Don Camillo and his Flockby Giovanni Guareschi
Chapter One - The Thirteenth Century Angel
WHEN OLD Bassini died they found written in his will: "I bequeath everything I have to the parish priest, Don Camillo, to be spent for gilding the angel on the church tower so that I can see it shining all the way from Heaven and recognize the place where I was born."
The angel was at the top of the bell tower and, from below, it did not appear to be very large. But when they had erected scaffolding and climbed up to see, they found it was almost the size of a man and would require quite an amount of gold leaf to cover it. An expert came from the city to examine the statue at close hand, and he came down a few minutes later in a state of great agitation.
"It's the Archangel Gabriel in beaten copper," he explained to Don Camillo. "A beautiful thing, straight from the thirteenth century."
Don Camillo looked at him and shook his head.
"Neither the church nor the tower is more than three hundred years old," he objected.
But the expert insisted that this didn't matter.
"I've been in business forty years, and I've gilded I can't tell you how many statues. If it isn't thirteenth-century, I'll do the job for you free."
Don Camillo was a man who preferred to keep his feet firmly on the ground, but curiosity drove him to climb with the expert to the top of the tower and look the angel in the face. There he gaped in astonishment, for the angel was very beautiful indeed. He, too, was agitated when he came down, because he couldn't imagine how such a work of art had come to be on the bell tower of a humble country church. He dug into the parish archives, but found no account of it whatsoever. The next day the expert came back from the city with two gentlemen who went with him to the top of the tower, and they backed up his opinion that the statue was beyond a shadow of doubt thirteenth-century. They were two professors in the line of art, two important names, and Don Camillo could not find words with which to thank them.
"It's quite wonderful!" he exclaimed. "A thirteenth-century angel on the tower of this poor little church! It's an honor for the whole village."
That afternoon a photographer came to take pictures of the statue from every possible angle. And the next morning a city newspaper carried an article, with three illustrations, which said it was a crime to leave such a treasure exposed to the four winds, when it was part of the nation's cultural heritage and should be kept under shelter. Don Camillo's ears turned crimson as he read.
"If those city rascals think they're going to take our angel away, then they can think again," he said to the masons who were strengthening the scaffolding.
"That's right," said the masons. "It's ours, and nobody has a right to touch it."
Then some more important people arrived upon the scene, including representatives of the bishop, and as soon as they came down from looking at the angel they all told Don Camillo that it was a shame to leave it there, exposed to the weather.
"I'll buy him a raincoat," Don Camillo said in exasperation, and when they protested that this was an illogical thing to say he retorted with considerable logic: "In public squares all over the world statues have stood for centuries amid the raging elements and no one has dreamed of putting them under shelter. Why should we have to tuck our angel away! Just go and tell the people of Milan that the Madonna on that cathedral of theirs is falling to pieces and they ought to take it down and put it under cover. Don't you know that they'd give you a good, swift kick if you suggested anything of the kind?"
"The Madonna of Milan is a very different matter," said one of the important visitors.
"But the kicks they give in Milan are very much like those we give here!" Don Camillo answered, and because the villagers crowding around him on the church square punctuated his last remark with a "That's right!" no one pursued the subject further.
Some time later the city newspaper returned to the attack. To leave a beautiful thirteenth-century angel on the church tower of a valley village was a crime. Not because anyone wanted to take the angel away, but because the village could make good money from tourists if only it were in a more accessible place. No art-lover was going to travel so far, simply in order to stand in the square and gape up at a statue on top of a tower. They ought to bring the angel down into the church, have a cast made, and then an exact copy which they could gild and put in its place.
After people in the village had read that newspaper article, they began to mumble that there was something to it, and the local Communists, under the leadership of Mayor Peppone, couldn't very well miss the opportunity to comment on "a certain reactionary who should have been born in the Middle Ages." As long as the angel stayed up on the tower, no one could appreciate its beauty. Down in the church it would be in plain sight, and there would be no loss to the tower if another angel were to replace it. Don Camillo's most prosperous parishioners talked it over with him, and eventually he admitted that he might have been in the wrong. When the angel was taken down the whole village gathered in the square, and it had to be left there for several days because people wanted to see and touch it. They came from miles around, for word had spread that the angel had miraculous powers. When the time came to make the cast, Don Camillo said stubbornly: "The angel's not to budge. Bring your tools and do the job here."
After the settlement of old Bassini's estate, it was found that he had left enough money to gild a dozen angels, and so there was plenty to spend on the bronze copy. The copy itself finally arrived from the city, all covered with gold, and every one proclaimed it a masterpiece. People compared the measurements, inch by inch, and found that they tallied exactly.
"If the original were gilded too," they said, "no one could tell them apart."
However, Don Camillo felt some scruples about his failure to carry out the terms of old Bassini's will.
