CUORE

Edmondo de Amicis

THE HEART OF A BOY

FOREWORD
Cuore had a part in the making of modern Italy. Soon after publication in 1886 it was prescribed for study in the new state schools, at which attendance was compulsory. Since then it has appeared in hundreds of editions. It has been made into a film and adapted for radio and television. Edmondo De Amicis (1846-1908) wrote the book for young people, and succeeding generations have lived through the school year 1881-2 with Enrico the diarist and Garrone his hero, with Crossi whose father was 'in America', Coretti the wood-seller's son, with the grim Stardi and Franti the delinquent, with Carlo Nobis the young gentleman, with the generous Derossi who was invariably top of the class, and the other people in Enrico's school. The interest and sympathies of young readers are engaged. Adults in addition will see that the author has lessons to teach. All must be loyal to the new state. When De Amicis was born in Piedmont, Italy lay dismembered. Much of the north was part of the Austrian Empire, the south formed the kingdom of a branch of the Spanish House of Bourbon and the central states were ruled by the Pope. Only Piedmont was ruled by an Italian dynasty, the House of Savoy, and Piedmont took the lead in the struggle for Italian unity. Unity was complete in 1870 when Italian troops occupied Rome itself. So it was that the twenty-four years of De Amicis's youth were filled with the struggle for the great cause. He was himself a professional soldier and fought at Custozza in 1866 against the Austrians. When parts of the country had been dominated by the foreigner, hostility towards the government was perhaps a virtue. Now there must be loyalty to the Italian state, and this message is clear in the pages of Cuore. People from all parts of Italy must regard one another as fellow-citizens. Count Cavour, the Prime Minister of Piedmont, had laboured to create a kingdom of Italy. To him and most northerners that had meant northern Italy. They did not want the backward, even barbaric, south and could not risk the possible international consequences of invading papal territory. But Garibaldi and the Thousand forced the issue and handed the unwelcome conquests to the House of Savoy. Now all Italians had a common citizenship, regardless of their region of origin. De Amicis points this out most clearly in the story in which a boy from Calabria five hundred miles away joined Enrico's class in Turin. Coore helped to establish the present literary language of ltaly. When de Amicis was a young man none of the numerous forms of the language spoken in the various regions had received unquestioned recognition as the standard Italian language. The celebrated writer Alessandro Manzoni believed that Florentine should be accepted as the standard and in 1840 rewrote his great historical novel I promessi sposi (The Betrothed), which was first published in 1827, in that idiom. The younger man, De Amicis, was an admirer of Manzoni. He strove to perfect himself in Florentine Italian and wrote in it. Every child had to go to school and Cuore was prescribed reading. We may conclude that De Amicis had considerable influence on the written language of the new state. In Cuore the traditional virtues of honesty, courage, unselfishness, modesty, tolerance and hard work are unreservedly admired and taught. One could believe that the author had made a list of the unfortunate groups in society - the poor, the sick, the deaf and dumb, the blind, the deformed, prisoners - and written a story which indicates a proper, compassionate attitude towards them. The results are heartening. So it was that in Cuore Edmondo De Amicis suggested the noble possibilities of the young Italy to her young citizens. The book may be interesting as a historical document to the adult, but it has lived because the characters still live and its values are still widely cherished. Desmond Hartley

This book is specially dedicated to children in the elementary schools between the age of nine and thirteen, and it could be called The Story of a School Year, Written by a Third Year Pupil in an Italian Council School. When I say written by a third-year pupil, I do not mean to say that he himself wrote it exactly as it is printed. He wrote down little by little in an exercise book as well as he could what he had seen, heard and thought in and out of school; and at the end of the year, using those not, his father wrote these pages, taking care not to change the thoughts and, as far as possible, using his sons own words. The boy then reread the manuscript four years later when h e was already at the grammar school and made his own additions using memories still fresh of people and things. Now read this book, children, I hope that you will pleased with it and profit from it. OCTOBER The first day of school Our teacher An accident The boy from Calabria My classmates A noble act 3 3 4 5 5 6 My teacher in 1A In the attic School The little Paduan patriot 7 7 8 9

NOVEMBER The chimney sweep All Souls Day My friend Garrone The coalman and the gentleman My younger brothers teacher My mother My school friend Coretti 10 10 11 12 12 13 14 The headmaster The soldiers Nellis protector Top of the class The little Lombard sentry The poor DECEMEBER The dealer Vanity The first fall of snow The little bricklayer A snowball 22 22 23 24 25 The mistresses A visit to the injured man The little Florentine scribe Will-power Gratitude JANUARY The supply teacher Stardis library The blacksmiths son A happy afternoon The funeral of Victor Emmanuel Franti if put out of class 32 32 33 34 34 35 The Sardinian Drummer-boy Love your native land Envy Frantis mother Hope FEBRUARY A well merited medal Good intentions The little engine Arrogance Injured at work The prisoner Papas nurse 43 44 44 45 46 46 48 The smithy The little clown The last day of carnival The blind children The sick teacher The street 51 52 54 55 57 58 36 39 40 41 41 26 26 27 30 31 15 16 17 18 18 21

MARCH Night school The fight The boys family Number 78 The death of a child On the eve of 14th March 59 59 60 61 62 62 APRIL Spring King Umberto The childrens house Physical training My fathers teacher 72 72 74 76 77 MAY The disable children Making sacrifice The fire From the Apennines to the Andes 86 87 87 89 JUNE Garibaldi The army Italy Thirty-two degree My father 107 107 108 109 109 JULY The last page of my mother The examinations The last examination 117 117 118 Goodbye 119 In the country Night school prize-giving The death of my teacher Thanks Shipwreck 110 111 112 113 114 Summer Poetry The deal and dumb girl 101 102 103 Convalescence Working-class friends Garrones mother Giuseppe Mazzini Civil valour 80 81 82 82 83 Prize-giving A quarrel From my sister The spirit of Romagna The l ittle bricklayer is very ill Count Cavour 63 65 66 66 69 70

OCTOBER The first day of school

Monday, 17th Today is the first day of school. Those three holiday months in the country went by like a dream! This morning my mother took me to Baretti School to be registered in Standard 3. I was thinking of the country and went reluctantly. All the streets were swarming with children. The two bookshops were crowded with fathers and mothers buying satchels, schoolbags and exercise books, and so many people crowded in front of the school that the caretaker and the policeman had difficulty in keeping the door clear. Near the door I felt someone touch my shoulder: it was my teacher, always cheerful, with his red ruffled hair, from Standard 2. 'Well, Enrico, are we to be separated for ever?' he said. I knew well enough that we were. All the same those words hurt me. We entered with difficulty. Ladies, gentlemen, local women, workmen, officials, grandmothers, servants, all with one hand holding a child and the other holding a certificate of promotion, filled the vestibule and the stairs, making a noise as though going into a theatre. I saw again with pleasure that big ground-floor hall with the doors of the seven classrooms in which I spent nearly all my days for three years. There was a crowd and the mistresses were coming and going. My Standard lA teacher greeted me from the door of the classroom and said, 'Enrico, you are going to the floor above this year. I shan't even see you pass by any more', and she looked at me sadly. The headmaster was surrounded by women who were all anxious because there were no places left for their children, and it seemed to me that his beard was a little whiter than it had been last year. I found some boys taller and bigger. Downstairs, where the sorting out had already been done, there were some Standard lB children who did not want to go into the classroom and who were behaving as obstinately as little donkeys. They had to be pulled in by force. Some escaped from their desks; others seeing their parents leave, began to cry, so that they had to come back and console them, or take them home, and the mistresses were in despair. My little brother was put in Signorina Delcati's class, and I in Signor Perboni's, up on the first floor. By ten o'clock we were all in class, fifty-four of us; only fifteen or sixteen of my class-mates from Standard 2, amongst whom was Derossi, the boy who always comes first. The school seemed so small and sad to me, when I thought of the woods and mountains where I had spent the summer! Also I was thinking again of my Standard 2 teacher, so nice, who always laughed with us, and so small that he seemed like our companion, and it saddened me that I should not see him there any more, with his untidy red hair. Our teacher is tall, beardless, with long grey hair, and he has a line across his forehead. He has a strong voice and he looks keenly at us all, one after another, as if he would read our thoughts. And he never laughs. I said to myself, this is the first day. Nine months to go. So many exercises, so many monthly tests, so much work! I really needed to be with my mother at home time, and I ran to kiss her hand. She said, 'Have courage, Enrico! We shall study together.' And I went home content. But I no longer have my teacher with the kind, happy smile, and school no longer seems nice as it did at first.

Our teacher
Tuesday, 18th I like my new teacher too, after this morning. At the beginning of school when he was already sitting in his place, pupils from last year would appear at the class-room door to greet him. They looked in on their way past and said, 'Good morning, sir', 'Good morning, Signor Perboni.' Some came in, touched his hand and went away. You saw that they liked him very much and wished they could have come back to him. He replied, 'Good morning', clasped the hands that were offered him, but did not look at anyone. At each greeting he remained serious, with a line across his forehead, facing the window and looking at the roof of the house opposite. Rather than being pleased by these greetings, he seemed to tolerate them. Then he looked closely at us, one after another.

While dictating he came down to move amongst the desks and, when he saw a boy whose face was red with spots, he stopped dictating, held the boy's face between his hands and looked at him. Then he asked him what was the matter and passed a hand over his forehead to see if he was hot. Just then a boy behind him got up on his desk and began to play the fool. He suddenly turned round. The boy immediately sat down and remained in his place with bowed head, awaiting punishment. The master put a hand on his head and said, 'Don't do that again' - nothing more. He went back to the master's desk and finished dictating. Having finished, he looked at us for a moment in silence. Then he said very quietly in his strong but pleasing voice, 'Listen, everyone. We have to spend a year together. Let us see that we spend it well. Study and behave well. I have no family. You are my family. Last year I still had my mother, but she has died. I am alone. You are all I have in the world, I have no other attachment, no concern but you. You must be my children. I like you, you must like me. I do not want to have to punish anyone. Show me that you are goodhearted boys. Our class will be a family, and you will be my pride and joy. I am not asking you for a promise in words. I am sure that in your hearts you have already said yes. And I thank you.' At that moment the caretaker came in to say that it was time. We all left our desks very quietly. The boy who had stood on his desk went up to the master and said in an unsteady voice, 'Sir, forgive me.' The master kissed his forehead and said, 'Go, my son.'

An accident
Friday, 21st The year has started with an accident. Going to school this morning I was repeating the teacher's words to my father when we saw that the street was full of people who were crowding round the school door. My father said at once, 'An accident! The year is starting badly!' With much difficulty we went in. The school hall was full of parents and boys. The teachers could not get into the classrooms and everyone was looking towards the headmaster's room. You could hear 'Poor boy! Poor Robetti!' Over the heads of the crowd, at the back of the room full of people, could be seen a policeman's helmet and the headmaster's bald head. Then a gentleman in a top hat entered and everybody said, 'It's the doctor.' My father asked a teacher, 'What has happened?' 'A wheel went over his foot,' he replied. 'It broke his foot,' said another. He was a Standard 2 boy. Coming to school along Via Dora Grossa he had seen a child from lB run from his mother and fall in the middle of the street a few yards from an omnibus which was moving towards him. He had run forward quickly, seized him and saved him. But since he had not been quick enough in pulling back his own foot, the wheel of the omnibus had run over it. He is the son of an artillery captain. While they were telling us this someone came into the room like a madwoman, forcing a way through the crowd. It was Robetti's mother, who had been sent for. Another woman ran towards her and threw her arms round her neck, sobbing. It was the mother of the child who had been saved. The two of them flung themselves into the room and we heard a desperate cry, 'Oh, my Giulio! My child!' At that moment a carriage stopped in front of the door, and shortly afterwards the headmaster appeared with the boy in his arms. His head rested on the headmaster's shoulder, his face was white and his eyes were closed. Everyone was silent. You could hear the mother sobbing. The headmaster, pale, stopped for a moment and raised the boy a little in his two arms to show him to the people. And then masters and mistresses, parents and boys together murmured, 'Bravo, Robetti! Bravo, poor boy!' and threw kisses to him. The mistresses and the boys who were near him kissed his hands and arms. He opened his eyes and said, 'My satchel!' Weeping, the mother of the little boy who had been saved showed it to him and said, 'I am carrying it for you, dear angel, I am carrying it for you.' At the same time she was supporting the injured boy's mother, who was covering her face with her hands. They went out, gently set the boy down in the carriage, and the carriage left. Then we all went back into the school in silence.

The boy from Calabria

Saturday, 22nd Yesterday afternoon while the teacher was giving us news of poor Robetti, who will have to walk on crutches for a while, the headmaster came in with a new pupil, a boy with a very brown complexion, black hair, large dark eyes and thick eyebrows which meet. He was dressed entirely in dark clothes and had a black leather belt round his waist. When he had said something in the teacher's ear the headmaster left, leaving the boy with him. He looked at us with those big dark eyes as though he was afraid. Then the teacher took his hand and said to the class, 'You should be pleased. Today a young Italian is entering the school who was born in Reggio di Calabria, more than five hundred miles from here. Cherish your brother who has come from so far away. He was born in a glorious land which gave Italy illustrious men, and which gives her strong workers and brave soldiers, in one of the most beautiful parts of our country, where there are great forests and great mountains, inhabited by people of ability and courage. Cherish him so that he does not think about how far he is from the town in which he was born. Make him see that an Italian boy, no matter which Italian school he sets foot in, finds brothers there.' Having said this he got up and on the wall-map of Italy he pointed to Reggio di Calabria. Then he called out loudly, 'Ernesto Derossi!' ' - the one who is always top of the class. Derossi got up. 'Come here,' said the teacher. Derossi left his desk and went to stand by the teacher's desk, facing the boy from Calabria. 'As top of the class,' the teacher said to him, 'give the welcoming embrace in the name of the whole class to our new companion, the embrace by a son of Piedmont of a son of Calabria.' Derossi embraced the Calabrian, saying in his clear voice, 'Welcome!' and the Calabrian impetuously kissed him on both cheeks. Everybody clapped. 'Silence!' shouted the teacher. 'Do not clap in schoo1.' But we could see that he was pleased. The Calabrian was pleased too. The teacher assigned him a place and went with him to the desk. Then he said again, 'Remember now what I am telling you. So that this could come about, that a Calabrian boy can be at home in Turin, and a boy from Turin can be at home in Reggio di Calabria, our country struggled for fifty years, and thirty thousand Italians died. You must all respect and love one another. If any of you should harm our companion because he was not born in our province, you would make yourself for ever more unworthy of raising your eyes from the ground when the tricolour goes by.' The Calabrian had only just sat down in his place when his neighbours gave him pens and a picture and a boy in the end desk passed him a stamp from Sweden.

My class-mates
Tuesday, 25th The boy who passed the stamp to the Calabrian and the one I like best of all is called Garrone.. He is the biggest in the class, is nearly fourteen, has a big head and broad shoulders and he is good-hearted - you see that when he smiles. But it seems as if he is always thoughtful, like a man. I already know many of my class-mates. I like another one, too. He is called Coretti, he wears a chocolate-coloured jersey and a cap made of cat's skin. He is always cheerful and is the son of a woodseller who was a soldier in the War of '66, serving under Prince Umberto, and they say he has three medals. There is little Nelli, a poor hunchback, delicate and thin-faced. One boy is very well dressed. He is always removing small hairs from his clothes and is called Votini. In the desk in front of mine there is a boy they call 'little bricklayer' because his father is a bricklayer. With a round face like an apple and a snub nose, he has a special gift: he can make a hare-nose, and everyone gets him to do his hare-nose and laughs. He has a little cloth cap which he keeps rolled up in his pocket like a handkerchief. Next to the little bricklayer there is Garoffi, a long thin fellow with a nose shaped like an owl's beak and very small eyes, who is always swopping nibs, pictures and matchboxes, and who writes the lesson on his fingernails so that he can secretly read it. Then there is a young gentleman, Carlo Nobis, who seems very proud, and is between two boys I like: the son of a blacksmith, wrapped in a jacket which reaches his knees, pale so that he looks ill, and who always seems afraid, and never laughs; and one with red hair who has a useless arm which he carries in a sling - his father has gone to America and his mother goes round selling vegetables. And also a curious

type, my neighbour on my left, Stardi, short and squat, with no neck, a grunter who speaks to no one and who seems to understand little, but gives unblinking attention to the teacher, his brow furrowed, his teeth clenched. And if anybody asks him a question while the teacher is speaking, the first and second times he does not reply, the third time he kicks. Near him there is the hard, sad face of a boy called Franti who had already been expelled from another school. There are also two brothers, dressed alike, who resemble one another perfectly and who both wear a Calabrian hat with a pheasant's feather. But the handsomest of them all and the most intelligent, the boy who will certainly be top again this year, is Derossi; and the teacher, who has already realized that, is always asking him the questions. All the same I like Precossi the blacksmith's son very much, the one with the long jacket who looks ill. They say that his father beats him. He is very timid and every time he asks a question or touches anyone he says 'Excuse me' and looks with his fine sad eyes. But Garrone is the biggest and kindest.

A noble act
Wednesday, 26th This very morning Garrone showed his true character. When I entered the class-room, a little late because my lA teacher had stopped me to ask when she could come to our house to see us, the master was not yet there and three or four boys were tormenting poor Crossi, the boy with red hair who has a withered arm and whose mother sells vegetables. They were prodding him with rulers, throwing chestnut husks in his face, calling him a cripple and a freak, mocking him with his arm in a sling. Alone at the end of the bench, pale as death, he just listened, looking from one to another with eyes that begged them to leave him alone. But they mocked him more and more, and he began to tremble and go red with anger. Suddenly Franti, the one with the unpleasant face, got up on a desk and, pretending to carry two baskets on his arms, imitated Crossi's mother when she used to come - for she is poorly now - to wait at the door for her son. Many started to laugh loudly. Then Crossi lost his temper, seized an ink-well and flung it at his head with all his strength. But Franti moved smartly and the ink-well hit the master, who was just coming in, on the chest. Everyone scampered to his place and was silent, terrified. The master, his face pale, went to his desk and in an angry voice demanded, 'Who did that?' There was no reply. The master shouted again, raising his voice, 'Who was it?' Then Garrone, taking pity on poor Crossi, sprang to his feet and said firmly, 'I did it.' The teacher looked at him, looked at the astonished pupils, then said in a calm voice, 'It was not you.' Then in a moment, 'The culprit will not be punished. Stand up!' Crossi stood up and, weeping, said, 'They were hitting me and insulting me. I lost my temper. I threw...' 'Sit down, said the teacher. 'Stand up those who provoked him.' Four boys stood up, their heads bowed. 'You', said the teacher, 'have abused a companion who did nothing to provoke you, mocked someone who is unfortunate, struck someone who is weak and cannot defend himself. You have committed one of the basest acts. Nothing could be more shameful. Cowards!' Having said that he went down amongst the benches to Garrone who had stood with lowered head and, putting a hand under his chin to raise his head, looked him in the eyes and said, 'You have a noble soul.' Garrone seized the moment to murmur something - I don't know what - in the master's ear, and he, turning to the four culprits, said abruptly, 'I pardon you.'

My teacher in lA
Thursday, 27th My teacher kept her promise and came to our house today, just when I was setting out with my mother to take some washing to a poor woman recommended in the Gazetta. We had not seen her in our

house for a year. Everyone made her welcome. She is still the same little woman with the green veil round her hat, well dressed and badly groomed, who hasn't time to attend to herself, but rather paler than last year, with some grey hairs. And she coughs all the time. My mother said to her, 'And your health, dear teacher? You don't take proper care of yourself!' Oh, it is not important,' she replied with the smile which is both happy and melancholy. You raise your voice too much,' my mother added. 'You take too much out of yourself with your children.' It is true; you hear her voice constantly. I remember when I was in her class - she talks all the time, she talks so that the children will not be inattentive, and she does not remain sitting for a moment. I was sure that she would come because she never forgets her pupils. She remembers their names for years. On the days of the monthly tests she runs to ask the headmaster how many marks they have got. She waits for them at the door and makes them show her their compositions to see if they have made progress. Many still come to see her when they are at the grammar school and already have long trousers and a watch. That day she was on her way back completely exhausted from the art gallery to which she had taken her children as she did in past years, and as she used to take them every Thursday to a museum or gallery to explain everything. Poor teacher, she is thinner than ever. But she is always lively and becomes animated when she talks about her class. She wanted to see again the bed she saw me in when I was very ill two years ago and which is now my brother's. She looked at it for a while and was not able to speak. She had to leave soon to visit a boy in her class, a saddler's son who had German measles. She also had a pile of papers to mark, work for the whole evening, and before nightfall she still had to give a private lesson in arithmetic to a woman who kept a shop. 'Well, Enrico,' she said to me as she was leaving, 'are you still fond of your teacher now that you can solve difficult problems and write long compositions?' She kissed me and said again at the bottom of the stairs, 'you mustn't forget me, you know, Enrico!' Oh, my good mistress! Never, never shall I forget you. Even when I am grown up I shall still remember you and I shall go to visit you amongst your children. And every time I pass by a school and hear a mistress's voice it will seem to me that I am hearing your voice and I shall think again of the two years I spent in your class, where I learnt so many things, where I so often saw you ill and tired, but always thoughtful, always kind, distressed when someone picked up a bad habit in writing, trembling when the inspectors questioned us, happy when we did well, always kind and loving like a mother. Never, never shall I forget you, my teacher.

In an attic
Friday, 28th Yesterday evening my mother, my sister Silvia and I took the washing to the poor woman recommended in the newspaper. I carried the bundle, Silvia had the newspaper with the initials of the name and the address. We climbed up to the very top of a tall house and reached a long corridor with many doors leading from it. My mother knocked at the end door and it was opened by a thin, fair woman, still young. And suddenly it seemed to me I had seen her before, with that same dark blue scarf she had on her head. 'Are you the one in the newspaper?' asked my mother, giving the particulars. 'Yes, signora, I am the one.' 'Well, we've brought you a little washing.' It seemed as if her thanks and blessings would never end. Meanwhile I saw a boy with his back towards us kneeling in front of a chair in a comer of the dark, bare room, and he seemed to be writing. He was indeed writing, with the paper on the chair and the ink-well on the floor. How could he write like that in the dark? While I was asking myself this I recognized the red hair and worn-out jacket of Crossi, the son of the vegetable-seller, the boy with the withered arm. I quietly told my mother while the woman was putting the washing away.

'Hush!' replied my mother. 'He might be ashamed to see you offering charity to his mother. Don't call him.' But at that moment Crossi turned round, I stood embarrassed, he smiled, and then my mother gave me a push in his direction to greet him. I embraced him and he got up and took my hand. 'Here I am,' his mother was saying to mine meanwhile, 'alone with this boy. My husband has been in America for six years and I am unwell, too, so that now I can't go round with the vegetables to earn those few coppers. There isn't even a little table left for my poor Luigino to do his work on. When I had the bench here that's down by the main door, at least he could write on that. Now they've taken it from me. There's not even a little light for him to study by without his ruining his eyes. It's thanks to the council, who give him textbooks and exercise books, that I can send him to school. Poor Luigino, he studies so willingly! And poor woman am I!' My mother gave her all that she had in her purse, kissed the boy, and she was almost in tears when we left. She had every reason to say to me, 'Just look at that poor boy and the difficult conditions he works in, you who have everything and yet study seems hard to you! Ah, Enrico! There is more merit in one day of his work than in a year of yours. It is to boys like him that the prizes should be given!'

School
Friday, 28th Yes, dear Enrico, 'study seems hard to you', as your mother says. 1 still do not see you going to school with the resolute spirit and the smiling face that 1 would like. You are still reluctant. But think of this: imagine for a moment what a poor wretched thing your day would be if you did not go to school! With hands joined in prayer, at the end of a week you would be pleading to go back, consumed by boredom and shame, sick of your play and of your existence. Everyone-everyone-studies today, Enrico. Think of the men who attend classes in the evening after having worked all day; of the women and working girls who go to classes on Sundays after working all week; of the soldiers who reach for their textbooks when they get back tired from manoeuvres. Think of the dumb and blind children - even they study. And finally prisoners, even they learn to read and write. In the morning when you go out think that at the same moment in this same town thirty thousand other children are, like you, going to confine themselves in a room for three hours to study. What's more, think of the countless children who at about the same time are going to school in every country. Picture them in your imagination, travelling along the lanes of quiet villages, along the streets of noisy towns, along the edge of the sea and lakes, under a burning sun or through mists, in boats in countries crossed by canals, on horseback across the great plains, in sledges over the snow, through valleys and over hills, through woods and across torrents, along lonely mountain paths, alone, in pairs, in groups, in long files, all with their books under their arms, dressed in a thousand different ways, speaking a thousand languages, from the furthermost school in Russia almost lost in the ice, to the most distant school in Arabia shaded by palm trees; millions and millions of them, all going to learn, in a hundred different ways, the same things. Imagine this vast swarm of children from a hundred nations, of which you form a part, and think: if this movement were to stop, humanity would lapse into barbarism; this movement is the progress, the hope and the glory of the world. Courage, then, little soldier in the immense army. Your books are your arms, your class is your platoon, the battlefield is the whole earth, and the victory is human civilization. Do not be a cowardly soldier, Enrico. Father

THE LITTLE PADUAN PATRIOT

The monthly story
No, I shall not be a cowardly soldier, but I would go a lot more willingly to school if every day the teacher told us a story like the one h!' told us this morning. Every month, he said, he will tell us one. It will be written down and it will always be a true story of a boy's noble deed. This one is called 'The Little Paduan Patriot'. Here it is.

A French steamer left Barcelona, a town in Spain, for Genoa. On board were Frenchmen, Italians, Spaniards and Swiss. Amongst them was an eleven-year-old boy, badly dressed and alone, who always kept himself apart like an untamed animal, looking at everyone with hostile eyes. And he had good reason to look at everyone like that. Two years earlier his father and mother, peasants from the countryside near Padua, had sold him to the leader of a troop of acrobats who, after teaching him tricks by means of blows, kicks and hunger, took him across France to Spain, constantly beating him and never satisfying his hunger. At Barcelona, unable to endure the blows and the hunger any longer and reduced to a pitiful condition, he escaped from his captor and ran for protection to the Italian consul. Moved to pity, the consul put him aboard the steamer and gave him a letter for the chief of police at Genoa, who was to return him to his parents, the parents who had sold him like an animal. The poor boy was ragged and sickly. They had given him a second-class cabin. Everybody stared at him and some people asked him questions, but he never replied and it seemed as if he hated and despised everyone, so much had he been embittered and withered by starvation and blows. Nevertheless three travellers, persisting with their questions, managed to make him loosen his tongue and in a few words, a mixture of Venetian dialect, Spanish and French, he told his story. The three travellers were not Italian but they understood and, moved partly by pity and partly by wine, they gave him some money, joking with him and leading him on so that he would tell more. Some ladies entered the room at that moment. So, to draw attention to themselves, the three gave him some more money, shouting, 'Catch that! And that!', making the coins clatter on the table. The boy put them all in his pocket, expressing his thanks in a low voice, in his reluctant way, but for the first time there was a warm smile on his face. He climbed into his berth, drew the curtain and lay still thinking about his affairs. With that money he would be able to taste a few mouthfuls on board, after two years of being short of bread. He would be able to buy himself a jacket as soon as he disembarked at Genoa after two years going about dressed in rags. And if he took some home, he could ensure for himself a rather more human welcome from his father and mother than the one he would have received if he had arrived with empty pockets. That money was a small fortune to him. Comforted, he thought of these things behind the curtain of his cabin while the three travellers talked, sitting round the table in the middle of the second-class diningroom. They were drinking and talking about their journeys and the countries they had seen and, as story followed story, they came to talk about Italy. One began to complain about the inns, another about the railways, and then, egging each other on, they began to criticize everything. One would have preferred to travel in Lapland; another said that he had found only cheats and brigands; the third said that Italian workmen could not read. 'An ignorant people,' repeated the first. 'Dirty,' added the second. 'They are. . .' began the third. He was going to say thieves, but he did not finish the word. A shower of coins fell on their heads and shoulders and landed on the table and on the floor with a dreadful clatter. Furious, all three rose to their feet, looking upwards, and got another handful of coins in their faces. 'Take your money back,' the boy said contemptuously, appearing from behind the curtain of his berth. 'I do not accept charity from those who insult my country.'

