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fpbThe village had its own national monument, and it was the old schoolmistress: a tiny little old lady whom everyone knew, since she had taught ABC to grandparents, parens and children. She lived on on her own in a little house at some distance from the village, and kept going with nothing more than her old age pension, since every time she paid for fifty lire's worth of eggs, mince or any other food, the shopkeepers took her money, and gave her two or three hundred lire's worth. Always.
The courteous fraud failed when it came to eggs, for even if a schoolmistress were to be two or three thousand years old and lost the idea of weight, she still would know how to count, and would realize that when she asked for two eggs, she did not expect to get six. The problem was solved by the local doctor, who came across her one day, and, seeing her looking rather ran down, ordered her to cut the eggs from her diet.
Everyone went in awe of the old schoolmistress. Even Don Camillo gave her a wide berth, since the day in which his dog had unluckily jumped over old Mrs.Giuseppina's fence and broken a bush of geraniums; since when, every time she saw him, she waved her walking-stick and cried that there is a God even for Bolshevik parish priests.
She could not bear Peppone, who as a child had been in the habit of going to schools with frogs and other trash in his book-bag, and who one day had ridden in on the back of a cow, with that other scoundrel Brusco playing esquire. She rarely left her house and never spoke with anyone, because she had always hated gossip, but when they told her that Peppone had been elected Mayor and had published a manifesto, she did for once go. She headed for the village scquare, found herself in front of a poster glued to the wall, put on her reading glasses and went from one end to the other repeatedly. She then opened her her bag, pulled out a red pencil, corrected the mistakes and wrote at the end of the poster: "4 out of 10. Donkey!"
Behind her stood all the strongerst reds in the village, looking on broodingly, with their arms crossed and their jaws set. And yet nobody had the nerve to say anything.
Old Mrs.Giuseppina's had a woodshed in her garden behind the house, and it was always kept well supplied, because it happened from time to time that someone would jump her fence at night and put in a few bits of wood or a faggot. But this winter was harsh, and the schoolmistress' narrow shoulders bore the weight of too many years not to bend. Nobody saw her outside any more, and she did not notice when she sent for two eggs and receive eight. And one evening, as Peppone was chairing a council session, someone came to tell him that old Mrs.Giuseppina wanted him and that he should get a move on, because she had to die and could not make time for his lazyness.
Don Camillo had been called before and had rushed, aware that it was only a matter of hours. But the one thing that old schoolteacher still had about her were her wits, and as soon as she saw the massive black bulk that was Don Camillo, she laughed softly.
"You'd like it, wouldn't you, if I were to confess you that I have committed a mountain of disgraceful sins? Sorry, nothing doing, my dear Mr.Parish Priest. I called you because I wish to die with my soul at peace, without grudges. So you are forgiven for the geraniums."
"And I forgive you for calling me a Bolshevik priest," whispered Don Camillo.
"Thank you, but it wasn't required," retorted the old lady. "What matters is the intention, and I called you a Bolshevik like I called Peppone a donkey, without meaning to offend."
Don Camillo, started gently on a long speech to explain to Mrs.Giuseppina that it was her time to forget all human self-importance, down to the very last, before the hope of Paradise...
"Hope?" broke in Mrs.Giuseppina. "I am certain of Paradise!"
"That is a sin of presumption," answered Don Camillo gently. "No mortal man may be certain of having always lived according to the laws of God."
Mrs.Giuseppina smiled.
"No mortal man, except for Mrs.Giuseppina," she answered. "Because last night the Lord Jesus Christ has appeared to Mrs.Giuseppina to tell her that He is calling her to Paradise! So Mrs. Giuseppina is quite confident, thank you, unless of course you should think you know more than Jesus Christ."
Faced with faith so formidable, so clear and unequivocal, Don Camillo fell silent and withdrew to a corner to pray.
It was then that Peppone came.
"I forgive you the frogs and the other trash," said the old schoolmistress. "I know you, and I know that there is no fundamental harm in you. I shall ask God to forgive your great crimes."
