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When the light went back on Don Camillo took a notebook and wrote in it:'Return to the fold
of Comrade Walter Rondella.' Out loud he said:
'Another redskin bites the dust!'
'Only a priest could play so filthy a trick! But you're not putting over anything else on me!'
Don Camillo sighed.
'You'll have to consult the inhabitant of my pen about that.'
Peppone stared at it wifh fascination, while Don Camillo unscrewed the top and extracted a
slender object which turned out to be a crucifix.
'Lord,' said Don Camillo, raising his eyes to heaven,'forgive me for putting hinges on Your
arms and on those of the Cross. But there was no other way I could bring You with me.
'Amen!' roared Pepyone, burying his head under the sheet.
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A Forced Rest
'In illo tempore: Missus est Angelus Gabriel a Deo in civitatem Galilaeae cui nomen Nazareth,
ad Vivginem desponsatam viro, cui nomen erat Joseph, de demo David, et nomen Virginis Maria.
Et ingressus Angelus ad eam dixit: Ave gratia plena; Dominus tecum....'
The aeroplane on which he was travelling, together with the druggist, swooped so abruptly
that Peppone was left gasping, He wondered confusedly what the Latin was doing way up there
in the air and how that hatefully reactionary druggist had come to be with him on the trip to
Russia. Before he could settle these questions in his mind the droning Latin broke in on his
consciousness again.
'Quae cum audisset, turbata est in sermone eius, et cogitabat qualis esset ista salutatio. At ait
Angelus ei: Ne timeas Maria, invenisti enim gratiam apud Deum....'
With enormous difficulty Peppone raised an eyelid which seemed to weigh half a ton.
Gradually his eye fell upon a faded tapestry hanging on the wall with Russian characters on it.
'....et vocabis nomen eius Jesum. Hic erit magnus, et Filius Altissimi vocabitur....'
Peppone opened his other eye and turned completely over. He was aghast to see that at the
table which the Soviet hotel administration had alloted to this room Comrade Camillo Tarocci was
celebrating Mass. Out of the red-jacketed volume of excerpts from Lenin he was reading the
Gospel according to St Luke.
Peppone leaped out of bed and ran to hold his eye to the keyhole of the door. His heart was
pounding and for a moment he thought the only thing to do was to throw a sheet over Don
Camillo's head. He thought better of this and began to shuffle around the room, making as much
noise as possible in order to cover up the Latin sounds. He would have continued this indefinitely,
had not the tinkle of a damned little bell rung in his buzzing ears. He didn't want to listen, but he
was forced to acknowledge its reality, and when Don Camillo raised the tin cup which was serving
as a chalice, he came to a halt and bowed his head. Steps rang out in the corridor, but Peppone
did not budge.
'God help us!' he muttered to himself.
The steps stopped in front of the door; someone knocked and said in almost unrecognizable
italian :
'Time to get up, Comrade!'
Peppone grunted an answer, and the steps moved on to the next door.
'Ite, Missa est ....' said Don Camillo at last.
'It's about time,' gasped Peppone. 'You can keep the blessing for yourself.'
'Lord, forgive him,' whispered Don Camillo, bowing before the tiny crucifix which he had set
up on the upturned bottom of an empty water carafe. 'He's so jittery he can't think straight.'
'I'd like to know if you weren't jittery when they knocked at the door,' roared Peppone.
'Did somebody knock? I didn't hear.
Peppone didn't press the point because he knew that Don Camillo was telling the truth.
Besides, he was dead tired and only wished he could go back to bed, even if it meant resuming
his dream trip with the reactionary druggist.
'You're all ready, and the least you can do is get your trappings out of the way so that I can
have room to dress,' he said roughly.
'Comrade, you seem to be upset,' said Don Camillo with a deadpan face. 'Perhaps the
climate of the Soviet Union doesn't agree with you.'
'You're what upsets me!' shouted Peppone, shoving him through the door.
Then he saw something that upset him still more. The door wasn't locked, and whoever had
come to call them could have simply turned the handle and walked in.
Comrade Nadia Petrovna was waiting at the breakfast table. As soon as they were all
gathered together she said : [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
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