Heart (de Amicis)

Front matter

A SCHOOLBOY'S JOURNAL

BY

EDMONDO De AMICIS

The First Day of School

An Italian School Boy's Journal

OCTOBER

THE FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL

Monday, 17th.

To-day, is the first day of school.

The three months of vacation in the country have passed like a dream. This morning my mother took me to the Baretti schoolhouse to have me enter for the third elementary grade: I was thinking of the country, and went unwillingly. The streets were swarming with boys: the two book-shops were thronged with fathers and mothers who were purchasing bags, portfolios, and copy-books, and in front of the school so many people had collected, that the beadle and the policeman found it hard to keep the entrance clear. Near the door, I felt myself touched on the shoulder: it was my master of the second grade, cheerful, as usual, and with his red hair ruffled. He said to me:—

"So we are to part forever, Enrico?"

I knew it well, yet the words pained me.

We made our way in with difficulty. Ladies, gentlemen, women of the people, workmen, officials, nuns, and servants, all leading boys with one hand, and holding the promotion books in the other, filled the anteroom and the stairs, making such a buzzing, that it seemed like entering a theatre. I was glad to see once more that large room on the ground floor, with the doors leading to the seven classes, where I had passed nearly every day for three years. There was a throng of teachers going and coming. My schoolmistress of the first upper class greeted me from the door of the class-room, and said:—

"Enrico, you are going to the floor above, this year. I shall not even see you pass by any more!" And she gazed sadly at me.

The principal was surrounded by women who were much worried because there was no room for their sons; and it struck me that his beard was a little whiter than it had been last year. I found the boys had grown taller and stouter. On the ground floor, where the divisions had already been made, there were little children of the first and lowest sections, who did not want to enter the class-rooms, and who pulled back like donkeys: they had to be dragged in by force, and some ran away from the benches; others, when they saw their parents leave, began to cry, and the parents had to go back and comfort them, or take them away; while the teachers were in despair.

My little brother was placed in the class of Mistress Delcati: I was put with Master Perboni, upstairs on the first floor.

At ten o'clock we were all in our classes: fifty-four of us; only fifteen or sixteen of my companions of the second class, among them, Derossi, the one who always gets the first prize.

The school seemed so small and gloomy to me when I thought of the woods and the mountains where I had passed the summer! I thought again, too, of my master in the second class, who was so good, and who always smiled at us, and was so small that he seemed to be one of us; and I grieved that I should no longer see him, with his tumbled red hair. Our present teacher is tall; he has no beard; his hair is gray and long; and he has a straight line running crosswise on his forehead. He has a big voice, and he looks at us fixedly, one after the other, as though he were reading our very thoughts; and he never smiles. I said to myself: "This is my first day. There are nine months more. What work, what monthly examinations, what weariness!" I wanted to see my mother when I came out, and I ran to kiss her hand! She said to me:—

"Courage, Enrico! we will study together." And I returned home content. But I no longer have my master, with his kind, merry smile, and school does not seem so nice to me as it did before.

Our Master

OUR MASTER

Tuesday, 18th.

I like my new teacher too, since this morning. While we were coming in, and when he was already seated, some of his scholars of last year every now and then peeped in at the door to salute him; they would present themselves and greet him:—

“Good morning, Signer Teacher!” “Good morning, Signor Perboni!”

Some came in, touched his hand, and ran away. It was plain that they liked him, and would have been glad to return to him. He responded, “Good morning”, and shook the hands which were held out to him, but he looked at no one; at every greeting his smile remained serious, with that deep wrinkle on his brow, with his face turned towards the window, and staring at the roof of the house opposite; and instead of being cheered by these greetings, he seemed to suffer from them. Then he looked at us closely, one after the other. While he was dictating, he got down and walked among the benches. Catching sight of a boy whose face was all red with little pimples, he stopped dictating, took the lad's face between his hands and examined it; then he asked him what was the matter with him, and laid his hand on his forehead, to feel if it were hot. Meanwhile, a boy behind him got up on the bench, and began to play the marionette. The teacher turned round suddenly; the boy sat down at one dash, and remained there, with head hanging, in dread of being punished. The master placed one hand on his head and said to him:—

“Don't do so again.” Nothing more.