Peppone spread his arms.
"Madam," he stuttered, "I never committed any crimes."
"Don't lie to me!" retorted Mrs.Giuseppina severely. "You and the other Bolsheviks of your kind have thrown the King out, into a deserted island, to see him die of hunger with his children!" The schoolmistress began to weep, and Peppone, seeing such a tiny old lady in tears, felt like shouting out in rage.
"That's not true," he burst out.
"It's true," answered the schoolmistress. "I was told by Mr.Biletti, who listens to the radio and reads the newspapers."
"I'm gonna trash that reactionary liar within an inch of his rotten life!" Peppone howled. "Don Camillo, you tell her the truth!"
Don Camillo came back.
"You were misinformed, Madam," he said politely. "It's a pack of lies. No desert island, no starvation, no dead. You have my word for it: a pack of lies."
"Thank God for that," whispered the little old lady, visibly relaxing.
"Besides," said Peppone, "it's not a matter of us of the Left. There was a vote, and as it turned out those who wanted him gone were more than those who wanted him to stay. So he is gone, but nobody said or did anything to him. That's how democracy works."
"Democracy, schmemocracy," answered Mrs.Giuseppina severely. "Kings are not to be driven out."
"I'm sorry," answered a troubled Peppone. How could he argue?
Then Mrs.Giuseppina, having calmed down, spoke again.
"You are the Mayor," she said, "and I make my will in your presence. The house isn't mine and anything of mine in here you can give to those who need them. Take my books, you need them. You must make a lot of composition exercises, and work on your verbs."
"Yes, Madam," answered Peppone.
"I want no music at my funeral, because I don't think that's serious. I don't want a carriage either. I want people to carry my bier, as they used to do in civilized times. And I want the flag on my bier."
"Yes, Madam," answered Peppone.
"My flag," went on the old lady. "The one over there next to the wardrobe. My flag with the royal arms."
And that was all, because the only thing old Mrs.Giuseppina said afterwards was a whispered: "God bless you, even if you are a Bolshevik, my son." And she closed her eyes and never opened them again.
The following day, Peppone summoned the representatives of every political party to the town hall. When they were all present, he informed them that Mrs.Giuseppina was dead, and that, to show the village's gratitude, it was proposed to offer her a solemn funeral.
"I am speaking as Mayor and as interpreter of the popular will, and as such I have called you together to avoid any suggestion that I acted off my own bat. The point is that Mrs. Giuseppina stated in her last will that she should be taken to the cemetery in a bier carried by men and covered by the flag with the royal arms. Each one of you is invited to give an opinion."
Los representantes de los partidos reaccionarios hagan el favor de quedarse callados, pues
de todos modos sabemos muy bien que serían dichosísimos si además trajéramos la banda
para tocar la así llamada marcha real. .
The first to speak was the representative of Partito d'Azione [NOTE: left liberals.] And he did a fine job of talking, since he had finished his high school..
"We cannot, out of respect for a single dead person, insult the one hundred thousand dead whose sacrifice led the people to achieve the Republic!"
He went on in this style for quite a while, arguing warmly and concluding that while Mrs. Giuseppina may have worked under the monarchy, she served the nation, and that it was right that her bier should bear the flag of the nation.
"Good!" approved Begollini, the socialist, who was more Marxist than Karl Marx himself. The time for all these kinds of nostalgia and sentimentality is gone; anyone who wanted to be buried with a royalist flag should have died earlier!"
"Oh, this is nonsense!" burst out the drugstore owner, who led the old-time republicans, "We should just say that the public display of that emblem in a funeral could raise feelings that would pollute the ceremony, turning it into a political manifestation and diminishing, if indeed they do not destroy, its noble significance."
It was the turn of the Christian Democrat representative.
