “ugly Madonna.” It was a salute to the “fair Madonna,” which as if by a miracle took its place.

  On the pedestal, which was still roped securely to the truck, there emerged, like a butterfly coming out of its cocoon, a somewhat smaller statue of solid silver. Don Camillo stared at it in astonishment, and into his mind came Christ’s words: “True beauty does not reside in the face… 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…” Then he turned around, because an old woman was shouting:

  “A miracle! A miracle!”

  He shouted her down and then stooped over to pick up a fragment of the “ugly Madonna,” a piece of one of the expressionless eyes which had once so annoyed him.

  “We’ll put you together again, piece by piece,” he said in a loud voice, “even if it takes us ten years; yes, I’ll do it myself, you poor ‘ugly Madonna’ who concealed and saved this silver statue from one of the many barbarian invasions of the last three hundred years. Whoever hurriedly threw you together to cloak the Silver Madonna made you ugly on purpose, so as not to attract an invader already on the march against this village or some distant city from which you may have originally come. When we have put you together, piece by piece, you shall stand side by side with your silver sister. Quite involuntarily, I brought you to this miserable end.”

  Don Camillo was telling the most shameless lie of his life. But he could not, in the face of his assembled parish explain that he had chosen a round-about and rocky route for the procession, blown up the truck tires to the bursting-point, sabotaged the clutch and even abetted the destructive power of holes and gravel by driving a pointed tool into the terracotta and starting to crack it open, which last effort he had abandoned when he had seen that the material of which the ugly statue was made would crumble of its own accord. He meant to confess it to Christ, who of course already knew about it. Meanwhile he went on with his peroration.

  “Poor ‘ugly Madonna,’ you saved the silver statue from one of the many waves of barbarian invaders. But who will save the Silver Madonna from the barbarians of today as they press at our frontiers and eye with hatred the citadel of Christ? Is your appearance an omen? Does it mean that the new barbarians will not invade our valleys, or that if they do, our strong faith and powerful arms will defend you?”

  Peppone, who was standing in the front row, in order to observe the phenomenon more closely, turned to his lieutenant, Smilzo: “What’s he mean by the ‘new barbarians’?” he asked him.

  Smilzo shrugged his shoulders. “Just a bit of unbridled clerical imagination.”

  There was a moment of silence and then the procession continued.

  The Flying Squad

  THAT YEAR as usual, the time came around for “Party Paper Promotion Day.” Peppone himself was supposed to go around hawking papers in order to give a good example, but he didn’t want to be caught out on a limb and so three or four days beforehand he stopped Don Camillo, who was coming back from a parochial call he had made on his bicycle.

  “Once is enough, Father, but twice is too much,” Peppone said solemnly.

  “What do you mean?” asked Don Camillo, putting one foot on the ground.

  “Sunday is Party Paper Promotion Day, and I’m not going to stand any joking. You stick to your business and I’ll stick to mine. An insult to me is an insult to the Party.”

  Don Camillo shook his head.

  “If I meet you on the street, I can at least buy a paper, can’t I?”

  “No, if a reactionary in uniform approaches the local leader of the People’s Party to buy the People’s Party paper, it’s an attempt to provoke violence. It’s almost as bad as if I were to force a paper on you. Each one of us should stick to his own job: you dish out propaganda for the Pope and I dish it out for the Party.”

  “Good,” said Don Camillo. “Then you admit that dishing out propaganda for the Pope is within my rights.”

  “Of course, as long as you don’t do it in an aggressive and provocative
fashion. Within your own province you can dish out propaganda for anything you damn please.”

  “That’s a bargain!”

  When Sunday morning came, Peppone had mapped out his strategy.

  “We won’t show our faces, because rather than buy a paper these people are capable of staying away from Mass. Of course, their staying away is a Party triumph, because it rescues them for once from the domination of the clergy. But the Party paper doesn’t profit. We’ll spread word that we’ve gone to Castelletto and that way they’ll be tricked into going to Mass. When they all come out at noon, we’ll blockade the square and see who has the nerve to refuse the paper!”

  The plan worked well. People went to Mass, and a few minutes before noon every street leading away from the square was covered. But when twelve o’clock came nobody left the church.

