Won by a woman <La maestrina degli operai> A story from life

Chapter I

5URIN schools are all pleasing in appearance; but the one situated in the suburb of Sant’

Antonio is the most charming of all. This suburb, which is separated by about one mile from the gates of the city, is inhabited chiefly by peasants and the workingmen of the two large iron mills and the sulphuric acid factories. The noise from these busy hives of industry disturbs the quiet of the village, and the smoke pouring from their great chimneys

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enshrouds it in clouds of dense bl^ck. The entire suburb consists of one main street, bordered on either side by queer little houses and gardens; and leading from this street out into the open fields is a broad lane. The school house is at the end of this lane and near it stands a solitary church.

It is a small, attractive building, two stories high; the first floor consists of five large rooms, for the use of the five elementary classes, and of two narrow rooms used by the janitor and his wife. On the second floor are the living apartments, each consisting of a little bedrbom and a kitchen. These apartments are occupied only by the four teachers and the principal’s family.

Back of the school building, enclosed by a wall, are five garden plots which belong to the teachers. The janitor acts as gardener and receives the vegetables he raises as compensation

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for his labor. But the strawberries and flowers are distributed among the occupants of the second floor.

This little colony of teachers, visited only at rare intervals by the superintendent of the schools of Turin, reside here as quietly and independently as they would in any country farmhouse. Only one thing blights the perfect harmony of this rural life — the long cold months of the foggy winter. During this season of the year, solitude and loneliness fill one’s soul with longing and depression.

It was on one of those gray, raw, wintry days toward the end of November, that Signorina Enrica Varetti, the young teacher, stood at the window of her little room and gazed gloomily over the roofs of the suburb. The murky smoke belched from the high factory chimneys, floating over the desolate snow-covered plain; and the fog hid from view the far dis- 1 1

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tant Alps, at the uttermost limits of this level stretch of land. The gloom of the season, the dreariness of the place, augmented Signorina Varetti’s sadness of heart. To-night she was to begin the instruction of the evening class of adults — a disagreeable duty which had just been assigned to her by the Board of Directors of the Turin schools.

Enrica Varetti’s predecessor, who was the wife of Signor Garollo the principal, had been forced to resign the position on account of a serious trouble with her eyesight. Signorina Varetti would not have felt so uneasy had she been assigned the teaching of the evening class of any other village; but the very thought of the people of Sant’ Antonio, with whom she must now associate daily, troubled her seriously.

They were mostly farm hands and peasants whose morals had been vitiated by frequent visits to the neighboring city, whither they went

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every Sunday for every low kind of dissipation. Every holiday brought a crowd of rowdies over to Sant’ Antonio to spend their day of leisure in gambling and drinking at the various saloons, which had tripled in number since the completion ot the street car line from the city.

Enrica Varetti pondered over these things and she grew heartsick with fear of the workingmen from the mills and factories; for she knew how difficult to control their coarse manners and riotous living would make them. The rude ways of the young boys, between the ages of ten and sixteen, made her apprehension still greater; she had often watched them as they came from their work at the factory, and she had shuddered to see them fight and to hear them use vile and blasphemous language. She had been informed, too, that these boys were even more corrupt and vicious than the men.

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However, this uneasiness was largely the result of a peculiar disposition and of the secluded life that she had led up to the present time. Signorina Varetti’s father,who belonged to an old family of the nobility, was a major in the Italian infantry and had fallen at the battle of Custoza, thus leaving her an orphan. Naturally timid, refined and impressionable she had led a quiet, restrained life in a strict provincial boardingschool, where she remained for her education until her eighteenth birthday.

In early childhood she had once witnessed, from the window of her home, a bloody stabbing affray between two miners, and this had left so strong an impression that she could never overcome her prejudice against common laborers. From that time she fancied that the lower classes lived in constant opposition to social laws and, consequently, she imagined them far more depraved than they are in reality. She believed

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also, that the penitentiaries and jails received from this element their largest percentage of inmates.

She would picture in her imagination a vast, dark, subterranean structure frequented by the most degraded and lowest rabble of both sexes; from there she would see streams of blood and wine flow out together, knife blades gleam and flash, and she would see the occupants attack and slay each other and hear them sing the obscene verses of filthy songs.

