JANUARY.
THE ASSISTANT MASTER.
Wednesday, 4th.
MY father was right; the master was in a bad humor because he was notwell; for the last three days, in fact, the assistant has been coming inhis stead,--that little man, without a beard, who seems like a youth. Ashameful thing happened this morning. There had been an uproar on thefirst and second days, in the school, because the assistant is verypatient and does nothing but say, "Be quiet, be quiet, I beg of you."
But this morning they passed all bounds. Such a noise arose, that hiswords were no longer audible, and he admonished and besought; but it wasa mere waste of breath. Twice the head-master appeared at the door andlooked in; but the moment he disappeared the murmur increased as in amarket. It was in vain that Derossi and Garrone turned round and madesigns to their comrades to be good, so that it was a shame. No one paidany heed to them. Stardi alone remained quiet, with his elbows on thebench, and his fists to his temples, meditating, perhaps, on his famouslibrary; and Garoffi, that boy with the hooked nose and thepostage-stamps, who was wholly occupied in making a catalogue of thesubscribers at two centesimi each, for a lottery for a pocket inkstand.The rest chattered and laughed, pounded on the points of pens fixed inthe benches, and snapped pellets of paper at each other with theelastics of their garters.
The assistant grasped now one, now another, by the arm, and shook him;and he placed one of them against the wall--time wasted. He no longerknew what to do, and he entreated them. "Why do you behave like this? Doyou wish me to punish you by force?" Then he thumped the little tablewith his fist, and shouted in a voice of wrath and lamentation,"Silence! silence! silence!" It was difficult to hear him. But theuproar continued to increase. Franti threw a paper dart at him, someuttered cat-calls, others thumped each other on the head; thehurly-burly was indescribable; when, all of a sudden, the beadle enteredand said:--
"Signor Master, the head-master has sent for you." The master rose andwent out in haste, with a gesture of despair. Then the tumult began morevigorously than ever. But suddenly Garrone sprang up, his face allconvulsed, and his fists clenched, and shouted in a voice choked withrage:--
"Stop this! You are brutes! You take advantage of him because he iskind. If he were to bruise your bones for you, you would be as abject asdogs. You are a pack of cowards! The first one of you that jeers at himagain, I shall wait for outside, and I will break his teeth,--I swearit,--even under the very eyes of his father!"
All became silent. Ah, what a fine thing it was to see Garrone, with hiseyes darting flames! He seemed to be a furious young lion. He stared atthe most daring, one after the other, and all hung their heads. When theassistant re-entered, with red eyes, not a breath was audible. He stoodin amazement; then, catching sight of Garrone, who was still all fieryand trembling, he understood it all, and he said to him, with accents ofgreat affection, as he might have spoken to a brother, "I thank you,Garrone."
STARDI'S LIBRARY.
I have been home with Stardi, who lives opposite the schoolhouse; and Ireally experienced a feeling of envy at the sight of his library. He isnot at all rich, and he cannot buy many books; but he preserves hisschoolbooks with great care, as well as those which his relatives givehim; and he lays aside every soldo that is given to him, and spends itat the bookseller's. In this way he has collected a little library; andwhen his father perceived that he had this passion, he bought him ahandsome bookcase of walnut wood, with a green curtain, and he has hadmost of his volumes bound for him in the colors that he likes. Thus whenhe draws a little cord, the green curtain runs aside, and three rows ofbooks of every color become visible, all ranged in order, and shining,with gilt titles on their backs,--books of tales, of travels, and ofpoetry; and some illustrated ones. And he understands how to combinecolors well: he places the white volumes next to the red ones, theyellow next the black, the blue beside the white, so that, viewed from adistance, they make a very fine appearance; and he amuses himself byvarying the combinations. He has made himself a catalogue. He is like alibrarian. He is always standing near his books, dusting them, turningover the leaves, examining the bindings: it is something to see the carewith which he opens them, with his big, stubby hands, and blows betweenthe pages: then they seem perfectly new again. I have worn out all ofmine. It is a festival for him to polish off every new book that hebuys, to put it in its place, and to pick it up again to take anotherlook at it from all sides, and to brood over it as a treasure. He showedme nothing else for a whole hour. His eyes were troubling him, becausehe had read too much. At a certain time his father, who is large andthickset like himself, with a big head like his, entered the room, andgave him two or three taps on the nape of the neck, saying with thathuge voice of his:--
"What do you think of him, eh? of this head of bronze? It is a stouthead, that will succeed in anything, I assure you!"
And Stardi half closed his eyes, under these rough caresses, like a bighunting-dog. I do not know, I did not dare to jest with him; it did notseem true to me, that he was only a year older than myself; and when hesaid to me, "Farewell until we meet again," at the door, with that faceof his that always seems wrathful, I came very near replying to him, "Isalute you, sir," as to a man. I told my father afterwards, at home: "Idon't understand it; Stardi has no natural talent, he has not finemanners, and his face is almost ridiculous; yet he suggests ideas tome." And my father answered, "It is because he has character." And Iadded, "During the hour that I spent with him he did not utter fiftywords, he did not show me a single plaything, he did not laugh once; yetI liked to go there."