NOVEMBER The chimney-sweep

Tuesday, 1st Yesterday afternoon I went to the girls' school, which is next to ours, to give the story of the boy from Padua to Silvia's teacher who wanted to read it. There are seven hundred girls there! When I arrived they were already starting to leave school and everyone was in high spirits because they were breaking up for All Saints' Day and All Souls' Day. And there I saw a heart-warming incident. Facing the school gates but on the other side of the road, with his arm against the wall and his forehead resting on his arm, was a chimney-sweep, a very small boy, his face covered with soot. He had his sack and scraper with him and he was sobbing uncontrollably. Two or three girls from Standard 2 went up to him and said, 'Why are you crying like that?' He did not reply, but continued to cry. 'But what is the matter? Why are you crying?' the girls asked him again. Then he looked up - it was a child's face - and still weeping said that he had been in some houses to sweep the chimneys and had earned thirty soldi. But he had lost them. They had fallen through a hole in his pocket - he showed them the hole and he dared not return home without the money. 'The master hits me,' he said, sobbing, and let his head fall on his arm again in despair. The girls stood looking at him, thoughtfully. Meanwhile some more girls came, big and small, poor and better off, with their satchels under their arms, and a big girl with a blue feather in her hat took two soldi out of her pocket and said, 'I only have two soldi: Let's make a collection.' 'I have two soldi as well,' said another, dressed in red. 'We shall easily get thirty between us.' Then they began to call out: 'Amalia! Luigia! Anina! A soldi! Who has some soldi? Pass the soldi here!' Some had soldi to buy flowers or exercise books and they gave them. Some smaller ones gave centesimi. The girl with the blue feather collected them all and counted aloud, 'Eight, ten, fifteen!' They needed more. Then a girl bigger than any of them, who looked like a young teacher, came along and gave half a lira, and everyone thanked her. They still needed five soldi. 'Some Standard 4 girls are coming and they will have some,' a girl said. The girls arrived and the coins came in thick and fast. Everybody crowded round. It was good to see the poor chimney-sweep amongst those manycoloured children's frocks, those bunches of feathers, ribbons and curls. They already had thirty soldi and more was coming in and the smallest girls, who had no money, pushed their way through to offer bunches of flowers so that they too could give something. Suddenly the caretaker appeared, shouting, 'The headmistress!' The girls scattered in all directions like a flock of sparrows. Alone then in the middle of the road was the little chimney-weep, wiping his eyes, happy now, his hands full of soldi. And there were flowers in the buttonholes of his coat, in his pockets and in his hat. He was completely smothered in flowers. There were even flowers on the ground, at his feet.

All Souls' Day

Wednesday, 2nd

This day is consecrated to remembrance of the dead. Do you know, Enrico, which of the dead you boys should think about today?
Those who died for you, for boys and girls and little children. So many died, so many still die! Do you ever think how many fathers wore themselves out with work, how many mothers went to an early grave worn out by the sufferings to which they condemned themselves, in order to support their children? Do you know how many men plunged a knife in their heart driven to despair by the sight of their

children in want or how many women drowned themselves or died of a broken heart or went out of their mind after losing a little child? Think of them all on this day, Enrico. Think of all the teachers who have died young, worn out by their labours at school for love of the children they could not bring themselves to leave. Think of the doctors who cared for children with selfless courage and died of infectious diseases. Think of all those in shipwrecks, in fires, in famine, in moments of great danger who gave to a child the last piece of bread, the last life saving piece of driftwood, the last rope to escape from the flames, and died content that their sacrifice had saved the life of a young innocent. They are without number, Enrico, these souls. Every cemetery is the resting-place of hundreds of these saintly people who, if they were able to rise for a moment from the grave, could cry out the name of a child for whom they had sacrificed the pleasures of youth, the peace of old age, affection, intelligence, life. Twenty-year-old brides, men at the height of their powers, old ladies in their eighties, young men - brave and unknown martyrs to childhood - so great, so noble that the earth does not provide flowers enough for their graves. So much are you loved, children! Today think of these dead with gratitude and you will be better young people and care more for those who love and toil for you, dear fortunate son of mine who on this All Souls' Day has still no one to mourn! Mother

My friend Garrone
Friday, 4th There were only two days of holiday but to me it seemed a long time not to see Garrone. The more I know him the more I like him, and that is the experience of everyone, except the bullies, who would not agree because he does not allow them to bully. Every time a big boy raises his hand against a little boy, the little one shouts 'Garrone!' and the big boy desists. His father is a railway engine driver. He started school late because he was unwell for two years. He is the tallest and strongest boy in the class and he can lift a desk with one hand. He is always eating and he is kind. Whatever you ask him for, pencil, rubber, a piece of paper, penknife, he will lend or give you everything. He does not talk or laugh in school, he always sits still in the desk - which is too small for him his back bent and his big head hunched between his shoulders, and when I look at him he smiles at me, his eyes half-closed as though to say, 'Well, Enrico - friends, aren't we?' He makes me laugh. Tall and big, his jacket, trousers and sleeves all too narrow and short, a hat that won't stay on his head, close-cropped hair, big shoes, and a tie always twisted like string. Dear old Garrone, one look in his face is enough to inspire affection. All the smallest boys would like to sit near him. He is good at arithmetic. He carries his books tied together with a red leather strap. He has a knife with a mother-of-pearl handle that he found last year on the parade-ground, and one day he cut his finger down to the bone. But no one at school knew and he did not say a word about it at home so as not to alarm his parents. Whatever he allows himself to say in jest is never cruel; but woe betide anyone who says 'That's not true' when he has said something. His eyes flash and he pounds the desk with his fist fit to break it. On Saturday morning he gave a soldo to a boy in lA who was crying in the street because he had lost one and could not buy an exercise book. For three days he has been working on an eight-page letter with decorations in the margins done in pen and ink for his mother's saint's day. She often comes to meet him. She is tall .lI1d big like him, and nice. The master looks at him all the time and each time he passes him lays a caressing hand on his neck as on the neck of a quiet young bull. I like him very much. When I grasp his big hand, which is like a man's hand, in mine, I am happy. I know that he would risk his life to save a friend, that he would give his life in his defence. This you see clearly in his eyes. And although with that great voice of his he seems always to be grumbling, you sense that it is a voice which comes from a gentle heart.

The coalman and the gentleman

Monday, 7th Garrone would certainly never have said what Carlo Nobis said to Betti yesterday morning. Carlo Nobis is proud because his father is a fine gentleman, a tall man with a black beard and grave in manner, who comes with his son to school nearly every morning. Yesterday morning Nobis was arguing with Betti, one of the smallest boys, the son of a coalman, and not knowing what to reply, because he was in the wrong, he shouted, 'Your father looks like a scarecrow.' Betti blushed to the roots of his hair. He said nothing, but tears came to his eyes. At home he repeated the words to his father. And so it was that the coalman, a small man, grimy from his work, appeared at afternoon school, holding the boy's hand, to complain to the teacher. Everyone was quiet while he made his complaint to the master. Nobis's father was taking his son's cloak off by the outside door, as he usually did. Hearing his name spoken he came in and asked for an explanation. 'It concerns this workman', replied the master, 'who has come to complain because your son Carlo said to his boy, "Your father looks like a scarecrow.''' Nobis's father frowned and reddened a little. Then he asked his son, 'Did you say those words?' His son, standing in the middle of the schoolroom with lowered head, in front of little Betti, did not reply. Then his father took him by the arm, pushed him further forward to face Betti so that they were almost touching and said to him, 'Ask him to forgive you.' The coalman wanted to intervene, saying, 'No, no!' But the gentleman did not heed him and said again to his son, 'Ask him to forgive you. Repeat my words. I ask your forgiveness for the hurtful, foolish and rude word I said about your father whose hand my father would be proud to shake.' Then the gentleman offered his hand to the coalman who shook it vigorously and suddenly thrust his son into Carlo Nobis's arms. 'Do me the favour of putting them together,' the gentleman said to the master. The master put Betti in Nobis's desk. When this had been done Nobis's father bade farewell and left. The coalman remained a few moments in thought, looking at the two boys sitting next to one another. Then he went up to the desk and looked at Nobis with a mixture of affection and sorrow as if he would have liked to say something to him. But he said nothing. He put out his hand to caress him but dared not do even that and only stroked his forehead lightly with his great fingers. Then he went to the door and after turning round to look at them once more he disappeared. 'Remember well what you have seen, boys,' said the master. 'This is the best lesson of the year.'

My young brother's teacher

Thursday, 10th The coalman's son used to be in Signora Delcati's class. She lame today to visit my young brother who is unwell and made us laugh when she told us that two years ago the boy's mother brought her an apronful of coal to thank her for having given her son the merit medal. She was quite persistent, poor woman. She did not want to take the coal back home and was almost in tears when she had to return with her apron still full. She also told us about another good woman who brought her a very heavy bunch of flowers. Inside it was a little hoard of coins. We were very amused when we heard this and as a result my brother swallowed the medicine which he hadn't wanted to take at first. How much patience they must have with those lB children, all toothless like old people, and unable to pronounce their r's and s's. One has a cough, another's nose is bleeding, another has lost his clogs under the bench, someone is whimpering because he has pricked himself with his pen, another is crying because he has bought book one instead of book two. Fifty in a class, none of them knowing anything, with those butter-fingers, and they all have to be taught to read and write.

In their pockets they have little pieces of liquorice, buttons, bottle-stoppers, stones, all kinds of small objects, and sometimes the mistress has to search through them; but they hide things, even in their shoes. They are not attentive. If a big fly comes in through the window the whole place is in an uproar. In summer they bring flowers and leaves into school, and cockchafers which fly round in circles or fall into ink-wells and then make ink marks on exercise books. The mistress must be a mother to them, help them to dress, bandage cut fingers, pick up fallen caps, must see that they do not take the wrong coats, and so avoid weeping and complaining. Poor teacher! And then the mothers' complaints. How can my child have lost his pen? How is it that mine learns nothing? Why do you never mention my child who is so clever? Why don't you have that nail which tore my Piero's trousers taken out of the bench? Sometimes my brother's teacher gets angry with the children and when she is at her wit's end she bites her finger to hold herself back from smacking them. She loses her patience, but then she is sorry and caresses the child she has scolded. She sends a rascal home from school, but holds back her tears and loses her temper with the parents who make their children do without meals as a punishment. Signorina Delcati is young and tall, dark, restless, well dressed, and she moves like a released spring. She is easily affected and speaks with great tenderness. 'But at any rate, the children become fond of you?' my mother said to her. 'Many do, yes,' she replied, 'but after the end of the year most of them do not look at us any more. When they have men teachers they are half-ashamed of having been with us, with a mistress. After two years of caring, when you have loved a child so much, it is sad to part with him, but you say, "Oh, I'm sure of him, he will like me." But the holidays are over you are back in school, you meet him - oh, my child!and he looks the other way.' The teacher paused. Then she said, 'But you won't do that, dear.' And getting up, her eyes moist, she kissed my brother. 'You won't look the other way, will you? You won't disown your poor friend.'

My mother
Thursday, 10th In the presence of your brother's teacher you lacked respect for your mother! Let this never happen again, Enrico, never again! Your irreverent words pierced my heart like a steel blade. I thought of your mother when a few years ago she stayed for a whole night bent over your little bed to listen to your breathing, weeping tears of anguish, her teeth chattering with terror because she feared she might lose you, and I was afraid she would lose her reason. These thoughts made me regard you with disgust. You, offend your mother! Your mother, who would give a year of happiness to spare you an hour of sorrow, who would beg for you, who would give her life to save yours! Think, Enrico. Fix this firmly in your mind. Accept that you are destined to live through many terrible days. The most terrible f If them all will be the day on which you lose your mother. A thousand times, Enrico, when you are a man, strong and with experience of life's struggles, you will call upon her, overcome by a powerful desire to hear her voice again for a moment, to see again her arms open so that you can throw yourself into them, weeping like a poor child who is without protection and comfortless. How you will remember, then, all the sorrow you have caused her and with what remorse you will atone for it, unhappy wretch! Do not expect peace of mind in life if you have caused your mother distress. You will be penitent, you will ask for her forgiveness, you will venerate her memory in vain. Your conscience will give you no peace. That sweet and gentle image will, for you, always carry an expression of sorrow and reproof which will torture your soul. Oh, take heed, Enrico! This is the most sacred of human affections and wretched is he who tramples on it. The assassin who respects his mother still has something honourable and decent in his heart. The most illustrious of men is contemptible if he offends her and causes her sorrow. May a harsh word for the one who gave you life never escape your lips again. If it does, let it not be fear of your father but an impulse from your soul which throws you at her feet to beg for a kiss of forgiveness which will wipe from your brow the mark of ingratitude. I love you, my son. You are the

dearest hope in my life, but I would rather see you dead than ungrateful to your mother. Enough. For a little while do not offer me your caresses, for I could not return them from my heart. Father

My school-friend Coretti
Sunday, 13th My father forgave me but I was still rather sad. Then my mother sent me for a walk along the main street with the porter's son, who is a big boy. Half-way along the street, passing by a cart which was standing outside a shop, I heard my name called. I turned round. It was my school-friend Coretti, sweating and cheerful in his chocolate-coloured jersey and cat's skin cap, with a big load of firewood on his back. A man standing on the cart handed him firewood, an armful at a time. He carried it into his father's shop, where he quickly stacked it. 'What are you doing, Coretti?' I asked him. 'Can't you see?' he replied, holding out his arms to take some firewood. 'I'm learning my homework.' I laughed, but he was serious. He took an armful of firewood and then began to repeat quickly. 'The accidence of verbs depends on ... depends on number... depends on number and person. . . .' And then throwing down the wood and stacking it, 'Depends on the time... depends on the time of the action.' Then turning to the cart to take another armful, 'Depends on the mood in which the action is described.' It was our grammar lesson for the next day. 'What do you expect?' he said. 'I'm putting the time to good use. My father has gone off on a job with the boy who works for him. My mother is ill. It's up to me to unload it. Meanwhile I'm learning the grammar. It's difficult today. I haven't managed to get it into my head. My father said he'll he here at seven o'clock to give you the money,' he said then to I he man with the cart. The cart left. 'Come in the shop for a minute,' Coretti said to me. I went in. It was a big room full of firewood and bundles of sticks and on one side there was a weighing-machine. 'It's a hard grind today, I assure you,' Coretti went on. 'I have to do the work in fits and starts. I was writing the sentences and someone came in to buy. I started to write again and the cart arrived. I've already been twice this morning to the wood market in Piazza Venezia. I have no feeling in my legs now and my hands are swollen. I'd be in a mess if I had to do some drawing!' All the while, he swept up the dry leaves and I wigs which covered the brick floor. 'But where do you do your homework, Coretti?' I asked him. 'Certainly not here,' he replied. 'Come and see.' He led me in to a little room at the back of the shop which served as a kitchen and dining-room with a table in one corner on which there were textbooks and exercise books and the unfinished work. 'Just as I thought,' he said. 'I've left the second answer unfinished. "With leather we make shoes, belts" Now I can add "suitcases".' He took his pen and started to write in his beautiful handwriting. 'Is anyone there?' came a call from the shop at that moment. It was a woman who wanted to buy some kindling wood. 'Here I am,' replied Coretti, and he rushed out, weighed the wood, took the money, ran to the corner to record the sale on a notepad and returned to his work saying, 'Let's see if I can manage to finish the sentence.' And he wrote, travelling' bags, soldiers' kitbags. 'Oh! The wretched coffee is boiling over!' he suddenly exclaimed and ran to the stove to lift the coffee-pot off the fire. 'It's coffee for Mother,' he said. 'I really must learn how to make it. Wait a moment till we take it to her, then she will see you. That will please her. She's been in bed for a week. The accidence of verbs! I always burn my fingers on that coffeepot. What can I put after soldiers' kitbags? Something else is needed and I can't think of anything. Let's go to Mother.' He opened a door and we went into another small room. There was Coretti's mother in a big bed with a white handkerchief round her head. 'Here's the coffee, Mother,' said Coretti, handing her the cup. 'This is a friend from school.'

'Oh, I'm so pleased,' she said to me. 'You are visiting the sick, aren't you?' Meanwhile Coretti adjusted the pillows behind his mother's shoulders, rearranged the bedspread, poked the fire and shooed the cat off the chest of drawers. Then, taking back the cup, he asked, 'Is there anything else you want, Mother? Have you taken the two spoonfuls of syrup? When it's all finished I'll run over to the chemist's. The wood is unloaded. At four o'clock I'll put the meat on the stove as you said, and when the butter woman passes I'll give her those eight soldi. Everything will be all right, don't think about it.' 'Thank you, dear,' she relied. 'Poor boy! He thinks of everything. ' She wanted me to take a sweet and then Coretti showed me a little picture, a photograph of his father in soldier's uniform with the medal for valour which he won in '66 when he was serving with Prince Umberto. He had the same face as his son, the same lively eyes and happy smile. We went back to the kitchen. 'I've thought of something,' Coretti said, and in his exercise book he wrote: We also make horses' harness. 'I'll do the rest this evening; I shall be up late. Lucky you with time to study and to go for a walk!' Still cheerful and active, back in the shop he began to put pieces of wood on a stand to saw them in half and he said, 'This is gymnastics! Different from arms forward! I want my father to find all this wood sawn up when he gets back home. He will be pleased. The trouble is that after sawing I make t's and l's that look like snakes, as the teacher says. What can I do about it? I'll tell him that I've had to use my arms. The important thing is that Mother should get better soon, definitely, She has improved today, thank goodness. I'll study the grammar first thing tomorrow morning. Oh! There's the cart with the logs! So, to work.' A cart loaded with logs stopped in front of the shop. Coretti ran outside to speak to the man and then came back. 'I can't stay with you now,' he said, 'so goodbye till tomorrow. It was a good idea to come to see me. Have a good walk! Lucky you.' He shook my hand, ran to take the first log and once again started to rush between cart and shop, his face fresh as a rose under his cat's skin cap, and so lively that it was good to see him. Lucky you, he said to me. No, Coretti, no. You are the more fortunate. You, because you study and work harder, because you are more useful to your father and mother, because you are nobler, a hundred times more noble and worthy than I, my dear companion.

The headmaster
Friday, 18th Coretti was happy this morning because his second-year master, Signor Coatti, came to help with the monthly examination. Signor Coatti is a large man with a big head of curly hair, a big black beard, two big dark eyes and a voice like a trombone. He is always threatening the boys that he will beat them or take them by the scruff of the neck to the police station, and he makes fearful grimaces. But he never punishes anyone and in fact he is always smiling secretly under his beard. There are eight masters including Signor Coatti, and a supply teacher who is small and beardless and seems very young. here is a fourth-year master who is lame and wrapped up in a big woollen scarf. He is always full of aches and pains which go back to the time when he was a country schoolmaster in a damp building with water trickling down the walls. Another fourth-year master is old and white-haired and he has been a teacher of the blind. One of them is well dressed, wears spectacles and has a short fair moustache. We call him the little lawyer because while he was teaching he studied to be a lawyer and took a degree; he also wrote a book on how to teach writing. On the other hand, the one who teaches gymnastics is a military man. He was one of Garibaldi's soldiers and on his neck he has the scar of a sabre wound he sustained at the Battle of Milazzo. Then there is the headmaster. He is tall and bald, with gold-rimmed spectacles and a grey beard which comes down to his chest. He is dressed completely in black and his jacket is buttoned up to his chin. He is good with boys, for when they have to report to his study for a reprimand and they go in trembling, he does not scold them but takes them by the hand, puts before them so many reasons why they should not behave as they have, why they must repent and promise to be good, and he speaks to them so nicely and in such a kind voice that they all emerge with red eyes, more embarrassed than if he had punished them.

Poor headmaster, he is always the first at his post in the morning in time for the arrival of the pupils and to be there if parents want to speak to him, and when the teachers are already on their way home he walks round the school once more to see that the boys are not chasing one another under carriages or staying in the streets to stand on their hands or fill satchels with sand or pebbles. And every time that tall, dark figure appears at a street corner crowds of boys scatter in all directions, leaving their games and their marbles, while from a distance, with finger raised, he warns them in his sad, kind way. My mother says that no one has seen him laugh since the death of his son who was a volunteer in the army, and he always has his picture where he can see it on the desk in the headmaster's study. He did not want to go on after that misfortune and has already written out his request to the council for retirement, and always keeps it on his desk, each day putting off sending it because it would grieve him to leave I he boys. But the other day it seemed as if he had made up his mind and my father who was in his study was saying 'What a pity it I" that you are leaving, headmaster!' when a man entered to register a boy who was being transferred from another school 10 ours because he had moved house. When he saw the boy the headmaster seemed astonished, glanced at him and glanced at the picture on his desk. He turned to look at the boy, drew him between his knees and raised his face. The boy exactly resembled his dead son. The headmaster said, 'Very well', and made the registration. He said goodbye to the father and son and remained thoughtful. 'What a pity it is that you are leaving!' repeated my father. The headmaster picked up his request for retirement, tore it in half, and said, 'I am staying.'

The soldiers
Tuesday, 22nd His son was a volunteer in the army when he died. So the headmaster always goes on to the street to watch soldiers pass by, and we go out too. Yesterday an infantry regiment went by and fifty boys pranced alongside the band, singing and beating time on bags and satchels with their rulers. We stood in a group on the pavement to watch: Garrone, squeezed into his small clothes, biting into a big piece of bread; Votini, the well-dressed one who is constantly removing hairs from his clothing; Precossi, the blacksmith's son, in his father's jacket; the Calabrian; the little bricklayer; the red-headed Crossi; Franti with the brazen face; and also Robetti, the son of the artillery captain, the boy who saved a child from an omnibus and now walks on crutches. Franti laughed in the face of a soldier who limped. At the same moment he felt a man's hand on his shoulder. He turned round. It was the headmaster. 'Listen,' the headmaster said to him. 'To sneer at a soldier when he is on parade and can neither protect himself nor reply is like insulting a bound man: it is a cowardly act.' Franti looked small. The soldiers marched by four abreast, sweating and dusty, their rifles shining in the sun. The headmaster said, 'Boys, you should respect soldiers. They are our defenders who will go out and give their lives for us if tomorrow a foreign army threatens our country. They are boys like you. They are only a few years older than you, there are poor and rich amongst them as there are amongst you, they go to school like you, and they come from all parts of Italy. See if you can recognize them by their looks. There go Sicilians, Sardinians, Neapolitans and Lombards. This is an old regiment, one of those which fought in 1848. The soldiers are not the same ones, but the lag is still the same. How many had already died for our country under that flag twenty years before you were born!' 'Here it is,' said Garrone. And indeed the flag could be seen, quite near, in the van, raised above the soldiers' heads. 'There is something you could do, boys,' said the headmaster. 'Give your scholars' salute, hand to forehead, when the tricolour passes.' The flag, carried by an officer, passed in front of us. It was torn and faded, and honours hung from the shaft. Together we raised our hands in salute. The officer looked at us. He smiled and returned our salute. 'Good lads!' someone said behind us. We turned to look. It was an old man who was wearing in his buttonhole the blue ribbon of the Crimean campaign - a retired officer. 'Good lads!' he said. 'That was a fine thing you did.'

Meanwhile the regimental band was turning at the end of the street surrounded by a crowd of boys and, like a song of war, a hundred happy cries accompanied the trumpet notes. 'Good lads!' the old officer repeated, looking at us. 'He who respects the flag when he is small will know how to defend it when he is grown up.'

Nelli's protector
Wednesday, 23rd Nelli too watched the soldiers yesterday, poor little hunchback, but he seemed to be thinking, I shall never be able to be II soldier. He is a nice boy and he does his schoolwork. But he is very thin and pale, and his breathing is laboured. He always wears II long smock of shiny black material. His mother is a small, 1.lir woman dressed in black. She always comes for him at home-time because he doesn't go out in the usual scramble with all the others. She greets him with a caress. During his first days at school a lot of boys mocked him because he has the misfortune to be a hunchback, and hit his back with their bags. But he never fought back and he never said anything to his mother, so as not to sadden her with the knowledge that her son was the butt of his school-fellows. They sneered at him. He said nothing but rested his forehead on the desk and wept. But one morning Garrone jumped up and said, 'The first person who touches Nelli, I'll give him a clout that'll send him -limning.' Franti ignored this, the clout was administered, our friend did spin round and from that moment no one touched Nelli any more. The master put him next to Garrone, in the same desk. They became friends. Nelli has become very fond of Garrone. He has hardly got into school before he looks to see if Garrone is there. He never leaves without saying, 'Goodbye, Garrone', and Garrone behaves in the same way towards him. When Nelli lets his pen or a book fall under the desk, Garrone bends down and hands him the book or pen. Then he helps him to pack his things in his bag and to get into his overcoat. Because of this Nelli likes him very much, is constantly looking at him and when the master praises him he is as happy as if he himself had been praised. In the end Nelli must have told his mother everything, from the sneers of the first days, how they made him suffer, and then about the school-friend who defended him and of whom he had become fond, for here is what happened this morning. Half an hour before the end of school, the master told me to take the syllabus of the lesson to the headmaster, and I was in the office when a fair-haired woman dressed in black came in. She was Nelli's mother and she said, 'Headmaster, is there a boy called Garrone in my son's class?' 'There is,' replied the headmaster. 'Will you be so kind as to have him come here for a moment? I have something to say to him.' The headmaster called the caretaker, sent him into the classroom and a minute later there was Garrone in the doorway, with his big close-cropped head, completely taken by surprise. As soon as she saw him the woman ran to him, put her hands on his shoulders and kissed his head many times, saying, 'Are you my son's friend, Garrone, my poor child's protector? Are you, dear good boy, are you?' Then she quickly searched through her pockets and purse. Finding nothing suitable, she pulled a small cross and chain from her neck and put it round Garrone's neck under his tie and said to him, 'Take it. Wear it to remember me, dear boy, to remember Nelli's mother who thanks you and blesses you.'

Top of the class

Friday, 25th Garrone inspires everyone's affection, Derossi their admiration. He took first prize and he will also be top this year. No one can compete with him and everybody recognizes his superiority in all subjects. He is top in arithmetic, grammar, composition and drawing. He understands everything instantly, he has a remarkable memory, he succeeds effortlessly in everything, and it seems as if study is a game to him. The master said to him yesterday, 'God has given you great gifts. For your part, you must be sure not to waste them.' He is also tall and handsome with a crown of fair curls and so agile that he can put one hand on a desk and vault over it, and he already knows how to fence.

He is twelve years old and the son of a businessman. He is always dressed in dark-blue clothes with gilt buttons. He is always alert and cheerful, polite to everyone, and he helps as many people as he can in the examinations. No one has ever dared to be rude or say an unpleasant word to him. Only Nobis and Franti look askance at him and Votini's eyes show envy, but he does not even notice. Everyone gives him a smile and takes his hand or arm when he goes round the class, in his own pleasant way, collecting written work. He gives away illustrated papers and pictures, all that he has been give at home. For the Calabrian he made a small map of Calabria. He gives everything away light-heartedly, Indiscriminately, without favouritism, like a great gentleman. It is impossible not to envy him, not to feel that one comes .second-best to him in everything. Oh, yes! I too, like Votini, rl1vy him. I feel bitter, almost spiteful sometimes when I am struggling with my homework and it occurs to me that he will already have done his, very well indeed, and without effort. But back at school there he is, so handsome, laughing, triumphant, and I hear him answer the master's questions clearly and confidently and I see how courteous he is and how everybody likes him then all bitterness and spite vanish from my heart and I am ashamed of having harboured such feelings. I would like to be near him always. I would like to be able to do all my lessons with him. His presence and his voice give me courage, the will to work, happiness and pleasure. The master gave him the monthly story to copy out, the one he is going to read tomorrow, 'The Little Lombard Sentry'. He was copying it out this morning and he was moved by that heroic act. His face was full of feeling, his eyes moist, his lips trembling. I watched him. How handsome and noble he was! How I would have liked to look at him face to face and say, frankly, 'Derossi, in all respects you are my superior! In comparison with me, you are a man! I respect and admire you!'

THE LITTLE LOMBARD SENTRY

The monthly story
On a beautiful June morning in 1859, a few days after the French and Italian victory over the Austrians at the Battle of Solferino and San Martino in the war for the liberation of Lombardy, a small troop of cavalry from Saluzzo moved slowly along a lonely path towards the enemy, carefully reconnoitring the countryside. An officer and a sergeant led the troop. Everyone looked intently straight ahead into the distance, silent, expecting the uniforms of the enemy outposts to become visible amongst the trees at any moment. And so they came to a country cottage encircled by ash trees; in front of it, all alone, there was a boy about twelve years old peeling a small branch with a knife to make himself a walking-stick. A large tricolour hung from a window, but there was no one inside the house. After putting out their flag, the peasants had fled, for fear of the Austrians. As soon as he saw the cavalry the boy threw down his stick and took off his cap. He was a finelooking lad with an eager manner, He had large blue eyes and long fair hair. He was in shirt-sleeves and his chest was bare 'What are you doing here?' asked the officer, reining in his horse. 'Why haven't you fled with your family?' 'I haven't got a family,' the boy replied, 'I'm a foundling. 1 do a bit of work for everybody. 1 stayed here to see the war.' 'Have you seen any Austrians pass?' 'No, not for three days.' The officer remained awhile in thought; then he dismounted and, leaving the soldiers facing in the direction of the enemy, he entered the house and went up to the roof. The house was low. From the roof he could see only a small stretch of the countryside. 'Got to climb the trees,' said the officer, and he went down. Immediately in front of the barnyard was a very tall, slender ash tree, its highest branches swaying against the blue sky. The officer remained for a moment in thought, his eyes moving between tree and soldiers. Then suddenly he spoke to the boy. 'You, you rascal! Have you got good eyesight?' 'Me?' the boy replied. 'I could see a little sparrow more than a mile away..'