All this preyed upon her mind, and haunted her like a horrible nightmare from which she was unable to free herself for any length of time. If a person resembling one of this class passed her on the street, a shudder ran through her whole frame. She was frightened by their slang and bad language. If she happened to hear a quarrelsome discussion, she would grow deadly pale and feel her strength desert her, and she

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would return home trembling from head to foot; nevertheless, she possessed for these people an ungovernable curiosity and she was forced, against her own will, to watch them whenever she could do so without being noticed. If she chanced to overhear them upon the streets, she would meditate upon their strange words and expressions, for she considered these things the manifestations of their very souls. In newspapers devoted to an account of their actions, she would trace out the important events that marked their lives.

Again and again she tried to overcome this morbid aversion, for she was naturally kind and imbued with religious feelings, and she told herself that such an aversion toward the lower classes was narrow, unchristianlike, and based on ignorance. Social injustice, misery, bad examples and superstition were no doubt the causes which led these people to crime.

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When alone, wrapped in silent meditation, she felt herself grow angry at the injustice which society had done these people. After all, she told herself, they were but the results of present social inequalities; and she began to feel a deep love and a keen sympathy for those whom, but a few minutes before, she had looked upon with disgust and fear. She began to love them with a Christian love, and she pictured herself organizing bands of philanthropic women who should devote their lives to the redemption of these unfortunates. Yes, she would devote her existence to this noble work; she would penetrate into their dens and haunts, into the heart of the slums, to make their hard lives more tender and to open the darkness of their homes to mercy and charity.

It seemed to her that she must be successful in such a noble work, and her excited imagination would generally leave her weeping tears of 17

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sympathy; for she deemed herself, as by a miracle, armed with sufficient strength to undertake such a task at the very first opportunity.

But hardly an hour after taking such a resolution, she would pass one of the factories at a time when this ill-kempt noisy flood of humanity was pouring from its doors, and the same old dread would overcome her and she found every attempt at resistance to be in vain.

On Sunday nights gazing out of her window the young teacher could perceive the red lantern and the illuminated doorway of “The Inn of Gallina,” which stood at the lower end of the avenue. When hoarse and threatening voices announced the approach of a fight, her fancy would run riot, and picture the brandishing of knives and the falling of a lifeless body across the road. Then she would become weak and faint, and feel cold chills run through her body;

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it was often with difficulty that she mustered strength enough to close the window shutters.

Finally, she persuaded herself that she was powerless, that she could not overcome her strong dislike for such depraved people; and she tried to fortify her soul by establishing intimate friendships with the younger pupils of the second class. She feared that many of them would, when grown to a maturer age, become just as depraved and wicked as their elders — those drunken, quarrelsome, ferocious fellows; absorbed in this thought, she would watch them closely and try to discover the germs of those brutal instincts and passions that would sway the actions of their manhood.

Her study proved of no avail. The greater number of her pupils were so apathetic that they would not even brush the flies off their noses and eyes, and so far as penetrating into their hearts was concerned — after a year’s hard work *9

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at Sant’ Antonio she had not even succeeded in moving one boy to tears. The result of it all was, that her horror for “the other half” remained as terrible and ineradicable as at first.

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II

IGNORINA Varetti was aroused from her deep reverie by a caller whom she did not expect at this late hour. It was the Signora Mazzara, a school mistress, who had just arrived from Turin on Once every month — generally on Thursday afternoons — she made a point of calling on her suburban friend, as she called Enrica. The Signora was a thin, tall woman, all bone and muscle, with a complexion that resembled somewhat the color of ham; and she was the possessor of two beautiful, inquisitive, gray eyes that seemed to fairly scintillate over the tram-car.

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her pug nose. There came pouring from her mouth such an inexhaustible stream of words, flowing with such a wonderful rapidity, that one feared she would choke.

After kissing her friend, she gave a detailed account of everything she had done during that day. She had been everywhere. She had arisen at seven and called on a French lady friend, a teacher in the school of the Sacre Coeur , to make inquiries concerning another friend who was a teacher at the Facini Institute. She had also taken a trip to the “Oratorio” on Cottolengo street, for the purpose of recommending a a child to Don Bosco. Then she had carried the manuscript of another friend to the office of the “Teachers’ Union,” and attended to some personal affairs at the office of the “Choral Society,” of which she was a member. “ After all this,” concluded she, “I have come to see my friend Enrica.”

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As she drew closer to her friend, that she might kiss her. Signora Mazzara noticed the expression of sadness on the young girl’s countenance. “What is the matter? What has happened?” she asked in surprise.

Signorina Varetti beckoned her to a seat near the window, and then began to tell of her dread of the pupils of the evening school.

