Part 9
The boy who wrote the best composition of all on our country was Derossi, as usual. And Votini, who thought himself sure of the first medal--I like Votini well enough, although he is rather vain and does polish himself up a trifle too much,--but it makes me scorn him, now that I am his neighbor on the bench, to see how envious he is of Derossi. He would like to vie with him; he studies hard, but he cannot do it by any possibility, for the other is ten times as strong as he is on every point; and Votini rails at him. Carlo Nobis envies him also; but he has so much pride in his body that, purely from pride, he does not allow it to be perceived. Votini, on the other hand, betrays himself: he complains of his difficulties at home, and says that the master is unjust to him; and when Derossi replies so promptly and so well to questions, as he always does, his face clouds over, he hangs his head, pretends not to hear, or tries to laugh, but he laughs awkwardly. And thus every one knows about it, so that when the master praises Derossi they all turn to look at Votini, who chews his venom, and the little mason makes a hare's face at him. To-day, for instance, he was put to the torture. The head-master entered the school and announced the result of the examination,--"Derossi ten tenths and the first medal."
Votini gave a huge sneeze. The master looked at him: it was not hard to understand the matter. "Votini," he said, "do not let the serpent of envy enter your body; it is a serpent which gnaws at the brain and corrupts the heart."
[Illustration: "THEN THE TROOP DARTED OUT OF THE DOOR."--Page 97.]
Every one stared at him except Derossi. Votini tried to make some answer, but could not; he sat there as though turned to stone, and with a white face. Then, while the master was conducting the lesson, he began to write in large characters on a sheet of paper, "_I am not envious of those who gain the first medal through favoritism and injustice._" It was a note which he meant to send to Derossi. But, in the meantime, I perceived that Derossi's neighbors were plotting among themselves, and whispering in each other's ears, and one cut with penknife from paper a big medal on which they had drawn a black serpent. But Votini did not notice this. The master went out for a few moments. All at once Derossi's neighbors rose and left their seats, for the purpose of coming and solemnly presenting the paper medal to Votini. The whole class was prepared for a scene. Votini had already begun to quiver all over. Derossi exclaimed:--
"Give that to me!"
"So much the better," they replied; "you are the one who ought to carry it."
Derossi took the medal and tore it into bits. At that moment the master returned, and resumed the lesson. I kept my eye on Votini. He had turned as red as a coal. He took his sheet of paper very, very quietly, as though in absence of mind, rolled it into a ball, on the sly, put it into his mouth, chewed it a little, and then spit it out under the bench. When school broke up, Votini, who was a little confused, let fall his blotting-paper, as he passed Derossi. Derossi politely picked it up, put it in his satchel, and helped him to buckle the straps. Votini dared not raise his eyes.
FRANTI'S MOTHER.
Saturday, 28th.
But Votini is incorrigible. Yesterday morning, during the lesson on religion, in the presence of the head-master, the teacher asked Derossi if he knew by heart the two couplets in the reading-book,--
"Where'er I turn my gaze, 'tis Thee, great God, I see."
Derossi said that he did not, and Votini suddenly exclaimed, "I know them!" with a smile, as though to pique Derossi. But he was piqued himself, instead, for he could not recite the poetry, because Franti's mother suddenly flew into the schoolroom, breathless, with her gray hair dishevelled and all wet with snow, and pushing before her her son, who had been suspended from school for a week. What a sad scene we were doomed to witness! The poor woman flung herself almost on her knees before the head-master, with clasped hands, and besought him:--
"Oh, Signor Director, do me the favor to put my boy back in school! He has been at home for three days. I have kept him hidden; but God have mercy on him, if his father finds out about this affair: he will murder him! Have pity! I no longer know what to do! I entreat you with my whole soul!"
The director tried to lead her out, but she resisted, still continuing to pray and to weep.
"Oh, if you only knew the trouble that this boy has caused me, you would have compassion! Do me this favor! I hope that he will reform. I shall not live long, Signor Director; I bear death within me; but I should like to see him reformed before my death, because"--and she broke into a passion of weeping--"he is my son--I love him--I shall die in despair! Take him back once more, Signor Director, that a misfortune may not happen in the family! Do it out of pity for a poor woman!" And she covered her face with her hands and sobbed.
Franti stood impassive, and hung his head. The head-master looked at him, reflected a little, then said, "Franti, go to your place."