Then he returned to his table and finished the dictation. When he was done, he looked at us a moment in silence; then he said, very, very slowly, with his big but kind voice:—

“Listen. We have a year to pass together; let us see that we pass it well. Study and be good. I have no family; you are my family. Last year I had a mother; she is dead. I am left alone. I have no one but you in all the world; I have no other affection, no other thought than you: you must be my sons. I wish you well, and you must like me too. I do not wish to be obliged to punish any one. Show me that you are boys of heart: our school shall be a family, and you shall be my comfort and my pride. I do not ask you to give me a promise; I am sure that in your hearts you have already answered ‘yes’ and I thank you.”

Just then the beadle came in to announce the close of school. We all left our seats as quietly as could be. The boy who had stood upon the bench went up to the master, and said to him, in a trembling voice:

“Forgive me, Signor Master.”

The master kissed him on the brow, and said, “Go, my son.”

AN ACCIDENT

Friday, 21st.

The year has begun with an accident. On my way to school this morning I was repeating to my father

An Accident

AN ACCIDENT

Friday, 21st.

The year has begun with an accident. On my way to school this morning I was repeating to my father

the words of our teacher, when we noticed that the street was full of people, who were pressing close to the door of the schoolhouse. Suddenly my father said:—

“An accident! The year is beginning badly!”

We passed through with some difficulty. The big hall was crowded with parents and children, whom the teachers had not succeeded in placing in the classrooms, and all were turning towards the principal's room, and we heard the words, “Poor boy! Poor Robetti!”

Over their heads, at the end of the room, we could see the helmet of a policeman, and the bald head of the principal; then a gentleman with a tall hat entered, and all said, “That is the doctor.” My father inquired of a master, “What has happened?” “A wheel has passed over his foot,” replied the latter. “His foot has been crushed,” said another. He was a boy belonging to the second class, who, on his way to school through the Dora Grossa street, seeing a little child of the lowest class, who had run away from its mother, fall down in the middle of the street, a few paces from an omnibus which was bearing down upon it, had hastened forward boldly, caught up the child, and placed it in safety; but, as he had not withdrawn his own foot quickly enough, the wheel of the omnibus had passed over it. He is the son of a captain of artillery.

While we were being told this, a woman entered the big hall, like mad, and forced her way through the crowd: she was Robetti's mother, who had been sent for. Another woman hastened towards her, and flung her arms about her neck, with sobs: it was the mother of the baby who had been saved. Both flew into the room, and a desperate cry made itself heard: “Oh my Giulio! My child!”

At that moment a carriage stopped before the door, and a little later the director made his appearance, with the boy in his arms; the latter leaned his head on his shoulder, with pallid face and closed eyes. Every one stood very still; the sobs of the mother were audible. The director paused a moment, quite pale, and raised the boy up a little in his arms, in order to show him to the people. And then the masters, mistresses, parents, and boys all murmured together: “Bravo, Robetti! Bravo, poor child!” and they threw kisses to him; the mistresses and boys who were near him kissed his hands and his arms. He opened his eyes and said, “My satchel!” The mother of the little boy whom he had saved showed it to him and said, amid her tears, “I will carry it for you, my dear little angel; I will carry it for you.” And in the meantime, she bore up the mother of the wounded boy, who covered her face with her hands. They went out, placed the lad comfortably in the carriage, and the carriage drove away. Then we all entered school in silence.

The Calabrian Boy

THE CALABRIAN BOY

Saturday, 22d

Yesterday afternoon, while the master was telling us the news of poor Robetti, who will have to go on crutches, the director entered with a new pupil, a lad with a very brown face, black hair, large black eyes,

and thick eyebrows which met on his forehead: he was dressed entirely in dark clothes, with a black morocco belt round his waist. The director went away, after speaking a few words in the master's ear, leaving beside the latter the boy, who glanced about with his big black eyes as though frightened. The master took him by the hand, and said to the class:—

“You ought to be glad. To-day there enters our school a little Italian born in Reggio, in Calabria, more than five hundred miles from here. Love your brother who has come from so far away. He was born in a glorious land, which has given illustrious men to Italy, and which now furnishes her with stout laborers and brave soldiers; in one of the most beautiful lands of our country, where there are great forests, and great mountains, inhabited by people full of talent and courage. Treat him well, so that he shall not feel that he is far away from the city in which he was born; make him see that an Italian boy, in whatever Italian school he sets his foot, will find brothers there.” So saying, he rose and pointed out on the wall map of Italy the spot where lay Reggio, in Calabria. Then he called:—

“Ernesto Derossi!”—the boy who always gets the first prize. Derossi rose.