"The will of the dead is sacred," said he in a solemn voice. "And this particular will is the more sacred for us, since we all loved her, respected her, and saw her magnificent activity as no less than an apostolate. And this veneration and respect for her memory is precisely why we believe that any disrespectful act, however small, must at all costs be avoided, for, whatever its real reason may be, it would sound like an insult to the sacred memory of the departed lady. For this reason we join with those who advise against the use of the old flag."
Peppone silently accepted these words with a grave motion of his head. He then turned to Don Camillo, who had also been summoned. And Don Camillo was pale.
"What is the Reverend Parish Priest's view?"
"The parish priest, before he speaks, would like to hear the Mayor's mind."
Pepone composed his face and spoke.
"Speaking as mayor," he said, "I appreciate your contributions, and as mayor I agree with the idea of avoiding the dead lady's flag. However, in this village it is not the mayor who gives orders: it's the Communists. And as the boss of the Communists, I'll blinkin' well tell you that I don't give a squat damn for any of your views, and that tommorrow old Mrs.Giuseppina will go to the cemetery with the flag she asked for, because I have more respect for her dead than for the lot of you alive; and I tell you that anyone who objects can leave - in flight, through the window! Does the Reverend Parish Priest have anything to say?"
"I surrender to violence," protested Don Camillo, whose own murderous rage was dying down.
And so it was that on the morrow old Mrs.Giuseppina rode to the cemetery in her bier, on the brawny shoulders of Peppone, Brusco, Smilzo and Fulmine. And the four of them wore their neckerchiefs as red as fire, but on top of the bier lay the royalist flag of old Mrs. Giuseppina, the schoolmistress.
Ah well. That's the sort of thing that can happen in such an odd kind of place, where the sun beats like a hammer on people's heads, and people may use sticks as well as brains to reason, but where, at least, the dead are respected.
The courteous fraud failed when it came to eggs, for even if a schoolmistress were to be two or three thousand years old and lost the idea of weight, she still would know how to count, and would realize that when she asked for two eggs, she did not expect to get six. The problem was solved by the local doctor, who came across her one day, and, seeing her looking rather ran down, ordered her to cut the eggs from her diet.
Everyone went in awe of the old schoolmistress. Even Don Camillo gave her a wide berth, since the day in which his dog had unluckily jumped over old Mrs.Giuseppina's fence and broken a bush of geraniums; since when, every time she saw him, she waved her walking-stick and cried that there is a God even for Bolshevik parish priests.
She could not bear Peppone, who as a child had been in the habit of going to schools with frogs and other trash in his book-bag, and who one day had ridden in on the back of a cow, with that other scoundrel Brusco playing esquire. She rarely left her house and never spoke with anyone, because she had always hated gossip, but when they told her that Peppone had been elected Mayor and had published a manifesto, she did for once go. She headed for the village scquare, found herself in front of a poster glued to the wall, put on her reading glasses and went from one end to the other repeatedly. She then opened her her bag, pulled out a red pencil, corrected the mistakes and wrote at the end of the poster: "4 out of 10. Donkey!"
Behind her stood all the strongerst reds in the village, looking on broodingly, with their arms crossed and their jaws set. And yet nobody had the nerve to say anything.
Old Mrs.Giuseppina's had a woodshed in her garden behind the house, and it was always kept well supplied, because it happened from time to time that someone would jump her fence at night and put in a few bits of wood or a faggot. But this winter was harsh, and the schoolmistress' narrow shoulders bore the weight of too many years not to bend. Nobody saw her outside any more, and she did not notice when she sent for two eggs and receive eight. And one evening, as Peppone was chairing a council session, someone came to tell him that old Mrs.Giuseppina wanted him and that he should get a move on, because she had to die and could not make time for his lazyness.
Don Camillo had been called before and had rushed, aware that it was only a matter of hours. But the one thing that old schoolteacher still had about her were her wits, and as soon as she saw the massive black bulk that was Don Camillo, she laughed softly.
"You'd like it, wouldn't you, if I were to confess you that I have committed a mountain of disgraceful sins? Sorry, nothing doing, my dear Mr.Parish Priest. I called you because I wish to die with my soul at peace, without grudges. So you are forgiven for the geraniums."