And my father answered, "That is because you esteem him."
THE SON OF THE BLACKSMITH-IRONMONGER.
Yes, but I also esteem Precossi; and to say that I esteem him is notenough,--Precossi, the son of the blacksmith-ironmonger,--that thinlittle fellow, who has kind, melancholy eyes and a frightened air; whois so timid that he says to every one, "Excuse me"; who is alwayssickly, and who, nevertheless, studies so much. His father returns home,intoxicated with brandy, and beats him without the slightest reason inthe world, and flings his books and his copy-books in the air with abackward turn of his hand; and he comes to school with the black andblue marks on his face, and sometimes with his face all swollen, and hiseyes inflamed with much weeping. But never, never can he be made toacknowledge that his father beats him.
"Your father has been beating you," his companions say to him; and heinstantly exclaims, "That is not true! it is not true!" for the sake ofnot dishonoring his father.
"You did not burn this leaf," the teacher says to him, showing him hiswork, half burned.
"Yes," he replies, in a trembling voice; "I let it fall on the fire."
But we know very well, nevertheless, that his drunken father overturnedthe table and the light with a kick, while the boy was doing his work.He lives in a garret of our house, on another staircase. The portresstells my mother everything: my sister Silvia heard him screaming fromthe terrace one day, when his father had sent him headlong down stairs,because he had asked for a few soldi to buy a grammar. His fatherdrinks, but does not work, and his family suffers from hunger. How oftenPrecossi comes to school with an empty stomach and nibbles in secret ata roll which Garrone has given him, or at an apple brought to him by theschoolmistress with the red feather, who was his teacher in the firstlower class. But he never says, "I am hungry; my father does not give meanything to eat." His father sometimes comes for him, when he chances tobe passing the schoolhouse,--pallid, unsteady on his legs, with a fierceface, and his hair over his eyes, and his cap awry; and the poor boytrembles all over when he catches sight of him in the street; but heimmediately runs to meet him, with a smile; and his father does notappear to see him, but seems to be thinking of something else. PoorPrecossi! He mends his torn copy-books, borrows books to study hislessons, fastens the fragments of his shirt together with pins; and itis a pity to see him performing his gymnastics, with those huge shoes inwhich he is fairly lost, in those trousers which drag
on the ground, andthat jacket which is too long, and those huge sleeves turned back to thevery elbows. And he studies; he does his best; he would be one of thefirst, if he were able to work at home in peace. This morning he came toschool with the marks of finger-nails on one cheek, and they all beganto say to him:--
"It is your father, and you cannot deny it this time; it was your fatherwho did that to you. Tell the head-master about it, and he will have himcalled to account for it."
But he sprang up, all flushed, with a voice trembling withindignation:--
"It's not true! it's not true! My father never beats me!"
But afterwards, during lesson time, his tears fell upon the bench, andwhen any one looked at him, he tried to smile, in order that he mightnot show it. Poor Precossi! To-morrow Derossi, Coretti, and Nelli arecoming to my house; I want to tell him to come also; and I want to havehim take luncheon with me: I want to treat him to books, and turn thehouse upside down to amuse him, and to fill his pockets with fruit, forthe sake of seeing him contented for once, poor Precossi! who is so goodand so courageous.
A FINE VISIT.
Thursday, 12th.
This has been one of the finest Thursdays of the year for me. At twoo'clock, precisely, Derossi and Coretti came to the house, with Nelli,the hunchback: Precossi was not permitted by his father to come. Derossiand Coretti were still laughing at their encounter with Crossi, the sonof the vegetable-seller, in the street,--the boy with the useless armand the red hair,--who was carrying a huge cabbage for sale, and withthe soldo which he was to receive for the cabbage he was to go and buy apen. He was perfectly happy because his father had written from Americathat they might expect him any day. Oh, the two beautiful hours that wepassed together! Derossi and Coretti are the two jolliest boys in theschool; my father fell in love with them. Coretti had on hischocolate-colored tights and his catskin cap. He is a lively imp, whowants to be always doing something, stirring up something, settingsomething in motion. He had already carried on his shoulders half acartload of wood, early that morning; nevertheless, he galloped allover the house, taking note of everything and talking incessantly, assprightly and nimble as a squirrel; and passing into the kitchen, heasked the cook how much we had to pay a myriagramme for wood, becausehis father sells it at forty-five centesimi. He is always talking of hisfather, of the time when he was a soldier in the 49th regiment, at thebattle of Custoza, where he served in the squadron of Prince Umberto;and he is so gentle in his manners! It makes no difference that he wasborn and brought up surrounded by wood: he has nobility in his blood, inhis heart, as my father says. And Derossi amused us greatly; he knowsgeography like a master: he shut his eyes and said:--
"There, I see the whole of Italy; the Apennines, which extend to theIonian Sea, the rivers flowing here and there, the white cities, thegulfs, the blue bays, the green islands;" and he repeated the namescorrectly in their order and very rapidly, as though he were readingthem on the map; and at the sight of him standing thus, with his headheld high, with all his golden curls, with his closed eyes, and alldressed in bright blue with gilt buttons, as straight and handsome as astatue, we were all filled with admiration. In one hour he had learnedby heart nearly three pages, which he is to recite the day afterto-morrow, for the anniversary of the funeral of King Vittorio. And evenNelli gazed at him in wonder and affection, as he rubbed the folds ofhis apron of black cloth, and smiled with his clear and mournful eyes.This visit gave me a great deal of pleasure; it left something likesparks in my mind and my heart. And it pleased me, too, when they wentaway, to see poor Nelli between the other two tall, strong fellows, whocarried him home on their arms, and made him laugh as I have never seenhim laugh before. On returning to the dining-room, I perceived that thepicture representing Rigoletto, the hunchbacked jester, was no longerthere. My father had taken it away in order that Nelli might not see it.