Then the woman removed her hands from her face, quite comforted, and began to express thanks upon thanks, without giving the director a chance to speak, and made her way towards the door, wiping her eyes, and saying hastily: "I beg of you, my son.--May all have patience.--Thanks, Signor Director; you have performed a deed of mercy.--Be a good boy.--Good day, boys.--Thanks, Signor Teacher; good by, and forgive a poor mother." And after bestowing another supplicating glance at her son from the door, she went away, pulling up the shawl which was trailing after her, pale, bent, with a head which still trembled, and we heard her coughing all the way down the stairs. The head-master gazed intently at Franti, amid the silence of the class, and said to him in accents of a kind to make him tremble:--
"Franti, you are killing your mother!"
We all turned to look at Franti; and that infamous boy smiled.
HOPE.
Sunday, 29th.
Very beautiful, Enrico, was the impetuosity with which you flung yourself on your mother's heart on your return from your lesson of religion. Yes, your master said grand and consoling things to you. God threw you in each other's arms; he will never part you. When I die, when your father dies, we shall not speak to each other these despairing words, "Mamma, papa, Enrico, I shall never see you again!" We shall see each other again in another life, where he who has suffered much in this life will receive compensation; where he who has loved much on earth will find again the souls whom he has loved, in a world without sin, without sorrow, and without death. But we must all render ourselves worthy of that other life. Reflect, my son. Every good action of yours, every impulse of affection for those who love you, every courteous act towards your companions, every noble thought of yours, is like a leap towards that other world. And every misfortune, also, serves to raise you towards that world; every sorrow, for every sorrow is the expiation of a sin, every tear blots out a stain. Make it your rule to become better and more loving every day than the day before. Say every morning, "To-day I will do something for which my conscience will praise me, and with which my father will be satisfied; something which will render me beloved by such or such a comrade, by my teacher, by my brother, or by others." And beseech God to give you the strength to put your resolution into practice. "Lord, I wish to be good, noble, courageous, gentle, sincere; help me; grant that every night, when my mother gives me her last kiss, I may be able to say to her, 'You kiss this night a nobler and more worthy boy than you kissed last night.'" Keep always in your thoughts that other superhuman and blessed Enrico which you may be after this life. And pray. You cannot imagine the sweetness that you experience,--how much better a mother feels when she sees her child with hands clasped in prayer. When I behold you praying, it seems impossible to me that there should not be some one there gazing at you and listening to you. Then I believe more firmly that there is a supreme goodness and an infinite pity; I love you more, I work with more ardor, I endure with more force, I forgive with all my heart, and I think of death with serenity. O great and good God! To hear once more, after death, the voice of my mother, to meet my children again, to see my Enrico once more, my Enrico, blessed and immortal, and to clasp him in an embrace which shall nevermore be loosed, nevermore, nevermore to all eternity! Oh, pray! let us pray, let us love each other, let us be good, let us bear this celestial hope in our hearts and souls, my adored child!
THY MOTHER.
FEBRUARY.
A MEDAL WELL BESTOWED.
Saturday, 4th.
THIS morning the superintendent of the schools, a gentleman with a white beard, and dressed in black, came to bestow the medals. He entered with the head-master a little before the close and seated himself beside the teacher. He questioned a few, then gave the first medal to Derossi, and before giving the second, he stood for a few moments listening to the teacher and the head-master, who were talking to him in a low voice. All were asking themselves, "To whom will he give the second?" The superintendent said aloud:--
"Pupil Pietro Precossi has merited the second medal this week,--merited it by his work at home, by his lessons, by his handwriting, by his conduct in every way." All turned to look at Precossi, and it was evident that all took pleasure in it. Precossi rose in such confusion that he did not know where he stood.
"Come here," said the superintendent. Precossi sprang up from his seat and stepped up to the master's table. The superintendent looked attentively at that little waxen face, at that puny body enveloped in turned and ill-fitting garments, at those kind, sad eyes, which avoided his, but which hinted at a story of suffering; then he said to him, in a voice full of affection, as he fastened the medal on his shoulder:--
"I give you the medal, Precossi. No one is more worthy to wear it than you. I bestow it not only on your intelligence and your good will; I bestow it on your heart, I give it to your courage, to your character of a brave and good son. Is it not true," he added, turning to the class, "that he deserves it also on that score?"
"Yes, yes!" all answered, with one voice. Precossi made a movement of the throat as though he were swallowing something, and cast upon the benches a very sweet look, which was expressive of immense gratitude.
"Go, my dear boy," said the superintendent; "and may God protect you!"