'Would you be strong enough to climb to the top of that tree?' 'Top of that tree? Me? 1 could get up there in half a minute.' 'And would you be able to tell me what you can see from up there, II there are Austrian soldiers over there, clouds of dust, guns sparkling in the sun, horses?' 'Certainly 1 would.' 'What do you want in return for doing this for me?' 'What do I want?' the boy asked, smiling. 'Nothing. But... if it were for the Germans, never! But it's for our soldiers! I'm a Lombard.' 'Good. Up you go, then.' 'Just a minute while I take my shoes off.' He took his shoes off, tightened his trouser belt and threw his cap down on to the grass. He put his arms round the trunk of the ash tree. 'Now take care!' the officer explained, moving to restrain him, as though seized by a sudden fear. The boy turned round to look at him, a question in his beautiful blue eyes. 'It's all right,' said the officer. 'Go on.' The boy went up, like a cat. 'Look straight ahead!' the officer shouted to the soldiers. In a few seconds the boy was at the top of the tree, clinging to the trunk. His legs were amongst the leaves, but his chest was exposed. The sun shone on his fair head, and it looked like gold. He was so small up there that the officer could hardly see him. 'Look straight ahead in to the distance,' shouted the officer. To see better, the boy took his right hand from the tree and shaded his eyes. 'What can you see?' asked the officer. The boy bent his head towards him and, making a mouthpiece of his hand, shouted, 'Two men on horseback on the white road.' 'How far from here?' 'Half a mile.' 'Are they moving?' 'They're quite still.' 'What else can you see?' the officer asked after a moment's silence. 'Look to your right.' The boy looked to his right. Then he said, 'Near the cemetery there's something shining amongst the trees. They look like bayonets.' 'Can you see anyone?' 'No. They'll be hidden in the corn.' At that moment there was the sharp hiss of a bullet as it passed high overhead and went on to spend itself far behind the house. 'Come down, boy!' shouted the officer. 'They've seen you. That's all! Come down!' 'I'm not frightened,' the boy replied. 'Come down!' repeated the officer. 'What else can you see, to the left?' 'To the left?' 'Yes, the left.' The boy thrust his head to the left. At that moment there was a hiss, sharper and closer than the first, as another bullet cut through the air. The boy gave a violent start. 'Phew!' he exclaimed. 'They're aiming right at me!' The bullet had passed very near to him. 'Come down!' shouted the officer in a voice commanding and impatient. 'I'm coming in a minute,' the boy replied. 'But it's all right. The tree's shielding me. You want to know what's on the left?' 'The left,' replied the officer. 'But come down!' 'Left,' the boy shouted, leaning in that direction, 'there's a chapel, and I think I can see. . .' A third fierce hiss was heard up there and almost at the same moment the boy fell down. Tree trunk and branches held him for a second, then he fell head first, his arms wide open. 'My God!' the officer cried, running forward. The boy's back struck the ground. He lay still, his arms and legs extended. Blood trickled from his left breast. The sergeant and two soldiers leapt down from their horses. The officer stooped and opened his shirt. The bullet had entered his left lung. 'He is dead!' the officer exclaimed.

'No, he's alive!' replied the sergeant. 'Ah! Poor boy! Brave boy! Brave boy!' cried the officer. 'Have courage! Have courage!' But while he was saying these words and pressing his handkerchief to the wound the boy opened his eyes wide and his head fell back. He was dead. The officer, his face pale, regarded him for a moment then laid him down gently with his head on the grass. He got up and remained looking at him. And the sergeant and the two soldiers stood motionless looking at him; the others remained facing the enemy. 'Poor boy,' the officer said again, sadly. 'Poor, brave boy.' Then he went to the house, took the tricolour from the window and spread it as a funeral pall over the small body, leaving the face uncovered. The sergeant gathered together shoes, cap, stick and knife and put them beside the body. They stood another moment in silence. Then the officer turned to the sergeant and said, 'We shall have him taken by the ambulance. He died like a soldier, soldiers will bury him.' Having said this he ordered a salute to the dead and then gave the command 'Mount!' Everyone leapt into the saddle, the troop assembled, and went on its way. A few hours later the boy was accorded military honours. At sunset the whole Italian front line advanced on the enemy, and in two files a great battalion of riflemen, which a few days earlier had bravely shed its blood on the hill at San Martino, moved along I ht" route followed that morning by the troop of cavalry. News of the boy's death had reached the soldiers before they left their camps. The path, flanked by a little stream, was only a few paces from the cottage. When the first officers of the battalion saw the little body draped in the tricolour lying at the foot of the ash tree they saluted II with their sabres. The bank of the stream was covered with flowers. An officer stooped to pick up two flowers and cast them down. In a few minutes the boy was covered in flowers and, as they passed, officers and men, all of them saluted him. 'Bravo, little Lombard!' 'Goodbye, son!' 'To you, little fair one!' 'Good lad!' 'Well done!' 'Goodbye!' One officer threw down his medal awarded for valour, another went to kiss his forehead. The flowers continued to rain on his bare feet, on his blood-stained breast, on his fair head. And he slept there on the grass, his face white and almost smiling, poor boy, as if he sensed those salutes and was happy to have given his life for Lombardy.

The poor
Tuesday, 29th To give your life for your country like the boy from Lombardy is a noble act, but do not neglect the smaller virtues, my son. This morning, walking in front of me when we were coming home from school, you passed close by a poor woman who was holding a stunted and delicate child between her knees. She asked alms of you. You looked at her and gave her nothing, even though there were coins in your pocket. Listen, my son. Do not get into the habit of passing by without feeling for those in need who ask for help, especially when a mother asks for a coin for her child. Remember that the child might be hungry, and think of the suffering of that poor woman. Imagine your mother's tears of despair if I had to say to you one day, 'Enrico, today I cannot even give you bread.' When I give money to a beggar and he says to me, 'May God keep you and yours in good health!', you cannot imagine the joy the words bring to my heart, the debt of gratitude I owe that poor man. It truly seems as if the good wish must keep us in good health for a long time and I go home happy. I think, Oh, that poor man gave me in return much more than I gave him!

Well then, conduct yourself so that I may sometimes hear that good wish invoked and earned by you. From time to time take a coin from your little purse and let it fall into the hand of an old man who has nothing, of a mother without bread, of a child without a mother. The poor like to receive alms from children because they are not humiliated by them and because children are in need of everything, just as they are. You will see that there are always beggars near schools. Alms-giving by a man is an act of charity. Alms-giving by a child is both an act of charity and 11 caress. Do you understand? It is as if both a coin and a flower fell from your hand. Think, while you lack nothing, they lack everything. While you seek happiness, for them it is enough to avoid death. Think how awful it is that amongst so many palaces and in streets with carriages and children dressed in velvet there are '/lumen and children who have nothing to eat. Nothing to eat! My goodness! Children like you, good like you; as clever as you who, in the middle of a great city, have nothing to eat, like wild animals lost in a desert! Oh, never again, Enrico, never again pass by a mother who is begging without putting a coin in her hand! Mother

DECEMBER The dealer

Thursday 1st My father likes me to bring home or visit one of my school fellows each day of the holiday so that gradually I can become a friend of them all. On Sunday I shall go for a walk with Votini the well-dressed boy who is always attending to his appearance and is so envious of Derossi. Today, meanwhile, Garoffi came to our house. He is the tall thin boy with a nose like an owl's beak and sly little eyes which seem to be forever searching. He is the son of a grocer and an intriguing, unusual character. He is always counting the money he has in his pockets. He works it out very quickly on his fingers and he can do any multiplication without using the tables. He saves and already has a passbook from the Scholars' Savings Bank. I am sure he never spends a soldo and if he lets a centesimo fall under the desks he is quite capable of looking for it for a week. Do as the magpie does, says Garoffi. Everything that he finds, old pen-nibs, used stamps, pins, candle grease, he collects. He has been collecting stamps now for more than two years and he already has hundreds from every country in a big album. He will sell it to the bookshop when it is full. Meanwhile the bookseller gives him his exercise books free because he takes a lot of children into the shop. At school he is always making deals. Every day he sells things, including lottery tickets, and 'he exchanges things. Then he will regret an exchange and want his items back, buy them for two centesimi and sell them for four. He plays for nibs and never loses. He sells old newspapers to the tobacconist and he has a little book full of additions and subtractions in which he notes down his dealings. At school he works hard only in arithmetic, and if he wants the prize it is only so that he can have a free ticket to the puppet theatre. I like him. He amuses me. We have played at shops with the weights and balance. He knows the right price of everything, he understands the weights, and he can make paper bags quickly like a shopkeeper. He says that as soon as he has left school he will put into operation a new business scheme that he has worked out himself. He was very pleased when I gave him some foreign stamps and told me the exact price for which he could sell each one in his collection. My father listened to him while pretending to read the newspaper and was much amused. His pockets are always bulging with his small items of merchandise and he covers them with a long black cloak. He seems to be continually preoccupied and busy, like a dealer. Hut nearest to his heart .is his stamp collection. This is his treasure and he talks about it constantly as if he is bound to make a fortune from it. His classmates say that he is greedy and a miser. I don't know. I like him very much. He teaches me a lot and to me he seems grown up. Coretti, the wood-seller's son, says that he would not give away his stamps, even to save his mother's life. My father does not believe that. 'Do not judge him yet,' he told me. 'He has that obsession, but he has a warm heart.'

Vanity
Monday, 5th Yesterday I went for a walk along Viale Rivoli with Votini and his father. Going through Via Dora Grossa we saw Stardi the boy who is liable to kick people who interrupt lessons - standing in front of a bookshop window as though rooted to the spot, and staring at a map. Who knows how long he had been there, for he studies even in the street. This great peasant found it very difficult to return our greeting. Votini was well dressed, even overdressed: he was wearing Morocco leather boots with red stitchwork, a suit with silk embroidery and tassels, a white beaver hat, and he had a watch. He was as proud as a peacock. But his vanity was to lead to a fall on this occasion.

After having run for a good distance alone the viale, leaving his father, who was walking slowly, a long way behind, we stopped at a stone bench where there was a boy. He was modestly dressed, he seemed tired and thoughtful and sat with bowed head. A man who must have been his father was walking up and down under the trees reading a newspaper. We sat down, Votini between me and the boy. He suddenly remembered that he was dressed up and wanted the admiration and envy of his neighbour. He lifted a foot and said to me, 'Have you seen my officer's boots?' I said something to turn the conversation, but he took no notice. He put his foot down and showed me his silk tassels. Looking at the boy out of the corner of his eye, he told me that he did not like the tassels and wanted to change them for silver buttons. But the boy didn't look at the tassels either. Then Votini began to spin his very beautiful white beaver hat on the tip of his first finger. But the boy - seemingly on purpose - did not deign to look even at his hat. Votini, who was beginning to get angry, took out his watch, opened it and made me look at the works. The other boy did not turn his head. 'Is it silver gilt?' I asked him. 'No,' he replied, 'it's gold.' 'But it won't be all gold,' I said. 'There'll be some silver in it too.' 'No, no!' he insisted. And to make the boy look he held the watch in front of his face and said to him, 'Look, tell me, it's true, isn't it, that it's all gold?' The boy replied in a matter-of-fact voice, 'I don't know.' 'Oh! Oh!' exclaimed Voltini, very angry. 'How superior!' While he was saying this his father reached us and heard hat was said. He looked hard at the boy for a moment, then said curtly to his son, 'Be quiet!' And bending to his ear he added, 'He is blind.' Shocked, Votini jumped up and looked into the boy's face. The pupils of his eyes were glassy, expressionless, sightless. Votini was humiliated. He said nothing and stared at the ground. Eventually he stammered, 'I am sorry. .. 1 did not know.' But the blind boy, who had understood everything, said with a kind but sad smile, 'Oh, it doesn't matter!' Vain Votini may be, but he is certainly not cold-hearted. He laughed no more during the rest of the walk.

The first fall of snow

Saturday, 10th Goodbye to walks along Viale Rivoli! Here is the lovely friend of children! The first snow! Since yesterday it has been coming down in big, dense flakes like jasmine flowers. This morning at school it was a pleasure to see it falling against the windows and piling up on the sills. Even the teacher was watching it and rubbing his hands, and everyone was happy at they thought of making snowballs, of the ice that would come and of the fireside at home. Only Sardi, his head in his hands, completely absorbed in the lesson, was indifferent. How beautiful, and what a treat it was at home-time! Everyone running about in the street shouting, busy, picking lip handfuls of snow, and running about in it like puppies in water. The parents waiting outside had white umbrellas, the policeman's helmet was white, in a few moments all our satchels were white. Everyone seemed beside himself with joy, even Precossi, the blacksmith's son, the pale boy who never laughs, and Robetti who saved the child from the omnibus, hopping along on his crutches, poor boy. The Calabrian, who had never touched snow, made a little ball of it and started to eat it as he would a peach. Crossi, the son of the woman who sells vegetables, filled his satchel with it. And when my father invited him to come to our house tomorrow, the little bricklayer made us burst out laughing. His mouth was full of snow and, daring neither to spit it out nor to wallow it, he stood there gagged, looking at us but not replying. Even the mistresses were laughing when they hurried out of school. Even my teacher from lA ran through the falling snow, poor thing, covering her face with her green veil and coughing. Meanwhile hundreds of girls from the school next hours ran across that white carpet screaming and the teachers,

caretakers and policeman shouted, 'Go home! Go straight home!', swallowing snowflakes and acquiring white beards and moustaches. But even they laughed at the joy of the scholars as they celebrated winter. You celebrate winter. . . , But there are children who have no clothes, no shoes, no fire. There are thousands who get down to the villages after a long walk, carrying in their hands - hands bleeding from chilblains - a piece of wood to heat the school. There are hundreds of schools half-buried in snow, bare and gloomy like caverns, where the children suffocate in smoke or their teeth chatter as fearfully they watch the white flakes ceaselessly falling, ceaselessly piling up on their distant hovels now threatened by avalanches. You celebrate winter, children. Think of the thousands of people to whom winter brings poverty and death. Father

The little bricklayer

Sunday, 11th The little bricklayer came today in a shooting-jacket, dressed entirely in his father's cast-off clothes, which were still white with mortar and plaster. My father had wanted him to come even more than I had. What a lot of pleasure he gave us! He was hardly through the door when he took off his cloth cap, which was soaking wet from the snow, and thrust it into his waistcoat pocket. Then, in his slouching gait, that of a tired workman, he walked in, his little face, round as an apple and with its little snub nose, turning this way and that. When he was in the drawing-room he looked round at the furniture. His eyes resting on a picture of Rigoletto, a hunchbacked clown, he twitched his nose like a hare. It is impossible not to laugh when you see him make his hare-nose. We began to play with the wooden bricks. He has a remarkable ability to build towers and bridges which seem to be held up by a miracle, and he worked at this very seriously, with the patience of a man. Between building towers, he told me about his family. They live in an attic, his father goes to evening classes to learn to read, and his mother comes from Biella. You can see that they must care for him very much, for though he is dressed like a poor boy he is well protected from the cold, his clothes are carefully mended, and his tie is nicely knotted by his mother. He told me that his father is a big man, a giant, who has difficulty in getting through doorways, but he is kind. He always calls his son 'Hare-nose'. The boy, on the other hand, is very small. At four o'clock we had a snack of bread and muscatel, sitting together on the sofa. When we got up, I don't know why, my father did not want me to wipe the back of the sofa on which the little bricklayer's jacket had left white marks. He held back my hand and then secretly cleaned it himself. My mother sewed on a button that came off his jacket while he was playing. Confused and red in the face, he stood holding his breath, amazed and full of wonder, watching her sew. Then I gave him some books of caricatures to look at and, without meaning to, he imitated the looks on the faces so well that even my father laughed. He was so happy when he left that he forgot to put on his cloth cap, and on the landing, to show me his gratitude, he once again twitched his nose like a hare. He is called Antonio Rabucco and he is eight years and eight months old. Do you know, my son, why I did not want you to clean the sofa? Because to clean it when your companion could see you was almost to reprove him for having made it dirty. And that would not have been right. First of all, because he had not done it on purpose and, secondly, because he did it with the clothes of his father, who got them covered with plaster while working. And the result of working is not dirt: it is dust, it is lime, it is anything else you like, but not dirt. Work does not make you dirty. Never say about a workman coming from his work, 'He is dirty.' You must say, 'He has signs and traces of his work on his clothes.' Remember this. And cherish the little bricklayer, first of all because he is your companion, and also because he is the son of a workman. Father

A snowball
Friday, 16th And it still snows. This morning when we came out of school there was an unpleasant incident in the snow. A group of boys had no sooner got on to the main street than they began to throw snowballs. The snow was the watery kind that makes snowballs as solid and heavy as stones. There were a lot of people on the pavement. A man shouted, 'Stop it, you rascals!' At the same moment a sharp cry from the other side of the street was heard and an old man was seen to have lost his hat and to be staggering and covering his face with his hands. Beside him a boy shouted 'Help! Help!' People immediately rushed up from all directions. He had been hit in the eye by a snowball. The boys scattered, and fled like lightning. 1 was outside the bookshop my father had gone into and 1 saw some of my companions come running, then mingle with the people near me and pretend to be looking in the window. There was Garrone with the usual hunk of bread in his pocket, Coretti the little bricklayer, and Garoffi the one with the stamps. A crowd had immediately formed round the old man, and a policeman and some other people rushed here and there threatening and demanding, 'Who was it? Who did it? Was it you? Tell me who did it!' And they looked at boys' hands to see if they had got them wet with snow. Garoffi was beside me. 1 noticed that he was trembling all over and that his face was as pale as death. 'Who was it? Who did it?' people continued to shout. Then 1 heard Garrone saying gently to Garoffi, 'Come on. . .. Go and own up. It would be a cowardly thing to let someone else be blamed.' 'But 1 didn't do it on purpose,' Garoffi replied, trembling like a leaf. 'That doesn't matte Do what you should do,' Garrone repeated. 'But 1 daren't!' 'Pluck up courage - I'll come with you.' The policeman and the others were shouting ever louder, 'Who was it? Who did it? They've knocked glass in his eye! they've blinded him! Brigands!' 1 thought Garoffi would collapse. 'Come on!' Garrone said to him firmly. 'I will protect you.' And taking him by the arm he pushed him forward, supporting him like a sick man. People saw this and immediately understood, and several rushed forward with their fists raised. But Garrone confronted them, shouting, 'Are ten men going to attack one boy?' Then they desisted. A policeman took Garoffi by the hand and, making a way through the crowd, led him to a pastry shop to which the injured man had been taken. As soon as I saw him I recognized the old man whose grandson lives with him on the fourth floor of our house. He was lying back in a chair with a handkerchief over his eyes. 'I didn't do it on purpose!' said Garoffi, sobbing and half dead with fear. 'I didn't do it on purpose!' Two or three people pushed him violently into the shop, shouting, 'Head on the ground, you! Ask him for forgiveness!' And they threw him to the ground. But suddenly two strong arms raised him to his feet, and a firm voice said, 'No, gentlemen!' It was our headmaster, who had seen everything. 'He has had the courage to own up,' he went on, 'so no one has the right to humiliate him.' Everyone was silent. 'Ask for forgiveness,' the headmaster said to Garoffi. Bursting into tears, Garoffi embraced the old man's knees and he sought Garoffi's head with his hand and stroked his hair. Whereupon everyone said, 'Go on, boy, go home!' My father took me from the crowd, and as we went on our way he said, 'Enrico, in a situation like that, would you have the courage to do what you should? Would you go and confess your guilt?' I replied that I would, and he said, 'Give me your word as a kind-hearted and honourable boy that you would.' I give you my word, Father.

The mistresses
Saturday, 17th Garoffi was still very frightened today, expecting a serious telling-off from the master. But the master did not turn up and, as the supply teacher was also absent, Signora Cromi came to take the class. The oldest of the mistresses, she had two grown-up sons and taught some of the women who now bring their own children to Baretti School to read and write. She was sad today because one of her sons is unwell. She had hardly appeared when talking broke out in class. But in a slow, calm voice she said, 'Respect my white hair. I am a mother as well as a teacher', after which no one dared to speak, not even the hard-faced Franti, who contented himself with mocking her behind her back. Signorina Delcati, my brother's teacher, was sent to Signora Cromi's class, and to Signorina Delcati's class went the teacher they call the little nun. She is always dressed in dark clothes with a black apron, she has a small white face, her hair is always smoothed down, her eyes are very bright and her small voice makes her seem to be murmuring prayers. People do not understand, my mother says. She is so gentle and timid, her quiet voice is always calm, only just audible, she does not shout and she never get angry. But she keeps the children so quiet that not a murmur is heard and the naughtiest of them bow their heads if she so much as admonishes them with a finger. Her classroom is like a church. This, too, is why she is called the little nun. There is another one I like: the young teacher of lB, the one with a complexion like a rose, two pretty dimples in her cheeks, a big red feather in her little hat and a little yellow glass cross round her neck. She is always cheerful and keeps her class cheerful. She is always calling out in that silvery voice which makes her seem to be singing, and she taps the desk with her pointer and claps her hands to demand silence. When they go out of school she runs like a little girl, first behind one I hen behind another to get them in line. She turns up someone's collar and buttons up someone else's coat so that they won't be cold. She follows them into the street to see that I hey don't squabble, she pleads with their parents not to punish them at home, she takes pastilles to those who have a cough, and lends her muff to those who are cold. She is continually tormented by the smallest children, who hug her and ask for a kiss, tugging at her veil and cape. She lets them do these things and, laughing, kisses them all and every day, still with her pretty dimples and red feather, she goes home untidy, hoarse, quite breathless and perfectly content. She is also the girls' drawing teacher and by her work keeps her mother and brother.

A visit to the injured man

Sunday, 18th The grandson of the old workman struck in the eye by Garoffi's snowball has the teacher who wears the red feather. We saw him today at the home of his grandfather, who looks after him like a son. I had finished writing out the monthly story for next week, 'The Little Florentine Scribe', which the teacher had given me to copy. My father said to me, 'Let's go up to the fourth floor to see how that man's eye is.' We entered a rather dark room where the old man was sitting up in bed with many cushions at his back. His wife was sitting at the head of the bed and his grandson was playing in a corner. There was a bandage over the old man's eye. He was very pleased to see my father. He made us sit down and told us that he was better, that he had not lost his eye, and in fact in a few days it would be healed. 'It was an accident,' he added. 'I am sorry that poor boy must have been frightened.' Then he talked about the doctor, who was due to visit him. At that moment the doorbell rang. 'It's the doctor,' his wife said. The door opens. . . . And who do I see? Garoffi in his long black cloak standing on the threshold with bowed head and lacking the courage to come in. 'Who is it?' asked the invalid. 'It's the boy who threw the snowball,' my father said. And the old man said, 'Oh, poor boy! Come in. You've come for news of the wounded man, haven't you? It's getting better, don't worry, it's getting better. I'm nearly well again. Come here!'

Garoffi, who was so confused that he did not see us, approached the bed, holding back his tears. The old man caressed him, but he did not dare to speak. 'Thank you,' the old man said. 'Go and tell your father and mother that everything is all right and they need not worry about it any more.' But Garoffi did not move. It seemed as if he had something to say but did not dare. 'What do you want to say to me? What is it?' 'I . . . nothing.' 'Well then, farewell, goodbye. Go forth in peace!' At last Garoffi went as far as the door, but there he stopped and turned to the grandson who had followed him and was watching him with curiosity. He suddenly took something from under his cloak, put it in the boy's hand, quickly said, 'It's for you', and was off in a flash. The boy took the object to his grandfather. They saw that on it was written I give you this. They looked inside and cried out in amazement. Poor Garoffi had brought the famous album which contained his stamp collection, the collection he was always talking about and on which he had built such hopes and expended so much effort. It was his treasure, poor boy, it was part of himself which he was giving in return for forgiveness.

THE LITTLE FLORENTINE SCRIBE

The monthly story
He was in the fourth year, a pleasant twelve-year-old Florentine boy with black hair and a fair complexion. He was the eldest son of a railwayman who lived on the edge of poverty, for he had a large family and a small income. His father loved him very much and was kind to him and indulgent - indulgent in everything except matters relating to school. There he expected a great deal and was strict, for the boy must prepare to get a job in the very near future to help the family. For this he must do a lot of work in a short time. The boy did study, hut his father continued to urge him on. The father was getting on in years and too much work had aged him before his time. Nevertheless, to meet the needs of the family, in addition to the many tasks connected with his job, he took an immense amount of copying work from various sources and spent a good part of the night at his writing-desk. Recently he had taken work from a firm which published newspapers and books which came out in parts. He had to write the names and addresses of subscribers on the wrappers and earned three lire for every five hundred which he completed in large, regular handwriting. But this work exhausted him and he often complained about it to the family at dinner. 'My eye are failing,' he would say. 'This night-work will be the end of me.' One day the boy said to him, 'Papa, let me do the work instead of you. You know that I write exactly like you.' But the father replied, 'No, son. You must study. Your lessons are much more important than my wrappers. I would feel guilty if I robbed you of an hour. Thank you, but I don't want you to, and do not speak to me about it again.' The boy knew that in matters like this it was useless to persist with his father, so he let it drop. But here is what he did. He knew that his father stopped writing exactly at midnight, left his little work-room and went to the bedroom. Sometimes he had heard him. As soon as I he dock struck twelve he heard the noise of the chair being moved and his father's slow steps. One night he waited till his father was asleep, very quietly got dressed and felt his way to the little room. He I rill I he oil-lamp, sat at the writing-desk on which there was a pile of blank wrappers and the address list and carefully, imitating his fathers script, he began to write. He worked with a will, contented - and just a little fearful. The wrappers mounted up. Occasionally he put his pen down to rub his hands, then started again with renewed eagerness, listening and smiling. One hundred and seventy he had written: a lira! He stopped, then, put the pen back where he had found it, put out the light and went on tiptoe back to bed.

His father was in a good mood when he sat at table at midday. He had noticed nothing. He did that particular work mechanically by the hour, not thinking of it in any other way, and he did not count the completed wrappers till next day. He sat down in good humour and, slapping his son on the back, said, 'Well, Giulio, your father is still a good worker, have no doubt. In two hours yesterday evening I did at least a third more work than usual. My hand is still quick and my eyes can still do their work.' Giulio, happy, silent, said to himself, 'Poor Father, as well as earning something, I've given him the satisfaction of believing himself to be young again. So keep it up!' He was encouraged by this happy result. The next night when midnight struck he got up again and set to work. He did this for several nights and his father noticed nothing. Just once at supper he came out with this remark: 'It's strange how much oil has been used in this house in a short time!' Giulio was alarmed, but no more was said about it and the night work went ahead. But interrupting his sleep every night like this, Giulio was not resting enough. In the morning he was tired when he got up, and in the evening when he did his homework he had difficulty in keeping his eyes open. One evening for the first time in his life he fell asleep over his exercise book. 'Come on! Keep going!' called his father, clapping his hands. 'To work!' He roused himself and started work again. But the next evening and on the following days the same happened, but worse: he dozed over his books, he got up later than usual, paid little attention to his lessons, and seemed disinclined to study. His father began to watch him, then to worry about him, and finally to reprove him. That was something he had never had to do! 'Giulio,' he said one morning, 'you are shifty with me. You are not the boy you used to be. I don't like it. Remember that all the family's hopes rest on you. Understand that I am not satisfied!' The boy was upset by this reproof, the first really severe one that he had ever received. 'Yes,' he said to himself, 'it's true. This cannot go on. The deception must end.' But at dinner on the evening of the same day his father said very happily, 'Do you know, this month doing the wrappers I've earned thirty-two lire more than last month!' As he said this he produced from under the table a packet of sweets he had bought to celebrate the unusual earnings with his children. They all welcomed them, clapping their hands. Then Giulio took courage, and said in his heart, 'No, dear Father, I shall not stop deceiving you. I shall try harder and study longer during the day, but I shall go on working at night for you and all the others.' His father went on: 'Thirty-two lire more! I am so pleased. But it's that one' - and he pointed to Giulio - 'who displeases me.' Giulio received the reproof in silence. He held back two tears which came to his eyes, while he experienced a feeling of great tenderness. He forced himself to go on with the work. But increasing tiredness became more and more difficult to fight. This went on for two months. His father continued to upbraid him and to regard him with increasing anger and sorrow. One day he went to consult the teacher, who said, 'Yes, indeed, he is intelligent, but he does not work with a will as he used to. He dozes, he yawns, he's inattentive. He writes short compositions hastily set down in bad handwriting. Oh, he could do very much better.' That evening his father took him aside and spoke to him more seriously than he had ever done before. 'Giulio, you see that I work, that wear myself out for the family. You do not help me. You have no feeling for me, for your brothers, for your mother!' 'Oh, no! Don't say that, Papa!' his son cried, bursting into tears. He was about to confess everything when his father said, 'You know the family circumstances. You know that each one of us must show goodwill and make sacrifices. I, too, must redouble my efforts. This month I had been counting on a bonus of a hundred lire from the railway, then this morning I learnt that I shan't get anything!' The instant he heard this news, Giulio suppressed the confession that had been on the point of escaping from his heart and he repeated to himself unconditionally, 'No, Papa, I shall tell you nothing. I shall keep the secret so that I can work for you. Somehow or other I shall make up for the sorrow I cause you. For school I shall always study enough to be promoted. The important thing is to help you to earn a living and to lighten the burdens which are killing you.'