THE FUNERAL OF VITTORIO EMANUELE.
January, 17th.
To-day, at two o'clock, as soon as we entered the schoolroom, the mastercalled up Derossi, who went and took his place in front of the littletable facing us, and began to recite, in his vibrating tones, graduallyraising his limpid voice, and growing flushed in the face:--
"Four years ago, on this day, at this hour, there arrived in front ofthe Pantheon at Rome, the funeral car which bore the body of VittorioEmanuele II., the first king of Italy, dead after a reign of twenty-nineyears, during which the great Italian fatherland, broken up into sevenstates, and oppressed by strangers and by tyrants, had been brought backto life in one single state, free and independent; after a reign oftwenty-nine years, which he had made illustrious and beneficent with hisvalor, with loyalty, with boldness amid perils, with wisdom amidtriumphs, with constancy amid misfortunes. The funeral car arrived,laden with wreaths, after having traversed Rome under a rain of flowers,amid the silence of an immense and sorrowing multitude, which hadassembled from every part of Italy; preceded by a legion of generals andby a throng of ministers and princes, followed by a retinue of crippledveterans, by a forest of banners, by the envoys of three hundred towns,by everything which represents the power and the glory of a people, itarrived before the august temple where the tomb awaited it. At thatmoment twelve cuirassiers removed the coffin from the car. At thatmoment Italy bade her last farewell to her dead king, to her old kingwhom she had loved so dearly, the last farewell to her soldier, to herfather, to the twenty-nine most fortunate and most blessed years in herhistory. It was a grand and solemn moment. The looks, the souls, of allwere quivering at the sight of that coffin and the darkened banners ofthe eighty regiments of the army of Italy, borne by eighty officers,drawn up in line on its passage: for Italy was there in those eightytokens, which recalled the thousands of dead, the torrents of blood, ourmost sacred glories, our most holy sacrifices, our most tremendousgriefs. The coffin, borne by the cuirassiers, passed, and then thebanners bent forward all together in salute,--the banners of the newregiments, the old, tattered banners of Goito, of Pastrengo, of SantaLucia, of Novara, of the Crimea, of Palestro, of San Martino, ofCastelfidardo; eighty black veils fell, a hundred medals clashed againstthe staves, and that sonorous and confused uproar, which stirred theblood of all, was like the sound of a thousand human voices saying alltogether, 'Farewell, good king, gallant king, loyal king! Thou wilt livein the heart of thy people as long as the sun shall shine over Italy.'
"After this, the banners rose heavenward once more, and King Vittorioentered into the immortal glory of the tomb."
FRANTI EXPELLED FROM SCHOOL.
Saturday, 21st.
Only one boy was capable of laughing while Derossi was declaiming thefuneral oration of the king, and Franti laughed. I detest that fellow.He is wicked. When a father comes to the school to reprove his son, heenjoys it; when any one cries, he laughs. He trembles before Garrone,and he strikes the little mason because he is small; he torments Crossibecause he has a helpless arm; he ridicules Precossi, whom every onerespects; he even jeers at Robetti, that boy in the second grade whowalks on crutches, through having saved a child. He provokes those whoare weaker than himself, and when it comes to blows, he grows ferociousand tries to do harm. There is something beneath that low forehead, inthose turbid eyes, which he keeps nearly concealed under the visor ofhis small cap of waxed cloth, which inspires a shudder. He fears no one;he laughs in the master's face; he steals when he gets a chance; hedenies it with an impenetrable countenance; he is always engaged in aquarrel with some one; he brings big pins to school, to prick hisneighbors with; he tears the buttons from his own jackets and from thoseof others, and plays with them: his paper, books, and copy-books are allcrushed, torn, dirty; his ruler is jagged, his pens gnawed, his nailsbitten, his clothes covered with stains and rents which he has got inhis brawls. They say that his mother has fallen ill from the troublethat he causes her, and that his father has driven him from the housethree times; his mother comes every now and then to make inquiries, andshe always goes away in tears. He hates school, he hates hiscomp
anions, he hates the teacher. The master sometimes pretends not tosee his rascalities, and he behaves all the worse. He tried to get ahold on him by kind treatment, and the boy ridiculed him for it. He saidterrible things to him, and the boy covered his face with his hands, asthough he were crying; but he was laughing. He was suspended from schoolfor three days, and he returned more perverse and insolent than before.Derossi said to him one day, "Stop it! don't you see how much theteacher suffers?" and the other threatened to stick a nail into hisstomach. But this morning, at last, he got himself driven out like adog. While the master was giving to Garrone the rough draft of _TheSardinian Drummer-Boy_, the monthly story for January, to copy, he threwa petard on the floor, which exploded, making the schoolroom resound asfrom a discharge of musketry. The whole class was startled by it. Themaster sprang to his feet, and cried:--
"Franti, leave the school!"