“Is that all?” exclaimed her friend quickly, with a smile. “Oh, my poor child! You should rest contented with your lot when you consider that the position pays eighty lires more than you are receiving now. You let your imagination run away with you. I assure you that you will be very well pleased with the work. You must not condemn these people- because their habits and manner of living, of which you are still ignorant, do not coincide with your own. On further acquaintance, I know that you will discover a number of good qualities in 2 3

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them, of which you have no idea as yet. I am somewhat of a socialist myself, as you well know.”

And, in fact, she was a socialist — she was a little of everything. A religious woman with those piously inclined, a democrat with those who believed in democracy, an aristocrat with the aristocracy; a great worker for woman’s rights, with those who held such ideas; in short. Signora Mazzara had the faculty of adapting herself to all conditions and people. She knew half the inhabitants of Turin; she visited many homes; she dined wherever she taught; she knew members of parliament, priests, officials, journalists, and people in needy circumstances for whom she sought employment. Her boast was that she had friends who were connected with all the highest institutions of learning and that she was on confidential terms with five or six principals of young ladies’ seminaries. She 24

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wrote flattering letters to famous people, in order that she might secure their autographs; she attended the funeral services of persons of a high rank, pushing her way even among the relatives of the dead, that she might be taken for an intimate friend of the family. She made a business of introducing people of the literary and educational world to each other. She was always ready to do anyone a favor, and she claimed to know everything and everybody. The only thing she did not make a pretense of knowing was the art of writing, and she seldom, if ever, discussed literature, for which she cared but little. She was born for a life of activity, and had absolutely no ambition to shine in letters. Her aim in life was to become the principal of a municipal school.

However, poor Signorina Varetti did not feel at all reassured by the consolation which her friend’poured forth in a continuous flow of words.

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She knew but too well, that a mistress of this very school of Sant* Andrea had just undergone a severe experience with the pupils of the evening class. Some of them carried their improper conduct to the extent of drawing obscene pictures on the blackboard, and this had caused such an uproarious merriment in the class that the poor instructor had been obliged to send for her father and have him present during the lessons. Another young lady teacher had found under the inkstand, an indecent letter addressed to her, and she had been almost frightened into a fever by the discovery of a live mouse in one of the drawers of her desk, placed there by a pupil. To cap the climax, the mistress of another suburban school, having reported some of the adult pupils to the authorities for misconduct, was attacked one night by these ruffians at a place where they knew she must pass, and thrown into a ditch.

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Signora Mazzara merely shrugged her shoulders after listening to these tales of woe and said: “All these stories are merely the product of a vivid imagination; young school-mistresses turn trifles into tragedies. Believe me,” she continued, “workingmen are good fellows, whom you can handle with ease, if you approach them in the right way. Those who abuse them the most, understand them the least. But of the women of the same class — well, that is another matter.”

In order to comfort her friend. Signora Mazzara related some of her own experience while teaching at the Sunday-school of Norberto Rosa. “Fancy yourself,” she said, “in charge of fifty ill-bred, noisy girls and women of all descriptions, ranging in age from ten to fifty — dressmakers, servants, waitresses, office girls; all as incorrigible and malicious as it is possible to be. They entered the school room boisterously, 27

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pulling and dragging each other; sometimes going so far as to strike each other, in their struggle to gain the seats nearest the windows. They were anxious to get the window seats, you know, in order that they might watch their sweethearts, who lounged about the corners in wait for them. And then, how conceited they were! The older ones would not even let me correct their compositions before the class, and when I reproved them, they would answer me back impertinently. The younger ones laughed and grinned at every attempt I made to improve their ways. One would insist upon devoting all her time to the learning of book-keeping; another cared only about the learning of letter-writing, that she might know how to compose love epistles; another one wished to be dismissed before the class was over, claiming that she was needed in the kitchen; still another one would fall asleep, having spent the previous night in 28

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sewing, or heaven knows at what! Believe me, Enrica, you are fortunate in having a class of men.”

While her friend had been speaking, Signorina Varetti noticed that she was attired in a beautiful, gray woolen dress, which she had never seen on the lady before. She expressed her admiration for the garment, although it fitted indifferently, and asked the price of it. The question seemed to embarrass Signora Mazzara; she blushed and answered quickly: t( Oh, it is only an old gown.” Despite this declaration, a disagreeable suspicion crossed Enrica Varetti’s mind; for she knew that this dress, as well as another that she had seen on her friend, last summer, was the cast-off garment of one of those handsome women who make their fortunes without a marriage certificate, and who had been taking writing lessons from the Signora, in order that she might appear to advantage in the gay world.

