Cuore (Heart) by Edmondo De Amicis (ebook reader below 3000 txt) đź“–
- Author: Edmondo De Amicis
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“Do not say that, master; do not think it,” said my father. “You have done so much good in every way! You have put your life to such a noble use!”
The aged master inclined his hoary head for an instant on my father’s shoulder, and pressed my hand.
We entered the station. The train was on the point of starting.
“Farewell, master!” said my father, kissing him on both cheeks.
“Farewell! thanks! farewell!” replied the master, taking one of my father’s hands in his two trembling hands, and pressing it to his heart.
Then I kissed him and felt that his face was bathed in tears. My father pushed me into the railway carriage, and at the moment of starting he quickly removed the coarse cane from the schoolmaster’s hand, and in its place he put his own handsome one, with a silver handle and his initials, saying, “Keep it in memory of me.”
The old man tried to return it and to recover his own; but my father was already inside and had closed the door.
“Farewell, my kind master!”
“Farewell, my son!” responded the master as the train moved off; “and may God bless you for the consolation which you have afforded to a poor old man!”
“Until we meet again!” cried my father, in a voice full of emotion.
But the master shook his head, as much as to say, “We shall never see each other more.”
“Yes, yes,” repeated my father, “until we meet again!”
And the other replied by raising his trembling hand to heaven, “Up there!”
And thus he disappeared from our sight, with his hand on high.
CONVALESCENCE.Thursday, 20th.
Who could have told me, when I returned from that delightful excursion with my father, that for ten days I should not see the country or the sky again? I have been very ill—in danger of my life. I have heard my mother sobbing—I have seen my father very, very pale, gazing intently at me; and my sister Silvia and my brother talking in a low voice; and the doctor, with his spectacles, who was there every moment, and who said things to me that I did not understand. In truth, I have been on the verge of saying a final farewell to every one. Ah, my poor mother! I passed three or four days at least, of which I recollect almost nothing, as though I had been in a dark and perplexing dream. I thought I beheld at my bedside my kind schoolmistress of the upper primary, who was trying to stifle her cough in her handkerchief in order not to disturb me. In the same manner I confusedly recall my master, who bent over to kiss me, and who pricked my face a little with his beard; and I saw, as in a mist, the red head of Crossi, the golden curls of Derossi, the Calabrian clad in black, all pass by, and Garrone, who brought me a mandarin orange with its leaves, and ran away in haste because his mother is ill.
Then I awoke as from a very long dream, and understood that I was better from seeing my father and mother smiling, and hearing Silvia singing softly. Oh, what a sad dream it was! Then I began to improve every day. The little mason came and made me laugh once more for the first time, with his hare’s face; and how well he does it, now that his face is somewhat elongated through illness, poor fellow! And Coretti came; and Garoffi came to present me with two tickets in his new lottery of “a penknife with five surprises,” which he purchased of a second-hand dealer in the Via Bertola. Then, yesterday, while I was asleep, Precossi came and laid his cheek on my hand without waking me; and as he came from his father’s workshop, with his face covered with coal dust, he left a black print on my sleeve, the sight of which caused me great pleasure when I awoke.
How green the trees have become in these few days! And how I envy the boys whom I see running to school with their books when my father carries me to the window! But I shall go back there soon myself. I am so impatient to see all the boys once more, and my seat, the garden, the streets; to know all that has taken place during the interval; to apply myself to my books again, and to my copy-books, which I seem not to have seen for a year! How pale and thin my poor mother has grown! Poor father! how weary he looks! And my kind companions who came to see me and walked on tiptoe and kissed my brow! It makes me sad, even now, to think that one day we must part. Perhaps I shall continue my studies with Derossi and with some others; but how about all the rest? When the fourth grade is once finished, then good by! we shall never see each other again: I shall never see them again at my bedside when I am ill,—Garrone, Precossi, Coretti, who are such fine boys and kind and dear comrades,—never more!
FRIENDS AMONG THE WORKINGMEN.Thursday, 20th.
Why “never more,” Enrico? That will depend on yourself. When you have finished the fourth grade, you will go to the Gymnasium, and they will become workingmen; but you will remain in the same city for many years, perhaps. Why, then, will you never meet again? When you are in the University or the Lyceum, you will seek them out in their shops or their workrooms, and it will be a great pleasure for you to meet the companions of your youth once more, as men at work.