The latter retorted, "It wasn't I;" but he laughed. The masterrepeated:--
"Go!"
"I won't stir," he answered.
Then the master lost his temper, and flung himself upon him, seized himby the arms, and tore him from his seat. He resisted, ground his teeth,and made him carry him out by main force. The master bore him thus,heavy as he was, to the head-master, and then returned to the schoolroomalone and seated himself at his little table, with his head clutched inhis hands, gasping, and with an expression of such weariness and troublethat it was painful to look at him.
"After teaching school for thirty years!" he exclaimed sadly, shakinghis head. No one breathed. His hands were trembling with fury, and theperpendicular wrinkle that he has in the middle of his forehead was sodeep that it seemed like a wound. Poor master! All felt sorry for him.Derossi rose and said, "Signor Master, do not grieve. We love you." Andthen he grew a little more tranquil, and said, "We will go on with thelesson, boys."
THE SARDINIAN DRUMMER-BOY.
(_Monthly Story._)
On the first day of the battle of Custoza, on the 24th of July, 1848,about sixty soldiers, belonging to an infantry regiment of our army, whohad been sent to an elevation to occupy an isolated house, suddenlyfound themselves assaulted by two companies of Austrian soldiers, who,showering them with bullets from various quarters, hardly gave them timeto take refuge in the house and to barricade the doors, after leavingseveral dead and wounded on the field. Having barred the doors, our menran in haste to the windows of the ground floor and the first story, andbegan to fire brisk discharges at their assailants, who, approachinggradually, ranged in a semicircle, made vigorous reply. The sixtyItalian soldiers were commanded by two non-commissioned officers and acaptain, a tall, dry, austere old man, with white hair and mustache; andwith them there was a Sardinian drummer-boy, a lad of a little overfourteen, who did not look twelve, small, with an olive-browncomplexion, and two small, deep, sparkling eyes. The captain directedthe defence from a room on the first floor, launching commands thatseemed like pistol-shots, and no sign of emotion was visible on his ironcountenance. The drummer-boy, a little pale, but firm on his legs, hadjumped upon a table, and was holding fast to the wall and stretching outhis neck in order to gaze out of the windows, and athwart the smoke onthe fields he saw the white uniforms of the Austrians, who were slowlyadvancing. The house was situated at the summit of a steep declivity,and on the side of the slope it had but one high window, correspondingto a chamber in the roof: therefore the Austrians did not threaten thehouse from that quarter, and the slope was free; the fire beat only uponthe front and the two ends.
But it was an infernal fire, a hailstorm of leaden bullets, which splitthe walls on the outside, ground the tiles to powder, and in theinterior cracked ceilings, furniture, window-frames, and door-frames,sending splinters of wood flying through the air, and clouds of plaster,and fragments of kitchen utensils and glass, whizzing, and rebounding,and breaking everything with a noise like the crushing of a skull. Fromtime to time one of the soldiers who were firing from the windows fellcrashing back to the floor, and was dragged to one side. Some staggeredfrom room to room, pressing their hands on their wounds. There wasalready one dead body in the kitchen, with its forehead cleft. Thesemicircle of the enemy was drawing together.
At a certain point the captain, hitherto impassive, was seen to make agesture of uneasiness, and to leave the room with huge strides, followedby a sergeant. Three minutes later the sergeant returned on a run, andsummoned the drummer-boy, making him a sign to follow. The lad followedhim at a quick pace up the wooden staircase, and entered with him intoa bare garret, where he saw the captain writing with a pencil on a sheetof paper, as he leaned against the little window; and on the floor athis feet lay the well-rope.
The captain folded the sheet of paper, and said sharply, as he fixed hiscold gray eyes, before which all the soldiers trembled, on the boy:--
"Drummer!"
The drummer-boy put his hand to his visor.
The captain said, "You have courage."
The boy's eyes flashed.
"Yes, captain," he replied.
