Part 16 (1/2)
THE SICK MASTER.
Sat.u.r.day, 25th.
Yesterday afternoon, on coming out of school, I went to pay a visit to my sick master. He made himself ill by overworking. Five hours of teaching a day, then an hour of gymnastics, then two hours more of evening school, which is equivalent to saying but little sleep, getting his food by s.n.a.t.c.hes, and working breathlessly from morning till night.
He has ruined his health. That is what my mother says. My mother was waiting for me at the big door; I came out alone, and on the stairs I met the teacher with the black beard--Coatti,--the one who frightens every one and punishes no one. He stared at me with wide-open eyes, and made his voice like that of a lion, in jest, but without laughing. I was still laughing when I pulled the bell on the fourth floor; but I ceased very suddenly when the servant let me into a wretched, half-lighted room, where my teacher was in bed. He was lying in a little iron bed. His beard was long. He put one hand to his brow in order to see better, and exclaimed in his affectionate voice:--
”Oh, Enrico!”
I approached the bed; he laid one hand on my shoulder and said:--
”Good, my boy. You have done well to come and see your poor teacher. I am reduced to a sad state, as you see, my dear Enrico. And how fares the school? How are your comrades getting along? All well, eh? Even without me? You do very well without your old master, do you not?”
I was on the point of saying ”no”; he interrupted me.
”Come, come, I know that you do not hate me!” and he heaved a sigh.
I glanced at some photographs fastened to the wall.
”Do you see?” he said to me. ”All of them are of boys who gave me their photographs more than twenty years ago. They were good boys. These are my souvenirs. When I die, my last glance will be at them; at those roguish urchins among whom my life has been pa.s.sed. You will give me your portrait, also, will you not, when you have finished the elementary course?” Then he took an orange from his nightstand, and put it in my hand.
”I have nothing else to give you,” he said; ”it is the gift of a sick man.”
I looked at it, and my heart was sad; I know not why.
”Attend to me,” he began again. ”I hope to get over this; but if I should not recover, see that you strengthen yourself in arithmetic, which is your weak point; make an effort. It is merely a question of a first effort: because sometimes there is no lack of apt.i.tude; there is merely an absence of a fixed purpose--of stability, as it is called.”
But in the meantime he was breathing hard; and it was evident that he was suffering.
”I am feverish,” he sighed; ”I am half gone; I beseech you, therefore, apply yourself to arithmetic, to problems. If you don't succeed at first, rest a little and begin afresh. And press forward, but quietly without f.a.gging yourself, without straining your mind. Go! My respects to your mamma. And do not mount these stairs again. We shall see each other again in school. And if we do not, you must now and then call to mind your master of the third grade, who was fond of you.”
I felt inclined to cry at these words.
”Bend down your head,” he said to me.
I bent my head to his pillow; he kissed my hair. Then he said to me, ”Go!” and turned his face towards the wall. And I flew down the stairs; for I longed to embrace my mother.
THE STREET.
Sat.u.r.day, 25th.
I was watching you from the window this afternoon, when you were on your way home from the master's; you came in collision with a woman. Take more heed to your manner of walking in the street.
There are duties to be fulfilled even there. If you keep your steps and gestures within bounds in a private house, why should you not do the same in the street, which is everybody's house. Remember this, Enrico. Every time that you meet a feeble old man, a poor person, a woman with a child in her arms, a cripple with his crutches, a man bending beneath a burden, a family dressed in mourning, make way for them respectfully. We must respect age, misery, maternal love, infirmity, labor, death. Whenever you see a person on the point of being run down by a vehicle, drag him away, if it is a child; warn him, if he is a man; always ask what ails the child who is crying all alone; pick up the aged man's cane, when he lets it fall. If two boys are fighting, separate them; if it is two men, go away: do not look on a scene of brutal violence, which offends and hardens the heart. And when a man pa.s.ses, bound, and walking between a couple of policemen, do not add your curiosity to the cruel curiosity of the crowd; he may be innocent.
Cease to talk with your companion, and to smile, when you meet a hospital litter, which is, perhaps, bearing a dying person, or a funeral procession; for one may issue from your own home on the morrow. Look with reverence upon all boys from the asylums, who walk two and two,--the blind, the dumb, those afflicted with the rickets, orphans, abandoned children; reflect that it is misfortune and human charity which is pa.s.sing by. Always pretend not to notice any one who has a repulsive or laughter-provoking deformity. Always extinguish every match that you find in your path; for it may cost some one his life. Always answer a pa.s.ser-by who asks you the way, with politeness. Do not look at any one and laugh; do not run without necessity; do not shout. Respect the street. The education of a people is judged first of all by their behavior on the street.
Where you find offences in the streets, there you will find offences in the houses. And study the streets; study the city in which you live. If you were to be hurled far away from it to-morrow, you would be glad to have it clearly present in your memory, to be able to traverse it all again in memory. Your own city, and your little country--that which has been for so many years your world; where you took your first steps at your mother's side; where you experienced your first emotions, opened your mind to its first ideas; found your first friends. It has been a mother to you: it has taught you, loved you, protected you. Study it in its streets and in its people, and love it; and when you hear it insulted, defend it.
THY FATHER.