Part 23 (1/2)

Suddenly he halted and said: ”Here he is. I will wager that this is he.”

Down the lane towards us a little old man with a white beard and a large hat was descending, leaning on a cane. He dragged his feet along, and his hands trembled.

”It is he!” repeated my father, hastening his steps.

When we were close to him, we stopped. The old man stopped also and looked at my father. His face was still fresh colored, and his eyes were clear and vivacious.

”Are you,” asked my father, raising his hat, ”Vincenzo Crosetti, the schoolmaster?”

The old man raised his hat also, and replied: ”I am,” in a voice that was somewhat tremulous, but full.

”Well, then,” said my father, taking one of his hands, ”permit one of your old scholars to shake your hand and to inquire how you are. I have come from Turin to see you.”

The old man stared at him in amazement. Then he said: ”You do me too much honor. I do not know--When were you my scholar? Excuse me; your name, if you please.”

My father mentioned his name, Alberto Bottini, and the year in which he had attended school, and where, and he added: ”It is natural that you should not remember me. But I recollect you so perfectly!”

The master bent his head and gazed at the ground in thought, and muttered my father's name three or four times; the latter, meanwhile, observed him with intent and smiling eyes.

All at once the old man raised his face, with his eyes opened widely, and said slowly: ”Alberto Bottini? the son of Bottini, the engineer? the one who lived in the Piazza della Consolata?”

”The same,” replied my father, extending his hands.

”Then,” said the old man, ”permit me, my dear sir, permit me”; and advancing, he embraced my father: his white head hardly reached the latter's shoulder. My father pressed his cheek to the other's brow.

”Have the goodness to come with me,” said the teacher. And without speaking further he turned about and took the road to his dwelling.

In a few minutes we arrived at a garden plot in front of a tiny house with two doors, round one of which there was a fragment of whitewashed wall.

The teacher opened the second and ushered us into a room. There were four white walls: in one corner a cot bed with a blue and white checked coverlet; in another, a small table with a little library; four chairs, and one ancient geographical map nailed to the wall. A pleasant odor of apples was perceptible.

We seated ourselves, all three. My father and his teacher remained silent for several minutes.

”Bottini!” exclaimed the master at length, fixing his eyes on the brick floor where the sunlight formed a checker-board. ”Oh! I remember well!

Your mother was such a good woman! For a while, during your first year, you sat on a bench to the left near the window. Let us see whether I do not recall it. I can still see your curly head.” Then he thought for a while longer. ”You were a lively lad, eh? Very. The second year you had an attack of croup. I remember when they brought you back to school, emaciated and wrapped up in a shawl. Forty years have elapsed since then, have they not? You are very kind to remember your poor teacher.

And do you know, others of my old pupils have come hither in years gone by to seek me out: there was a colonel, and there were some priests, and several gentlemen.” He asked my father what his profession was. Then he said, ”I am glad, heartily glad. I thank you. It is quite a while now since I have seen any one. I very much fear that you will be the last, my dear sir.”

”Don't say that,” exclaimed my father. ”You are well and still vigorous.

You must not say that.”

”Eh, no!” replied the master; ”do you see this trembling?” and he showed us his hands. ”This is a bad sign. It seized on me three years ago, while I was still teaching school. At first I paid no attention to it; I thought it would pa.s.s off. But instead of that, it stayed and kept on increasing. A day came when I could no longer write. Ah! that day on which I, for the first time, made a blot on the copy-book of one of my scholars was a stab in the heart for me, my dear sir. I did drag on for a while longer; but I was at the end of my strength. After sixty years of teaching I was forced to bid farewell to my school, to my scholars, to work. And it was hard, you understand, hard. The last time that I gave a lesson, all the scholars accompanied me home, and made much of me; but I was sad; I understood that my life was finished. I had lost my wife the year before, and my only son. I had only two peasant grandchildren left. Now I am living on a pension of a few hundred lire.

I no longer do anything; it seems to me as though the days would never come to an end. My only occupation, you see, is to turn over my old schoolbooks, my scholastic journals, and a few volumes that have been given to me. There they are,” he said, indicating his little library; ”there are my reminiscences, my whole past; I have nothing else remaining to me in the world.”

Then in a tone that was suddenly joyous, ”I want to give you a surprise, my dear Signor Bottini.”

He rose, and approaching his desk, he opened a long casket which contained numerous little parcels, all tied up with a slender cord, and on each was written a date in four figures.

After a little search, he opened one, turned over several papers, drew forth a yellowed sheet, and handed it to my father. It was some of his school work of forty years before.

At the top was written, _Alberto Bottini, Dictation, April 3, 1838_. My father instantly recognized his own large, schoolboy hand, and began to read it with a smile. But all at once his eyes grew moist. I rose and inquired the cause.