"Look down there," said the captain, pushing him to the window; "on theplain, near the houses of Villafranca, where there is a gleam ofbayonets. There stand our troops, motionless. You are to take thisbillet, tie yourself to the rope, descend from the window, get down thatslope in an instant, make your way across the fields, arrive at our men,and give the note to the first officer you see. Throw off your belt andknapsack."
The drummer took off his belt and knapsack and thrust the note into hisbreast pocket; the sergeant flung the rope out of the window, and heldone end of it clutched fast in his hands; the captain helped the lad toclamber out of the small window, with his back turned to the landscape.
"Now look out," he said; "the salvation of this detachment lies in yourcourage and in your legs."
"Trust to me, Signor Captain," replied the drummer-boy, as he lethimself down.
"Bend over on the slope," said the captain, grasping the rope, with thesergeant.
"Never fear."
"God aid you!"
In a few moments the drummer-boy was on the ground; the sergeant drew inthe rope and disappeared; the captain stepped impetuously in front ofthe window and saw the boy flying down the slope.
He was already hoping that he had succeeded in escaping unobserved, whenfive or six little puffs of powder, which rose from the earth in frontof and behind the lad, warned him that he had been espied by theAustrians, who were firing down upon him from the top of the elevation:these little clouds were thrown into the air by the bullets. But thedrummer continued to run at a headlong speed. All at once he fell to theearth. "He is killed!" roared the captain, biting his fist. But beforehe had uttered the word he saw the drummer spring up again. "Ah, only afall," he said to himself, and drew a long breath. The drummer, in fact,set out again at full speed; but he limped. "He has turned his ankle,"thought the captain. Again several cloudlets of powder smoke rose hereand there about the lad, but ever more distant. He was safe. The captainuttered an exclamation of triumph. But he continued to follow him withhis eyes, trembling because it was an affair of minutes: if he did notarrive yonder in the shortest possible time with that billet, whichcalled for instant succor, either all his soldiers would be killed or heshould be obliged to surrender himself a prisoner with them.
The boy ran rapidly for a space, then relaxed his pace and limped, thenresumed his course, but grew constantly more fatigued, and every littlewhile he stumbled and paused.
"Perhaps a bullet has grazed him," thought the captain, and he noted allhis movements, quivering with excitement; and he encouraged him, hespoke to him, as though he could hear him; he measured incessantly, witha flashing eye, the space intervening between the fleeing boy and thatgleam of arms which he could see in the distance on the plain amid thefields of grain gilded by the sun. And meanwhile he heard the whistleand the crash of the bullets in the rooms beneath, the imperious andangry shouts of the sergeants and the officers, the piercing laments ofthe wounded, the ruin of furniture, and t
he fall of rubbish.
"On! courage!" he shouted, following the far-off drummer with hisglance. "Forward! run! He halts, that cursed boy! Ah, he resumes hiscourse!"
An officer came panting to tell him that the enemy, without slackeningtheir fire, were flinging out a white flag to hint at a surrender."Don't reply to them!" he cried, without detaching his eyes from theboy, who was already on the plain, but who was no longer running, andwho seemed to be dragging himself along with difficulty.
"Go! run!" said the captain, clenching his teeth and his fists; "letthem kill you; die, you rascal, but go!" Then he uttered a horribleoath. "Ah, the infamous poltroon! he has sat down!" In fact, the boy,whose head he had hitherto been able to see projecting above a field ofgrain, had disappeared, as though he had fallen; but, after the lapse ofa minute, his head came into sight again; finally, it was lost behindthe hedges, and the captain saw it no more.
Then he descended impetuously; the bullets were coming in a tempest; therooms were encumbered with the wounded, some of whom were whirling roundlike drunken men, and clutching at the furniture; the walls and floorwere bespattered with blood; corpses lay across the doorways; thelieutenant had had his arm shattered by a ball; smoke and clouds of dustenveloped everything.
"Courage!" shouted the captain. "Stand firm at your post! Succor is onthe way! Courage for a little while longer!"
The Austrians had approached still nearer: their contorted faces werealready visible through the smoke, and amid the crash of the firingtheir savage and offensive shouts were audible, as they uttered insults,suggested a surrender, and threatened slaughter. Some soldiers wereterrified, and withdrew from the windows; the sergeants drove themforward again. But the fire of the defence weakened; discouragement madeits appearance on all faces. It was not possible to protract theresistance longer. At a given moment the fire of the Austriansslackened, and a thundering voice shouted, first in German and then inItalian, "Surrender!"
"No!" howled the captain from a window.
And the firing recommenced more fast and furious on both sides. Moresoldiers fell. Already more than one window was without defenders. Thefatal moment was near at hand. The captain shouted through his teeth, ina strangled voice, "They are not coming! they are not coming!" andrushed wildly about, twisting his sword about in his convulsivelyclenched hand, and resolved to die; when a sergeant descending from thegarret, uttered a piercing shout, "They are coming!" "They are coming!"repeated the captain, with a cry of joy.