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Signora Mazzara, resuming her conversation continued: “ You ought to see those horrid girls! As soon as the bell rings, they run out helterskelter and falling over each other; it is a miracle they are not hurt more often. When they reach the street, they chase each other about and throw snowballs like rowdies. Their behavior is simply scandalous, and to make matters worse, a rough crowd of men congregate about the entrance of the school. If what the girls say is true, these men are their brothers or their cousins; so they pair off, each one with a so-called brother or cousin, and they go away arm-in-arm, without much pretense of formality; and this, right before the principal’s eyes!

tc Among these women there is a servant girl, a regular sneak, who has caused so much trouble that I believe we shall be obliged to turn her out of school. You never saw such an impudent hussy. She, too, like all the others, 30

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has a male cousin. You ought to see what a fine fellow he is! He comes all the distance from this side of Turin to wait for her. He is a tough, a desperado; he would stab a man to the heart at the first word. He makes love to the servant girl, but at the same time he is jealous of the amours of the other fellows. He would like to have all the girls to himself. He has already had quarrels with all the men, and they are deadly afraid of him, for he has spent a year in the penitentiary for his part in a stabbing affray. You ought to see his face! Why, his eyes alone are enough to make one shiver. And this shameless woman is proud of this fellow — can you understand it? She lords it over her companions, boasts of the superiority of her conquest, and threatens to have their brothers and lovers stabbed for the slightest offense. Only last Saturday, he and another man came to blows over some trivial dispute, and the police

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had to be called to stop them. Some day or other he will get killed. But he is a fine looking fellow, nevertheless. Last year he went to the Turin Arena to take part in a slugging match, and he succeeded in downing everyone who took part in the affair. He is not very tall, but has a fine physique, is strong and quick; and has beautiful black hair, which he combs down on his forehead. When he stands on the street corner during class hours, there are always a dozen girls who want to sit near the windows, and it is impossible to make them pay attention to their lessons and keep order. I can’t understand it — such a sweetheart would scare me to death.”

As she passed this last remark, she laughed and her hilarity displeased Enrica, for her friend’s words and actions were obviously at variance. Nevertheless, she might have expected as much, for Signora Mazzara was the daughter of a 32

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cooper, himself a pretty bad sort of an individual, and she had been brought up among three rough brothers, who associated with the commonest rabble of Turin and had been jailed several times for disorderly conduct. Signora Mazzara had risen above her family only by dint of hard study and by a kind of instinct that led her to associate with better people; nevertheless, she still retained an undefined sympathy for her early life and associates. Although she did not express herself openly on this subject, her feel* ings were easily detected by her bursts of spontaneous admiration for the deeds of the lower class.

All this was bound to hurt Signorina Varetti’s delicacy of feeling, and, in that one moment, she forgot their firm friendship of three years’ standing, and also a great favor which Signora Mazzara had rendered her. She rose from her chair, as if ready to leave the room, for she had

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grown impatient at listening to such empty chatter.

“Is it your intention to go out this evening?” asked the Signora. She replied in the affirmative, saying that she intended going to “Benediction,” as was her wont every day. On hearing this. Signora Mazzara’s bearing changed instantly, and she said, in the pious manner of a devout soul: “You are quite right, my child; I, too, feel the need of going to church once a day, and lifting my thoughts to God. I feel so much the better after it.”

Then she informed Enrica that it was high time for her to start on her way back to Turin. She had to visit a lady friend, a relative of a school mistress who had been a governess in the house of Prince Carignano; she had to take a message to the curate of the “ Consolato Church,” and she had numerous other duties to perform. Then, grasping Sigporina Varetti’s

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chin between her thumb and index finger, she said: “ Go to the evening school in good

spirits, my child; you will find your class composed of warm-hearted people, rough in appearance, but honest and respectful at bottom. Only be careful not to treat them haughtily, but as if you were one of them; and you will see, then, that they will adore you inside of a month.”

Signorina Varetti shook her head, despondently replying that her presentiments were anything but cheerful.

“ Stuff and nonsense!” answered the other; “ these people, like Satan, are not as black as they are painted.” Then she proceeded to advise her friend as to the best method of commencing her work, and suggested that she had better have the janitor present during the first few evenings.

