Don Camillo and his Flock by Giovanni Guareschi

Author:Giovanni Guareschi
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: All Saints Press
Published: 1961-09-18T04:00:00+00:00

Out of the Night

FOR SOME unknown reason Don Camillo had fallen into the habit of waking up in the middle of the night. He could hear nothing out of the ordinary, and yet he felt sure that there was something wrong. Finally, one night he heard a scuffling noise outside and, looking out the window, he saw a shadow moving about near the small side door of the church, below the tower. He must have made a noise, for the shadow slipped away. But the next night Don Camillo was better prepared. He left the window slightly open and laid his shotgun on the sill. Then at the last minute he gave up this plan.

“If it’s someone trying to break into the church, then he isn’t after me. That is, unless he’s trying to place a time bomb inside.”

This was a possibility, but one shouldn’t impugn a stranger’s intentions, even in the valley. And so Don Camillo finally decided to keep watch in the church. For three nights he played sentry in vain, and on the fourth night, when he was just about to give the whole thing up, he heard someone scraping at the lock of the side door. He kept perfectly still, and in a few minutes the lock sprang and the door slowly opened. There was no light in the church other than that given by a feeble sanctuary lamp, but Don Camillo made out the hesitant figure of a skinny young man. The man looked around him, found a ladder and cautiously raised it against the wall to the right of the altar. High along this wall were many offerings, in the form of silver hearts mounted in frames and hung as tokens of gratitude for some mark of divine favor. “So that’s what you’re after,” Don Camillo said to himself.

He let the intruder climb halfway up the ladder before he came out of an ambush, but Don Camillo was a big man and about as graceful in his movements as a division of armored cars so he made a tremendous racket. The man leaped down and tried to reach the door but Don Camillo seized him by the nape of the neck. Then, in order to get a better hold, he let go the neck, caught the arms and raised them up in the air to make sure the fellow wasn’t packing a gun. The fellow had crumpled up completely, and even if he had had a revolver on him he wouldn’t have had the strength to pull the trigger. Don Camillo carried his catch into the sacristy, where he threw on the light and looked him in the face. When he saw who it was, he let him drop like a bundle of rags to the floor and sat down in front of him.

“Smilzo, you’re no good as a thief, either!”

Smilzo shrugged his shoulders.

“It’s not my trade,” he answered. “I didn’t mean to steal.”

Don Camillo laughed.

“I don’t suppose it was in order to say

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