“Come here,” said the master. Derossi left his bench and stepped up to the little table, facing the Calabrian. “ As the head of the class,” said the master to him, “give a welcome to this new companion, in the name of the whole school the embrace of the sons of Piedmont to the son of Calabria.”

Derossi embraced the Calabrian, saying in his clear voice, “Welcome!” and the other kissed him impetuously on the cheeks. All clapped their hands. “Silence!” cried the master; “we don't clap hands in school!” But it was clear that he was pleased. And the Calabrian was pleased also. The master gave him a place, and went with him to the bench. Then he said again:—

“Bear well in mind what I have said to you. In order that this case might occur, that a Calabrian boy should be as though in his own house at Turin, and that a boy from Turin should be at home in Calabria, our country fought for fifty years, and thirty thousand Italians died. You must all respect and love each other; but any one of you who should give offense to this comrade, because he was not born in our province, would render himself unworthy of ever again raising his eyes from the earth when he passes the tricolored flag.”

Hardly was the Calabrian seated in his place, when his neighbors presented him with pens and a picture; and another boy, from the last bench, sent him a Swiss postage-stamp.

My Schoolmates

MY SCHOOLMATES

Tuesday, 25th.

The boy who sent the postage-stamp to the Calabrian is the one I like best of all. His name is Garrone: he is the biggest boy in the class; he is about fourteen years old; his head is large, his shoulders broad; he is good, as one can see when he smiles; but it seems as though he always thought like a man. I already know

several of my classmates. Another one I am taken with is named Coretti, and he wears chocolate-colored trousers and a catskin cap: he is always jolly; he is the son of a huckster of wood, who was a soldier in the war of 1866, in the squadron of Prince Umberto, and they say that he has three medals. There is little Nelli, a poor hunchback, a weak boy, with a thin face. There is one who is very well dressed, who always wears fine Florentine plush, and is named Votini. On the bench in front of me there is a boy who is called Muratorino (“the little mason”) because his father is a mason: his face is as round as an apple, with a nose like a small ball; he possesses a special talent: he knows how to make a hare's face, and they all get him to do it, and then they laugh. He wears a little ragged cap, which he carries rolled up in his pocket like a handkerchief. Beside Muratorino sits Garoffi, a long, thin, silly fellow, with the nose and beak of a screech-owl, and very small eyes, who is always trading in little pens and images and match-boxes, and who writes the lesson on his nails, in order that he may read it on the sly. Then there is a young gentleman, Carlo Nobis, who seems very haughty; and he is between two boys I like,—one the son of a blacksmith, clad in a jacket which reaches to his knees, who is pale, as though from illness, who always has a frightened air, and who never laughs; and the other with red hair, who has a withered arm, and carries it hung in a sling from his neck; his father has gone away to America, and his mother goes about peddling pot-herbs. And there is another curious fellow,—my neighbor on the left,—Stardi—small and thickset, with no neck,—a gruff fellow, who speaks

A GENEROUS DEED

to no one, and doesn't seem to understand much, but stands watching the master without winking, his brow lined with wrinkles, and his teeth set; and if he is questioned when the master is speaking, he makes no reply the first and second times, and the third time he gives a kick. And beside him there is a bold, cunning face, belonging to a boy named Franti, who has already been expelled from another district. There are, in addition, two brothers who are dressed exactly alike, who resemble each other to a hair, and both of whom wear caps of Calabrian cut, with a peasant's plume. But handsomer than all the rest, the one who has the most talent, who will surely be the head this year also, is Derossi; and the master, who has already perceived this, always questions him. But I like Precossi, the son of the blacksmith, the one with the long jacket, who seems sickly. They say that his father beats him; he is very timid, and every time that he addresses or touches any one, he says, “Excuse me”, and gazes at them with his kind, sad eyes. But Garrone is the biggest and the best.

A Generous Deed

A GENEROUS DEED

Wednesday, 26th.

It was this very morning that Garrone let us know what he is like. When I entered the school a little late, because the mistress of the upper first had stopped me to inquire at what hour she could find me at home, the master had not yet come, and three or four boys were teasing poor Crossi, the one with the red hair, who has a dead arm, and whose mother sells vegetables.