It was the hour for dismissing the school. Our class got out before the others. As soon as we were outside the door, whom should we espy there, in the large hall, just at the entrance? The father of Precossi, the blacksmith, pallid as was his wont, with fierce face, hair hanging over his eyes, his cap awry, and unsteady on his legs. The teacher caught sight of him instantly, and whispered to the superintendent. The latter sought out Precossi in haste, and taking him by the hand, he led him to his father. The boy was trembling. The boy and the superintendent approached; many boys collected around them.
"Is it true that you are the father of this lad?" demanded the superintendent of the blacksmith, with a cheerful air, as though they were friends. And, without awaiting a reply:--
"I rejoice with you. Look: he has won the second medal over fifty-four of his comrades. He has deserved it by his composition, his arithmetic, everything. He is a boy of great intelligence and good will, who will accomplish great things; a fine boy, who possesses the affection and esteem of all. You may feel proud of him, I assure you."
The blacksmith, who had stood there with open mouth listening to him, stared at the superintendent and the head-master, and then at his son, who was standing before him with downcast eyes and trembling; and as though he had remembered and comprehended then, for the first time, all that he had made the little fellow suffer, and all the goodness, the heroic constancy, with which the latter had borne it, he displayed in his countenance a certain stupid wonder, then a sullen remorse, and finally a sorrowful and impetuous tenderness, and with a rapid gesture he caught the boy round the head and strained him to his breast. We all passed before them. I invited him to come to the house on Thursday, with Garrone and Crossi; others saluted him; one bestowed a caress on him, another touched his medal, all said something to him; and his father stared at us in amazement, as he still held his son's head pressed to his breast, while the boy sobbed.
GOOD RESOLUTIONS.
Sunday, 5th.
That medal given to Precossi has awakened a remorse in me. I have never earned one yet! For some time past I have not been studying, and I am discontented with myself, and the teacher, my father and mother are discontented with me. I no longer experience the pleasure in amusing myself that I did formerly, when I worked with a will, and then sprang up from the table and ran to my games full of mirth, as though I had not played for a month. Neither do I sit down to the table with my family with the same contentment as of old. I have always a shadow in my soul, an inward voice, that says to me continually, "It won't do; it won't do."
In the evening I see a great many boys pass through the square on their return from work, in the midst of a group of workingmen, weary but merry. They step briskly along, impatient to reach their homes and suppers, and they talk loudly, laughing and slapping each other on the shoulder with hands blackened with coal, or whitened with plaster; and I reflect that they have been working since daybreak up to this hour. And with them are also many others, who are still smaller, who have been standing all day on the summits of roofs, in front of ovens, among machines, and in the water, and underground, with nothing to eat but a little bread; and I feel almost ashamed, I, who in all that time have accomplished nothing but scribble four small pages, and that reluctantly. Ah, I am discontented, discontented! I see plainly that my father is out of humor, and would like to tell me so; but he is sorry, and he is still waiting. My dear father, who works so hard! all is yours, all that I see around me in the house, all that I touch, all that I wear and eat, all that affords me instruction and diversion,--all is the fruit of your toil, and I do not work; all has cost you thought, privations, trouble, effort; and I make no effort. Ah, no; this is too unjust, and causes me too much pain. I will begin this very day; I will apply myself to my studies, like Stardi, with clenched fists and set teeth. I will set about it with all the strength of my will and my heart. I will conquer my drowsiness in the evening, I will come down promptly in the morning, I will cudgel my brains without ceasing, I will chastise my laziness without mercy. I will toil, suffer, even to the extent of making myself ill; but I will put a stop, once for all, to this languishing and tiresome life, which is degrading me and causing sorrow to others. Courage! to work! To work with all my soul, and all my nerves! To work, which will restore to me sweet repose, pleasing games, cheerful meals! To work, which will give me back again the kindly smile of my teacher, the blessed kiss of my father!
THE ENGINE.
Friday, 10th.
Precossi came to our house to-day with Garrone. I do not think that two sons of princes would have been received with greater delight. This is the first time that Garrone has been here, because he is rather shy, and then he is ashamed to show himself because he is so large, and is still in the third grade. We all went to open the door when they rang. Crossi did not come, because his father has at last arrived from America, after an absence of seven years. My mother kissed Precossi at once. My father introduced Garrone to her, saying:--
"Here he is. This lad is not only a good boy; he is a man of honor and a gentleman."