At that cry all, well and wounded, sergeants and officers, rushed to thewindows, and the resistance became fierce once more. A few moments latera sort of uncertainty was noticeable, and a beginning of disorder amongthe foe. Suddenly the captain hastily collected a little troop in theroom on the ground floor, in order to make a sortie with fixed bayonets.Then he flew up stairs. Scarcely had he arrived there when they heard ahasty trampling of feet, accompanied by a formidable hurrah, and sawfrom the windows the two-pointed hats of the Italian carabineersadvancing through the smoke, a squadron rushing forward at great speed,and a lightning flash of blades whirling in the air, as they fell onheads, on shoulders, and on backs. Then the troop darted out of thedoor, with bayonets lowered; the enemy wavered, were thrown intodisorder, and turned their backs; the field was left unincumbered, thehouse was free, and a little later two battalions of Italian infantryand two cannons occupied the eminence.
The captain, with the soldiers that remained to him, rejoined hisregiment, went on fighting, and was slightly wounded in the left hand bya bullet on the rebound, in the final assault with bayonets.
The day ended with the victory on our side.
But on the following day, the conflict having begun again, the Italianswere overpowered by the overwhelming numbers of the Austrians, in spiteof a valorous resistance, and on the morning of the 27th they sadlyretreated towards the Mincio.
The captain, although wounded, made the march on foot with his soldiers,weary and silent, and, arrived at the close of the day at Goito, on theMincio, he immediately sought out his lieutenant, who had been picked upwith his arm shattered, by our ambulance corps, and who must havearrived before him. He was directed to a church, where the fieldhospital had been installed in haste. Thither he betook himself. Thechurch was full of wounded men, ranged in two lines of beds, and onmattresses spread on the floor; two doctors and numerous assistants weregoing and coming, busily occupied; and suppressed cries and groans wereaudible.
No sooner had the captain entered than he halted and cast a glancearound, in search of his officer.
At that moment he heard himself called in a weak voice,--"SignorCaptain!" He turned round. It was his drummer-boy. He was lying on a cotbed, covered to the breast with a coarse window curtain, in red andwhite squares, with his arms on the outside, pale and thin, but witheyes which still sparkled like black gems.
"Are you here?" asked the captain, amazed, but still sharply. "Bravo!You did your duty."
"I did all that I could," replied the drummer-boy.
"Were you wounded?" said the captain, seeking with his eyes for hisofficer in the neighboring beds.
"What could one expect?" said the lad, who gained courage by speaking,expressing the lofty satisfaction of having been wounded for the firsttime, without which he would not have dared to open his mouth in thepresence of this captain; "I had a fine run, all bent over, but suddenlythey caught sight of me. I should have arrived twenty minutes earlier ifthey had not hit me. Luckily, I soon came across a captain of the staff,to whom I gave the note. But it was hard work to get down after thatcaress! I was dying of thirst. I was afraid that I should not get thereat all. I wept with rage at the thought that at every moment of delayanother man was setting out yonder for the other world. But enough! Idid what I could. I am content. But, with your permission, captain, youshould look to yourself: you are losing blood."
Several drops of blood had in fact trickled down on the captain'sfingers from his imperfectly bandaged palm.
"Would you like to have me give the bandage a turn, captain? Hold ithere a minute."
The captain held out his left hand, and stretched out his right to helpthe lad to loosen the knot and to tie it again; but no sooner had theboy raised himself from his pillow than he turned pale and was obligedto support his head once more.
"That will do, that will do," said the captain, looking at him andwithdrawing his bandaged hand, which the other tried to retain. "Attendto your own affairs, instead of thinking of others, for things that arenot severe may become serious if they are neglected."
The drummer-boy shook his head.
"But you," said the captain, observing him attentively, "must have losta great deal of blood to be as weak as this."
"Must have lost a great deal of blood!" replied the boy, with a smile."Something else besides blood: look here." And with one movement he drewaside the coverlet.
The captain started back a pace in horror.
The lad had but one leg. His left leg had been amputated above the knee;the stump was swathed in blood-stained cloths.
At that moment a small, plump, military surgeon passed, in hisshirt-sleeves. "Ah, captain," he said, rapidly, nodding towards thedrummer, "this is an unfortunate case; there is a leg that might havebeen saved if he had not exerted himself in such a crazy manner--thatcursed inflammation! It had to be cut off away up here. Oh, but he's abrave lad. I can assure you! He never shed a tear, nor uttered a cry!He was proud of being an Italian boy, while I was performing theoperation, upon my word of honor. He comes of a good race, by Heavens!"And away he went, on a run.
The captain wrinkled his heavy white brows, gazed fixedly at thedrummer-boy, and spread the coverlet over him again, and slowly, then asthough unconsciously, and still gazing intently at him, he raised hishand to his head, and lifted his cap.
"Signor Captain!" exclaimed the boy in amazement. "What are you doing,captain? To me!"
And then that rough soldier, who had never said a gentle word to aninferior, replied in an indesc
ribably sweet and affectionate voice, "Iam only a captain; you are a hero."