They were poking him with rulers, hitting him in the face with chestnut shells, and making him out to be a cripple and a monster, by mimicking him, with his arm hanging in the sling. And he, alone on the end of the bench, and quite pale, was gazing now at one and now at another with beseeching eyes, that they might leave him in peace. But the others mocked him worse than ever, and he began to tremble and to turn red with rage. All at once, Franti, the boy with the bad face, sprang upon a bench, and pretending that he was carrying a basket on each arm, he aped the mother of Crossi, when she used to come to wait for her son at the door; for she is ill now. Many began to laugh loudly. Then Crossi lost his head, and seizing an inkstand, he hurled it at the other's head with all his strength; but Franti dodged, and the inkstand struck the master, who entered at the moment, full in the breast.

All flew to their places, and became silent with terror.

The master, quite pale, went to his table, and said in a stern voice:—

“Who did it?”

No one replied.

The master raised his voice, and said again, “Who was it?”

Then Garrone, moved to pity for poor Crossi, rose abruptly and said resolutely, “It was I.”

The master looked at him, and at the stupefied scholars; then said in a quiet voice, “It was not you.”

And, after a moment: “The guilty one shall not be punished. Let him rise!”

Crossi rose and said, weeping, “They were striking me and insulting me, and I lost my head, and threw—”

“Sit down”, said the master. “Let those who provoked him rise.”

Four rose, and hung their heads.

“You,” said the master, “have insulted a companion who had given you no provocation; you have scoffed at an unfortunate lad, you have struck a weak person who could not defend himself. You have committed one of the basest, the most shameful acts with which a human creature can stain himself. Cowards!”

Having said this, he came down among the benches, put his hand under Garrone's chin, as the latter stood with drooping head, and having made him raise it, he looked him straight in the eye, and said, “You are a noble soul.”

Garrone profited by the occasion to murmur something in the ear of the master; and he, turning towards the four culprits, said abruptly, “I forgive you.”

My Schoolmistress of the Upper First

MY SCHOOLMISTRESS OF THE UPPER FIRST

Thursday, 27th.

My schoolmistress kept her promise, and came today just as I was on the point of going out with my mother to carry some linen to a poor woman recommended by the Gazette. It was a year since I had seen her in our house. We all made a great deal of her. She is just the same as ever,—a little thing, with a green veil wound about her bonnet, carelessly dressed, and with untidy hair, because she has not time to adorn

herself; but with a little less color than last year, with some white hairs, and a constant cough. My mother said to her:—

“And your health, my dear mistress? You do not take sufficient care of yourself!”

“It does not matter,” the other replied, with her smile, at once bright and sad.

“You speak too loud,” my mother added; “you exert yourself too much with your boys.”

That is true; her voice is always to be heard; I remember how it was when I went to school to her; she talked and talked all the time, so that the boys might not lose their attention, and she did not remain seated a moment. I felt quite sure that she would come, because she never forgets her pupils; she remembers their names for years. On the days of the monthly examinations, she runs to ask the director what marks they have won; she waits for them at the entrance, and makes them show her their compositions, in order that she may see what progress they have made; and many, who are now in the grammar school and wear long trousers and a watch, still come to see her.

To-day she had come back in a great state of excitement, from the picture-gallery, whither she had taken her boys, just as she had conducted them all to a museum every Thursday in years gone by, and explained everything to them. The poor mistress has grown still thinner than of old. But she is always brisk, and always becomes animated when she speaks of her school. She wanted to have a peep at the bed on which she had seen me lying very ill two years ago, and which is now occupied by my brother; she gazed at it for a while, and could not speak. She was obliged to go away soon to visit a boy belonging to her class, the son of a saddler, who is ill with the measles; and she had besides a package of sheets to correct, a whole evening's work; and she had still a private lesson in arithmetic to give to the mistress of a shop before nightfall.

“Well, Enrico,” she said to me as she was going, “are you still fond of your schoolmistress, now that you do hard sums and write long compositions?” She kissed me, and called up once more from the foot of the stairs: “You are not to forget me, you know, Enrico!”

Oh, my kind teacher, never, never shall I forget you! Even when I grow up I shall remember you and shall go to seek you among your boys; and every time I pass near a school and hear the voice of a schoolmistress, I shall think that I hear your voice, and I shall recall the two years I passed in your school, where I learned so many things, where I so often saw you ill and weary, but always earnest, always indulgent, in despair when any one was clumsy with his pen, trembling when the examiners asked us questions, happy when we made a good showing, always kind and loving as a mother. Never, never shall I forget you, my teacher!

In an Attic

IN AN ATTIC

Friday, 28th.