He kept on, and another two months passed of work at night and exhaustion in the daytime, of the son's desperate efforts and the father's bitter reproaches. Worst of all, the father's attitude towards the boy was growing cool. He spoke to him only rarely and as if he were a wayward boy from whom nothing could now be expected, and he avoided looking him in the eye. Giulio knew it and was regretful. When his father turned his back, Giulio, moved by a sad, pitiful feeling of tenderness, turned towards him and unseen sent him a kiss. Sorrowful and tired, he grew thin and pale and he could not study properly. He knew well enough that it would have to come to an end one day and every evening he said to himself, 'Tonight I shall not get up.' But when midnight struck, at the moment when he should have vigorously reaffirmed his resolution, he experienced remorse, for it seemed to him that to stay in bed would be to neglect a duty and to steal a lira from his father and family. And so he got up, thinking that one of these nights his father would be awakened and surprise him, or that he would become aware of the deception by chance, perhaps by checking the number of wrappers. Thus it would all come to an end naturally without his having to take a step, something he felt he had not the courage to do. And so he continued. But one evening at dinner his father said something which was decisive for him. When his mother looked at him he seemed to be more unwell and paler than usual. She said to him, 'Giulio, you are unwell.' Then, turning to his father, she said anxiously, 'Giulio is unwell. Look how pale he is! Poor Giulio, how do you feel?' The father gave him a fleeting glance and said, 'A bad conscience is causing bad health. He wasn't like that when he was a studious scholar and a loving son.' 'But he's ill!' the mother exclaimed. 'I no longer care,' replied the father. These words struck the poor boy like a knife in the heart. So! He did not care any more! His father who once trembled just to hear him cough. He no longer loved him, there was no doubt about that now. In his father's heart he was dead. The boy's heart was in the grip of anguish as he said to himself, 'Oh, no, Father! This really is I he end. I cannot live without your love. I want it back. I shall tell you everything. I shall not deceive you any more and I shall study like I used to. Come what may, if only you would start to love me again, my poor father! This time I really mean it!' All the same that night he got up again, by force of habit more than anything else. When he was out of bed in the quiet of the night, III' wanted to see just once again for a few minutes and say goodbye to that little room in which he had worked so much in secret with his heart so full of satisfaction and tenderness. When he found himself at the desk with the lamp lit and saw the white wrappers on which hr meant never again to write those names and addresses which he now knew by heart, he was overcome by great sadness. Impetuously he picked up the pen to resume the familiar work. In reaching out his hand he struck a book. The book fell. His heart pounded. What if Ills father woke up! Certainly he would not have discovered him doing anything wrong. He had firmly resolved to tell him everything. Nevertheless, to hear footsteps approaching in the darkness, to be discovered in that silent hour, the idea that his mother might be awakened or frightened, and the realization for the first time that when he discovered the truth his father might feel humiliated in the eyes of his son - all these things brought him to the edge of terror. He listened with bated breath but heard nothing. He put his ear to the keyhole in the door behind him. Nothing. The house slept. His father had heard nothing. He calmed down and started to write. A pile of wrappers began to grow. He heard the regular steps of the policeman down in the deserted street, then the noise of a carriage which suddenly stopped, and after a while the noise of a line of carts passing slowly by, and then a deep silence broken from time to time by the distant barking II' n dog. He wrote. He went on writing. Meanwhile his father stood behind him. He had got up when he heard the book fall and had waited for the right moment. The noise of the carts had hidden the sound of his footsteps and the gentle creaking of the door. And there he was, his white head looming over Giulio's small dark head. He had seen the pen moving across the wrappers and in that moment he had guessed the truth, remembered everything and understood. A great tenderness had possessed his soul and held him, overcome, behind his child's back. Suddenly Giulio gave a sharp cry - two arms had taken his head in a strong embrace. 'Oh, Papa, forgive me! Forgive me, Papa!' he cried, for he had recognized his father by his sobs. 'No! You must forgive me!' his father replied, weeping, and covering his face with kisses. 'I understand everything, I see it all and it is I, it is I who ask your forgiveness, my blessed child! Come, come with me!'

His mother was now awake, and he pushed him, or rather carried him to her bed and thrust him into her arms, saying, 'Kiss this angel your son who for three months has not slept, but worked for me while I filled his heart with sorrow - he who was earning our bread.' His mother embraced him and held him to her breast, unable to speak. Then she said, 'Go to sleep, straight away, my baby, go to sleep, to rest! Carry him to bed!' Sighing, and caressing him all the time, his father took him in his arms, carried him to his bedroom and arranged the pillows and bed covers. 'Thank you, Papa,' the boy said again and again, 'thank you. But you go to bed now. I'm all right. Go to bed, Papa.' But his father wanted to see him sleep. He sat near the bed and took his hand. 'Sleep, my little boy, sleep!' And Giulio, exhausted, fell asleep at last. For many hours he slept, for the first time in many months enjoying a peaceful sleep sweetened by happy dreams. The sun had been shining for some time when he opened his eyes. He first felt, then saw a white head resting on the edge of his poor little bed near his breast. His father had spent the night there and was still sleeping, his forehead near his son's heart.

Will-power
Wednesday, 28th It is Stardi, in my class, who would have the strength of will to do what the little Florentine did. This morning two things happened at school: Garoffi was wild with delight because they gave him back his album and in addition three stamps from the Republic of Guatemala which he had been looking for for three months; and Stardi got the medal for coming second in class. Stardi at the top of the class after Derossi! Everyone was amazed. Who would ever have predicted it in October when his father brought him to school wrapped up in that big green overcoat and said in front of everyone, 'Be very patient, he's very slow-witted.' Everybody thought him a blockhead from the start. But he said to himself, 'I succeed or die in the attempt', and he began to study by day, by night, at home, in school, while walking, with gritted teeth and fists clenched, patient as an ox and obstinate as a mule. In this way, by dint of repetition, ignoring I hose who mocked and aiming a kick at those who interrupted, this obstinate boy drew ahead of the others. Of arithmetic he knew not a thing, his compositions were full of mistakes and he could not keep one sentence in his mind. Now he solves problems, writes correctly and sings out the lessons like an artiste. His very build seems to indicate a will of iron: thickset, square head and no neck, short, thick hands and a rough voice. He even uses passages in the newspapers and theatre advertisements for study and, whenever he has ten soldi, he buys a book. He has already put together a little library and in a genial moment he allowed himself to say that he would take me home to see it. He speaks to no one and plays with no one, he is always there at his desk, his fists at his temples, steady as a rock, listening to the teacher. How he must have worked, poor Stardi! The master said as much to him this morning when he gave out the medals, even though he was impatient and in a bad mood. 'Well done, Stardi! Doggedness does it.' But he did not seem the slightest bit proud, did not smile, and as soon as he was back in his place with his medal he put his fists to his temples, quieter and more attentive than before. The most pleasing moment came at home-time when his father, a blood-letter, heavy and thickset like his son and with a big face and a loud voice, was waiting for him. He had not been expecting that medal and he could not believe it. He had to be reassured by the teacher and then he began to laugh happily. He slapped his son on the back and said in his loud voice, 'Well done, good, my own woodenhead, well done!' He looked amazed, but he was smiling. All the boys gathered around were smiling, except Stardi. Wrapped in his big overcoat he was already thinking about the next morning's lessons.

Gratitude
Saturday, 31st I am sure that your class-mate Stardi never complains about his teacher. 'The teacher was impatient and in a bad mood, you say resentfully. Think for a moment how many times you are impatient. And with whom? With your father and mother, for whom impatience is a crime. Your teacher has good reason to be impatient sometimes. Think how many years he has been toiling for the boys and remember that, though many are well disposed and polite, he has encountered very many who were uncouth, who took advantage of his kindness and disregarded all that he tried to do, and that unhappily, all things considered, he has known more sorrow than satisfaction. Bear in mind that in his position the most saintly man on earth would sometimes lose his temper. Then you do not know how often the teacher is unwell at school, but not ill enough to stay at home and is impatient because he is suffering. And it makes Respect and cherish your teacher, my son. Cherish him because your father cherishes and respects him, because he consecrates his life to the welfare of so many boys who will forget him. Cherish him because he broadens and enlightens your mind and refines your spirit, and because one day, when you are a man and neither he nor I are on this earth, his image will often come into your mind next to mine and on his noble face you will see marks of sorrow and fatigue which you take no notice of at present. You will remember them and they will hurt you even after thirty years. You will be ashamed and saddened that you did not cherish him, that you behaved badly. Cherish your teacher because he belongs to that great family of fifty thousand elementary-school teachers scattered throughout Italy who are like the intellectual parents of millions of children growing up with you, the grudgingly recognized and badly paid workers who are preparing for our country a generation superior to the present one. I am not satisfied with the love you bear me if it is not extended to all those who care for you, and amongst those your teacher comes first, after your parents. Cherish him as you would a brother of mine, cherish him when he is fair and when he seems to you unfair. Cherish him when he is cheerful and friendly and even more when he is sad. Cherish him always. And always speak this name with reverence: teacher which after that of father is the noblest, the dearest name one man can give to another.

JANUARY The supply teacher

Wednesday, 4th My father was right: the teacher was in a bad mood because he was not well. For three days in fact his place was taken by the supply teacher, the small beardless man who gives the impression of being an apprentice. There was an ugly situation this morning. Already on the first and second days there had been a lot of noise in class because the supply teacher is very patient and all he does is say 'Be quiet, please be quiet'. But this morning things went beyond the limit. There was such a noise that you could not hear what he said. He admonished and he requested, but it was a waste of breath. Twice the headmaster appeared at the door and looked in. But when he went the hum of talk grew as if it were a market-place. Garrone and Derossi looked round meaningfully to signal to their class-mates that it was shameful and that they should behave. No one took any notice. Only Stardi remained quiet, elbows on desk, fists at his temples, thinking perhaps of his famous library, and Garoffi the hook-nosed boy with the stamps, who was fully occupied in making a list of those who had paid two centesimi into a draw for a portable ink-well. The others were chattering and laughing, playing with pennibs stuck into the desks and firing pellets of chewed paper with elastic from their stockings. The supply teacher took first one then another by the arm and shook them and made one of them stand against the wall, but it was a waste of time. He no longer knew what to do, and appealed to them: 'Why do you behave like this? Do you want me to use force?' Then he struck the desk with his fist and cried in a voice of anger and sorrow, 'Silence! Silence! Silence!' It was painful to hear him, But the noise was growing all the time. Franti threw a paper dart at him, some were mewing like cats, others were hitting one another. There was indescribable confusion, when the caretaker unexpectedly entered and said, 'Sir, the headmaster is asking for you.' The teacher got up and, with a gesture of despair, hurriedly left. The uproar started again, louder than before. Suddenly Garrone leapt up, his face contorted, his fists clenched, and shouted in a voice choked with anger, 'Stop it! You're a lot of animals. You take advantage of him because he's nice. If he pounded your bones you'd be quiet like dogs. You're a bunch of cowards. The first to playa trick on him now, I'll wait for him outside and smash his teeth in, I swear, and his father can watch!' Everybody was quiet. Ah, how good it was to see Garrone with his eyes blazing! He was like an angry young lion. He looked at the boldest, line by one, and they bowed their heads. When the supply teacher came back, redeyed, you could have heard a pin drop. He was amazed. But when he saw Garrone still suffused with anger and trembling, he understood, and said to him with much feeling, as though to a brother, 'Thank you, Garrone.'

Stardi's library
I have been to see Stardi who lives opposite the school and I felt truly envious when I saw his library. He is by no means rich and cannot buy many books, but he keeps his schoolbooks and those his relatives give him very carefully, and he 'lives all the money they give him and spends it at the bookseller's. In this way he has put together a little library, and when his father saw that he had this passion he bought a lovely walnut bookcase for him with a little green curtain and had most of the volumes bound for him in his favourite colours. So now he pulls a little cord, the green curtain moves away and you see three rows of books in all colours, all in order and shining, with titles in gold on their spines: storybooks, books of travel, poetry and picture-books. He knows how to arrange the colours effectively, putting the white volumes next to the red, yellow next to black, blue next to white, so that from a distance they make a lovely picture. Then he amuses himself by changing the arrangement. He has made a catalogue. He is like a librarian. He is always with his books, dusting them, leafing through them, examining the binding. You should see how carefully he opens them with those short, thick

hands, blowing between the pages. All of them still look new. I have spoilt all mine! But for him each time he buys a new book it is a pleasure to handle it, to put it in its proper place, to take it down again to look at it from all angles and to feast his eyes on it as a treasure. For an hour he showed me nothing else. My eyes ached from so much reading. At one time his father, who is big and thickset like him and has a big head like his, came into the room, slapped him two or three times on the back and said to me in that big voice, 'Well, what do you say about him, about this bronze numskull? He's a numskull who'll succeed in something, believe me!' Under this rough caress Stardi half closed his eyes like a big gun dog. I don't know. I didn't dare joke with him. It did not seem true that he was only a year older than I, and when he said goodbye at the door, his face surly as usual, I almost responded with 'Accept my respect', as to a man. I told my father this at home. 'I don't understand. Stardi is without ability, he hasn't got good manners, he's almost a comical figure, but I stand in awe of him.' My father replied, 'That is because he has a strong character. ' I went on, 'During the hour I was with him, he didn't say fifty words, he didn't show me a toy, he didn't laugh once. But I stayed there willingly.' ' That is because you respect him,' said my father.

The blacksmith's son

Yes, but I respect Precossi too, and to say that I respect him I~ not enough - Precossi the blacksmith's son, the pale little boy with the fine, sad eyes, who always seems frightened and is so timid that the words 'Excuse me' are always on his lips, the boy who is always sickly yet studies so hard. His father comes home drunk on rough spirits and hits him for no reason at all, sends his textbooks and exercise books flying with a back hand swipe, and he comes to school with bruises on his cheek, and sometimes his face is all swollen and his eyes are red from crying so much. But never, never can they make him say that his father has hit him. 'It was your father who hit you!' they say to him. And straight away he cries, 'It's not true! It's not true!', so as not to dishonour his father. 'It wasn't you who burned this paper,' the master says, showing him the half-burnt work. 'Yes,' he replies with shaking voice, 'it was I who let it fall on the fire.' All the same, we know well enough that it was his father, when he was drunk, who overturned table and lamp with a kick while he was doing his homework. He lives in the attic of our house, on the other staircase, and the caretaker's wife tells my mother all about them. One day from the balcony my sister heard him cry out when his father had knocked him head first down the stairs because he had asked for some money to buy the grammar book. His father drinks, does not work and the family goes hungry. Precossi often comes to school without having eaten and he secretly takes bites from a piece of bread Garrone gives him or an apple brought for him by the little mistress with the red leather who was his teacher in lB. But he never says, 'I am hungry, my father doesn't give me anything to eat.' His father sometimes comes for him when he happens to be passing the school - pale, unsteady on his feet, surly-faced, hair over his eyes and his cap back to front. The poor boy hakes all over when he sees him in the street, though he runs towards him smiling, but it seems as if his father does not see him, and is thinking of something else. Poor Precossi! He has to make do with torn exercise books, he has to borrow books to do homework, he fastens his shirt together with pins, and it is pitiful to see him doing exercises wearing those big shoes his feet slip about in, trousers that trail on the ground and that big jacket too long for him, with the sleeves turned back as far as his elbows. And he studies, he is committed to his work. He would be near the top of the class if he could work quietly at home. This morning he came to school with a scratch on his cheek and everybody said to him, 'It's your father, you can't deny it this time, it's your father who did that to you. Tell the headmaster and they'll send for him to the police station.' But he leapt up, his face flushed and his voice shaking with indignation. 'It's not true! It's not true! My father never hits me!'

But then during the lesson his tears fell on to the desk and when anyone looked at him he forced himself to smile, to hide his feelings. Poor Precossi! Tomorrow Derossi, Coretti and Nelli will be coming to my house. I should like to tell him to come too. And I should like to ask him to have tea with me, to give him some books, to turn the house upsidedown to amuse him, and fill his pockets with fruit, to see him happy for once - poor Precossi, who is so nice and has so much courage!

A happy afternoon
Thursday, 12th This was one of the best Thursdays of the year for me. At exactly two o'clock Derossi, Coretti and Nelli the little hunchback came to my house. As for Precossi, his father would not let him come. Derossi and Coretti were still laughing about Crossi, the boy with red hair and a withered arm whose mother sells vegetables. They had met him in the street carrying an enormous cabbage. He was going to sell it, and with the money he had to buy a pen. He was very happy because his father had written from America, something they had been waiting for day after day. What a wonderful two hours we spent together! Derossi and Coretti are the liveliest two boys in the class. My father is quite enchanted by them. Coretti was wearing his chocolate-coloured jersey and cat's skin cap. He's a live wire who always wants to be doing something, stirring things up, busy. He had already delivered half a cartload of wood on his back early that morning. All the same, he hurried through the house inspecting everything and talking all the time, as quick and agile as a squirrel. Going Into the kitchen he asked the cook how much they had to pay for ten kilograms of wood, for which his father charges forty five centesimi. He talks about his father all the time, about when he was a soldier in the 49th Regiment at the Battle of Custozza, where he served under Prince Umberto. And he is so gentlemanly. That he was born and grew up amongst the firewood is irrelevant. As my father says, he is one of nature's gentlemen. Derossi entertained us a great deal. He knows as much geography as a teacher, and with closed eyes he said, 'I can see the whole of Italy, the Apennines reaching as far as the Ionian Sea, rivers flowing down each side, white towns, the gulfs, the blue bays, the green islands. He recited their correct names, in order and quickly as though reading from a map. Seeing him like that, his head of fair curls held high, eyes closed, dressed in blue, with gold buttons, upright and handsome like a statue, everyone was transfixed in admiration. In an hour he had learnt by heart nearly three pages which he is to recite the day after tomorrow on the anniversary of the funeral of King Victor Emmanuel. Even Nelli showed wonder and affection as he watched him, fingering the edge of his big black apron and smiling with those bright, sad eyes. That visit gave me great pleasure and left me with the feeling of a light in my mind and heart. I was pleased, too, when they left, to see Nelli between the two big strong lads: till y were taking him home arm in arm and making him laugh as I have never seen him laugh before. When I returned to the dining-room I noticed that the picture of Rigoletto the hunchbacked clown was missing. My father had taken it away so that Nelli should not see it.

The funeral of Victor Emmanuel

Tuesday, 17th No sooner had we got into school this afternoon at two o'clock than the master summoned Derossi, who went to stand next to the desk, facing us, and in accents charged with feeling began to speak, gradually raising his clear voice, his face becoming flushed. 'Four years ago on this day, at this moment, the funeral carriage carrying the body of Victor Emmanuel II, the first King of Italy, was approaching the front of the Pantheon in Rome. He had died after a reign of twenty-nine years, during which the great Italian fatherland, broken into seven states and oppressed by foreigners and tyrants, rose again as one united state, independent and free, after a reign of twenty nine years which he made illustrious and beneficent by valour and loyalty, by courage in the face of danger, by wisdom in triumph and steadfastness in misfortune.

'The funeral carriage arrived laden with wreaths after crossing Rome under a rain of flowers, through the silence of an immense grieving multitude assembled from all parts of Italy, preceded by a legion of generals and a throng of ministers and princes, followed by a procession of war wounded, by a forest of flags, by the delegates of three hundred towns and all those who represented the power and glory of a nation. It arrived in front of the august temple where the tomb was waiting. 'Now twelve cuirassiers lifted the coffin from the carriage. Now Italy said goodbye for the last time to her dead king, to her venerable king who had loved her so much, the last goodbye to her soldier, her father, to the happiest and most blessed twenty-nine years of her history. 'It was a grand and solemn moment. All eyes, all heart~ followed the coffin as it moved between the draped flags of the eighty regiments of the Italian army borne by eight y officers drawn up along its route. For Italy was there in those eighty emblems which commemorated the thousands of dead, the torrents of blood, our most sacred glories, our holiest sacrifices, our greatest suffering. 'The coffin, borne by the cuirassiers, passed, then in t he same moment everyone bowed in salute. The flags of the new regiments, the old tattered flags from Goito, from Pastrengo, Santa Lucia, Novara, from the Crimea, from Palestro, San Martino and Castelfidardo, eighty black veils fell, a hundred medals crashed on to the coffin and the noise, confused but resonant, which stirred everyone's blood, was as the sound of a thousand human voices together saying "Goodbye, good king, valiant king, loyal king! You will live in the hearts of your people as long as the sun shines on Italy." 'Then the flags were raised again towards the sky and King Victor Emmanuel entered into the glorious immortality of the tomb.'

Franti is put out of the class-room

Saturday, 21st Only one person was capable of laughing while Derossi was reciting the funeral obsequies of the King. Franti laughed. I detest that boy. He is evil. When a father comes to school to get boy into trouble, he is pleased. When someone cries, he laughs. Confronted by Garrone he trembles, but he hits the little bricklayer because he is small, he torments Crossi because he has a withered arm and he sneers at Precossi whom everyone respects. He even plays jokes on Robetti, the boy in the second year who uses crutches as a result of saving a child. He torments everyone who is weaker than himself, and when he fights he turns nasty and tries to hurt. There is something repellent about that low forehead and those muddy eyes half-hidden under the peak of his little oilskin cap. He respects nothing, he laughs in the teacher's face, steals when he can and replies with a barefaced denial. He is always quarrelling with someone. He brings long pins to school to prick his neighbours, and he tears buttons from his jacket and from other people's and plays with them. His satchel, exercise books and textbooks are all crumpled, torn and dirty. His ruler is indented and his pen is chewed. His fingernails are bitten down. His clothes are covered with grease spots and torn from fighting. They say that his mother is ill with the anxiety he causes her and that his father has put him out of the house three times. His mother sometimes comes to school to ask about him and always goes away crying to herself. He hates school, he hates the other boys and he hates the teacher. Sometimes the master pretends not to see his misdeeds. Then he does something worse. He tried putting him with the well-behaved boys, and he mocked them. He spoke to him very severely and he covered his face with his hands as though he was crying - but he was laughing. He was suspended from school for three days and he came back meaner and more insolent than before. One day Derossi said to him, 'You should stop it. You can see that you're making the teacher very unhappy', and he threatened to stick a nail in his stomach. But this morning, at last, he got himself thrown out like a dog. While the master was giving Garrone the rough copy of 'The Sardinian Drummer-boy', the monthly story for January, to write out, he threw a firework on the floor. It went off and stunned the class like a shot from a rifle. The whole class was deeply shocked. The master leapt to his feet and shouted, 'Franti! Get out of the school!' He replied, 'It wasn't me.' But he was laughing.

The master repeated, 'Get out!' 'I'm not moving,' he replied. Then the master lost his temper, rushed at him, seized him by the arms and dragged him from the bench. He struggled and gnashed his teeth. He had to be dragged out by sheer force. The teacher half carried him to the headmaster, returned to the class alone and sat at the desk out of breath and looking so tired and dejected that it was painful to see him. 'After thirty years of teaching!' he said sadly, shaking his head. No one breathed. His hands were shaking with anger and the straight line in the middle of his forehead was so deep that it looked like a wound. Poor teacher! Everyone grieved for him. Derossi got up and said, 'Sir, do not be distressed. We all like you very much.' He became a little calmer then, and said, 'Let us get on with the lesson, boys.'