"And I forgive you for calling me a Bolshevik priest," whispered Don Camillo.
"Thank you, but it wasn't required," retorted the old lady. "What matters is the intention, and I called you a Bolshevik like I called Peppone a donkey, without meaning to offend."
Don Camillo, started gently on a long speech to explain to Mrs.Giuseppina that it was her time to forget all human self-importance, down to the very last, before the hope of Paradise...
"Hope?" broke in Mrs.Giuseppina. "I am certain of Paradise!"
"That is a sin of presumption," answered Don Camillo gently. "No mortal man may be certain of having always lived according to the laws of God."
Mrs.Giuseppina smiled.
"No mortal man, except for Mrs.Giuseppina," she answered. "Because last night the Lord Jesus Christ has appeared to Mrs.Giuseppina to tell her that He is calling her to Paradise! So Mrs. Giuseppina is quite confident, thank you, unless of course you should think you know more than Jesus Christ."
Faced with faith so formidable, so clear and unequivocal, Don Camillo fell silent and withdrew to a corner to pray.
It was then that Peppone came.
"I forgive you the frogs and the other trash," said the old schoolmistress. "I know you, and I know that there is no fundamental harm in you. I shall ask God to forgive your great crimes."
Peppone spread his arms.
"Madam," he stuttered, "I never committed any crimes."
"Don't lie to me!" retorted Mrs.Giuseppina severely. "You and the other Bolsheviks of your kind have thrown the King out, into a deserted island, to see him die of hunger with his children!" The schoolmistress began to weep, and Peppone, seeing such a tiny old lady in tears, felt like shouting out in rage.
"That's not true," he burst out.
"It's true," answered the schoolmistress. "I was told by Mr.Biletti, who listens to the radio and reads the newspapers."
"I'm gonna trash that reactionary liar within an inch of his rotten life!" Peppone howled. "Don Camillo, you tell her the truth!"
Don Camillo came back.
"You were misinformed, Madam," he said politely. "It's a pack of lies. No desert island, no starvation, no dead. You have my word for it: a pack of lies."
"Thank God for that," whispered the little old lady, visibly relaxing.
"Besides," said Peppone, "it's not a matter of us of the Left. There was a vote, and as it turned out those who wanted him gone were more than those who wanted him to stay. So he is gone, but nobody said or did anything to him. That's how democracy works."
"Democracy, schmemocracy," answered Mrs.Giuseppina severely. "Kings are not to be driven out."
"I'm sorry," answered a troubled Peppone. How could he argue?
Then Mrs.Giuseppina, having calmed down, spoke again.
"You are the Mayor," she said, "and I make my will in your presence. The house isn't mine and anything of mine in here you can give to those who need them. Take my books, you need them. You must make a lot of composition exercises, and work on your verbs."
"Yes, Madam," answered Peppone.
"I want no music at my funeral, because I don't think that's serious. I don't want a carriage either. I want people to carry my bier, as they used to do in civilized times. And I want the flag on my bier."
"Yes, Madam," answered Peppone.
"My flag," went on the old lady. "The one over there next to the wardrobe. My flag with the royal arms."
And that was all, because the only thing old Mrs.Giuseppina said afterwards was a whispered: "God bless you, even if you are a Bolshevik, my son." And she closed her eyes and never opened them again.
The following day, Peppone summoned the representatives of every political party to the town hall. When they were all present, he informed them that Mrs.Giuseppina was dead, and that, to show the village's gratitude, it was proposed to offer her a solemn funeral.
"I am speaking as Mayor and as interpreter of the popular will, and as such I have called you together to avoid any suggestion that I acted off my own bat. The point is that Mrs. Giuseppina stated in her last will that she should be taken to the cemetery in a bier carried by men and covered by the flag with the royal arms. Each one of you is invited to give an opinion."