  “He’s caught on to the trick and is dragging out the Mass so as to keep them there longer,” said Peppone. “But a lot of good that will do him!”

  A few minutes later, they did pour out, but instead of scattering they stood compactly together.

  “What are those devils up to?” mumbled Peppone. “They must be waiting for someone.”

  Just then there came a loud noise from the top of the church tower.

  “He’s set up a loud-speaker,” Peppone shouted, “But if he makes a political speech there’ll be hell to pay.”

  The noise from the loud-speaker increased and became recognizable as the applause of a crowd. Then came a clear, powerful voice, that of the Pope speaking to two hundred and fifty thousand citizens of Rome. He spoke succinctly of the cardinal imprisoned by the Reds of Hungary, and when the loud-speaker had spilled the last wave of shouting and cheering down from the church tower, the village square was filled with people. They had come out of their houses, even the oldest and most infirm among them, from every direction, and Peppone’s gang was disrupted and drowned in their surge. Some people were hurrying home, others talking excitedly to one another and feeling braced up by the two hundred and fifty thousand Romans gathered in St. Peter’s Square. When the unexpected broadcast from Rome was over, Don Camillo turned on the gramophone, and a flood of music and singing kept the villagers spirits high.

  In the end, Peppone’s gang found themselves still holding their papers in the middle of a deserted square. Smilzo tried offering them to a few stragglers, but they paid him no attention. Peppone was the last one to regain his self-control. He had such confusion in his head and such convulsions of rage in his stomach that he didn’t know whether he was coming or going. He began to see straight only when Don Camillo appeared at the church’s open door. With lowered head, Peppone advanced toward him, and when he had came close he stood his ground and clenched his teeth. Don Camillo looked at him with a smile.

  “As you see, I kept my part of our bargain,” he said. “You advertised the Party and I advertised the Pope.”

  When you have a whole dictionary full of swear-words in your mind, it is useless to even begin to come out with them, so Peppone merely drew a sigh that had the volume of a cyclone. He stood there, with lowered head, wishing that he had horns like a bull and could disembowel Don Camillo and the whole of Christianity as well.

  “Give me a copy of your paper,” said a voice, and fifteen liras floated into Peppone’s field of vision. Mechanically he held out the paper and took the money, but before slipping it into his pocket he remembered something, raised his head and saw Don Camillo standing there with the Communist paper in his hand. Then he really lost control. He raised the pile of papers above his head and threw them down to the ground with every ounce of strength the Creator had put into his muscles. It was a lovely crash. Then he wheeled about and walked away, while Smilzo picked up the papers and started to follow. But after he had gone a few feet, he turned to throw over his shoulder:

  “When Stalin speaks from St. Peter’s Square, then you’ll hear something!”

  Don Camillo showed considerable interest. “Does your paper say when that’s going to be?” he asked.

  “No, it doesn’t,” Smilzo grudgingly admitted.

  “Well, for a Russian paper, it’s singularly ill informed,” Don Camillo said in a loud voice.

  Peppone heard him, and wheeling about again he came back and stood in front of Don Camillo.

  “Does the Vatican news sheet say when the Pope will speak in Moscow’s Red Square?” he asked him.

  “No,” said Don Camillo.

  “Then we’re even,” Peppone shouted.

  Don Camillo threw out his arms in mock despair.

  “If that’s so, why do you lose your temper so easily?” he asked.

  “Because it’s not so. And I’d like to see you and that Pope of yours hanging up there where you put the loud-speaker.”

  “Peppone, you know His Holiness can’t travel so far from Rome.”

  “Then I’ll take you there,” shouted Peppone. “All I want is to see you swinging from the same gallows.”

  “You pay me too much honor, Peppone. I’m tempted to buy another copy of your informative paper.”

  At that Peppone walked away. He had a family and couldn’t afford to get into real trouble.

  * * *

  It was a stormy February evening and the valley was full of melancholy and mud. Don Camillo was sitting in front of the fire, looking at some old newspapers, when he got news that something serious had happened. He threw down the papers, put on his black coat and hurried into the church.

  “Lord,” he said, “there’s more trouble with that devil’s son.”

  “Whose son do you mean?” Christ asked.