THE SARDINIAN DRUMMER-BOY

The monthly story
It was the first day of the Battle of Custozza, 24th July 1848. Three score soldiers from an infantry regiment of our army, ordered to a hill to occupy an abandoned house, suddenly found themselves attacked by two companies of Austrian soldiers. Firing on them from several quarters, the Austrians hardly gave them time to seek shelter in the house and hastily barricade the door, having left dead and wounded in the fields. When the doors were barred our men rushed to the windows on the ground floor and the first floor and trained a dense fire on the attackers who, approaching step by step, in a semicircle, responded vigorously. The sixty Italian soldiers were under the command of two subalterns and a captain, a tall, elderly man, austere and stern, with white hair and moustache. With them was a Sardinian drummer-boy of little more than fourteen, who looked scarcely twelve. He was small and had a dark, olive complexion, two small dark eyes deep set and bright. The captain was directing the defence from a room on the first floor, issuing orders like pistol-shots. His stern face showed no sign of emotion. The drummer-boy, rather pale but steady on his feet, had got up on a little table. He was holding on to the wall and stretching his neck to look out of the window. Through the smoke, across the fields, he saw the white uniforms of the Austrians, who were slowly advancing. The house was situated at the top of a steep slope, and on the side facing the slope there was only one window. It was small and high and looked out from the attic. Thus the Austrians were not threatening the house from that direction and the slope was clear. Only the front of the house and the two sides were under fire. But it was a deadly fusillade, a hail of leaden bullets which cracked the outside walls and shattered the roof tiles. Inside, it smashed ceilings, furniture, shutters and doors, throwing in the air splinters of wood, clouds of plaster, broken crockery and glass, whistling, ricocheting, breaking everything with a noise which threatened to crack the skull. From time to time one of the soldiers who were firing from the windows fell back on to the floor and was dragged aside. Some staggered from one room to another pressing their hands against their wounds. In the kitchen there was already the body of a dead soldier, his forehead split open. The enemy half-circle drew closer. There came a moment when the captain, until then impassive, showed signs of uneasiness and strode out of the room followed by a sergeant. Three minutes later the sergeant came hurrying back and called the drummer-boy, beckoning him to follow. The boy ran up a wooden staircase after him and the two of them entered a bare attic, where they saw the captain leaning out of the window, writing with a pencil on a piece of paper. On the floor at his feet was a well-rope. The captain folded the paper. His cold grey eyes, before which all the soldiers trembled, stared fixedly into the boy's eyes. Abruptly, he said, 'Drummer-boy!' The drummer-boy put his hand to the peak of his cap. 'Are you brave?' said the captain. The boy's eyes shone. 'Yes, sir!' he replied. 'Look down there,' said the captain, propelling him towards the

little window, 'on to the plain, near the houses of Villafranca where there is a glitter of bayonets. There are our men, motionless. You take this note, hold on to the rope, lower yourself from the window, run down the slope and go across the fields. When you reach our men give this note to the first officer you see. Take your belt and knapsack off.' The drummer-boy took off his belt and knapsack and put the note in his breast pocket. The sergeant threw the rope out and grasped one end of it in his two hands. The captain helped the boy to get through the little window, with his back turned to the countryside. 'Take care,' he said to him, 'the safety of the detachment depends on your courage and on your legs.' 'Trust me, sir,' replied the drummer-boy, already suspended outside. 'Crouch down to make yourself small, on the way,' the captain added, holding on to the rope with the sergeant. 'Depend on me.' 'May God help you.' In a few moments the drummer-boy had reached the ground. The sergeant pulled the rope up and disappeared. The captain stood tensely at the window and watched the boy scurrying down the slope. He was already hoping that he had succeeded in getting away unobserved when five or six little clouds of dust rising from the ground in front of and behind the boy told him that the Austrians had seen him and were firing at his back from the top of the hill. Those little clouds were earth thrown into the air by bullets. But the drummer-boy continued to run at full speed. At one moment he fell. 'Killed!' shouted the captain, biting his fist. But he had hardly uttered the word when he saw the drummer-boy get up. 'Ah! Just a fall!' he said to himself, and breathed again. In fact the drummer-boy began to run again with all his strength, but he was limping. A twisted ankle, thought the captain. Little clouds of dust still appeared round the boy, but further and further from him. He was safe. The captain uttered an exclamation of triumph. But his eyes still followed him anxiously, for the situation had to be resolved in minutes. If he did not get down there as soon as possible with that note which requested immediate help, either all his soldiers would be killed or he would have to surrender and give himself up as a prisoner with them. The boy ran quickly for a while, slowed down, limping, then started to run again, but each time showing more fatigue, and sometimes he stumbled or paused for a moment. Perhaps a bullet has grazed him, the captain thought and, trembling, he watched every movement, encouraged him and spoke to him as if the boy could hear. Eagerly and ceaselessly he measured the distance between the running boy and the light reflected from the arms down there on the plain in the middle of the fields of grain made golden by the sun. Meanwhile he heard the whistle and crash of bullets in the rooms below, the impassioned, insistent cries of the officers and sergeants, the wailing of the wounded and the smashing of furniture and plaster. 'Go on! Keep at it!' he shouted, his eyes on the drummer-boy. 'Keep going! Run! He's stopping, the damned boy! Ah! He's running again.' An officer, panting for breath, came to tell him that the enemy, without interrupting their fusillade, were showing a white flag to demand surrender. 'Do not reply!' he cried, without taking his eyes off the boy who was already on the plain, though he was no longer running and seemed to be dragging himself along with great difficulty. 'Go on! Run!' said the captain gritting his teeth and clenching his fists. 'Kill yourself, die, but go on!' Then he uttered a horrible curse. 'Ah! The gutless fool has sat down!' The boy, whose head could be seen above a field of wheat until that moment, had disappeared, as if he might have fallen. But a moment later his head appeared again! Finally he was lost behind the hedges and the captain saw him no more. He rushed downstairs. There was a hail of bullets. The rooms were encumbered with wounded, some of whom staggered about like drunken men, holding on to the furniture. The walls and the floor were stained with blood. Bodies lay across the doorways. The lieutenant's right arm had been shattered by a bullet. Everything was enveloped in smoke and dust. 'Bear up!' shouted the captain. 'Stick to your posts! Reinforcements are on the way! Just a little more courage!' The Austrians were still moving nearer. Their strained faces could be seen down there through the smoke. In the uproar of the fusillade their wild cries could be heard as they hurled insults, demanded

surrender, threatened slaughter. A few soldiers, gripped by fear, drew back from the windows. The sergeants drove them back again. But the defenders' fire was waning, despair was showing itself on every face. Resistance could be sustained no longer. There came a moment when the Austrian onslaught slackened and a thunderous voice shouted first in German, then in Italian, 'Surrender!' 'No!' yelled the captain from a window. The firing was resumed with greater intensity and fury from both sides. More men fell. Already more than one window was without defenders. The critical moment was imminent. The captain cried in words forced through his teeth, 'They are not coming! They are not coming!' and ran about furiously flourishing the sabre which he held in a convulsive grip, ready to die. Just then a sergeant coming down from the attic gave a piercing shout: 'They are coming!' 'They are coming!' the captain repeated in a joyful cry. Hearing that, everyone, able-bodied, wounded, sergeants, officers, rushed to the windows and the ferocity of the resistance was intensified again. A few moments later something like uncertainty and the beginning of disorder could be seen in the enemy I links. Suddenly, hurriedly, the captain assembled on the ground floor a detail which was to charge out of the house with fixed bayonets. Then he rushed upstairs again. He had hardly arrived when they heard the sound of a forced march and a cheer which stirred the heart. Approaching through the smoke they saw the two-pointed hats of the Italian carabineers, a squadron moving forward at full speed, blades circling in the air, flashing like lightning and falling on heads, shoulders and backs. Now the detail rushed out of the house with fixed bayonets. The enemy hesitated, was thrown into disorder, and fled. The ground was cleared, the house was liberated and very soon two battalions of Italian infantry and two cannons occupied the hill. With the men he still had the captain joined his regiment, fought again and was slightly wounded in the left hand by a deflected bullet in the last bayonet charge. The day ended with the victory of our troops. But the following day the fighting started again and the Italians were overwhelmed, in spite of their brave resistance, by the sheer number of the Austrians, and on the morning of the twenty-sixth, sadly, had to retreat towards the Mincio. The captain, although wounded, made the journey on foot with his tired, silent men. He reached Goito on the Mincio at the end of the day and immediately began to look for his lieutenant with a shattered arm, who had been picked up by our ambulance and so must have arrived before him. . A church was pointed out to him where a field hospital had been quickly set up. He went there. The church was full of wounded who were lying on two rows of beds, and mattresses arranged on the floor. Two doctors and several orderlies moved anxiously about. He heard stifled cries and groans. As soon as he was inside, the captain stopped and looked round, searching for his officer. At the same moment he heard someone very near call to him in a faint voice, 'Sir! Captain!' He turned round. It was the drummer-boy. He was lying on a trestle-bed and covered up to his chest with a rough curtain in red and white check, with his arms outside. He was pale and thin, but his eyes still shone like two black gems. The captain was astonished. 'You here?' he said brusquely. 'Well done! You did your duty.' 'I did the best I could,' replied the drummer-boy. 'You have been wounded,' observed the captain, his eyes searching the neighbouring beds for his officer. 'What could you expect?' said the boy. The pride and status which came from being wounded for the first time gave him the courage to speak. Without them he would not have dared to open his mouth to this captain. 'It was no use for me to run stooping, they saw me straight away. I would have arrived twenty minutes sooner if they hadn't hit me. Luckily I found a staff captain straight away to give the note to. But it was terrible running after that knock on the leg. I was dying of thirst, I was frightened 1 might not get there, and 1 was crying with rage to think that with every minute's delay another man was going to the other world up there. That's enough of that-I did what I could. I'm satisfied. But excuse me, sir, look at yourself, you're losing blood.' Indeed, drops of blood were running down the captain's fingers from the badly bandaged palm of his hand.

'Would you like me to tighten the bandage, sir? Hold out your hand for a moment.' The captain held out his left hand and stretched out his right hand to help the boy to undo the knot and tie it again. But the boy had hardly raised himself from the pillow when he went pale and had to lay his head down again. 'That's enough, that's enough,' said the captain, looking at him and taking back the bandaged hand which the boy was still holding. 'Take care of yourself instead of thinking of others. Small things neglected can become serious.' The drummer-boy shook his head. 'But you,' the captain said, looking at him closely, 'you must have lost a lot of blood to be as weak as that.'. 'Lost a lot of blood?' replied the boy with a smile. 'More than blood. Look!' And he suddenly pulled the cover away. Horrified, the captain took a pace backwards. The boy had only 'me leg. His left leg had been amputated above the knee. The stump was wrapped in blood-soaked cloths. Just then an army doctor passed by. He was small and fat and in his shirt-sleeves. 'Ah, captain,' he said, speaking quickly and pointing to the drummer-boy, 'there's an unfortunate case. A leg that could have been saved with no trouble if he had not abused it in that insane manner. A cursed inflammation. Had to amputate immediately. Oh, but. .. a brave boy, I assure you. He didn't shed a tear, didn't utter a cry! He was superb, as an Italian boy can be, while I was operating on him, on my word of honour. That boy comes from good stock, by Jove!' He moved on, in haste. The captain wrinkled his large white eyebrows and looked fixedly at the drummer-boy while he rearranged the cover over him. Then, slowly, hardly aware of what he was doing, still looking at the boy, he raised his hand and took off his cap. 'Sir!' the boy exclaimed, astonished. 'What are you doing, sir? For me?' Then that rough soldier, who had never spoken a mild word to an inferior, replied in a voice that was indescribably affectionate and gentle: 'I am only a captain. You are a hero.' With open arms he fell upon the drummer-boy and three times kissed him over his heart.

Love of your native land

Tuesday, 24th As the story of the drummer-boy stirred your heart, it must have been easy for you this morning to write a good examination composition on why you love Italy. Why do I love Italy? Do not a hundred answers occur to you immediately? I love Italy because my mother is Italian, because the blood which runs in my veins is Italian, because it is Italian earth which covers the dead mourned by my mother and revered by my father, because the town I was born in, the language I speak, the books from which I learn, because my brother, my sister, my friends, the great people amongst whom I live, the beautiful countryside which surrounds me and everything that I see and love, everything that I study and admire, are all Italian. But you cannot yet be fully aware of this love! You will feel it when you are a man returning from a long journey after a long absence, when you go up on to the deck of the ship one morning and see on the horizon the great blue mountains of your homeland. You will feel it then in a surge of love which will fill your eyes with tears and force a cry from your heart. You will know it in some distant great town when, walking near him, you hear a nameless workman speak a word of your language and your soul impels you through the nameless crowd towards him. You will know it in the painful, towering anger which will make the blood rush to your face when you hear insults to your country fall from the lips of a foreigner. You will feel it more violently and more proudly on the day that the threat of an enemy becomes a tempest of fire directed against your country and you see armies rise up everywhere, young men hastening to the legions, fathers kissing their sons and bidding them 'Have courage!' and mothers saying goodbye to their boys, crying 'Bring victory!' You will be aware of it as a holy joy if you have the good fortune to see the regiments re-enter your town, depleted, exhausted, ragged, formidable, the light of victory shining in their eyes, their flags torn by

shot, followed by the ravaged ranks of the brave, with their bandaged heads, their handless arms held high while the delirious crowd presses in, showering flowers, blessings and kisses upon them. Then you will understand love of your native land, then you will feel for your country. It is such a mighty and holy cause that if one day I should see you return safe from a battle fought for her, safe, though you are of my flesh and spirit, and know that you have saved your life by hiding from death, I, your father, who greet you with an exclamation of joy when you come home from school, would then receive you with a sob of anguish. I would never be able to love you again and would end my days with that dagger in my heart Father

Envy
Wednesday, 25th Derossi also wrote the best composition on our country. Votini was confident of getting the first medal! I like Votini even though he is rather vain and preens himself too much, hilI it annoys me now that I sit near him in class to see how he is jealous of Derossi. He studies, for he would like to compete with him, but he cannot in any way, for the other boy is ten limes as good as him in all subjects, so Votini gnaws his buckles. Carlo Nobis envies him also, but he is too proud to .how it. Votini, on the other hand, gives himself away. He frets over his marks at home and says that the teacher is not fair. When Derossi answers questions quickly and well, as he always does, Votini becomes sullen, lowers his eyes, pretends not to hear or forces himself to laugh, but it is false laughter. As everyone knows this they all turn to look at him when the teacher praises Derossi. It is a bitter moment for Votini, and the little bricklayer wrinkles his nose at him. This morning, for example, was a bad time for Votini. The teacher came into the classroom and announced the result of the test: for Derossi, ten out of ten and the first medal. Votini sneezed loudly. The teacher looked at him. The situation was fairly clear. 'Votini,' he said, 'do not allow the serpent of envy to enter you. It is a serpent that gnaws the brain and corrupts the soul.' Everyone looked at him except Derossi. Votini wanted to reply but he couldn't. He remained whitefaced and as though turned to stone. Then while the master was proceeding with the lesson he began to write in big letters on a scrap of paper, 'I am not jealous of those who win the first medal through favouritism and injustice.' This was a note he wanted to pass to Derossi. Meanwhile I noticed that Derossi's neighbours were plotting together, whispering in one another's ears, and one of them was cutting out with his pen-knife a big paper medal on which he had drawn a black serpent. Votini did not notice. The master went out for a few minutes. Derossi's neighbours immediately got up to leave their desks solemnly to present the paper medal to Votini. The whole class was preparing for a scene. Votini was already shaking from head to toe. Derossi shouted, 'Give it to me!' 'Yes, that's better,' they replied, 'it's you who should take it to him.' Derossi took the paper medal and tore it into little pieces, At that moment the master came back and went on with the lesson. I watched Votini. His cheeks were ablaze. Slowly, slowly, as though absentmindedly, he took the shreds of paper, secretly rolled them into a ball, put it in his mouth, chewed it for a while then spat it out under the bench. Coming out of school Votini was in front of Derossi. He was somewhat embarrassed and dropped the drying paper, Derossi, courteous as usual, picked it up, put it in Votini's satchel and helped him to fasten the strap. Votini did not dare look up.

Franti's mother
Saturday, 28th But Votini is incorrigible. Yesterday in religious instruction with the headmaster present, the teacher asked Derossi if he knew by heart those two verses in the reading book which begin, Wherever I turn my eyes, Almighty God, I see You. Derossi replied that he did not and immediately Votini said with a smile, as though to spite Derossi, 'I know them.' But it was he who was put down. He could not recite the poetry because Franti's mother, deeply distressed, suddenly entered the class-room. Her grey hair was in disorder and wet with snow. She pushed in front of her the son who had been suspended from school for a week. What a sad scene we witnessed. The poor woman almost threw herself to her knees before the headmaster, pressing her hands together and begging him, 'Oh, sir, do me a great favour, let the boy come back to school! He's been at home three days and I've hidden him, but God forbid that his father should find out. He would kill him. Have pity, 1 don't know what to do any more! With all my heart I ask you to think of me.' The headmaster tried to lead her outside, but she resisted, weeping and pleading all the time. 'Oh, if you knew the trouble this boy has brought me, you would have pity! Do me this favour! I hope he will change. I haven't got long to live now, sir. My cause of death is here, but I would like to see him change before I die, because' - and she burst out crying - 'he is my son, 1 love him, 1 would die in despair. Take him back once more for me, sir, so there won't be a tragedy in the family. Do it for pity of a poor woman.' And she covered her face with her hands, sobbing. Franti stood with lowered head, showing no sign of emotion. The headmaster looked at him, remained for a moment in thought, then said, 'Franti, go to your place.' Then the woman, totally relieved, lifted her hands from her face and began to thank the headmaster, to thank him without letting him speak. She went towards the door wiping her eyes and saying excitedly, 'Think of me, my son. I hope everyone will be patient. Thank you, sir, you have performed an act of charity. Good, remember, my son. Good morning, boys. Thank you, and goodbye, sir. Forgive a poor mother for so much!' Again from the doorway she gave her son an imploring look. She went, gathering up the shawl she was trailing along, pale, bent, her head shaking, and we still heard he coughing below on the stairs. In the silent class-room the headmaster looked hard at Franti. In an ominous voice he said, 'Franti, you are killing your mother!' Everyone turned to look at Franti. The wretch smiled.

Hope
Sunday, 29th It was good to see how warmly you embraced your mother, Enrico, when you came home from religious instruction. Yes, the teacher put some great and comforting thoughts before you. God has thrown us into one another's arms and He will never separate us. When I die, when your father dies, we shall not say those awful, despairing words, 'Mother, Father, Enrico, I shall never see you again. ' We shall see one another again in another life in which he who has suffered much in this life will find compensation, in which he who has loved dearly on earth will be reunited with the souls he loved, in a world in which there is no sin, no weeping, no death. But we must make ourselves, all of us, worthy of this other life. Remember, my son, every good deed of yours, every loving impulse towards those who love you, every thoughtful act for your companions, every kind thought is a movement upwards towards that world. Equally every misfortune and every sorrow raise you towards that world, for every pain is the expiation of a sin, every tear cancels a misdeed. Resolve every day to be better and more loving than the day before. Say every morning: I wish to do something my conscience will approve of and which will please my father, something that will make one or other of my companions, my teacher, my brother or someone else love me. And ask God to give you the strength to carry through your resolution. O Lord, I want to be good, noble, brave, kind and sincere. Help

me. Support me so that every evening when my mother wishes me good-night I can say to her, 'This evening you are kissing a boy who is more upright and worthier than the one you kissed yesterday.' Always have in mind that other spiritual and happy Enrico which you can become after this life. And pray. You cannot imagine the grace you show, how much better a mother feels when she sees her child with his hands joined together. When I see you praying it seems to me impossible that no one sees and hears you. Then, I believe even more strongly in a supreme goodness and infinite compassion, I love you more, I work harder, I suffer with greater fortitude, I forgive with all my heart and I contemplate death calmly. O God, great and good! To hear again after death the voice of my mother, to be reunited with my babies, to see my Enrico again, my Enrico blessed and immortal and to hold him in an embrace which will never again be broken, never, never, never for the rest of eternity. Oh pray, let us all pray, let us love one another, let us be good, let us carry this heavenly hope in our hearts, my adored child. Mother

FEBRUARY A well-merited medal

Saturday, 4th This morning the director of education, a gentleman with a white beard and dressed in black, came to hand out the medals. He came in with the headmaster just before the end of school and sat down next to the teacher. After questioning several pupils, he gave the first medal to Derossi and, before awarding the second, he listened for a few moments to the teacher and the headmaster who spoke quietly to him. Everyone wondered: to whom will he give the second medal? The director said for all to hear, 'This week the scholar Pietro Precossi deserves the second medal, deserves it for homework, for class-work, for handwriting, for conduct, for everything.' Everyone turned to look at Precossi and you could see that they were all pleased. Precossi got up, so confused that he no longer knew where he was. 'Come forward,' said the director. Precossi left his place and went up to the master's desk. The director looked closely at that little face the colour of tallow, at the little body wrapped in turned-up, unsuitable clothes, at those fine, sad eyes which avoided his but which suggested a story of suffering. Then, fastening the medal on hill chest, he said in a voice full of feeling, 'Precossi, I award the medal to you. No one is more worthy of wearing it. I give it to you not only for your intelligence and your admirable attitude, but also for your good heart, for your courage, for your character as a good, an excellent boy. It is true, is It not,' he added, turning to the class, 'that he deserves it for this?' 'Yes, yes,' they all replied with one voice. Precossi seemed to swallow and turned towards the benches with a look of the greatest tenderness, which ex pressed deep gratitude. 'Off you go then, dear boy,' the director said to him, 'and may God watch over you.' It was home-time and our class went out first. We were hardly through the door when whom should we see at the entrance to the hall but Precossi's father, the blacksmith, pale as usual, with a surly face, his hair in his eyes, cap back to front, and unsteady on his feet. The teacher saw him straight away and said something in the director's ear. The latter quickly sought out Precossi and, taking him by the hand, led him to his father. The boy was trembling. The teacher and the headmaster also went up to him and many boys gathered round. 'You are this boy's father, aren't you?' the director asked the blacksmith, pleasantly, as if they were friends. And without waiting for a reply, 'I share your happiness. Look, he has won the second medal, ahead of fifty-four class-mates. He deserved it for composition, for arithmetic, for everything. He is a boy of considerable intelligence, his attitude is good and he will make good progress. He is a fine boy, held in affection and respect by everyone. You can be proud of him, I assure you.' The blacksmith, who had been listening open-mouthed, stared at the director and headmaster and then looked at his son who stood there in front of him with lowered eyes, trembling. Then the father, as if remembering and understanding for the first time all the suffering he had caused this poor little boy and all the goodness and heroism the boy had shown through his suffering, suddenly showed wonder and astonishment in his face, then a frown of sorrow and finally a rough, sad tenderness, and with a quick movement he look the boy's head and pressed it to his breast. We all went up to Precossi. I invited him to come to my house on Thursday with Garrone and Crossi. Others congratulated him. One caressed him, another touched the medal, everyone had something to say to him. His father watched us amazed, all the time holding his son's head close to his breast. The boy was sobbing.

Good intentions
Sunday, 5th That medal of Precossi's has given me a guilty conscience. I have not yet earned one! For some time I have not been studying and I am dissatisfied with myself, and my teacher and my mother and father are dissatisfied. I don't even find pleasure in play like I used to when I worked with a will and then got up from my desk and ran to my games full of joy as if I hadn't played for a month. I don't even sit down at table with my family as happily as I used to. It is as though there is a shadow in my mind all the time, a voice inside me which keeps repeating, 'It's not good enough, it's not good enough.' I see a lot of boys going through the square in the evening on their way home from work in the middle of a crowd of workmen, all of them tired but happy. They quicken their steps, eager to get home and eat. They shout and laugh and they slap one another on the back with hands black with coal dust or white with lime. I realize that they have worked from the first moment of daylight till then, and many even smaller ones with them, who have been on the tops of roofs all day standing in front of furnaces or amongst engines, in water or underground, with only a small piece of bread to eat. I fed almost ashamed of myself, for during that time all I have done, and that reluctantly, is scribble four miserable pages. Oh yes, I'm dissatisfied, dissatisfied! I see clearly that my father is out of humour with me and would like to tell me so yet he regrets it and is waiting a little longer. My dear father who works so hard! Everything is from you, everything I see around me at home, everything I touch, all my clothes, my food, all my education and my play, everything comes from your work, and I do not work. Everything has cost you thought, self-denial, pain and effort, and I make no effort. No, it is too unfair, it troubles me too much. I shall start today. I shall apply myself to study like Stardi, with clenched fists, and gritting my teeth I shall apply myself with all the strength of my will and heart. I shall conquer sleep in the evenings, I shall get up early in the morning, I shall make my brains work without rest, I shall wage pitiless war on laziness, I shall strive, suffer even, exhaust myself. But this wretched lazy life which debases me and saddens others will come to an end once and for all. To work, then! To work with all my heart and all my strength. To the work which will make my rest sweet, my games a pleasure and dinner-time happy. To the work which will restore to me my teacher's warm smile and my father's blessed kiss.

The little engine

Friday, 10th Derossi came to our house yesterday with Garrone. I think they could not have had a greater welcome if they had been two sons of princes. It was the first time Garrone had come, for he is rather awkward in company and also he is ashamed of being so big and only in Standard 3. We all went to answer the door when they rang. Crossi didn't come, because his father has at last arrived from Africa after six years. My mother greeted Precossi with a kiss. My lather presented Garrone to her with these words: 'Here we have not only a fine boy but a man of honour and a gentleman.' He bowed his big, close-cropped head and we smiled secretly at one another. Precossi had brought his medal and he was happy because his father had started work again, had not been drinking for five days, wanted him in the smithy all the time to keep him company, and he seemed like a changed man. We began to play and I took out all my possessions. Precossi was enchanted by the model railway, the engine which goes on its own when it is wound up. He had never seen before. His eyes feasted on those little red and yellow railway carriages. I gave him the little key so that he could play with them. He knelt down and didn't look up again. I had never seen him so happy. He kept saying 'Excuse me, excuse me', keeping us out of the way with his hands so that we shouldn't stop the engine, and then picking up and putting down the little carriages with the greatest care as if they were made of glass and he was afraid of misting them over with his breath. He repolished them and looked at them from this way and that, smiling to himself.

We were all standing up and watching him. We looked at that thin neck, at those poor little ears which one day I had seen bleeding, at that big jacket with the sleeves turned back, at the two little arms of a sickly child which stuck out from them, arms which had so often been raised to shield his face from blows. At that moment I would have thrown all my toys and all my books at his feet, I would have denied myself my last piece of bread to give it to him, I would have stripped myself to clothe him, I would have thrown myself down on my knees to kiss his hands. At least I would give him the train, I thought. I would have to ask my father for permission. At that very moment I felt a little piece of paper being put in my hand. I looked. There was my father's handwriting in pencil. It said: Precossi likes your train. He has no toys. Is not your heart saying something to you? Straight away I seized the engine and carriages with my two hands and put everything in his arms and said to him, 'Take it, it's yours.' He looked at me. He did not understand. . 'It's yours,' I said. 'I'm giving it to you.' Even more astonished, he looked at my father and mother and asked me, 'But why?' My father said, 'Enrico is giving it to you because he is your friend, because he likes you, to celebrate your medal.' Precossi asked, timidly, 'Can I take it with me... home?' 'Certainly,' we all replied. He was already at the door but still dared not leave. He was asking to be excused; his lips trembled and he laughed. Garrone helped him to wrap the train in his handkerchief, and in bending down cracked the crusts which filled his pocket. 'One day,' Precossi said to me, 'you'll come to the smithy to watch my father work and I'll give you some nails.' My mother put a little bunch of flowers in the buttonhole of Garrone's jacket so that he could give them to his mother. In his loud voice Garrone said 'Thank you', without raising his head. But his kind and noble spirit shone through his eyes.

Arrogance
Saturday, 11th And to think that Carlo Nobis makes a show of dusting his sleeve if Precossi touches it in passing! That fellow is arrogance personified, just because his father is a very wealthy man. But Derossi's father is rich too! Nobis would like hi have a bench to himself. He is afraid that everyone might make him dirty. He looks down on everyone and he always has a contemptuous smile on his lips. He squeals if anyone's loot touches him when we are filing out in twos. For no reason at all he will throw a cruel word in your face or threaten to have his father come to school. Yet it was his father who gave him a good scolding when he called the coalman's son a scarecrow. I have never seen such arrogance! No one talks to him, no one says goodbye at home-time, not a soul helps him when he doesn't know the lesson. He for his part cannot tolerate anyone and he pretends to despise Derossi above all, because he is top, and Garrone, because everybody likes him. But Derossi doesn't even look at him, however near he is, and, as for Garrone, when they told him that Nobis had been talking about him behind his back he said, 'He's so ridiculously stuck-up it's not worth my clouting him.' One day even Coretti, when Nobis was smiling disdainfully about his cat's skin cap, said, 'Stay awhile with Derossi to learn how to be a gentleman!' Yesterday he complained to the master because the boy from Calabria had accidentally knocked his leg with his foot. The master asked the Calabrian, 'Did you do it on purpose?' 'No, sir,' he replied without hesitation. The master said, 'You are too touchy, Nobis.' Then Nobis, speaking in the way he does, said, 'I shall tell my father.' The master became angry. 'Your father will tell you that you are in the wrong, as he has on other occasions. And it is not only the schoolmaster who may judge and punish.' Then added gently, 'Come now, Nobis, change your ways. Be kind and courteous with your fellows. Look, here are the sons of workmen

and of gentlemen, of rich and poor, and they all like one another. They treat one another as brothers, which they are. Why not behave like the others? It would cost you so little to make yourself liked by the others, and you yourself would be so much happier!... Well, have you nothing to say to me?' Nobis, who had been listening with his usual superior smile, replied coldly, 'No, sir.' 'Sit down,' said the master. 'I pity you. You are a cold hearted boy.' It seemed as if that was the end of the matter. But the little bricklayer, who sits on the front bench, turned his round face to Nobis, who sits on the back bench, and made a hare-face so well and it was so funny that the whole class burst out laughing. The master expressed disapproval, but he had to put his hand over his mouth to hide his laughter. Even Nobis smiled, and in a way which was not offensive.

Injured at work
Monday, 13th Nobis and Franti make a pair. Neither of them was affected this morning by a terrible spectacle which they saw with their own eyes. I had come out of school and was with my father watching certain little rascals from Standard 2 who were down on their knees polishing the ice with their capes and caps to make their slides faster, when down at the end of the street we saw a crowd of people walking hurriedly. They seemed both preoccupied and fearful and they were talking in hushed voices. In their midst were three policemen and behind the policemen two men carried a stretcher. Boys ran up from everywhere to join them. They came towards us. A man lay on the stretcher. He was as white as a corpse and his head was to one side, on his shoulder. His hair was ruffled and stained with blood he was losing blood from his mouth and ears. A woman with little child in her arms walked next to the stretcher. She seemed to be out of her mind and from time to time cried, 'He's dead! He's dead!' Following the woman was a boy with a satchel under his arm, sobbing. 'What has happened?' my father asked. A neighbour replied that the man was a bricklayer who had fallen from a fourth floor where he was working. The men carrying the stretcher stopped for a moment. Many people turned away from that face, horrified. I saw the little mistress with the red feather supporting my teacher from lA who was half fainting. Just then I felt someone at my elbow: it was the little bricklayer, pale and shaking. He was thinking about his father, there is no doubt. I was thinking about him too. My mind is at rest, at least when I am at school, for I know that my father is at home sitting at his desk far from any danger. But these classmates of mine know that their fathers are working on very high scaffolding or near the wheels of an engine and that one movement, one false step, can cost them their lives! They are like sons of soldiers who are on active service. The little bricklayer looked and looked and trembled more and more. My father went up to him and said, 'Go home, son, go straight to your father so that you can see he's safe and well. Go on!' The little bricklayer went, looking back at every step. Meanwhile the crowd began to move again and the woman cried, tormenting her soul, 'He's dead! He's dead! He's dead! 'No, no, he's not dead,' they told her from all sides. But she did not heed them, and tore her hair. At that point I heard an angry voice say 'You are laughing!" and at the same moment I saw a man with a beard looking at Franti, who was still smiling. The man then knocked his cap to the ground with a smack, saying, 'Uncover your head, you wretch, when an injured workman goes by!' The entire crowd had now gone and down the middle of the street you could see a long trail of blood.

The prisoner
Friday, 17th Well! this is certainly the strangest affair of the whole year. Yesterday morning my father took me to the country round Moncalieri to see a villa which is to be let next summer, for we are not going to Chieri again this year. He found that the man who had the key was a teacher, acting as secretary to the landlord. This man showed us round the house and then took us to his room, where he gave us something to drink.