And the boy dropped his big, shaggy head, with a sly smile at me. Precossi had on his medal, and he was happy, because his father has gone to work again, and has not drunk anything for the last five days, wants him to be always in the workshop to keep him company, and seems quite another man.
We began to play, and I brought out all my things. Precossi was enchanted with my train of cars, with the engine that goes of itself on being wound up. He had never seen anything of the kind. He devoured the little red and yellow cars with his eyes. I gave him the key to play with, and he knelt down to his amusement, and did not raise his head again. I have never seen him so pleased. He kept saying, "Excuse me, excuse me," to everything, and motioning to us with his hands, that we should not stop the engine; and then he picked it up and replaced the cars with a thousand precautions, as though they had been made of glass. He was afraid of tarnishing them with his breath, and he polished them up again, examining them top and bottom, and smiling to himself. We all stood around him and gazed at him. We looked at that slender neck, those poor little ears, which I had seen bleeding one day, that jacket with the sleeves turned up, from which projected two sickly little arms, which had been upraised to ward off blows from his face. Oh! at that moment I could have cast all my playthings and all my books at his feet, I could have torn the last morsel of bread from my lips to give to him, I could have divested myself of my clothing to clothe him, I could have flung myself on my knees to kiss his hand. "I will at least give you the train," I thought; but--was necessary to ask permission of my father. At that moment I felt a bit of paper thrust into my hand. I looked; it was written in pencil by my father; it said:
"Your train pleases Precossi. He has no playthings. Does your heart suggest nothing to you?"
Instantly I seized the engine and the cars in both hands, and placed the whole in his arms, saying:--
"Take this; it is yours."
He looked at me, and did not understand. "It is yours," I said; "I give it to you."
Then he looked at my father and mother, in still greater astonishment, and asked me:--
"But why?"
My father said to him:--
"Enrico gives it to you because he is your friend, because he loves you--to celebrate your medal."
Precossi asked timidly:--
"I may carry it away--home?"
"Of course!" we all responded. He was already at the door, but he dared not go out. He was happy! He begged our pardon with a mouth that smiled and quivered. Garrone helped him to wrap up the train in a handkerchief, and as he bent over, he made the things with which his pockets were filled rattle.
"Some day," said Precossi to me, "you shall come to the shop to see my father at work. I will give you some nails."
My mother put a little bunch of flowers into Garrone's buttonhole, for him to carry to his mother in her name. Garrone said, "Thanks," in his big voice, without raising his chin from his breast. But all his kind and noble soul shone in his eyes.
PRIDE.
Saturday, 11th.
The idea of Carlo Nobis rubbing off his sleeve affectedly, when Precossi touches him in passing! That fellow is pride incarnate because his father is a rich man. But Derossi's father is rich too. He would like to have a bench to himself; he is afraid that the rest will soil it; he looks down on everybody and always has a scornful smile on his lips: woe to him who stumbles over his foot, when we go out in files two by two! For a mere trifle he flings an insulting word in your face, or a threat to get his father to come to the school. It is true that his father did give him a good lesson when he called the little son of the charcoal-man a ragamuffin. I have never seen so disagreeable a schoolboy! No one speaks to him, no one says good by to him when he goes out; there is not even a dog who would give him a suggestion when he does not know his lesson. And he cannot endure any one, and he pretends to despise Derossi more than all, because he is the head boy; and Garrone, because he is beloved by all. But Derossi pays no attention to him when he is by; and when the boys tell Garrone that Nobis has been speaking ill of him, he says:--
"His pride is so senseless that it does not deserve even my passing notice."
But Coretti said to him one day, when he was smiling disdainfully at his catskin cap:--
"Go to Derossi for a while, and learn how to play the gentleman!"
Yesterday he complained to the master, because the Calabrian touched his leg with his foot. The master asked the Calabrian:--
"Did you do it intentionally?"--"No, sir," he replied, frankly.--"You are too petulant, Nobis."
And Nobis retorted, in his airy way, "I shall tell my father about it." Then the teacher got angry.
"Your father will tell you that you are in the wrong, as he has on other occasions. And besides that, it is the teacher alone who has the right to judge and punish in school." Then he added pleasantly:--
"Come, Nobis, change your ways; be kind and courteous to your comrades. You see, we have here sons of workingmen and of gentlemen, of the rich and the poor, and all love each other and treat each other like brothers, as they are. Why do not you do like the rest? It would not cost you much to make every one like you, and you would be so much happier yourself, too!--Well, have you no reply to make me?"