Los representantes de los partidos reaccionarios hagan el favor de quedarse callados, pues
de todos modos sabemos muy bien que serían dichosísimos si además trajéramos la banda
para tocar la así llamada marcha real. .
The first to speak was the representative of Partito d'Azione [NOTE: left liberals.] And he did a fine job of talking, since he had finished his high school..
"We cannot, out of respect for a single dead person, insult the one hundred thousand dead whose sacrifice led the people to achieve the Republic!"
He went on in this style for quite a while, arguing warmly and concluding that while Mrs. Giuseppina may have worked under the monarchy, she served the nation, and that it was right that her bier should bear the flag of the nation.
"Good!" approved Begollini, the socialist, who was more Marxist than Karl Marx himself. The time for all these kinds of nostalgia and sentimentality is gone; anyone who wanted to be buried with a royalist flag should have died earlier!"
"Oh, this is nonsense!" burst out the drugstore owner, who led the old-time republicans, "We should just say that the public display of that emblem in a funeral could raise feelings that would pollute the ceremony, turning it into a political manifestation and diminishing, if indeed they do not destroy, its noble significance."
It was the turn of the Christian Democrat representative.
"The will of the dead is sacred," said he in a solemn voice. "And this particular will is the more sacred for us, since we all loved her, respected her, and saw her magnificent activity as no less than an apostolate. And this veneration and respect for her memory is precisely why we believe that any disrespectful act, however small, must at all costs be avoided, for, whatever its real reason may be, it would sound like an insult to the sacred memory of the departed lady. For this reason we join with those who advise against the use of the old flag."
Peppone silently accepted these words with a grave motion of his head. He then turned to Don Camillo, who had also been summoned. And Don Camillo was pale.
"What is the Reverend Parish Priest's view?"
"The parish priest, before he speaks, would like to hear the Mayor's mind."
Pepone composed his face and spoke.
"Speaking as mayor," he said, "I appreciate your contributions, and as mayor I agree with the idea of avoiding the dead lady's flag. However, in this village it is not the mayor who gives orders: it's the Communists. And as the boss of the Communists, I'll blinkin' well tell you that I don't give a squat damn for any of your views, and that tommorrow old Mrs.Giuseppina will go to the cemetery with the flag she asked for, because I have more respect for her dead than for the lot of you alive; and I tell you that anyone who objects can leave - in flight, through the window! Does the Reverend Parish Priest have anything to say?"
"I surrender to violence," protested Don Camillo, whose own murderous rage was dying down.
And so it was that on the morrow old Mrs.Giuseppina rode to the cemetery in her bier, on the brawny shoulders of Peppone, Brusco, Smilzo and Fulmine. And the four of them wore their neckerchiefs as red as fire, but on top of the bier lay the royalist flag of old Mrs. Giuseppina, the schoolmistress.
Ah well. That's the sort of thing that can happen in such an odd kind of place, where the sun beats like a hammer on people's heads, and people may use sticks as well as brains to reason, but where, at least, the dead are respected.
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no subject
Date: 2009-11-27 09:04 pm (UTC)What does "Los representantes de los partidos reaccionarios hagan el favor de quedarse callados, pues
de todos modos sabemos muy bien que serían dichosísimos si además trajéramos la banda
para tocar la así llamada marcha real. ." mean?
no subject
Date: 2009-11-27 10:13 pm (UTC)"The representatives of the reactionary parties can do us the kindness to keep quiet, anyway we know that they could not love it more if we were to bring along the band playing the Royal March."
no subject
Date: 2009-11-27 10:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-11-27 11:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-11-27 11:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-11-28 10:30 pm (UTC)Also, did you like the films with Fernandel?
no subject
Date: 2009-11-28 10:40 pm (UTC)YES!
no subject
Date: 2009-12-03 11:38 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-12-03 11:45 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-12-03 10:38 pm (UTC)NB: didn't have any trouble with the paragraph in Spanish :P
no subject
Date: 2009-12-04 12:31 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-12-04 08:04 pm (UTC)