On the table amongst the glasses was a wooden inkstand. It was conical in shape and the carving was unusual. When he saw that my father was looking at it the teacher said, 'That inkstand is precious to me. If only you knew the story behind it!' And he told us the story of the inkstand. 'Some years ago I taught in Turin and for the whole of one winter I gave lessons to the men in prison. I gave the lessons in the prison chapel. It's a circular building and all the way round in the high, bare walls there are a lot of small square windows, each one containing two crossed iron bars and behind each one there is a tiny cell.' He gave his lessons from the cold, dark chapel and hill pupils appeared at those openings, their exercise books against the bars and showing only their faces in the gloom, haggard and frowning faces with untidy grey beards and the' staring eyes of murderers and thieves. One of them, in cell 78, was more attentive than all the others. He studied hard and watched the teacher with eyes full of respect and gratitude. A young man with a black beard, he was unfortunate rather than wicked. He was a cabinet-maker and in a burst of anger he had thrown a plane at his employer, who for some time had been persecuting him. The employer I was fatally wounded in the head and for this the young man was sentenced to several years in prison. In three months he had learnt to read and write. He read continually and the more he learnt the more he improved and repented his crime. One day at the end of the lesson he made a sign to the teacher to come to the window. He then told him, sadly, that he was going to leave Turin-the following morning and go I Venice to continue serving his sentence. When he had said goodbye, in a voice that was humble and full of emotion, It asked the teacher to let him touch his hand. The teacher held out his hand and he kissed it. Then he said 'Thank you! Thank you!' and disappeared. The teacher drew back his hand: it was wet with tears. He did not see him again. Six years went by. 'I was thinking of everything but that unfortunate man,' said the teacher, 'when the day before yesterday, in the morning, I saw a stranger approaching the house. He had a big black beard already speckled with grey and he was poorly dressed. He said, "Are you teacher so and so?" "Who are you?" I asked him. "I am the prisoner in number 78," he told me. "You taught me to read and write, six years ago. Perhaps you remember that in the last lesson you gave me your hand. I've served my sentence now and here I am . . . to ask you to do me the favour of accepting a souvenir, a little thing I worked on in prison. Will you accept it to remember me by, sir?" I was speechless. He thought I didn't want to accept it and looked at me as if to say "So, six years of suffering are not enough to cleanse my hands!" But his look was so full of sorrow that I immediately stretched out my hand and took the object. And here it is.' We looked at the ink-well carefully. It seemed to have been shaped with infinite patience by the point of a nail. On it was engraved a pen lying across an exercise book, and round it was the inscription To my teacher - From number 78 - Six years. And underneath, in small letters, Study and hope. The teacher said no more and we left. But during the whole of the journey from Moncalieri to Turin I could not get out of my mind the image of the prisoner at the cell window, saying farewell to the teacher, the poor ink-well made in prison which said so much, and that night I dreamt about him and was still thinking about these things this morning. . . I had no idea of the surprise that awaited me at school! As soon as I had taken my new place, next to Derossi, and written down the problem in arithmetic for the monthly examination, I told him the whole story of the prisoner and the ink-well, and how the inkwell was made, with the pen across the exercise book and the inscription round it. Six years. Derossi gave a start at these words and began to look from me to Crossi, the vegetableseller's son who was in the bench in front of us, his back towards us, completely absorbed in his problem. 'Hush!' he said in a low voice, taking me by the arm. 'Don't you see? The day before yesterday Crossi told me how he'd glimpsed his father, back from America, holding a handmade ink-well, coneshaped, with an exercise book and a pen on it. That's it. Six years! He used to say his father was in America. But he was in prison. Crossi was small at the time of the crime, he doesn't remember it. His mother told him a story, and he knows nothing about it. Don't say a word about this. ' I remained silent, my eyes fixed on Crossi. Then Oerossi finished the problem in arithmetic and passed it under the bench to Crossi. He took from him the monthly story 'Papa's Nurse', which the teacher had given Crossi to copy out, so that he could copy it instead. He gave him some pen-nibs, he patted his shoulder and made me promise on my honour that I would not say a word to anyone. When we came out of school he said to me in haste, 'His father came to meet him yesterday, he will again this morning. Do what I do.' We went out into the street and Crossi's father was there He stood a little apart, a man with a black beard already going grey, and poorly dressed. His face was pale and thoughtful. Derossi shook hands with

Crossi, making sure' that he could be seen doing so, and said in a loud voice, 'Goodbye, Crossi.' He then drew his hand under his chin I did the same. As he did this, Derossi went red in the face. So did I. Crossi's father watched us closely and benevolently, but there was a hint of unease and suspicion in his look which chilled my heart.

PAPA'S NURSE
The monthly story
In the morning of a rainy day in March a boy with a parcel of clothes under his arm presented himself to the porter of the Pilgrims Hospital in Naples and, showing him a letter, inquired about his father. The clothes he was wearing, those of a countryman, were soaking wet and bespattered with mud. He had a nice, oval face and a light-brown complexion, thoughtful eyes and a full mouth which was half open, revealing shining white teeth. He came from a village near Naples. His father who had left home the previous year to look for work in France had returned to Italy and a short while ago disembarked at Naples where, unexpectedly, he had been taken in. He had just had time to write a note to his family announcing his arrival and to say that he had gone into hospita1. His wife was dismayed by this news, but she could not leave home himself because she had a sick baby girl and a little boy, so she had sent the eldest boy, with a few coins, to be with his father- his papa, they called him. The boy had walked ten miles. Having glanced at the letter, the porter summoned an orderly and asked him to take the boy to his father. 'Which father is that?' the orderly asked. The boy said his name, trembling for fear of bad news. The orderly did not recollect the name. 'An old workman, coming from abroad?' he asked. 'A workman, yes,' the boy replied, becoming more and more anxious 'Not so old. Coming from abroad, yes.' 'When did he come into hospital?' asked the orderly. The boy looked at the letter. 'Five days ago, I think.' The orderly thought for a moment, then, as if suddenly remembering, 'Ah!' he said. 'The fourth ward, the end bed.' Is he very ill? How is he?' the boy asked anxiously. The orderly looked at him without replying. Then he said, 'Come with me.' They went up two flights of stairs, then to the end of a long corridor. They had reached the open door of a ward in which there were two rows of beds. 'Come on,' repeated the orderly as he went in. The boy plucked up courage and followed him, glancing fearfully to right and to left at the emaciated white faces of the sick, some of whom appeared dead with dosed eyes, while others stared vacantly And wide-eyed, as though afraid. Some were whimpering like children. The ward was dark and the air impregnated with the sharp smell of medicines. Two sisters of charity were making the rounds with bottles of medicine in their hands. When he had reached the end of the ward, the orderly stopped at the head of a bed, drew back the curtains and said, 'Here is your father.' The boy burst out crying and dropped the parcel. He let his head fall on the invalid's shoulder, taking hold of an arm which lay extended and motionless on the bedspread. There was no response from the sick man. The boy got up, looked at the father and burst out crying again. Then the sick man turned, looked at him for a long while and appeared to recognize him. But his lips did not move. Poor Papa, how he had changed! His son would never have recognized him. His hair had gone white, his beard had grown, his face was swollen and deep red in colour and the skin was tightly drawn and glistening. His eyes were smaller and his lips enlarged. His countenance was quite changed. Of his former self only his forehead and the arch of his eyebrows remained the same. He was breathing with difficulty. 'Papa, my papa!' said the boy. 'It's me. Don't you recognize me? It's Ciccillo, your Ciccillo, and I've come from home because Mother sent me. Look at me carefully. Don't you recognize me? Say something to me.'

But the sick man, having looked closely at him, shut his eyes. 'Papa! Papa! What's the matter? I'm your son, your Ciccillo.' The sick man did not move again and his breathing remained laboured. Then, crying, the boy took a chair, sat down and just waited, his eyes never leaving his father's face. At any rate a doctor will come by on his rounds, he thought; he will tell me something. He sank into unhappy thoughts, remembering many things about his father. The day of his departure, when he had said goodbye for the last time on the ship. The hopes the family had built on the journey, his mothers dismay when that letter had arrived. He thought about death and he saw his father dead, his mother dressed in black and the family in poverty. So he remained for a long time. He roused himself when a hand lightly touched his shoulder. It was a nun. 'What is the matter with my father?' he asked her immediately 'Is he your father?' the sister said gently. 'Yes, he's my father. I've come to see him. What is the matter with him?' 'Be brave, my son,' the sister replied. 'The doctor will see him now.' And off she went, saying no more. Half an hour later he heard a bell ring and at the end of the ward he saw a doctor come in, accompanied by an assistant. They were followed by a sister and an orderly. They started their round, stopping at every bed. It seemed to the boy that he had to wait for an eternity, and with every step the doctor took his anxiety increased. At last he reached the next bed. The doctor was old; he was tall and stooping and his expression was grave. Before he left the neighbouring bed the boy stood up and when the doctor approached, he began to cry. The doctor looked at him. 'He is the patient's son,' said the sister, 'and he got here this morning from his village.' The doctor put a hand on his shoulder. Then he bent over the sick man, took his pulse, touched his forehead and asked the sister a few questions, to which she replied, 'Nothing new.' The doctor thought for a moment and then said, 'Carry on as before.' The boy plucked up courage then and in a tearful voice he asked, 'What is the matter with my father?' 'Be brave, my son,' the doctor replied, again putting a hand on his shoulder. 'He has facial erysipelas. It is serious, but there is still hope. Stay with him. Your presence may do him good.' 'But he doesn't recognize me!' the boy exclaimed unhappily. 'He will recognize you... tomorrow perhaps. We must keep hoping. Be brave.' The boy would have liked to ask more, but he dared not. Besides, the doctor moved on. Now he began his life as a nurse. As he could not do anything else, he arranged the invalid's bedclothes, touched his hand, shooed away the flies, bent over him each time he groaned, and when the sister brought something for him to take he took the glass or spoon and administered it in her place. The patient looked at him a few times but gave no sign of recognition. However, his eyes rested on him a little longer each time, and especially when he put his handkerchief to his eyes. So the first day passed. At night the boy slept on two chairs in a corner of the ward and in the morning he resumed his loving attention. That day the sick man seemed to show the beginnings of consciousness. It seemed as if his eyes fleetingly showed a vague expression of gratitude in response to the boy's caressing tones, and once he moved his lips a little as if he wanted to say something. When he opened his eyes after each brief lapse into somnolence, he seemed to look for his little nurse. The doctor had been twice more and noted a small improvement. Towards evening, as he was putting a glass to the sick man's mouth, the boy thought he saw a slight smile quiver on his swollen lips. He began to take comfort and to hope. Hoping to be understood, even if just vaguely, he talked a great deal about his mother and his little sisters and about going home, and in warm and loving words he urged him to take heart. Though he often doubted whether he was understood, he went on talking, because it seemed to him that, even if he weren't, the sick man heard his voice with pleasure a voice which conveyed an unusual mixture of affection and sorrow. In this way the second day passed, and the third, and fourth, in an alternation of slight improvements and unexpected relapses. The boy was so absorbed in his ministrations that he only just managed twice a day to eat a little bread and cheese which the sister brought him, and he hardly saw what was going on around him, the dying patients, the urgent and unexpected approach of the sisters at night, the cries and

gestures of despair of visitors leaving without hope, all those painful and mournful scenes of hospital life which, on any other occasion, would have bewildered and frightened him. The days and the hours passed and he was always there with his papa, attentive, eager, his heart leaping with each sigh and each look, alternating without respite between hope, which bolstered up his spirits, and discouragement, which froze his heart. On the fifth day the sick man unexpectedly took a turn for the worse. When he was asked about it, the doctor shook his head as if to say that this was the end. The boy fell into the chair, sobbing. Nevertheless there was one thing that consoled him. Even though the sick man's condition had deteriorated, it seemed to him that he was slowly becoming more aware. He looked at the boy more intently each time, and with growing tenderness. He no longer wanted to take a drink or medicine from anyone else and increasingly often he made that forced movement of the lip as though he wanted to say something. And sometimes he did this so distinctly that the boy seized his arm violently, moved by a sudden hope, and said to him almost joyfully, 'Courage, courage, Papa, you will get better, and we shall go, we shall go home to Mother, just a little more courage!' It was four o'clock in the afternoon and the boy had just abandoned himself to a mood of tenderness and hope when, through the nearest door, he heard the sound of footsteps and then, in a loud voice, just two words - 'Goodbye, sister!' - which made him leap to his feet, a choked cry in his throat. At that moment a man carrying a large bundle entered the ward, followed by a nun. The boy cried out loud, but did not move. The man turned round, looked at him for a moment, then he, too, cried out 'Ciccillo!', and rushed towards him. The boy fell into his father's arms, unable to breathe. The sisters, nurses and the assistant ran towards them, then stood there amazed. The boy could not recover his voice. 'My Ciccillo!' the father exclaimed, when he had looked hard at the sick man, kissing the boy and kissing him again. 'Ciccillo, my son, what is happening? They have taken you to someone else's bed. And I was despairing of seeing you after Mama wrote that she had sent you. Poor Ciccillo! How many days have you been here? How has this mix-up come about? I got better without much trouble. I'm pretty strong, eh? And what about Concetella? And the little one? How are they? I'm leaving hospital. So, let us go! Oh lord, whoever would have thought this would happen?' The boy managed to say a few words, giving news of the family. Oh, how happy I am,' he stammered. 'How happy I am! What hard days I've had!' He kissed his father again and again. But he did not move. 'Come on, then,' said his father. 'We can still get home this evening. Let's go.' And he pulled his son towards him. The boy turned to look at his patient. 'Well, are you coming or not?' His father did not understand. The boy looked again at the sick man, and at that moment the man opened his eyes and stared at him. Then words poured from his heart. 'No, Papa, wait. . . look. . . I can't, It's this old man. I've been here five days. He looks at me all the time. I thought he was you. I like him. He looks at me, I give him his drinks, he wants me there all the time, and he's very ill now. Be patient. I couldn't, I can't, it would be too hard. I'll go home tomorrow. Let me stay here a bit longer. It'll do him no good at all if I leave him. See how he's looking at me! I don't know who he is, but he likes me. He would die alone... Let me stay here, dear Papa!' 'Good boy!' cried the assistant. The father, staring at his son, was still perplexed. Then he looked at the sick man. 'Who is he?' he asked. 'A countryman, like you,' the assistant replied. 'He's come from abroad and he entered hospital the day you did. He was unconscious when they brought him here and could say nothing. Perhaps he has a family somewhere, children. He probably thinks that you are one of his family.' The sick man never took his eyes from the boy. The father addressed Ciccillo: 'Stay.' 'You will only have to stay a short while,' murmured the assistant. 'Stay,' the father repeated. 'You have a good heart. I'll go home now for Mother's sake. Here's a scudo, for things you might need. Farewell You're a good boy Farewell.' He embraced him, he looked intently at him, kissed him again on his forehead and left.

The boy went back to the bed and the sick man appeared comforted. Ciccillo resumed his nursing duties, not crying any more, but with the same care and patience as before. Once again hr held the sick man's drinks, arranged the bedspread, held his hand and spoke gently to him in order to give him courage. He tended him all that day, he tended him through the night and still he stayed "'r him on the following day. But the sick man continued to get worse. His face was turning purple, his breathing was more laboured, he was becoming more restless. While inarticulate cries escaped his mouth, the swelling grew prodigious. On his evening visit the doctor said that he would not live through the night. Ciccillo redoubled his efforts now, and did not let the sick man out of his sight for a moment. The man looked at him, looked I at him and still with a great effort moved his lips from time as if he wanted to say something, and an expression of great tenderness would appear in his eyes, eyes which grew ever smaller, and clouded over. That night the boy watched him until he saw the first light of the new day through the window and the sister arrived. The sister went to the bed, glanced at the patient, and hurried away. A few moments later she reappeared with the assistant doctor and an orderly who was carrying a lantern. 'These are his last moments,' the doctor said. The boy held the man's hand; and the man opened his eyes, looked at the boy, and closed them again. At that moment it seemed to the boy that his hand was squeezed. 'He gripped my hand!' he exclaimed. The doctor leant over the patient awhile, then stood up. The nun took a crucifix from the wall. The boy cried out, 'He's dead!' 'Go now, son,' the doctor said. 'Your holy work is done. Go, and good fortune be yours - you deserve it. God protect you. Goodbye.' The sister, who had left them for a moment, came back with a little bunch of violets which she had taken from a glass at the window. She offered them to the boy, saying, 'I have nothing else to give you. Take them to remember the hospital.' 'Thank you,' the boy replied, taking the flowers with one hand as he wiped his eyes with the other, 'but 1 have such a long way to walk I might spoil them.' And he loosened the bunch and scattered the violets, saying, 'I am leaving them in memory of my poor friend who is dead. Thank you, sister. Thank you, doctor,' and turning to the dead man, 'Goodbye.. .' And while he was seeking a name for him there came from his heart to his lips the sweet name that he had given him for five days - 'Goodbye, poor Papa!' When he had said that he put the parcel of clothes under his arm and with slow steps, for he was crushed with tiredness, he went. Dawn was breaking.

The smithy
Saturday, 18th Precosi came yesterday evening to remind me that I could go to see their smithy, which is in our street, and as I was going out with my father I had him take me there awhile. As we were approaching the smithy, Garoffi rushed out with a package in his hand, causing his big cloak, which usually covers his merchandise, to fly behind him. So now I know where he goes to get the iron filings and scraps that he sells for old newspapers, Garoffi's big line of trade! Presenting ourselves at the door, we saw Precossi sitting on a little pile of bricks and studying the lesson with the book on his knees. He stood up straight away and invited us in. The smithy was full of coaldust and the walls bristled with hammers and tongs, bars and pieces of iron in all kinds of shapes. In one corner a boy was working a bellows which played on a furnace. Precossi's father was standing at the anvil and an apprentice was holding a bar of iron in the fire. 'Ah, here he is,' said the blacksmith as soon as he saw us, taking off his cap, 'the good boy who gives his train away I come to see a bit of the work being done. That's right, isn't it? At your service in a moment.' He smiled. His face was not surly and his eyes were not hostile like they used to be. The apprentice held out a long piece of iron red-hot at one end, and the smith rested it on the anvil. He was making one of those spiral bars for balcony railings. He lifted a big hammer and began to strike, pushing the red-hot part now here and now there, from one part of the anvil to another, and turning it in various ways, and it was wonderful to see how the iron bent and twisted under t\u. quick, precise blows of the hammer, gradually

assuming tht, form of the curly leaf of a flower, as if it were a piece of dough he was shaping with his hands. As the smith worked, his son looked at us with an expression of pride as if to say 'See how my father works!' 'Did the young master see how it's done?' the blacksmith asked when he had finished, showing me the piece of iron which now resembled a bishop's crosier. He set it aside and thrust another bar into the fire. 'It's well done indeed,' my father said to him, and he added 'So... working, eh? The will to work has come back.' 'Yes, it has come back,' the workman replied, wiping away the sweat, and reddening a little. 'And do you know who made it come back?' My father pretended not to understand. 'That good lad,' said the smith, pointing a finger at his son, 'that good lad there, who studied and brought honour to his father while his father... had his fling and treated him like an animal. When I saw that medal. Ah! my little one, as big as a few centesimi's worth of cheese, just come here and let's 'have a good look at you!' The boy quickly responded. The smith caught hold of him, stood him on the anvil holding him under his arms and said, 'Just clean up the forehead a bit for this beast of a father.' Whereupon Precossi covered his father's sooty face with kisses till his face was black too. 'Everything's fine,' said the smith and put him back on the floor. 'Everything is fine indeed,' exclaimed my father, well pleased. When he had said goodbye to the smith and his son, he led the' way outside. As I was leaving, little Precossi said 'Excuse me and put a little bag of nails in my pocket. I invited him to come to watch the carnival from our house. You gave him your train,' my father said once we were out in the street, 'but if it had been made of gold and filled with pearls it would still have been a small present for that blessed boy who rekindled his father's heart.'

The little clown

Monday, 20th The carnival now drawing to a close has got the whole town bubbling with excitement. Roundabouts and acrobats' booths have appeared in every square and we have a circus tent below our window in which a little company from Venice with five horses gives performances. The circus is in the middle of the square and in one corner there are three big caravans which the acrobats sleep and change - three little houses on wheels, each one with its little windows and little chimney from which smoke constantly appears, and with baby clothes hanging out between the windows. There is one woman who breast-feeds a baby, quickly gets something to eat, then dances on the tightrope. Poor people! The word acrobat is used as an insult, but they earn their bread honestly, entertaining everyone. And how they work! All day they run between the circus and the caravans skimpily dressed in this cold weather. They quickly eat a couple of mouthfuls standing up between performances. Sometimes when the circus is full a wind comes up, wreaks havoc with the tent and extinguishes the lights, and that's the end of the show! They have to give people their money back and work all evening to put the tent up again. They have two boys who take part, and my father recognized the smaller one when he was crossing the square, He is the owner's son, the one we saw performing on horseback last year in a circus in Piazza Vittorio Emanuele. He has grown - he will be eight years old. He's a fine boy with a nice little round face, brown and impish, with a lot of black curls escaping from his conical hat. He is dressed as a clown, thrust into a kind of sack with sleeves; it is white embroidered with black and he wears little canvas shoes. He is full of spirit and everybody likes him. He does everything. Early this morning we saw him, wrapped in a shawl, bringing the milk to his little wooden house. Then he goes to get the horses from the stable in Via Bertola. He carries the baby in his arms. lit moves hoops, trestles, bars and ropes. He cleans the caravan., lights the fire, and if he has a moment to spare he is always attentive to his mother. My father is constantly

watching him from the window and is always talking about him and his family, who seem to be good people, caring very much for their children. One evening we went to the circus. It was cold and there was hardly anyone there. Nevertheless the little clown put all he had into pleasing that handful of people. He dill somersaults, he hung on to the horses' tails, he walked with his legs in the air, alone, and he sang, the smile never leaving his bonny little brown face. His father wearing a red jacket, but he was sad. My father was sorry for them and spoke about them afterwards to Delis the artist, who came to see them. Those poor people work themselves to death but face bankruptcy. He liked the little boy very much indeed. What could be done for them? The artist had an idea. 'Write a good article for the Gazette,' he said. 'You can write - write about the marvelous things the little clown can do, and I'll draw a picture of him. Everybody reads the Gazette and people will go at least once.' This they did. My father wrote an article, interesting and full of jokes, which described all we saw from our window and made people want to know and help the little performer, and the artist made a sketch of him that was pleasant, and a wood likeness. It was published on Saturday evening. So it was that a large crowd went to the circus for Sunday's performance. 'Benefit performance for the little clown,' it was announced - he was called 'little clown' in the Gazette. My father took me into the front seats. Near the entrance they had pinned up a copy of the Gazette. The circus was packed. Many spectators had the Gazette in their hands and showed it to the little clown, who was laughing and running about from one person to another, and very happy. white trousers, high boots, and holding a whip, watched him; The owner was happy too. Just think! No newspaper had ever honoured him in this way before, and the cash-box was full. My father sat next to me. There were people we knew in the audience. Standing near the entrance where the horses came in was the gymnastics teacher, the one who was with Garibaldi. Opposite us, in the back seats, was the small, round face of the little bricklayer, who was sitting next to that giant his father. As Soon as he saw me he pulled a face. A bit further away I saw Garoffi. He was counting the audience and working out on his fingers what the company's takings would be. Also in the front seats some way from us was poor Robetti the boy who saved the child from the omnibus - with his crutches between his knees. He was sitting close beside his father, the artillery captain, whose hand rested on his shoulder. The performance started. The little clown performed marvellously on the horse, the trapeze and the tightrope, and each time he jumped down everybody clapped and many people tugged his curls. Then others did their turns, tightrope walkers, jugglers and horseback riders, flimsily dressed and sparkling with silver. But it seemed as though people became bored when the boy wasn't performing. There was a moment when I saw the gymnastics teacher, standing where the horses came in, say something in the circus-owner's ear; he straight away turned his eyes on the audience as though he was looking for someone. His eyes rested on us. My father saw this and realized that the teacher had said that he was the writer of the article, and to avoid being thanked he left, saying to me, 'You stay, Enrico. I'll wait for you outside.' After exchanging a few words with his father, the little clown performed again. Standing on a galloping horse he changed costume four times - appearing as a pilgrim, a sailor, a soldier and an acrobat, and he looked at me each time he passed near me. When he dismounted he went round with his clown's hat in his hands and everyone threw in coins and sweets. I had two coins ready but, when he reached me, instead of holding out the hat he held it back, looked at me and moved on. I felt humiliated. Why had he been rude to me like that? The show ended, the master of the circus thanked the audience, everybody got up and crowded towards the exit. I was in the crowd and already going out when I felt a hand touch ml' I turned round. There was the little brown face crowned wit It black curls of the little clown smiling at me. His hands were full of sweets. Then I understood. 'Would you like,' he said, 'would you like these sweets from the little clown?' I replied that I would, and took three or four. 'And', he added, 'have a kiss as well.' 'Give me two,' I replied, and leant towards him. He cleaned his powdered face with his sleeve, put an arm round my neck and imprinted two kisses on my cheeks, saying, 'For you, and take one for your papa.'

The last day of carnival

Tuesday, 21st What a sad scene we saw today in the fancy-dress parade! It turned out all right, but it could have ended in great unhappiness. In Piazza San Carlo, which was completely festooned in yellow, red and white, a great crowd was gathering. People were strolling about in fancy dresses of all colours, gilded carts bedecked with flags passed by, some built up as pavilions, others as puppet theatres or ships, carrying harlequins, warriors, cooks, sailors and shepherdesses. It was a bewildering spectacle and you didn't know where to look first. A tumult of trumpets, horns and cymbals assaulted your ears. The people in fancy dress on the carts drank heartily and sang, addressing themselves to the people standing by and those watching from the windows, who replied at the tops of their voices, attracting showers of oranges and sweets. Over the carriages and above the heads of the crowd, as far as the eye could see, flags were flying, helmets glittering, plumes fluttering, big papier-mache heads were swaying, there were huge bonnets, enormous top hats, fantastic groups, tambourines and crotals, little red children's caps, and bottles -.it seemed as if everyone was crazy. Just passing in front of us when our carriage entered the pizza was a magnificent wagon drawn by four horses, with 'l1parisons embroidered in gold and all garlanded with artificial roses, on which there were fourteen or fifteen gentlemen dressed as noblemen of the French court, all resplendent in silk, with full white wigs, plumed hats under their arms, short swords, and ruffles of ribbon and lace on their breasts. They were very beautiful indeed. Together they sang a popular French song, and threw sweets to the crowd, and the crowd clapped and shouted. Suddenly on our left we saw a man lift a little girl, a poor child of five or six, above the heads of the crowd. She was crying desperately and her arms moved convulsively. The man forced his way towards the gentlemen's wagon. One of them leant forward and the man said in a loud voice, Take this child, she's lost her mother in the crowd, take her in your arms. Her mother can't be far away and she'll see her. It's the only thing to do.' The gentleman took the little girl in his arms and the others stopped singing. The child screamed and struggled. The gentleman took off his mask and the wagon continued to move slowly along. While this was happening, we were told later, a poor woman driven half out of her mind elbowed and pushed her way through the crowd screaming' Maria! Maria! Maria! I've lost my little girl. She's been stolen! My baby has been suffocated!' For a quarter of an hour she raved and despaired like this, moving about, hemmed in by the crowd which could hardly make way for her. Meanwhile the gentleman on the wagon was holding the child close to the ribbons and lace on his chest, looking round the piazza and trying to quieten the poor creature, who covered her face with her hands, not knowing where she was and sobbing as though her heart would break. The gentleman was deeply moved: he saw that her cries came straight from her young heart. All the other men were offering the child oranges and sweets, but she refused them, and became more and more frightened and convulsive. 'Look for her mother!' the gentleman shouted to the crowd. 'Look for her mother!' Everyone turned to right and to left but the mother was not to be seen. At last, a few yards from the entrance to Via Roma, a woman was seen rushing towards the wagon. Ah! I shall never forget her! She no longer appeared human. Her hair was loose, her face distorted, her clothes were torn. She flunk herself forward making a noise which was not to he recognized as joy, anguish or madness and thrust her hand forward as if they were two talons with which to seize her daughter. The cart stopped. 'Here she is,' said the gentleman, holding out the child when he had kissed her, and he put her in the arms of her mother, who drew her passionately to her breast. But one of the little hands remained for a moment in the gentleman hands, and he took a gold ring with a large diamond from his right hand and with a deft movement put it on one of the little child's fingers. 'Take this,' he said to her. 'It will be your dowry.' The mother stood there as though under a spell, the crowd burst into applause, the gentleman put his mask on again, his companions took up the song, and the cart moved slowly away in a storm of clapping and cheers.