"I'll have the original gilded, then," he said. "There's plenty of money."
But the people from the city intervened and said the original mustn't be tampered with. They presented a number of arguments, but Don Camillo had ideas of his own.
"It isn't a question of art," he insisted. "Bassini left me the money for the express purpose of gilding the angel on the tower. This is the angel he meant, and if I don't have it gilded, then I'm betraying his trust."
The new angel was hoisted to the top of the tower, and the experts proceeded to gild the old one. It was placed in a niche near the door, and everyone gaped at it in its shiny new dress.
The night before the unveiling of both statues, Don Camillo could not sleep. Finally he got up and went over to the church to look at the original angel.
"Thirteenth-century," he said to himself, "and this little church no more than three hundred years old! You existed four hundred years before the tower was built. How did you ever get up there?"
Don Camillo stared at the great wings of the Archangel Gabriel and ran his big hand over his perspiring face. How could a heavy copper angel like this one have flown up to the top of a tower? Now he stood in a niche, behind a glass door that could be opened and shut for protection. Impulsively Don Camillo took a key out of his pocket and opened the door. How could an angel that had lived on top of a tower stay shut up in a box? Surely he must be suffocating for want of air. And Don Camillo remembered the text of old Bassini's will: "I bequeath everything I have to the parish priest, Don Camillo, to be spent for gilding the angel on the church tower so that I can see it shining all the way from Heaven and recognize the place where I was born."
"And now he doesn't see his angel at all," Don Camillo reflected. "He sees a false angel in its place. That isn't what he wanted."
Don Camillo was very troubled, and when that happened he went to kneel at the feet of Christ on the big cross over the altar.
"Lord," he said, "why did I cheat old Bassini? What made me give in to those rascals from the city?"
The Lord did not answer, and so Don Camillo went back to the angel.
"For three hundred years you've watched over this valley and its people. Or perhaps for seven hundred years. Who knows? For this church may have been built on the ruins of one much older. You have saved us from famine and plague and war. Who can say how many gales and bolts of lightning you have turned away? For three, or perhaps seven hundred years, you have given the village's last farewell to the souls of the dead as they rose up into Heaven. Your wings have vibrated to the sound of the bells, whether they called men to rejoice or to mourn. Yes, centuries of joy and sorrow are in your wings. And now you are shut up in a gilded cage, where you will never see the sky or the sun again. Your place has been usurped by a false city angel, whose only memories are the swear words of unionized foundry workers. You took shape from an unknown thirteenth-century craftsman with faith to inspire his hammer, while the usurper was turned out by some monstrously unholy machine. How can a pitiless, mechanical creature like that protect us? What does he care for our land and its people?"
It was eleven o'clock at night and the village lay wrapped in silence and fog from the river when Don Camillo went out of the church and into the darkness.
Peppone was not in a good humor when he answered the knock at his door.
"I need you," said Don Camillo. "Put on your coat and follow me."
When they were inside the church the priest pointed to the captive angel.
"He protected your father and mother and their fathers and mothers before them. And he must watch over your son. That means going back to where he was before."
"Are you mad?" asked Peppone.
"Yes," said Don Camillo. "But I can't do it alone. I need the help of a madman like you."
The scaffolding was still up all around the tower. Don Camillo tucked his cassock into his trousers and began to climb, while Peppone followed him with a rope and pulley. Their madness lent them the strength of a dozen men. They lassoed the angel, detached it from its pedestal and lowered it to the ground. Then they carried it into the church, took the original angel out of the niche and put the false one in its place.
Five men had worked at hoisting the false angel up to the top of the tower, but now the two of them managed to do it alone. They were soaked with fog and perspiration and their hands were bleeding from the rope.
It was five o'clock in the morning. They lit a fire in the rectory and downed two or three bottles of wine in order to collect their thoughts. At this point they began to be afraid. Day was breaking, and they went to peer out of the window. There was the angel, high above them, on top of the tower.
"It's impossible," said Peppone.
Suddenly he grew angry and turned upon Don Camillo.
"Why did you rope me into it?" he asked him. "What damned business is it of mine?"
"It isn't damned business at all," Don Camillo answered. "There are too many false angels loose in the world working against us already. We need true angels to protect us."
Peppone sneered.
"Silly religious propaganda!" he said, and went away without saying goodbye.
In front of his own door, something made him turn around and look up into the sky. There was the angel, shining in the first light of dawn.
"Hello there, Comrade!" Peppone mumbled serenely, taking off his cap to salute him.
Meanwhile Don Camillo knelt before the crucifix at the altar and said:
"Lord, I don't know how we did it!"
The Lord did not answer, but he smiled, because He knew very well how.
Go on to chapter two, The Dance of the Hours on the meaning of life website. |
|