I should like to see you neglecting to look up Coretti or Precossi, wherever they may be! And you will go to them, and you will pass hours in their company, and you will see, when you come to study life and the world, how many things you can learn from them, which no one else is capable of teaching you, both about their arts and their society and your own country. And have a care; for if you do not preserve these friendships, it will be extremely difficult for you to acquire other similar ones in the future,—friendships, I mean to say, outside of the class to which you belong; and thus you will live in one class only; and the man who associates with but one social class is like the student who reads but one book.
Let it be your firm resolve, then, from this day forth, that you will keep these good friends even after you shall be separated, and from this time forth, cultivate precisely these by preference because they are the sons of workingmen. You see, men of the upper classes are the officers, and men of the lower classes are the soldiers of toil; and thus in society as in the army, not only is the soldier no less noble than the officer, since nobility consists in work and not in wages, in valor and not in rank; but if there is also a superiority of merit, it is on the side of the soldier, of the workmen, who draw the lesser profit from the work. Therefore love and respect above all others, among your companions, the sons of the soldiers of labor; honor in them the toil and the sacrifices of their parents; disregard the differences of fortune and of class, upon which the base alone regulate their sentiments and courtesy; reflect that from the veins of laborers in the shops and in the country issued nearly all that blessed blood which has redeemed your country; love Garrone, love Coretti, love Precossi, love your little mason, who, in their little workingmen’s breasts, possess the hearts of princes; and take an oath to yourself that no change of fortune shall ever eradicate these friendships of childhood from your soul. Swear to yourself that forty years hence, if, while passing through a railway station, you recognize your old Garrone in the garments of an engineer, with a black face,—ah! I cannot think what to tell you to swear. I am sure that you will jump upon the engine and fling your arms round his neck, though you were even a senator of the kingdom.
Thy Father.
Saturday, 29th.
On my return to school, the first thing I heard was some bad news. Garrone had not been there for several days because his mother was seriously ill. She died on Saturday. Yesterday morning, as soon as we came into school, the teacher said to us:—
“The greatest misfortune that can happen to a boy has happened to poor Garrone: his mother is dead. He will return to school to-morrow. I beseech you now, boys, respect the terrible sorrow that is now rending his soul. When he enters, greet him with affection, and gravely; let no one jest, let no one laugh at him, I beg of you.”
And this morning poor Garrone came in, a little later than the rest; I felt a blow at my heart at the sight of him. His face was haggard, his eyes were red, and he was unsteady on his feet; it seemed as though he had been ill for a month. I hardly recognized him; he was dressed all in black; he aroused our pity. No one even breathed; all gazed at him. No sooner had he entered than at the first sight of that schoolroom whither his mother had come to get him nearly every day, of that bench over which she had bent on so many examination days to give him a last bit of advice, and where he had so many times thought of her, in his impatience to run out and meet her, he burst into a desperate fit of weeping. The teacher drew him aside to his own place, and pressed him to his breast, and said to him:—
“Weep, weep, my poor boy; but take courage. Your mother is no longer here; but she sees you, she still loves you, she still lives by your side, and one day you will behold her once again, for you have a good and upright soul like her own. Take courage!”
Having said this, he accompanied him to the bench near me. I dared not look at him. He drew out his copy-books and his books, which he had not opened for many days, and as he opened the reading-book at a place where there was a cut representing a mother leading her son by the hand, he burst out crying again, and laid his head on his arm. The master made us a sign to leave him thus, and began the lesson. I should have liked to say something to him, but I did not know what. I laid one hand on his arm, and whispered in his ear:—
“Don’t cry, Garrone.”
He made no reply, and without raising his head from the bench he laid his hand on mine and kept it there a while. At the close of school, no one addressed him; all the boys hovered round him respectfully, and in silence. I saw my mother waiting for me, and ran to embrace her; but she repulsed me, and gazed at Garrone. For the moment I could not understand why; but then I perceived that Garrone was standing apart by himself and gazing at me; and he was gazing at me with a look of indescribable sadness, which seemed to say: “You are embracing your mother, and I shall never embrace mine again! You have still a mother, and mine is dead!” And then I understood why my mother had thrust me back, and I went out without taking her hand.
GIUSEPPE MAZZINI.
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