The blind children

Thursday, 23rd Our teacher is very ill and in his place they sent the teacher from Standard 4 who has taught in the Institute for the Blind. He is the oldest of all the teachers and so white that he appears to have a cotton wig on his head, and he speaks in a certain way, as if he were singing a sad song. But he is all right, and knows a lot. He had just come into the class-room when he saw a boy with a bandage over one eye. He went up to the desk and asked him what was the matter. 'Look after your eyes, my boy,' he said. Then Derossi asked him, 'Is it true, sir, that you have been a teacher of the blind?' 'Yes, for several years,' he replied. 'Tell us about it, sir,' said Derossi in a low voice. The teacher went to sit at his desk. Coretti said out loud, 'The Institute for the Blind is in Via Nizza.' 'You say blind, blind', said the teacher, 'as you would say ill and poor or something similar. But do you fully understand the meaning of this word? Think about it a little. Blind! Never to see anything again! To be unable to distinguish day from night, to see neither sky nor sun, nor your own parents, to see nothing of all the things around you, the things you touch, to be enveloped in perpetual darkness as though you were buried in the bowels of the earth. Try for a moment to close your eyes and think that you have to stay like that for ever. Suddenly you cannot get your breath, you are seized with terror, you feel that you cannot possibly bear it, that you are going to cry out, go mad, or die. 'However. .. poor children, when you enter the Institute for the Blind for the first time during break or hear them playing violins and flutes everywhere, and shouting and laughing, and see them going quickly up and down the stairs and moving easily through the corridors and dormitories, you would never think that these are the unfortunate ones that in fact they are. You have to watch them carefully. There are young people of seventeen or eighteen, robust and cheerful, who bear their blindness with a certain ease, almost boldly. But you know from the resentful and proud expressions of their faces that they must have suffered tremendously before becoming resigned to their misfortune. There are others, pale faced and sweet-natured, in whom one discerns a great degree of resignation, but they are sad, and you know that still, sometimes, they must cry in secret. 'Ah, children! Just think that some of them lost their sight in the course of a few days, that others lost it after years of martyrdom and many terrible operations, and that many were born like that, born into a night which for them will have no dawn, having come into the world as into all immense tomb, and that they do not know what the human face looks like. Imagine how much they must have suffered and how much they still suffer when they think confusedly of the tremendous difference there is between themselves and those who can see them, and ask themselves, "Why is there this difference, when it is not our fault?" 'I who was with them for several years, when I remember that class, all those sightless and lifeless eyes, and then look at you. .. it seems to me impossible that you should not all be happy. Think: there are about twenty-six thousand blind people in Italy. Twenty-six thousand people who cannot see the light of day, you understand. An army that would take four hours to pass our windows!' The master was silent. Not a breath was to be heard in the class-room. Derossi asked if it was true that blind people have a more delicate sense of touch than we have. The master said, 'It is true. All the other senses are heightened in them precisely because, having to make up for the sense of sight, they are more and better exercised by the sightless than by those who can see. In the morning in the dormitory they ask one another, "Is the sun shining?", and the one who is quickest to get dressed immediately runs down to the courtyard to wave his hand in the air to feel for the sun's warmth and hastens to give the good news, "The sun is shining." 'From a person's voice they get an idea of his height. We judge a man by his eyes, they by his voice. They remember his intonation and the way he speaks, for years. They are aware whether there is more than one person in a room, even if only one speaks and the others remain quiet. By touch they know whether a spoon is not too clean or very clean. Little children can distinguish between dyed wool and wool of natural colour. 'Walking in twos through the streets they recognize nearly all the shops by smell, even those we cannot smell at all. They play with a top and when they hear the hum it makes as it spins they go unerringly

to it to pick it up. They run round in circles, play skittles, skip with ropes, build little houses with stones, they gather violets as if they could see them, they make mats and baskets and they plait straw of different colours quickly and well, so highly have they developed their sense of touch. Touch is their sight. It is one of their greatest pleasures to touch, to hold, to get to know the shape of things by feeling them, It is moving to see them when they are taken to the industrial museum, where they are allowed to touch whatever they want, to see the joy with which they throw themselves on the geometrical models, the models of houses, on the instruments, to see the joy with which they feel and stroke and turn everything over in their hands to see how it is made. Yes, they say "See"!' Garoffi interrupted the teacher to ask him if it was true that they learn to do sums better than other children. The teacher replied, 'Yes, it is true. They learn to do sums and to read. They have specially made books with the letters in relief. They move their fingers over them, recognize the letters and say the word. They read fluently. You should see how they blush, poor things, when they make a mistake. They even write without ink. They write on thick, hard paper with a metal punch which makes several sunken little marks arranged according to a special alphabet. These little marks stick out on the reverse side of the paper, so that by turning the sheet over and tracing their fingers along them they can read what they have written, and also other people's writing. And this is how they do compositions and write letters to one another. 'They write numbers and do sums in the same way. They do mental arithmetic with incredible ease, because they are not distracted by the sight of things as we are. 'You should see how keen they are to listen to a reading, how attentive they are, how they remember everything, how they discuss amongst themselves - even the little ones points in history and of language, four or five of them sitting on the same bench, without turning to one another, yet the first talking to the third, the second with the fourth, voices raised, everyone at once, without missing a single word, so acute and alert is their hearing. 'They attach more importance than you do to examinations, I assure you, and they become more fond of their teachers. They recognize the teacher by his footstep and through their sense of smell. They learn whether he is in good mood or a bad mood, if he is well or ill, simply from the sound of a single word. They want the teacher to touch them when he encourages or praises them, and they pat his hand and arms to express their gratitude. 'If they like one another they are good companions. At playtime the usual ones are nearly always together. In the girls' department, for example, they form groups according to the instruments they play, the violinists, the pianists, the flautists, and they never drift apart. When they have grown to like someone, it is difficult to separate them. They find much consolation in friendship. They are good judges amongst themselves. They have a clear and deep concept of good and of evil. Nothing raises their spirits more than the story of a generous action or a good deed.' Votini asked if they play well. 'They are passionately fond of music,' the teacher replied. 'Music is their joy, it is their life. Blind children who have only just entered the institute can stand motionless for three hours listening to music. They learn easily, they play with feeling. When the teacher tells one of them that he has no talent for music, the pupil experiences great sorrow, but he begins to study desperately. Ah, if you heard their music, if you saw them playing, their heads held high, smiles on their lips, faces flushed, trembling with emotion and enraptured to hear the harmony they are sending into the infinite darkness which surrounds them - how clearly you would see that music is a divine consolation. And when a teacher says to them "You will become an artiste", they rejoice, they are radiant. 'The first amongst them in music, the one who does best on the piano or violin, is like a king. They love and revere him. If a quarrel develops between two of them, they go to him. If two friends fall out, it is he who brings reconciliation. The smallest look upon the man who teaches them to play as a father. Before going to bed they all go to him to say good night. They talk about music all the time. When they are already in bed late in the evening and nearly all of them are tired from study and work, and half asleep, they still talk in low voices about pieces of music, teachers, instruments and orchestras. It is so great a punishment to them to be deprived of reading or a music lesson, they suffer such grief, that one has hardly the heart to punish them in that way. Music is to their hearts what light is to our eyes.' Derossi asked if it would be possible for us to go to see them. It would,' the teacher replied, 'but you boys should not go just yet. You should go later when you are able to understand the magnitude of their misfortune and experience the pity of it. It is a sad spectacle, boys. Sometimes you see children tilling in front of a wide-open window to enjoy the fresh air, their faces

still, so that they seem to be looking at the great green plain and the beautiful blue mountains that you can see. Then the thought that they see nothing and never will see anything of that great beauty chills your heart as if they had gone blind that very moment. 'Even those who were born blind evoke less pity, for never having seen the world they have no mental pictures of it and miss nothing. But there are children who have been blind only a few months, who still remember everything and are fully aware of what they have lost, and they have the additional pain of realizing that the dearest images, of those they love best, are becoming a little more obscure in their memory every day. One of these boys said to me one day with great sadness, "I would like to have my sight again just once, for a moment, to see again my mother's face, which 1 cannot remember any more!" 'When their mother comes to visit them they put their hands on her face and explore it thoroughly from forehead to chin and ears to get an impression of its structure. They can hardly believe that they are unable to see her and they call her name many times as though to beg her to let them see her once more. 'So many people weep when they leave, even men with hard hearts! When you come out, the ability to see people, houses, sky, seems to be the exception, a privilege hardly merited. 'Oh, I am sure there is not one of you who, coming out of there, would not be willing to give up a little of his own sight so as to give at least a glimmer to all those poor young children for whom the sun has no light and their mother no face!'

The sick teacher

Saturdav, 25th After school yesterday afternoon I went to visit my sick teacher. He has made himself ill by overwork. Five hours of lessons during the day, an hour of gymnastics, then another two hours of nightschool mean that he sleeps little, eats hurriedly and loses his voice between morning and evening. His health is undermined. That is what my mother says. My mother waited for me at the main door. I went up alone and on the stairs I met the teacher with the awful black heard, Croatti - the one who frightens everybody and punishes nobody. He looked at me with staring eyes and spoke with the voice of a lion, in jest, but without laughing. I was still laughing when I rang the bell on the fourth floor, hut my mood changed suddenly when the servant admitted me to the miserable room half in darkness where my teacher lay. He was in a small iron bed and his beard was long. He shielded his eyes to see me better. 'Oh, Enrico!' he exclaimed in his warm voice. I approached his bed. He put a hand on my shoulder and said, 'Good boy. It's good of you to come to see your poor old teacher. I am reduced to a sorry state, as you see, my dear Enrico. And how is school? How are your class-mates? Quite all right, eh? Even without me! You're doing very well, aren't you, without your old teacher?' I wanted to say no, but he interrupted me: 'Well, well, I know that you do not dislike me.' He sighed. I was looking at some photographs on the wall. 'Do you see them?' he said. 'They are all boys who have given me their pictures over a period of more than twenty years. Good boys. Those are my souvenirs. When I die they will be the last things I look at, all those little rascals I've spent my life amongst. You will give me your likeness too, won't you, when you have finished elementary school?' Then he took an orange from the bedside table and put it in my hand. 'I have nothing else to give you,' he said. 'A present from an invalid.' I looked at him and, I don't know why, my heart was sad. 'Listen carefully,' he went on, 'I hope to emerge from this. But if I do not recover, see that you do better in arithmetic, which is your weak subject. Make an effort! It's only a question of that first effort, because sometimes it isn't lack of aptitude, it's a preconception or, you could say, a fixed idea.' Meanwhile he was breathing heavily and it was clear that he was suffering. 'I have a nasty fever,' he sighed. 'I'm nearly done for. Please, then, master your arithmetic, your problems. If you don't succeed the first time, rest awhile, then try again. Persist, but calmly, without distressing yourself and without getting worked up. Off you go now! Greetings to your mother. Don't climb the stairs again. We shall see one another again in class. And, if we don't see one another again, remember sometimes your teacher in Standard 3, who was fond of you.'

When I heard those words I felt like crying. 'Come here,' he said. I bent towards his pillow and he kissed my head. 'Go,' he said, and turned his face to the wall. I rushed down the stairs, for I needed to embrace my mother.

The street
Saturday, 25th I watched you from the window this evening when you were returning from the teacher's house. You bumped into a lady. Be more careful how you walk in the street. There, too, one has responsibilities. If you walk and move circumspectly in a private house, why should you not do the same in the street, which is everyone's house? Just remember, Enrico, every time you meet an old person unsteady on his feet, a poor man, a lady with a child in her arms, a cripple on crutches, a man stooping under the burden he is carrying, a family dressed in mourning, respectfully make way for them. We must respect old age, poverty, maternal love, infirmity, fatigue, death. Whenever you see someone arriving by carriage, help him down if it is a child, attend him if a man. Always ask a child alone and crying what is the matter. Pick up for the old man the walking-stick that he has dropped. If two children are fighting, separate them. If it is two men, move away so as not to be present at the spectacle of brutal violence which offend., and hardens the heart. If you should pass a bound man between two policemen, do not add to the crowd's cruel curiosity. He might be innocent. Stop talking with your companion, and smiling, when you meet a hospital stretcher, which could be carrying a dying man, or a funeral procession - one could leave your house some day. Look respectfully at all those children from institutions who walk in twos: the blind, the dumb, the deformed, orphans, foundlings. Think that what you are seeing pass by is the spectacle of misfortune and human charity. Always pretend not to see a person with an unpleasant or grotesque deformity. Always put out a burning match you see at your feet. It could cost someone's life. Always reply politely to the passer-by who asks the way. Do not laugh as you look at someone, do not run without good reason, do not shout. Respect the street. A people's civility can be judged, above all, by behaviour in the streets. Where you find rudeness in the streets you will find rudeness indoors. Take a good look at the streets and the town you live in. If you were suddenly sent far away tomorrow you would be pleased to have them clearly in your memory, to be able to travel through the town in your thoughts. Your town, your own little country which for so many years has been your world, the place where you took your first steps at your mother's side, where you experienced your first emotions, received your first ideas and met your first friends. It has been a mother to you. It has taught, delighted and protected you. Get to know it in its streets and its people. Cherish it and when you hear it abused, defend it.

MARCH Night-school
Thursday, 2nd Yesterday my father took me to see the evening classes which are held in our Baretti District School. All the lights were already on and the workmen were beginning to arrive. When we got there we found the headmaster and teachers very angry because a pane of glass in a window had just been broken by someone throwing a stone. The caretaker had rushed out and seized hold of a boy walking past but then Stardi, who lives opposite the school, had appeared on the scene. He said, 'It wasn't him - I saw it with my own eyes. It was Franti who threw it and he said, "You watch out if you tell!" But I'm not scared.' The headmaster said that Franti will be expelled permanently. Meanwhile I was watching the workmen who were coming in in twos and threes: more than two hundred had already arrived. I had never before seen how marvellous a night school is. There were young people of twelve years old and upwards and bearded men who had come from work with textbooks and exercise books. There were joiners, furnacemen with black faces, bricklayers whose hands were white with lime, apprentice bakers with flour in their hair, and there was the smell of paint, hides, pitch, oil- the smells of all the trades. Even a squad of artillery workmen in soldiers' uniforms came in, in charge of a corporal. They quickly filed into the benches, moved the wooden rests we put our feet on and immediately bent their heads to work. Some of them went up to the teachers with open exercise books to ask questions. I saw that well-dressed young teacher - 'the young lawyer'. He had three or four workmen round his desk and was making corrections with a pen. There was also the lame teacher, laughing with a dyer who had broug4t him all exercise book all smudged with red and blue dye. There was even my teacher, better now, who will be coming back to school tomorrow The class-room doors were open. I was astonished to see how attentive everyone was, how their eyes never wandered when the lessons started. Yet most of them, the headmaster said, so as not to arrive too late, had not even called at home for a bite to eat and were hungry. The young ones, though, were falling asleep after half an hour in class. One of them was even sleeping with his head on his desk. The teacher was waking him up, tickling his ear with a pen. But not the grownups; they were wide awake, mouths open and unblinking to hear the lesson. It surprised me to see all those bearded men on our benches. We also went up to the next floor and I ran to the door of our class-room. In my place I saw a man with two large moustachios, and a bandaged hand which had perhaps been hurt by a machine. All the same he was managing to write, slowly, very slowly. But what pleased me most was to see in the little bricklayer's place, on the same bench, in the same corner, his father, the bricklayer who is as big as a giant, lightly curled up there, forehead resting on his fists, his eyes on the book and so attentive that he seemed not to be breathing. He wasn't there by chance. The first evening he came to the school he said to the headmaster, 'Will you please put me where my Hare-nose sits' - for that is what he always calls his .on, My father stayed there with me till the end and we saw many women in the street with children in their arms waiting for their husbands. When the people came out they made an exchange: the workmen took the children in their arms and the women took the textbooks and exercise books, and so they walked home together. For a few moments the street was full of noise and people. Then everything was quiet and all we '11 w was the tall, tired figure of the headmaster as he left the school behind him.

The fight
Sunday, 5th It was to be expected. Expelled by the headmaster, Franti sought revenge. Every day after school Stardi takes his sister to an institute in Via Dora Grossa. Franti waited for him round a corner. My sister Silvia saw everything that happened when she was leaving school, and came home very frightened. This is what happened. His oilskin cap pressed down over one ear, Franti ran on tiptoe behind the girl and, to provoke Stardi, he pulled her hair, pulled so hard that she almost fell on her back. The little girl cried out, her

brother turned round. Franti who is much taller and stronger than Stardi thought to himself, If he says one word I'll give him a good hiding. But Stardi did not stop to think and, small and short though he is, he leapt on that overgrown boy and began to hit out. But he could not reach up to him and he got more than he gave. In the street there were only girls and no one could separate them. Franti knocked Stardi to the ground, but he got up at once and attacked again. Franti struck him as if hammering a door. In a moment he almost wrenched his ear off, bruised his eye and made his nose bleed. But Stardi held on and shouted, 'Kill me, but I'll make you pay!' Then it was Franti kicking and slapping and Stardi underneath, butting and kicking. A woman shouted from a window, 'Well done, little one!' Others were saying, 'It's a boy defending his sister,' 'Keep going!', 'Hit him hard!' At Franti they were shouting, 'Bully! Big coward!' But Franti, too, was enraged. He tripped Stardi and held him down. 'Give in!' 'No!' 'Give in!' 'No!' And with a twist Stardi got to his feet, grasped Franti round the waist, with a furious effort threw him to the pavement and fell on him with a knee on his chest. 'Oh, the wretch has a knife!' a man shouted, running to disarm Franti. But Stardi, beside himself with rage, had already seized Franti's arm with both hands and bitten his fist so hard that the knife had fallen and his hand was bleeding. Meanwhile other people ran towards them, separated them and lifted them to their feet. Franti, bruised, took to his heel. and Stardi stayed there, his face cut and his eye blackened but victorious - near his sister, who was crying. Some girls were collecting textbooks and exercise books, which were scattered over the street. 'Well done, little lad,' people said, 'defending your sister!' But Stardi, who was thinking more about his school-bag than his victory, immediately began to examine his books one by one to see that none were missing or damaged. He wiped them with his sleeve, examined his pen-nib, put everything back in its place, then, quiet and serious as usual, he said to his sister, 'Let's go, quickly - I have a sum that has to be worked out in four stages.'

The boys family

Monday, 6th This morning Stardi's father, a big man, was waiting for him in case he should meet Franti once more. But they say we shall not see Franti again because he will be sent to prison. There were a lot of relations this morning. There was, amongst others, the wood-seller, Coretti's father, the very picture of his son, quick and cheerful with a little pointed moustache and a two-coloured medal ribbon in the buttonhole of his jacket. . I already know nearly all the boys' relations from seeing them always there. There's a grandmother, bent-backed and wearing a white bonnet who, rain, hail or snow, comes four times a day to bring and collect one of her grandchildren in 1A. She takes his overcoat off, puts if on, straightens his tie, brushes him, smoothes his clothes and checks his exercise hooks. You can see she thinks about nothing else, that to her he is the most wonderful thing in the world. The artillery captain often comes too. He is the father of Robetti, the boy on crutches who saved a child from being run over by an omnibus. Just as all his son's companions touch him fondly as they pass, so the father greets or shakes hands with all of them. He forgets no one. He stoops over each one and, the poorer they are and the worse they are dressed, the more gratified he seems as he thanks them. However, sometimes there are sad scenes. One gentleman had not come for more than a month because one of his sons had died. He had sent the other boy with the maid, but yesterday came again for the first time. When he saw the friends of the little boy who had died he went to a corner and, covering his face with both hands, broke down and sobbed. The headmaster took him by the arm and led him to his study. There are fathers and mothers who know all their sons' class-mates by name. There are girls from the school next to ours, and boys from the grammar school who come to wait for their brothers. There is an old gentleman, a retired colonel. If he sees that a boy has dropped a book or a pen in the street, he picks it up for him. You see well-dressed women discussing school affairs with others wearing scarves on their heads

and carrying baskets on their arms, and commenting 'Oh! The problem was terrible this time', and 'He didn't even finish that grammar lesson this morning.' When someone in a class is ill, everyone knows about it. When a sick boy is better, everyone rejoices. This very morning nine or ten ladies and working women were clustered round Crossi's mother, who sells vegetables, asking for news of a poor child in my brother's class who lives in the same courtyard and is dangerously ill. It seems as if the school makes everyone equal and friendly.

Number 78
Wednesday, 8th I saw a moving scene yesterday afternoon. For several days the vegetable-seller looked at Derossi with great admiration each time she passed him. The reason must be that, since he made that discovery about the inkstand and prison number 78, Derossi has had a soft spot for Crossi, her son. the boy with red hair and a withered arm. He helps him Wit II school work, suggests answers and gives him paper, pens and pencils. In short, he treats him as a brother as if to make up for that misfortune of his father's which has affected him but which he does not know about. The vegetable-seller had been watching Derossi for several days and it seemed as if she could hardy take her eyes off him, for she is a good woman who lives entirely for her son and Derossi helps him and is a hero to him. Derossi is a gentleman and top of the class, a king, a saint to her. She watched him constantly. It seemed as if she wanted to say something to him but was too shy to do so. However, yesterday morning, at last she plucked up courage. She stopped him in front of one of the main doors and said, 'Do excuse me, young gentleman. You are so good and help my little boy so much - do me the favour of taking this little memento from a poor mother.' She took a little white and gilt cardboard box from her vegetable basket. Derossi blushed, and refused it, saying firmly, 'Give it to your son. I cannot accept anything.' The woman was crestfallen and apologized, muttering, 'I didn't mean to offend you, I'm sure. . . they're only sweets.' Shaking his head, Derossi repeated his refusal. Then, timidly, she took a bunch of radishes from the basket and said, 'Have these, at least, to take to your mother...they're fresh.' Derossi smiled and said, 'No, thank you, I don't want anything. I shall always do what I can for Crossi, but I can't accept anything. Thank you all the same.' 'You're not offended at all?' the woman asked anxiously. Derossi told her that he certainly was not. And off he went, as she remarked contentedly, 'What a good boy! I've never seen such a fine, kind boy!' And that seemed to be the end of it. But, lo and behold, at four o'clock, instead of Crossi's mother we see the pale, sad face of his father. He stopped Derossi and from the way he looked at him I knew immediately that he suspected Derossi knew his secret. He looked at him intently and said in a voice which conveyed both sorrow and warmth of feeling, 'You are good to my son Why are you so good to him?' Derossi's face became fiery red. He would have liked to say, I wish him well because he has been unfortunate. Because even you his father has been more unfortunate than guilty and you have nobly atoned for your crime. And you are a man of goodwill.' But he had not the courage to say it, for deep down he was even afraid of and almost repelled by this man who had spilt another's blood and spent seven years in prison. The man understood. Lowering his voice and almost trembling, he said in Derossi's ear, 'You like the son, but you dislike me a bit... rather despise the father, don't you?' 'Oh no! No! That's quite wrong!' Derossi exclaimed impulsively. Then the man made a sudden movement as if to put an arm round the boy's shoulders, but he did not dare and instead took one of his fair curls between two fingers, drew it out and let it fall. He put the palm of his hand to his mouth and kissed it while he looked at Derossi with moist eyes, as if to tell him that the kiss was for him. He took his son's hand and quickly left.

The death of a child

Monday, 13th The boy who was in 1A with my little brother, and lived in the same courtyard as the vegetableseller, has died. Signorina Delcati, who was very distressed, came on Saturday afternoon to tell the teacher. Garrone and Coretti at once offered to help to carry the coffin. He was a fine little boy and won the medal last week. He was fond of my brother and had given him a broken money-box. My mother would always caress him when she saw him. He wore a cap which had two strips of red cloth on it. His father was a railway porter. Yesterday afternoon, Sunday, at half past four, we went to his house for the procession to the church. They live on the ground floor. There were a lot of boys from lA in the courtyard with their mothers, holding candles, as well as five or six mistresses and some neighbours. The mistress with till red feather and Signorina Delcati had gone inside and we could see them through an open window. They were weeping. We could hear the little boy's mother sobbing loudly. Two ladies, mothers of two of the dead boy's school-friends, had brought wreaths of flowers. We started out promptly at five o'clock. In front went a boy carrying the cross, then a priest and then the coffin, a small coffin, poor child, covered by a black cloth, and the wreaths from the two ladies were arranged upon it. At one place on the black cloth they had pinned the medal and three good reports the little boy had had during the year. Garrone, Coretti and two boys from the courtyard acted as bearers. I1mediately behind the coffin was Signorina Delcati, weeping as if the dead child was her own, and behind her came the other mistresses. Next came the boys, some of them very small, looking in bewilderment at the coffin. In one hand they carried a bunch of violets, with the other they held their other's hand while she carried the candle for them. When the coffin left the courtyard a desperate cry came from one of the windows: it was the child's mother, but in a moment she was taken back into the room. In the street we met the boys from a boardingschool walking along in twos. They all raised their caps when they saw the coffin with its medal, and the mistresses. Poor little child, he is going to sleep for ever with his medal. We shall not see his red cap again. He had been well, then died in four days. On his last day he forced himself to get up to do his little vocabulary exercise, and wanted to keep his medal on his bed lest someone should take it. No one will take it from you now, poor boy! Goodbye. Goodbye. We shall always remember you at the Baretti School. Sleep in peace, little one.

On the eve of 14th March

Today has been a happier day than yesterday. The 13th of March! The eve of prize-giving in the Victor Emmanuel Theatre, the biggest and best holiday of the whole year. But this year the boys who go up on to the platform to hand the prize certificates to the gentlemen who will distribute them are not being picked at random. The headmaster came in at the end of school this morning and said, 'Boys, here is some good news.' Then he called out, 'Coraci!' - he is the Calabrian. Coraci stood up. 'Would you like to be one of the boys who take the prize certificates up to the official party at the theatre tomorrow?' The Calabrian replied that he would. 'Good,' said the headmaster, 'that means there will also be a representative of Calabria. That will be excellent. This year the council wants the ten or twelve children who take the certificates up to be from all the regions of Italy, and taken from all the council's schools. We have twenty district schools, five area offices and seven thousand pupils. With such a large number it was not difficult to find a boy from each region of Italy. In Torquato Tasso School there were two representatives of the islands, a Sardinian and a Sicilian. The Boncompagni School provided a young Florentine, the son of a wood-carver. There is a Roman who was born in Rome in the Tommaseo School. Of boys from Venetia, Lombardy and the Romagna there were several. Monviso School supplies" Neapolitan, an officer's son. We are providing a

Genoese and a Calabrian - you, Coraci. And the boy from Piedmont makclI twelve. This is fine, I am sure you agree. 'It is your brothers from all over Italy who will be giving you your prizes. Just think: all twelve will appear on the platform together. Welcome them with a hearty round of applause. They are boys, but they represent their homelands just as if they were men. You will agree that a small tricolour is a symbol of Italy just as much as a big flag. Applaud them warmly, then. Let it be seen that your young hearts can glow and that your ten-year-old spirits can soar in the presence of the sacred symbols of your country.' When he had said this, he left. 'Well, Coraci, you are the representative of Calabria,' said our teacher, smiling. We all clapped and laughed, and when we went out into the street everyone crowded round Coraci, took him by the leg", lifted him up and carried him in triumph, shouting, 'Long live the representative of Calabria!' All this was in fun, of course, and without a trace of mockery. Indeed it was to congratulate and please him, for everyone likes him, and he was smiling. They carried him as far as the corner of the street, where they bumped into a man with a black beard who burst out laughing. The Calabrian said, 'It's my father.' The boys put him in his father's arms and ran off all directions.