Then he threw himself with wide-spread arms upon the drummer-boy, andkissed him three times upon the heart.
THE LOVE OF COUNTRY.
Tuesday, 24th.
Since the tale of the _Drummer-boy_ has touched your heart, it should be easy for you this morning to do your composition for examination--_Why you love Italy_--well. Why do I love Italy? Do not a hundred answers present themselves to you on the instant? I love Italy because my mother is an Italian; because the blood that flows in my veins is Italian; because the soil in which are buried the dead whom my mother mourns and whom my father venerates is Italian; because the town in which I was born, the language that I speak, the books that educate me,--because my brother, my sister, my comrades, the great people among whom I live, and the beautiful nature which surrounds me, and all that I see, that I love, that I study, that I admire, is Italian. Oh, you cannot feel that affection in its entirety! You will feel it when you become a man; when, returning from a long journey, after a prolonged absence, you step up in the morning to the bulwarks of the vessel and see on the distant horizon the lofty blue mountains of your country; you will feel it then in the impetuous flood of tenderness which will fill your eyes with tears and will wrest a cry from your heart. You will feel it in some great and distant city, in that impulse of the soul which will impel you from the strange throng towards a workingman from whom you have heard in passing a word in your own tongue. You will feel it in that sad and proud wrath which will drive the blood to your brow when you hear insults to your country from the mouth of a stranger. You will feel it in more proud and vigorous measure on the day when the menace of a hostile race shall call forth a tempest of fire upon your country, and when you shall behold arms raging on every side, youths thronging in legions, fathers kissing their children and saying, "Courage!" mothers bidding adieu to their young sons and crying, "Conquer!" You will feel it like a joy divine if you have the good fortune to behold the re-entrance to your town of the regiments, weary, ragged, with thinned ranks, yet terrible, with the splendor of victory in their eyes, and their banners torn by bullets, followed by a vast convoy of brave fellows, bearing their bandaged heads and their stumps of arms loftily, amid a wild throng, which covers them with flowers, with blessings, and with kisses. Then you will comprehend the love of country; then you will feel your country, Enrico. It is a grand and sacred thing. May I one day see you return in safety from a battle fought for her, safe,--you who are my flesh and soul; but if I should learn that you have preserved your life because you were concealed from death, your father, who welcomes you with a cry of joy when you return from school, will receive you with a sob of anguish, and I shall never be able to love you again, and I shall die with that dagger in my heart.
THY FATHER.
ENVY.
Wednesday, 25th.
The boy who wrote the best composition of all on our country wasDerossi, as usual. And Votini, who thought himself sure of the firstmedal--I like Votini well enough, although he is rather vain and doespolish himself up a trifle too much,--but it makes me scorn him, nowthat I am his neighbor on the bench, to see how envious he is ofDerossi. He would like to vie with him; he studies hard, but he cannotdo it by any possibility, for the other is ten times as strong as he ison every point; and Votini rails at him. Carlo Nobis envies him also;but he has so much pride in his body that, purely from pride, he doesnot allow it to be perceived. Votini, on the other hand, betrayshimself: he complains of his difficulties at home, and says that themaster is unjust to him; and when Derossi replies so promptly and sowell to questions, as he always does, his face clouds over, he hangs hishead, pretends not to hear, or tries to laugh, but he laughs awkwardly.And thus every one knows about it, so that when the master praisesDerossi they all turn to look at Votini, who chews his venom, and thelittle mason makes a hare's face at him. To-day, for instance, he wasput to the torture. The head-master entered the school and announced theresult of the examination,--"Derossi ten tenths and the first medal."
Votini gave a huge sneeze. The master looked at him: it was not hard tounderstand the matter. "Votini," he said, "do not let the serpent ofenvy enter your body; it is a serpent which gnaws at the brain andcorrupts the heart."
"THEN THE TROOP DARTED OUT OF THE DOOR."--Page 97.]
Every one stared at him except Derossi. Votini tried to make someanswer, but could not; he sat there as though turned to stone, and witha white face. Then, while the master was conducting the lesson, he beganto write in large characters on a sheet of paper, "_I am not envious ofthose who gain the first medal through favoritism and injustice._" Itwas a note which he meant to send to Derossi. But, in the meantime, Iperceived that Derossi's neighbors were plotting among themselves, andwhispering in each other's ears, and one cut with penknife from paper abig medal on which they had drawn a black serpent. But Votini did notnotice this. The master went out for a few moments. All at onceDerossi's neighbors rose and left their seats, for the purpose of comingand solemnly presenting the paper medal to Votini. The whole class wasprepared for a scene. Votini had already begun to quiver all over.Derossi exclaimed:--
"Give that to me!"
"So much the better," they replied; "you are the one who ought to carryit."