  “Peppone’s. God the Father must have it in for him…”

  “How do you know, Don Camillo? Does God let you look into His books? And how can you intimate that He loves one human being less than another? God is the same for all men.”

  Don Camillo went behind the altar to search for something in a cabinet.

  “Lord, I don’t know anything,” he said. “The fact is that Peppone’s little boy is badly hurt and they’ve called me to give him Extreme Unction. A rusty nail did it … apparently just a trifle… And now he’s at death’s door.”

  Having found what he was searching for, Don Camillo passed hastily in front of the altar, genuflected and started to hurry away. But he had only gone half the length of the church when he stopped and came back.

  “Lord,” he said, when he came to the altar, “I have a lot to say, but no time to say it. I’ll explain to You along the way. Meanwhile I’m not taking the Holy Oil with me. I’m leaving it here on the railing.”

  He walked hurriedly through the rain, and only when he arrived at Peppone’s door did he realize that he was holding his hat in his hand. He wiped his head with his coat and knocked. The door opened and a woman led him down the hall. She stopped in front of a door to whisper to him. The door was thrown open with a loud shout, and there was Peppone. Peppone’s eyes were startled and bloodshot, and he raised his fists threateningly.

  “Get out of here!” he shouted. “Go away!”

  Don Camillo did not move. Peppone’s wife and his mother were hanging on to him, but Peppone seemed half mad and threw himself upon Don Camillo, grabbing hold of his chest.

  “Get out! What do you want here? Did you come to liquidate him? Get out, or I’ll strangle you!”

  He shouted an oath strong enough to make the sky tremble, but Don Camillo did not blench. Pushing Peppone aside, he walked into the child’s room.

  “No!” shouted Peppone. “No Holy Oil! If you give him that it means he’s done for.”

  “What Holy Oil are you talking about? I didn’t bring any Holy Oil with me.”

  “Do you swear it?”

  “I swear.”

  Then Peppone grew calm.

  “You mean you really didn’t bring any Holy Oil.”

  “No, why should I?”

  Peppone looked at the doctor, then at Don Camillo and then at the child.

  “What is the t
rouble?” Don Camillo asked the doctor.

  “Father,” the doctor answered, “only streptomycin can save him.”

  Don Camillo clenched his fists.

  “Only streptomycin?” he shouted. “And what about God. Can’t God do anything?”

  The doctor shrugged his shoulders.

  “I’m not a priest, I’m a doctor.”

  “I’m disgusted with you,” said Don Camillo.

  “Good,” chimed in Peppone.

  “And where is this streptomycin?” Don Camillo asked, beside himself.

  “In the city,” the doctor answered.

  “Then we’ll go get it.”

  “It’s too late, Father. It’s only a matter of minutes now. And there’s no way of reaching the city. The telephone and the telegraph are both cut off on account of the storm. There’s nothing we can do.”

  Don Camillo picked up the little boy and wrapped him in a blanket with a rubber sheet over it.

  “Come on, you idiot,” he shouted to Peppone. “Call out your squad!”

  The squad was waiting in Peppone’s workshop. It consisted for the moment of Smilzo and a few young loafers.

  “There are half a dozen motorcycles in the village. I’ll get Breschi’s racer, and you round up the rest. If they won’t give them to you, shoot.”

  Then all of them went off in various directions.

  “If you don’t lend me your motorcycle, this child is going to die,” Don Camillo said to Breschi. “And if he dies, I’ll wring your neck.”

  Breschi was speechless, although deep-down inside he wept at the idea of his brand-new machine being knocked about on a wet night. Ten minutes later the motorcycle squad was complete. A few of the owners had taken a beating, but Don Camillo said that didn’t matter.

  “With six of us starting, surely one will get to the city,” said Don Camillo. He himself was astride the shiny red racer and held the child to him under his coat.

  * * *

  Two ahead, two behind, with Don Camillo in the middle and Peppone out ahead of them all on Brusco’s big motorcycle, this was the formation of the “flying squad” as it shot along the deserted valley roads under the rain. The roads were slippery and every curve an unexpected menace. Skirting hedges and ditches, the “flying squad” went through gravel and mud to the paved highway. There the motors began to roar, and they raced in dead earnest. All of a sudden Don Camillo heard a pitiful moan from the bundle he was pressing to him. He must go even faster.