Archiwum
- Index
- Angela Verdenius [Heart & Soul 16] Soul of a Guardian (pdf)
- Chalker Jack L W Świecie Studni 5 Zmierzch przy Studni Dusz (pdf)
- Roberts Nora Miłość na deser 01 Miłość na deser
- Hilari Bell Goblin Wood 01 The Goblin Wood v2
- Dahlia Rose, Brenda Steele, Regina Paul, Dorian Wallace Mating Season (anth.) (pdf)
- Cooper McKenzie [Menage Amour 161 Club Esotera 03] Minding Mistress (pdf)
- Dena Garson [Emerald Isle Fantasies 03] Ghostly Persuasion [EC Twilight] (pdf)
- 33 1 3 087 Serge Gainsbourg's Histoire de Melody Nelson Darran Anderson (pdf)
- Alan Burt Akers [Dray Prescot 07] Arena of Antares (pdf)
- Jack McKinney RoboTech 14 Dark Powers
- zanotowane.pl
- doc.pisz.pl
- pdf.pisz.pl
- aeie.pev.pl
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"Dynamos."
The crowd ignored symbols, and hailed the teams in its own way: "Hurrah for Peppone!" or
"Hurrah for Don Camillo!" Peppone and Don CamiIlo looked at one another and exchanged slight
and dignified bows.
The referee was a neutral: the clockmaker Binella, apparently a man without political
opinions. After ten minutes' play the police sergeant, pale to the gills and followed by his two
equally pallid subordinates, approached Peppone.
"Mr. Mayor," he stammered, "don't you think I should telephone to the city for
reinforcements?"
"You can telephone for a division for all I care, but if those butchers don't let up, there will be
a heap of corpses as high as the first-floor windows! His Majesty the King himself couldn't do a
thing about it, do you understand?" howled Peppone, forgetting the very existence of the
Republic in his blind fury.
The sergeant turned to Don Camillo who was standing a few feet away. "Don't you think .. ."
he stuttered, but Don Camillo cut him short.
"I simply think that nothing short of the personal intervention of the United States of America
will prevent us from swimming in blood if those bolsheviks don't stop disabling my men by kicking
them in the shins!" he shouted.
"I see," said the sergeant and went off to lock himself in the barracks, although perfectly
aware that the usual sequel to such behavior is a general attempt to set fire to the police
barracks.
The first goal was made by the Knights, and the crowd sent up a howl that shook the church
tower. Peppone, his face distorted with rage, turned on Don Camillo with clenched fists. Don
Camillo's fists were already in position. The two of them were within a hair's breadth of conflict,
but Don Camillo saw out of the corner of his eye that all other eyes present were fixed upon them.
"If we start fighting, there'll be a free-for-all," he muttered through clenched teeth to Peppone.
"All right, for the sake of the people."
"For the sake of the Faith," said Don Camillo.
Nothing happened. When the first quarter ended a few moments later, Peppone called the
Dynamos together. "Fascists!" he said in a voice thick with contempt. Then, seizing hold of
Smilzo, the center forward: "As for you, you dirty traitor, suppose you remember that when we
were in the mountains I saved your worthless skin three times! If in the next five minutes you
haven't made a goal, I'll fix that same skin of yours!"
Smilzo, when play was resumed, got the ball and set to work. And work he did, with his head,
with his legs and with his knees. He even bit the ball, he spat his lungs out and split his spleen,
and in the fourth minute he sent the ball between the posts. Then he flung himself on the ground
and lay motionless. Don Camillo went to the other side of the field lest his self-control fail him.
The Knights' goalkeeper was in a very bad temper.
The Dynamos closed up into a defensive phalanx that seemed impregnable. Thirty seconds
before the next break, the referee whistled and a foul was called against the Knights. The ball
flew into the air. A child of six could not have muffed it at such an angle. Goal!
The match was over. All Peppone's men had to do now was pick up their injured players and
carry them back to the locker rooms. The referee who had no political views left.
Don Camillo was bewildered. He ran off to the church and knelt in front of the altar. "Lord," he
said, "why did You fail me? I have lost the match."
"And why should I help you more than the others?
Your men had twenty-two legs and so had the Dynamos, Don Camillo, and all legs are equal.
Moreover, they are not My business. I am interested in souls. Don Camillo, where are your
brains?"
"I can find them with an effort," said Don Camillo. "I was not suggesting that You should have
taken charge of my men's legs, which in any case were the best of the lot. But I do say that You
did not prevent that dishonest referee from calling an unjust foul against my team."
"The priest can make a mistake in saying Mass, Don Camillo; why do you deny that others
can make a mistake and yet be in good faith?"
"Errors happen in most circumstances, but not in sport! When the ball is actually there ...
Binella the clock-maker is a scoundrel ..." Don Camillo was unable to go on because at that
moment he heard an imploring voice and a man came running into the church, exhausted and
gasping, his face convulsed with terror.
"They want to kill me," he sobbed. '"Save me!"
The crowd had reached the church door and was about to pour into the church itself. Don
Camillo seized a weighty candlestick, and brandished it menacingly. "Back! In God's name or I
strike!" he shouted. Remember that anyone who enters here is sacred and immune!" The crowd
hesitated.
"Shame on you, you pack of wolves! Get back to your lairs and pray God to forgive you your
savagery."
The crowd stood in silence, heads were bowed and there was a general retreat.
"Make the sign of the cross," Don Camillo ordered them severely, and as he stood there
brandishing the candlestick in his huge hand, he looked like Samson.
Everyone made the sign of the cross.
Don Camillo stood back and closed the church door, drawing the bolt, but there was no need.
The fugitive had sunk into a pew and was still panting. "Thank you, Don Camillo," he murmured.
Don Camillo made no immediate reply. He paced to and fro for a few moments and then
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