Derossi took the medal and tore it into bits. At that moment the masterreturned, and resumed the lesson. I kept my eye on Votini. He had turnedas red as a coal. He took his sheet of paper very, very quietly, asthough in absence of mind, rolled it into a ball, on the sly, put itinto his mouth, chewed it a little, and then spit it out under thebench. When school broke up, Votini, who was a little confused, let fallhis blotting-paper, as he passed Derossi. Derossi politely picked it up,put it in his satchel, and helped him to buckle the straps. Votini darednot raise his eyes.
FRANTI'S MOTHER.
Saturday, 28th.
But Votini is incorrigible. Yesterday morning, during the lesson onreligion, in the presence of the head-master, the teacher asked Derossiif he knew by heart the two couplets in the reading-book,--
"Where'er I turn my gaze, 'tis Thee, great God, I see."
Derossi said that he did not, and Votini suddenly exclaimed, "I knowthem!" with a smile, as though to pique Derossi. But he was piquedhimself, instead, for he could not recite the poetry, because Franti'smother suddenly flew into the schoolroom, breathless, with her gray hairdishevelled and all wet with snow, and pushing before her her son, whohad been suspended from school for a week. What a sad scene we weredoomed to witness! The poor woman flung herself almost on her kneesbefore the head-master, with clasped hands, and besought him:--
"Oh, Signor Director, do me the favor to put my boy back in school! Hehas been at home for three days. I have kept him hidden; but God havemercy on him, if his father finds out about this affair: he will murderhim! Have pity! I no longer know what to do! I entreat you with my wholesoul!"
The director tried to lead her out, but she resisted, still continuingto pray and to weep.
"Oh, if you only knew the trouble that this boy has caused me, you wouldhave compassion! Do me this favor! I hope that he will reform. I shallnot live long, Signor Director; I bear death within me; but I shouldlike to see him reformed before my death, because"--and she broke into apassion of weeping--"he is my son--I love him--I shall die in despair!Take him back once more, Signor Director, that a misfortune may nothappen in the family! Do it out of pity for a poor woman!" And shecovered her face with her hands and sobbed.
Franti stood impassive, and hung his head. The head-master looked athim, reflected a little, then said, "Franti, go to your place."
Then the woman removed her hands from her face, quite comforted, andbegan to express thanks upon thanks, without giving the director achance to speak, and made her way towards the door,
wiping her eyes, andsaying hastily: "I beg of you, my son.--May all have patience.--Thanks,Signor Director; you have performed a deed of mercy.--Be a goodboy.--Good day, boys.--Thanks, Signor Teacher; good by, and forgive apoor mother." And after bestowing another supplicating glance at her sonfrom the door, she went away, pulling up the shawl which was trailingafter her, pale, bent, with a head which still trembled, and we heardher coughing all the way down the stairs. The head-master gazed intentlyat Franti, amid the silence of the class, and said to him in accents ofa kind to make him tremble:--
"Franti, you are killing your mother!"
We all turned to look at Franti; and that infamous boy smiled.
HOPE.
Sunday, 29th.
Very beautiful, Enrico, was the impetuosity with which you flung yourself on your mother's heart on your return from your lesson of religion. Yes, your master said grand and consoling things to you. God threw you in each other's arms; he will never part you. When I die, when your father dies, we shall not speak to each other these despairing words, "Mamma, papa, Enrico, I shall never see you again!" We shall see each other again in another life, where he who has suffered much in this life will receive compensation; where he who has loved much on earth will find again the souls whom he has loved, in a world without sin, without sorrow, and without death. But we must all render ourselves worthy of that other life. Reflect, my son. Every good action of yours, every impulse of affection for those who love you, every courteous act towards your companions, every noble thought of yours, is like a leap towards that other world. And every misfortune, also, serves to raise you towards that world; every sorrow, for every sorrow is the expiation of a sin, every tear blots out a stain. Make it your rule to become better and more loving every day than the day before. Say every morning, "To-day I will do something for which my conscience will praise me, and with which my father will be satisfied; something which will render me beloved by such or such a comrade, by my teacher, by my brother, or by others." And beseech God to give you the strength to put your resolution into practice. "Lord, I wish to be good, noble, courageous, gentle, sincere; help me; grant that every night, when my mother gives me her last kiss, I may be able to say to her, 'You kiss this night a nobler and more worthy boy than you kissed last night.'" Keep always in your thoughts that other superhuman and blessed Enrico which you may be after this life. And pray. You cannot imagine the sweetness that you experience,--how much better a mother feels when she sees her child with hands clasped in prayer. When I behold you praying, it seems impossible to me that there should not be some one there gazing at you and listening to you. Then I believe more firmly that there is a supreme goodness and an infinite pity; I love you more, I work with more ardor, I endure with more force, I forgive with all my heart, and I think of death with serenity. O great and good God! To hear once more, after death, the voice of my mother, to meet my children again, to see my Enrico once more, my Enrico, blessed and immortal, and to clasp him in an embrace which shall nevermore be loosed, nevermore, nevermore to all eternity! Oh, pray! let us pray, let us love each other, let us be good, let us bear this celestial hope in our hearts and souls, my adored child!
THY MOTHER.