Yesterday evening I went with my mother and my sister Sylvia, to carry the linen to the poor woman recommended by the newspaper. I carried the bundle;

Sylvia had the paper with the initials of the name and the address. We went up to the very roof of a tall house, and through a long corridor with many doors. My mother knocked at the last; it was opened by a thin, fair woman who was still young, and it instantly struck me that I had seen her many times before, with that very same blue kerchief that she wore on her head.

“Are you the person of whom the newspaper says so and so?” asked my mother.

“Yes, signora, I am.”

“Well, we have brought you a little linen.”

The woman began to thank us and bless us, and could not make enough of it. Just then I noticed, in one corner of the bare, dark room, a boy kneeling in front of a chair, with his back turned towards us, who appeared to be writing; and he really was writing, with his paper on the chair and his inkstand on the floor. How did he manage to write in the dark? While I was saying this to myself, I suddenly recognized the red hair and the coarse jacket of Crossi, the son of the vegetable-peddler, the boy with the useless arm. I told this to my mother softly, while the woman was putting away the things.

“Hush!” replied my mother; “perhaps he will feel ashamed to see you giving alms to his mother: don't speak to him.”

But at that moment Crossi turned round; I was embarrassed; he smiled, and then my mother gave me a push, so that I should run to him and embrace him. I did so: he rose and took me by the hand.

“Here I am,” his mother was saying in the meantime to my mother, “alone with this boy, my husband in America these seven years, and I sick in addition, so that I can no longer make my rounds with my vegetables, and earn a few cents. We have not even a table left for my poor Luigino to do his work on. When there was a bench down at the door, he could, at least, write on the bench; but that has been taken away. He has not even light enough to study without ruining his eyes. And it is a mercy that I can send him to school, since the city provides him with books and copy-books. Poor Luigino, who would be so glad to study I Unhappy woman, that I am!”

My mother gave her all that she had in her purse, kissed the boy, and almost wept as we went out. And she had good cause to say to me: “Look at that poor boy; see how he is forced to work, when you have every comfort, and yet study seems hard to you! Ah, Enrico, there is more merit in the work which he does in one day, than in your work for a year. It is to such that the first prizes should be given!”

The School

THE SCHOOL

Friday, 28th.

Yes, study comes hard to you, my dear Enrico, as your mother says: I do not yet see you set out for school with that resolute mind and that smiling face which I should like. You are still unwilling. But listen; reflect a little! How poor and pitiable your day would be if you did not go to school! At the end of a week you would beg with clasped hands that you might return there, for you would be eaten up with weariness and shame; disgusted with your sports and with your existence. Everybody, everybody studies now, my child.

Think of the workmen who go to school in the evening after having toiled all the day; think of the women, of the girls of the people, who go to school on Sunday, after having worked all the week; of the soldiers who turn to their books and copy-books when they return exhausted from their drill! Think of the dumb and the blind who study, nevertheless; and last of all, think of the prisoners, who also learn to read and write. Reflect in the morning, when you set out, that at that very moment, in your own city, thirty thousand other boys are going like yourself, to shut themselves up in a room for three hours of study. Think of the army of boys who, at nearly this precise hour, are going to school in all countries. Behold them with your imagination, going, going, through the lanes of quiet villages; through the streets of the noisy towns, along the shores of rivers and lakes; here beneath a burning sun; there amid fogs, in boats, in countries which are cut with canals; on horseback on the far-reaching plains; in sledges over the snow; through valleys and over hills; across forests and torrents, over the solitary paths of mountains; alone, in couples, in groups, in long files, all with their books under their arms, clad in a thousand ways, speaking a thousand tongues, from the most remote schools in Russia, almost lost in the ice, to the furthermost schools of Arabia, shaded by palm-trees, millions and millions, all going to learn the same things, in a hundred varied forms. Imagine this vast, vast throng of boys of a hundred races, this immense movement of which you form a part, and remember, if this movement were to cease, humanity would fall back into barbarism; this movement is the progress, the hope, the glory of the world.

Courage, then, little soldier of the immense army! Your books are your arms, your class is your squad , the field of battle is the whole earth, and the victory is human civilization. Be not a cowardly soldier, my Enrico.

Your Father.

The Little Patriot of Padua

THE LITTLE PATRIOT OF PADUA

(The Monthly Story.)

Saturday, 29th.

I will not be a “cowardly soldier”, no; but I should be much more willing to go to school if the master would tell us a story every day, like the one he told us this morning.