Enrica smiled at the suggestion, for the janitor was a poor old man who pretended to be 35 very brave, but, in truth, was the very soul of cowardice. He never was to be found when any disturbance arose; it seemed as if he disappeared, like a phantom, through the walls.

“Well,” concluded Signora Mazzara, “ everything will turn out for the best, I am sure; and I know that you will be fully satisfied after a while.”

The young girl escorted her friend as far as the avenue; and all the way the Signora talked more rapidly than ever. She had still gossip galore to retail about ten other friends. At the door of the courtyard they met a young man, pipe in mouth, who wore a soft felt hat. He gazed fixedly at both women, and then stepped aside, in order to let them pass. He then entered the school house, but turned back as he did so, to stare at Signorina Varetti once more.

“It is he!” exclaimed the elder lady hurriedly.

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“And who is he?” asked her friend, much disturbed.

“He? He’s the young fellow of whom I have just been talking to you; the one who comes every Sunday to wait for that girl, his cousin. I didn’t know he lived in Sant’ Antonio. Why, you must know him.”

Enrica Varetti murmured that she had nevei noticed him.

“ He will be a pupil in your evening class,” remarked Signora Mazzara.

But Signorina Varetti assured her that he had not enrolled as yet.

“ Then,” said her friend, “he has certainly come to be registered, for he would not have entered the school for anything else.”

The young teacher grew deadly pale. Failing to notice her emotion Signora Mazzara kissed her, cried, “Good-by, Enrica!” and hurried away through the snow.

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NRICA Varetti re-entered the house with a fluttering heart. Had the man really come to register in her class? and why had he waited until ) she was given charge of the evening « pupils? She decided to go at once to the principal. Signor Garollo, and find out the truth of the matter. She feared, however, if she did this, that he would accuse her of faintheartedness. Her fears were confirmed a minute later by seeing, from her window, this young man and the principal talking together; the 38

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principal was bidding him good-by with a wave of his hand, his fingers spread apart, as if he were saying, “At eight o’clock.” She recognized the fellow at once, for his name was in everybody’s mouth. He was called Muroni, nicknamed “Saltafinestra,” (window-jumper), because when still a boy, he had jumped out of a high window, in order to escape the wrath of his infuriated father who would have killed him had he been able to catch him. It was a terrific jump and when he arose from the pavement of the street below, he found that he had broken his leg. His father had been a laborer in one of the Sant' Antonio mills and he died from the result of a blow he received from a transmission belt, as he lay in a drunken stupor near the machinery.

For a period of ten years previous to his death, the elder Muroni had subjected his wife and family to a life of misery. His poor wife.

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who worked in a tannery, was a devoted church member, and a good Christian. Her son was, by trade, a blacksmith; that is, he worked at it now and then, when the mood came over him. He spent day after day loafing in the low resorts of Turin, and had spent one year in jail for stabbing a man in a fight. He had caused the police no end of trouble, escaping from their grasp no less than ten times, and associating with the worst of the outcasts and toughs that disgraced the city. He was a gambler, a drunkard, an overbearing, ever-quarrelsome fellow, bereft of all sympathy or pity for his poor mother, from whom he would take the very last cent; threatening, if she refused him, to create a scandal in the church, by defacing the sacred images which she had in the house. In fact, when a crime or misdemeanor could not be fastened on anybody else, the police and the

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citizens of Sant* Antonio would invariably charge him with being the perpetrator.

Signorina Varetti had always feared the man greatly, and her fear had changed to a positive horror lately; for he had made it a practice to stare at her in an insolent manner whenever he chanced to pass her on the street, and he would turn and gaze until she had moved beyond the range of his sight. He seemed to enjoy the terror and confusion that his insolence caused her to suffer. In truth, a single glance from his black, shining, sinister eyes would cause the young teacher to change color and become breathless with emotion. Why had he come to register in the evening class of the school? This was a question that Enrica Varetti could not answer to her own satisfaction, but it was certainly not out of any ambition to improve his education. The most discomforting apprehensions flitted through her mind,

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prompted, no doubt, by the aversion she felt for dealing in any manner with such a man. She feared, too, that she had ill concealed the loathing she entertained for him, and that he was coming to the evening class for the sole purpose of avenging himself mercilessly. Or, on the other hand, he might, pretending friendship and submission, feign a sympathy for her trouble, in order to attempt, in his rude way, the conquest of her heart. Both of these suspicions weighed heavily on the poor girl’s mind.