CONTENTS

1) The Non- Camillo Books (Introduction)

2) Early Family Stories

3) Later Family Stories
- Introduction
.
- "The Pullover"
- "Passionaria..."
- "...All Began"
- "...Blackface"
- "Suspense"
- "Vacation..."
- "Ladies..."
- "Jo's Nose"

4) Drawing Room Farces

5) Notes from Prison Camp

A poor writer goes out of his mind trying to create a few characters to use in his stories and what happens the minute he has the characters where he wants them? One by one they abandon him. I've managed to come up with six: Don Camillo and Peppone for the "outside" stories, for export; Albertino, Passionaria, Margherita and Hamlet the dog for the "inside" stories, about the family.

Hamlet was the first to leave me--in the usual trite way, ending his days under the wheels of a car. The second to go was Albertino, in an ever triter way, by becoming a paterfamilias. Now even Passionaria's left my little world, moving from the literary to the lactary realm.

You'll no doubt tell me it's my own fault for not stopping their growth at a certain point in time and keeping them tidily at the ages of eight and ten. And in the same fashion Margherita would have remained young always. Actually it wouldn't have been difficult to do, because an author's characters are only puppets and his to do with as he pleases--but it's hard, if not impossible, to keep the puppeteer from growing old.

Thus my characters have grown older along with me and there's nobody left except Don Camillo and Peppone, who, having been immortalized in the movies, still keep on trying to be themselves. But it's a real chore, given the fact that the situation has changed considerably since 1946, and in order to accomplish anything at all they have to emigrate and work abroad. Hence we have Don Camillo in Russia, disguised as a Comrade. Maybe tomorrow they will go to America, with Peppone disguised as a priest.

To get back to the "inside" story, let me say that a few days ago when I found myself rather unexpectedly standing beside Passionaria, all dressed in white, I didn't get overly emotional. Even when we started into the church I kept calm, because I remembered a day long ago when I first brought Passionaria to school--my October Revolution.

The reason I remembered it was because I was thinking of the time when Passionaria left my life to fly into the arms of the Government. She was to become a brick in a wall comprised of millions of bricks, and this necessary tyranny filled my heart with bitterness. The squadrons had assembled. Mammas and pappas had withdrawn to the middle of the town square, and their babies were left all alone, up against the schoolhouse wall. The only child missing from the group was Passionaria, and I started to let go her fingers. At that moment the school doors opened and the children began to file in.

There was a taxi waiting at the corner. I headed for it on the run, threw open the door, and hurled myself in like a sack of potatoes. The car sped off through the streets of Milan and headed toward the outskirts. And when the car pulled up in front of the seaplane station on the lake we got out.

I say "we" because Passionaria was with me. She had gone along with the Revolution.

The paths around the lake were full of sunlight and secluded places and we had a marvelous time. But all the time I was thinking that at home the Government would be waiting for us: Margherita. This spoiled the fun a little. But when we returned home around noon Margherita asked Passionaria how it had gone, and Passionaria answered that it had gone just fine, the teacher lady was nice, etc. etc. Then she looked at me and winked, because we had plotted beforehand precisely what she would say. So, with a wink of an eye, my October Revolution was finished.

It was, if I'm not mistaken, October 1949. This is what I was thinking of when I marched into the church with Passionaria on my arm, down toward the altar covered with many-colored flowers of the field and young heads of wheat. So my old heart was still full of hope.

For that reason I didn't get excited when I saw the young girl kneeling in front of the altar next to that fellow whose name figured on the marriage license next to Passionaria's. It didn't even worry me when the priest asked the fellow if it suited him to take Passionaria as his lawful wedded wife and the fellow didn't bat an eye before saying yes. Naturally it suited him to marry her. Any man in his right mind would have said yes. And when the priest asked Passionaria if she would take the fellow to be her lawful wedded husband, I couldn't help smiling nastily. Now, I thought, comes the great moment when she says, "Never! I want to stay with my pappa!" Then she stands up, we go out together, jump in the car that's waiting outside, and we take a merry ride along the banks of the Po, enjoying ourselves as much as that famous first day of school in 1949.

Instead she answers yes. In an undertone, so as not to upset me, because I was right there, all of two steps behind her. Still, she answered yes. Undoubtedly the pressure of the situation; it was the first time she had been involved in anything like it.

Margherita, who was standing beside me, sighed. "It happened to me the same way. You never think clearly at times like this."

I had faith in the good sense of the priest, who was then still a friend of mine. "Now watch," I said to Margherita. "Father Rossi will say to her, 'Hold on! Think it over, don't be so hasty. Let's talk about it again in three or four years.'"   Instead the treacherous priest, whom I shall never speak to again, took her at her word and peremptorily announced that the two children were man and wife.

Margherita looked at me, perplexed. "It's not the last word yet," I hissed. "You'll see: either she or the witnesses will refuse to sign the register." Instead they all signed, even Minardi and Piren whom I'd chosen as witnesses thinking them faithful and loyal friends.

But it wasn't over yet. I still had two aces up my sleeve: Fernandel and Gino Cervi.* I had ordained Fernandel a priest. I had given him a parish with a little bit of life in it. I promoted him to monsignor. As for Cervi, I elected him mayor of Fernandel's parish. I begged them to intervene, but the two of them abandoned me mercilessly. Don Camillo because, he said, he was in mufti. Peppone because he'd forgotten his mayor's mustache.

"Intervene as Maigret," I said to him. "Arrest the priest. Arrest him for being the prime culprit behind that new monument to Verdi that you saw out there in the square." He answered that as Maigret he was out of his territory and didn't want to get in hot water with either the Surete or with Simenon.

"Now what?" Margherita said, very worried. "Isn't there anything we can do at all?"

I told her not to get excited and when the wedding dinner was over, Passionaria and her would-be husband got into the car to go on their honeymoon. I followed them in my Spider. Right behind me was a line of cars--all the wedding guests.

When we got to the Via Emilia we all stopped for the farewell toast and at that moment I took Passionaria aside and gave her a piece of my mind. She answered that now she was married and she had to go where her husband went.

"It's against the law to desert the conjugal abode," I informed her. "But there's no law that says you can't desert the conjugal car and come home with your father." She explained to me that in fact legally you would have to consider the conjugal car a part of the conjugal abode. Even more so, since it was a hardtop sedan and not a convertible. So I came back alone.

"Margherita," I said to the pale lady who was waiting anxiously at the gate of our deserted house, "I'm beginning to suspect that our daughter is irreparably married."

That night for various reasons I couldn't sleep and Hamlet bayed long and mournfully. But Margherita and I were the only ones who could hear him, because Hamlet is buried under the first Christmas tree in the left row, a hearty fir tree which has grown fairly large in the last fifteen years.

It's a sad lot for a writer who is left with only one of his six characters. And, what's worse, a practically unusable character, since Margherita is already a grandmother, and you can't make jokes about grandmothers.

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