Prize-giving
Tuesdy, 14th By two o'clock the huge theatre was packed: pit, gallery, boxes and stage were full to overflowing. There was a sea of faces, of boys and girls, ladies, teachers, workmen and their wives, and little children, and the holiday mood was expressed in an "cited movement of heads and hands, a fluttering of feathers, ribbons and curls and a surging murmur of eager voices. The whole theatre was decorated with festoons of red, white and green material. In the orchestra pit they had made two small stairways, one on the right by which the prizewinners were to go up on to the stage, the other on the left by which they were to come down after having received the prize. At the front of the stage was a row of red high chairs and in the middle of the back of each one hung a laurel wreath. At the back of the stage there was an arrangement of flags, and on one side a small green table, upon which were all the prize certificates, tied in tricolour ribbons. The band was in the pit below the stage. The masters and mistresses filled the half of the dress circle that had been reserved for them. In the pit the seats and aisles were packed with hundreds of children, holding music, who were to sing. At the back and all round the theatre you could see masters and mistresses moving about as they lined up the prizewinners, and there were many parents and relations giving the final touches to their children's hair and ties. As soon as I went in with my family I saw the mistress with the red feather, smiling, pretty dimples in her cheeks. With her was my little brother's teacher, 'the little nun', dressed all in black, and my nice teacher from lA, but she was very pale, poor thing, and coughing so loudly that she could be heard from one side of the theatre to the other. Downstairs I suddenly saw the dear big face of Garrone and the fair little head of Nelli, who was leaning against his shoulder. A little further off I saw Garoffi, the one with a nose like an owl's beak, busily picking up the printed lists of prizewinners of which he already had a large bundle. They will play some part in his dealings - we shall know about it tomorrow. Near the door were the wood-seller and his wife dressed in their best, with their son, who has a third prize in Standard 2. I was amazed to see that he was not wearing his cat's skin cap and chocolate-coloured jersey. On this occasion he was dressed like a young gentleman. Up in a gallery, before he disappeared, I caught a glimpse of Votini, wearing a big lace collar. The artillery captain was in a box full of people next to the stage. He is the father of Robetti, the boy on crutches who saved the little child from the omnibus. When the clock struck two the band began to play and at the same moment the mayor, the prefect, the town clerk, the director of education and many other gentlemen, all dressed in black, mounted the steps on the right and took their places on the red chairs at the front of the stage. The band stopped playing. The director of music stepped forward with a baton in his hand. At a sign from him all the children in the body of the theatre stood up; another sign and they began to sing.

Seven hundred singing a beautiful song, the voices of seven hundred children singing together, how delightful that is! There was not a movement in the theatre as everyone listened. It was a gentle song, clear and slow, a song that made you think of church music. When it was over, everyone applauded. Then there was silence. The distribution of prizes was about to begin. My little teacher from Standard 2, the one with red hair and lively eyes, had already stepped forward on the platform. It was his job to read out the names of the prize-winners. We were now waiting for the twelve boys to bring the certificates. The newspapers had already said that they would be from all the provinces of Italy. Everyone knew this and was waiting for them and everyone, including the mayor and the other gentlemen, was watching with great curiosity the side from which they would enter. The theatre was silent. Suddenly the twelve came quickly on to the stage and stood in a line, smiling. The whole theatre, three thousand people, together leapt to their feet and the burst of applause was like clap of thunder. For a moment the boys seemed bewildered. 'Here is Italy,' came a voice from the stage. I straight away recognized Coraci from Calabria, dressed in black as usual. A gentleman from the town hall who was with us knew them all. He identified them for my mother: 'That little fair one represents Venetia. The Roman is the tall one with curly hair.' Two or three were dressed in the style of young gentlemen; the others were workmen's sons, but they were all nicely turned out. The Florentine, the smallest, wore a blue scarf round his waist. They all passed in front of the mayor, who kissed each one on the forehead while a man nearby announced the name of the boy's town, clearly and pleasantly - Florence, Naples, Bologna, Palermo. The audience clapped each one. Then the boys went quickly to the green table for the certificates, the teacher began to read the list, giving school, class and name, and the prize-winners started to come up and file past. As soon as the first of them reached the stage, we heard the gentle music of violins coming from behind the stage, and it lasted all the time the prize-winners filed by. The music, gentle and even, seemed like the murmuring of many soft voices, as if all the mothers, all the masters and all the mistresses were Joined together in offering counsel and loving guidance. Meanwhile the prize-winners passed one by one before the gentlemen in the high chairs, who gave them their certificates and embraced them or said a word to each one. The children in the pit and the galleries applauded each time a very small boy went up, or someone who by the appearance of his clothes seemed poor. They even applauded those who had a lot of curly hair, or were dressed in red and white. When some lA children reached the stage and were so confused that they did not know which way to go, the audience laughed. A tiny boy with a bow of pink ribbons on his back came up. He could hardly walk and tripped on the carpet and fell. When the prefect set him on his feet again, everyone laughed and clapped. Another one tumbled down the steps to the floor. We heard him cry out, but he was not hurt. They appeared in all shapes and sizes. There were rascally faces, frightened faces and faces as red as a cherry. There were little clowns who met everyone with a chuckle. As soon as they were down on the floor of the theatre again their mothers and fathers picked them up and carried them away. . When it was the turn of our school I really enjoyed myself! I knew many of those who went up. There was Coretti with the cheerful smile that showed all his white teeth, and newly dressed from head to toe - yet who knows how many kilograms of wood he moved this morning. As he gave him his certificate, the mayor put a hand on his shoulder and asked him about a red mark on his forehead. When I looked at his father and mother I saw that they were trying to conceal their laughter with their hands. Next came Derossi dressed entirely in navy blue clothes with shining buttons. He made a handsome figure with his golden curls, he was slim, at his ease, his head held high, and so attractive I should like to have sent him a kiss, and all those gentlemen wanted to talk to him and shake his hand. Then the master called 'Giulio Robetti!' and the son of the artillery captain, the boy on crutches, came forward, Hundreds of children knew about him and in a few moments the story had spread through the theatre. There was a burst of cheering and applause which made the building tremble. Men rose to their feet, ladies began to wave their handkerchiefs and the poor boy stopped in the middle of the stage, bewildered and trembling. The mayor led him forward and gave him his prize. He kissed him and took the laurel wreath from the back of his chair and fastened it on one of the crutches. Then he went with him to the box at the side of the stage where his father was and the captain lifted him bodily into the box, while the audience cheered and shouted, 'Bravo! Well done!' The violins were still playing the light, gentle music as pupils moved across the stage: pupils from Consolata School, nearly all of them the children of shopkeepers; from Vanchiglia school, workmen's

children; from Buoncompagni School, many of them sons and daughters of peasants; and pupils from the last school, Raineri. As soon as they had left the stage the seven hundred children in the body of the theatre sang another beautiful song. The mayor then spoke and after him the town clerk, who finished his speech with these words for the children: 'Do not leave here without saluting those who work so hard for you and have dedicated to you all the strength of their hearts and understanding, who live and die for you.' He pointed to the dress circle, where the teachers were. Then in the galleries the boxes and the body of the theatre all the children stood up, stretched out their hands towards their masters and mistresses and shouted greetings. The teachers responded, waving their hands, their hats and handkerchiefs. All of them stood up and were visibly moved. The band played again and the audience gave a final, tumultuous round of applause as the twelve boys from all the provinces of Italy lined up on the stage, holding hands, under a rain of flowers.

A quarrel
Monday, 20th It wasn't jealousy because he had won a prize and I hadn't that made me quarrel with Coretti this morning. No, it wasn't jealousy. But I was in the wrong. The master had put him next to me and I was writing in my copy-book. He knocked me with his elbow and caused me to make a blot and smudge the monthly story, 'The Spirit of the Romagna', that I was having to copy out for the little bricklayer who is ill. It made me angry and I called him an ugly name. He replied with a smile, 'I didn't do it on purpose.' Knowing him as I do, I should have believed him, but it annoyed me that he was smiling and I thought, Oh! He'll be showing off now that he's won a prize, and in a moment, to get my own back, I gave him a knock that made him spoil his page. Red in the face with anger he said 'Well, you did that on purpose!' and he raised his hand. But the teacher saw him and he put his hand down. But he added, 'I'll wait for you outside!' I was still annoyed, but my anger died down and I regretted what I had said and done. No, Coretti couldn't have done it on purpose. He's all right, I thought. 1 remembered the time I had seen him in his own home, how he worked, how he looked after his sick mother, and then how I had welcomed him in my home and how my father had liked him. 1 would have given a lot not to have called him that name and not to have been rude to him. I thought of the advice my father would have given me. 'Are you in the wrong?' 'Yes.' 'Then ask him to forgive you.' But I had not the courage to do so, for I was afraid of humiliating myself. I glanced sideways at him: the stitches of his jersey were undone at the shoulder, through his having carried so much wood perhaps, and 1 realized how much I liked him. I told myself to be brave, but the words 'Forgive me' stuck in my throat. He glanced at me from time to time and to me he seemed more sad than angry. I in turn looked askance at him to show him that I wasn't afraid. He said again, 'We'll meet outside', and I repeated, 'We'll meet outside.' But all the time 1 was thinking of something my father had once said to me: 'If you are in the wrong, defend yourself but do not attack!' And 1 said to myself, 'I shall defend myself but I shall not attack.' But 1 was upset and sad and no longer listening to the teacher. The time came to leave school. When 1 was alone in the street 1 saw that Coretti was following me. I stopped and waited for him with my ruler in my hand. He came forward. I raised my ruler. 'No, Enrico,' he said, with his warm smile, reaching for the ruler, 'let's be friends again, like we used to be.' For a moment I was at a loss, then I felt as if a hand has given me a great push in my back, and I was in his arms. He kissed me and said, 'No more squabbles between you and me, eh?' 'Never again! Never again!' I replied. We parted in good humour. But when I got home and told my father all that had happened, thinking he would be pleased, he frowned and said, 'You should have been the first to offer the hand of friendship, because you were in the wrong.' Then he said, 'You should not have raised your ruler Ito a companion who is your superior, to the son of a soldier!' So saying, he snatched my ruler from me, broke it in two and threw it against the wall.

From my sister
Friday, 24th Enrico, why were you rude to me when Father had already reproved you for behaving badly with Coretti? You cannot imagine the pain I felt. Don't you know that when you were a baby I spent many hours by your cot instead of playing with my friends, and every night when you were unwell I got out of bed to touch your forehead to see if it was too hot? Do you not know, you who hurt your sister, that if a terrible misfortune should befall us I would be a mother to you and love you as a son? Do you not know that when our father and mother are no longer with us I shall be your closest friend, the only one with whom you will be able to talk about our dead and about your childhood? Do you not know that if It were necessary I would work for you, Enrico, to provide food for you and enable you to study, and that I shall still love you when you are grown up, and that when you wander far away I shall follow you in my thoughts, always, because we have grown up together and we are of the same blood? Oh, Enrico, be sure too that if misfortune should befall you when you are a man, if you are alone, you must know that you will seek me, come to me and say, 'Silvia, my sister, let me stay with you and let us talk about the times when we were happy - do you remember them? Let us talk about Mother and home and those happy days of long ago.' Enrico, you will find that your sister will always welcome you. Yes, dear Enrico, and forgive me for this reproval. I shall forget any unkindness of yours and if you should cause me other sorrows, well, it will not be important. You will always be the same brother. All I shall remember is having held you in my arms when you were a baby, loving Mother and Father with you, seeing you grow up' and being your most faithful companion for so many years. Just write a few kind words in this exercise book for me, and I shall come back before evening to read them. Meanwhile, to show you that I am not angry with you, when I saw that you were tired I copied out The Spirit of the Romagna', the monthly story that you were given to copy because the little bricklayer is ill. You will find it in the left hand drawer of your desk. I wrote it last night while you were asleep. Please write a kind word for me, Enrico. Your sister, Silvia I am not worthy of kissing your hands.

THE SPIRIT OF THE ROMAGNA

The monthly story
That evening Ferruccio's house was quieter than usual. His father had a small haberdashery and had gone to Forli to buy stock. His wife had gone too with their little girl Luigina, to take her to the doctor who was to operate on her eye, and they were not due to return till the next morning. It was nearly midnight. The daily maid servant had left at dusk. In the house there was only the grandmother, who was paralysed in both legs, and Ferruccio, a boy of thirteen. It was a little house with just a ground floor, situated on the main road a stone's throw from a village which was not far from Forli, a town in the Romagna. Near them there was only an empty house. It had collapsed in a fire two months ago but you could still see an inn sign on it. Behind Ferruccio's house there was a little vegetable garden surrounded by a hedge, which you entered through a rough gate. The shop door was also the house door and opened on to the main road. All around it was a lonely countryside, vast cultivated Ids planted with mulberry trees. It was nearly midnight, it was raining and the wind was blowing. Ferruccio and his grandma had not gone to bed and were in the kitchen. Between the kitchen and the garden there was a little room full of old furniture. Ferruccio had not arrived home till eleven oclock after being out for many hours. His grandma had been wide awake, anxiously waiting for him. She could not leave the big armchair in which she spent her days, and often her nights, for she had difficulty in breathing, which could prevent her from lying down.

The wind flung the rain against the window-panes. The night was pitch-black. When Ferruccio returned home he was tired and bespattered with mud, his jacket was torn and there was a bruise on his face where he had been hit by a stone. He and his companions had been throwing stones and as usual it had come to blows. On top of that he had been gambling and lost all his money, and left his cap in a ditch. Although the kitchen was lit only by a small oil-lamp standing on the corner of a table near her armchair, the poor grandmother had immediately seen the wretched condition her grandson was in. She partly guessed his misdeeds and the rest she made him confess. She loved the boy with all her heart. When she had heard the whole story she began to weep. 'Oh no!' she said after a long silence. 'You have no feeling for your poor grandma. You have no feeling when you take advantage of your father and mother being away like this to make me unhappy. You left me on my own all day! You've had no thought for me at all. Take care, Ferruccio! You're setting off down an evil road that will bring you to a sad end. I've seen other boys start like you and come III II bad end. They start by staying out, looking for a fight with the other boys, losing their money and then gradually from throwing II lines they go on to using a knife, from gambling to other bad habits, and from bad habits to . . . stealing.' Three paces from his grandmother Ferruccio stood listening. lit' was leaning against a cupboard, his chin an his chest and frowning. He was still quite warm from the fight. A lack .of rich brown hair fell across his forehead; his blue eyes were still. 'From gambling to stealing,' his grandmother repeated, still weeping. 'Think, Ferruccio. Just consider that wretch from the village, that Vito Mozzoni. He's in the town now, without a shame. He's twenty-four and he's been in prison twice. He's been the death of his mother. I knew her, she died of a broken heart. And his father's gone off to Switzerland in despair. Think of that Poor man, ashamed to acknowledge a Son who was always going about with rascals worse than himself until the day he ended up in prison. Well, I've known him since he was a bay and he started like you. Just think, you're going to do to your father and mother what he did to his.' Ferruccio was silent. He was not really a bad boy at all. In fact hi. recklessness came from a superabundance of energy and spirit rather than from an evil disposition. In this respect his father had brought him up badly. Believing him capable, really, of the highest sentiments and even, if put to the test, .of vigorous and right-minded behaviour, he had left him with .out guidance and expected him to choose the right path far himself. He was a good boy, not bad III heart. But he was stubborn and found it very difficult, even when his heart was full .of repentance, to utter those blessed wards which bring forgiveness: 'Yes, I am wrong. I shall not do it again, I promise. Forgive me.' His heart was full of love .on those occasion, but pride prevented him from expressing it. 'Ah, Ferruccio!' his grandma went an when he was so silent. 'Not a word .of repentance. You see what you've done to me, that I'm on the edge of the grave. You shouldn't have it in you to make me suffer, to make your mother's mother cry, old as I am and near my last day .on earth. Your poor grandma who has always loved you so much, who racked you all through the night, night after night when You were a baby a few months old, your grandma who didn't eat so that she could be with you, you just don't know. I always said, "The one will be my consolation!" And now you're driving me to my grave. I would gladly give the few days I have left on this earth to see you well behaved and obedient like you were in those days. . . when I took you to the sanctuary - do you remember, Ferruccio? and you filled my pockets with little stones and grass and I carried you back home in my arms, asleep. You loved your poor grandma then. And now I'm paralysed and need your affection like I need the air to breath, poor woman that I am, and half dead, dear Lord!' Moved by emotion Ferruccio was about to embrace his grandma when he seemed to hear a slight noise, a creaking in the little room that looked .on to the garden. He did not know if it was the shutters king in the wind, or something else. He listened. The rain was beating dawn. The noise was repeated. This time his grandmother heard it. 'What's that?' she asked anxiously, after a moment's silence. The rain,' the boy murmured. Well, Ferruccio,' the old woman said as she wiped her eyes, promise me that you will be a good boy and never make your poor grandma cry again. . . .' She was interrupted by another slight noise. It doesn't sound like the rain to me,' she said, growing pale. 'Go and see' But she added hastily, 'No, stay here!' and grasped Ferruccio's hand. They held their breath. They heard only the noise of the rain. Then both gave a start. They seemed to hear the noise of footsteps in the little room next door. 'Who's there?' the boy asked, getting his breath with difficulty. There was no reply.

'Who's there?' asked Ferruccio, rigid with fear. The words had hardly been spoken when bath cried out in terror. Two men had leapt into the room. One of them seized the boy and clapped a hand aver his mouth. The other gripped the old woman by the throat. The first .one said, 'Keep quiet if you don't want to die!' The other warned, 'Shut up!' and raised a knife. They wore cloth masks with eye-holes. For a moment the .only sounds to be heard were the breathing of the four people in the drama and the beating .of the rain. The old woman breathed noisily and with difficulty and her eyes were starting from her head. The man who held the boy said in his ear, 'Where does your father keep the money?' 'Over there... in the cupboard.' The boy's voice was weak, his teeth were chattering. 'You come with me,' the man said. He forced him into the little room, holding him tightly by the throat. There was a dark lantern in there on the floor. 'Where's the cupboard?' he demanded. Hardly able to breathe, the boy pointed towards it. To get a secure hold on the boy, the man threw him down on his knees in front of the cupboard and held his neck tightly between his own knees in such a way that he could choke him if he shouted out. With the knife between his teeth, he held the lantern in one hand and took a pointed iron tool out of his pocket with the other. He thrust It into the lock, eagerly worked it about, broke the lock and opened the doors wide. He rummaged quickly through the contents. He then took the boy by the throat again and forced him back to the other room. His accomplice still held the old woman. She was in convulsions, her head was awry, her mouth open. 'Found it?' he asked in a low voice. 'Found it,' was the reply. 'Look out of the door,' he added. The man holding the old woman hastened to the door that led to the garden to see if anyone was there. 'Come here!' he hissed from the little room. The one who had stayed behind still holding Ferruccio showed the knife to him and the old woman, who was beginning to open his eyes, and said, 'Not a word, or I come back and slit your throats!' He stared hard at them. Just then the loud singing of many voices could be heard from some distance down the main road. The thief jerked his head towards the door. The violence of the movement caused the mask to fall from his face. The old woman cried out, 'Mozzoni!' 'Damn you!' roared the thief, now recognized. 'You must die!' He moved towards the old women, his knife raised. She fainted. The assassin aimed the blow. With a cry of despair Ferruccio flung himself with lightning speed upon his grandmother and covered her with his body. The assassin fled, knocking the table. The lamp overturned and went out. The boy slowly got up, then fell to his knees and stayed in that position, his arms round his grandma's waist, his head on her breast. A few moments passed. The night was very dark. Across the countryside the singing of the peasants was ever more distant. The woman came to her senses. 'Ferruccio!' she called through chattering teeth, and in a voice hardly to be understood. Grandma,' the boy replied. The old woman made an effort to speak, but she was dumb with terror. She was silent awhile, trembling violently. Then she managed to ask, 'Are they still here?' No. They haven't killed me,' the old woman murmured. No . . . you're safe,' Ferruccio said in a weak voice. 'You are safe, Grandma. They've taken some money. But Papa... had nearly all of it with him.' The grandmother sighed. Grandma,' said Ferruccio, still kneeling with his arms round her waist, 'dear Grandma, you do love me, don't you?' Oh, Ferruccio, my poor little son!' she replied, resting her hand on his head. 'How terrible it must have been for you! Merciful God! Just light the lamp. . . . No, let us stay in the dark, I'm still afraid.' Grandma' - the boy spoke again - 'I've always brought you sorrow.'

'No, Ferruccio, don't say those things. I don't think about such things any more. I've forgotten them all, and I love you very much!' 'I've always brought you sorrow.' The boy went on speaking with difficulty, his voice unsteady. 'But I've always loved you. Do you forgive me? .., Forgive me, Grandma.' 'Yes, my son, I forgive you, I forgive you with all my heart. Don't think anything else. Get up from your knees, little one. Do not reproach yourself again. You're a good boy, a very good boy! Let's light the lamp. Let us take heart. Get up, Ferruccio.' 'Thank you, Grandma,' the boy said, his voice becoming weaker all the time. 'Now.. .I'm happy. You will remember me, won't you Grandma? You'll always remember me... your Ferruccio?' 'My Ferruccio!' the grandmother exclaimed, now alarmed and troubled. As she said his name she put her hands on his shoulder and moved his head so that she could look into his face. 'Remember me,' the boy murmured. again in a voice which was little more than a sigh. 'Give my mother a kiss. . . and my father. . . and Luigina. . . . Goodbye, Grandma. . .' 'In heaven's name, what is the matter?' cried the old woman as, fearfully, she put her hand on his head, which he had let fall on her knee. Then with what voice she could summon she cried in despair, 'Ferruccio, Ferruccio, Ferruccio, my baby! My love! Angels and messengers of grace, help me!' Ferruccio did not reply again. The young hero, the guardian of hi" mother's mother, stabbed in the back, had surrendered his brave and noble spirit to God.

The little bricklayer is very ill

Tuesday, 28th The poor little bricklayer is seriously ill. The teacher said we should visit him, and Garrone, Derossi and I went together to see him. Stardi would have come too, but the teacher had set him the task of describing the Cavour Monument and he told us he had to go to see it to be able to give a more detailed description. So just to see what he said we invited that pompous fellow Nobis. He said, quite simply, 'No', and that was all. Then Votini excused himself, perhaps because he was afraid of getting lime on his clothes. We set off at four o'clock. It was raining cats and dogs. Garrone stopped in the street, and with his mouth full of bread ht. said, 'What shall we buy him?', and he jingled two soldi in his pocket. We each gave two soldi and bought three big oranges. We climbed up to the attic. When we reached the door Derossi took his medal off and put it in his pocket. I asked him why. 'I don't know. . .' he replied, 'so as not to show off ... it just seems nicer to go in without the medal.' We knocked, and the father, that huge man like a giant, opened the door. His face was contorted and he seemed afraid. 'Who are you?' he asked. 'We are Antonio's friends from school and we've brought him three oranges,' replied Garrone. 'Ah, poor Tonino,' the bricklayer exclaimed, shaking his head, 'I'm afraid he will never eat your oranges', and he wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. He invited us in and we entered an attic room and saw the little bricklayer sleeping in a small iron bed. His mother was in a state of collapse on the bed, her head in her hands, and she hardly turned to look at us. On one side were hung brushes, a pick and a lime riddle. The bricklayer's jacket, white with plaster, was spread over the invalid's feet. The poor boy had gone thin, he was very pale, his nose was pointed and his breathing quick and shallow. Oh, dear Tonino, so nice and cheerful, my little friend, how unhappy he made me, how much I would have given to see him make his hare-nose again, poor little bricklayer! Garrone put an orange on the pillow next to his face. Its smell woke him up and he quickly took it, but then he let go of it and stared hard at Garrone. "It's me, Garrone. Do you recognize me?' He gave a weak smile and with an effort raised his little hand from the bed and offered it to Garrone who took it in his own hands then bent over his cheek and said, 'Try to be brave, try to be brave, little bricklayer. You will soon get better and come back to school and the teacher will put you next to me. Will you like that?' But the little bricklayer did not reply.

His mother burst into tears. 'Oh, my poor Tonino! My poor Tonino! So good and kind, and God will take you from us.' 'Calm yourself!' the bricklayer shouted in despair. 'Calm down, for God's sake, or I shall go mad!' Then, fighting for breath, he turned to us and said, 'Go now, boys, go now! Thank you. Off you go. You can't do anything here. Thank you. Get off home.' The boy had closed his eyes again and appeared dead. 'Is there anything we can do?' asked Garrone. 'No, good lad, thank you,' the bricklayer replied. 'You go home.' Saying this he ushered us out on to the landing and then closed the door. But we were not half-way down the stairs when we heard him cry out, 'Garrone! Garrone!' All three of us rushed upstairs again. 'Garrone!' cried the bricklayer, whose face was quite changed. 'He's called your name, not spoken for two days, now he's called' for you, twice. Please, come at once. Dear Lord, let it be a good sign!' 'I'll see you soon,' Garrone said to us. 'I'll stay.' He went quickly with the father into their home. Derossi's eyes were filled with tears. 1 said, 'Are you crying for the little bricklayer? He's spoken, he'll get better.' 'I believe he will,' Derossi replied. 'But 1 was not thinking about him. .. 1 was thinking how good, how good-hearted Garrone is.'

Count Cavour
Wednesday, 29th It is the monument to Count Cavour that you have to describe. That you can do. But Count Cavour, the man, you cannot now understand. For today you know only this: he was for many years the prime minister of Piedmont, it was he who sent the Piedmontese army to the Crimea to retrieve with the victory at Tchernaya our military glory lost with the defeat at Novarra; at his behest a hundred and fifty thousand Frenchmen swept down from the Alps to drive the Austrians from Lombardy; he led Italy through the most dramatic year!' of our revolution and in those years, with his radiant genius, his invincible singlemindedness and superhuman activity, gave the most powerful impulse to the holy campaign for the unification of our homeland. Many generals knew terrible hours on the battlefield, but he experienced even more terrible times in his study, when at any moment the whole enormous structure of his work could have collapsed like a fragile building in an earthquake. He spent hours, nights of struggle and anxiety to emerge from them with a disturbed mind, or with death in his heart. This tremendous and stormy crusade shortened his life by twenty years. In the grip of the fever that was to bring him to the grave he desperately fought his illness so that he could go o working for his country. It is strange, he said sorrowfully on his deathbed, 'I can no longer read, I can no longer read. ' While he was being bled and his fever was mounting, he thought of his country and said imperiously, 'Heal me, for my mind is growing dark and I need all my faculties to deal with serious matters.' When he was already critically ill and the whole town was concerned and the King was at his bedside, he said breathlessly to the King, 'I have many things to tell you, sir, and many things to show you, but I am ill and I cannot, I cannot.' And he became distressed. His feverish thoughts constantly returned to matters of state, to the new Italian provinces which were now united 'With us, to the many tasks still to be done. When he became delirious he said, gasping for breath, 'Educate our children .. educate our children and young people. . . let government be liberal. ' When his delirium increased and death was near, he invoked General Garibaldi, with whom he had had disagreements, and spoke eagerly to him; and he called upon Venetia and Rome which were not yet liberated. He had great visions of the future of Italy and Europe. He imagined a foreign invasion and wanted to know where the army corps and the generals were. He still feared for us, for his people. His great sorrow, you must understand, was not that he felt life ebbing away but the realization that he was leaving his country, which still needed him and in whose cause in a few years he had used up the enormous resources of his marvellous being. He died with a battle-cry on his lips, great in death as in life. Now think for a moment, Enrico, what is our work, however hard we find it, what are our troubles, death itself, compared with the tasks, the fearful anxieties and the great suffering of these men on whom

rests the burden of world affairs! Think of this, my son, when you pass by that marble image, and salute it silently with the words 'Praise be!' in your heart. Father

APRIL Spring
Saturday, 1st The first of April! Only three more months'. This has been one of the loveliest mornings of the year. I was happy at school because Coretti had invited me to go to see the King arrive the day after tomorrow, with his father, who knows him, and because my mother had promised to take me to the children's home in the Corso Valdocco the same day. I was happy as well, because the little bricklayer is better and because when we met my teacher yesterday evening he said to my father, 'Everything is all right. Everything is all right.' And it was a beautiful spring morning, too. From the classroom window you could see the blue sky, the trees in the garden covered with bursting buds, house windows wide open, and window-boxes and plant-pots already showing green. The teacher did not laugh, because he never does, but he was in such a good humour that the straight line across his forehead had almost disappeared and he joked as he went through a problem on the blackboard. You could see that he enjoyed breathing the air from the garden, which came through the open windows full of a good, fresh smell of earth and leaves, bringing thoughts of country walks. While he we going through the problem, from a nearby street you could hear a blacksmith hammering on the anvil and from the house opposite a woman singing to a child to lull it to sleep. Bugle calls from the distant Tchernaya Barracks could be heard. Everyone seemed happy, even Stardi. At one moment the blacksmith began to hammer more vigorously and the woman to sing louder. The teacher broke off what he was doing and listened. Then, looking through the window, he said slowly, 'The sun is smiling, a mother is singing, a good man is at work, boys are studying - what happy scenes these are!' When we went out we saw that everyone else was cheerful too. They were all walking in single file, stamping their feet and humming as they do on the day before a few days' holiday. The mistresses were joking with one another, and the one with the red feather was skipping along behind her infants like a little pupil herself. The boys' relatives were talking and laughing amongst themselves, and Crossi's mother, the vegetable-seller, had so many bunches of violets in her baskets that the big room was filled with their perfume. I was never happier than 1 was this morning to see my mother, who was waiting for me in the street. As 1 walked towards her 1 said, 'I feel very happy. Why on earth am 1 so happy this morning?' Smiling, my mother replied that it was because it was a beautiful time of the year, and I had a clear conscience.

King Umberto
Monday, 3rd From our window at exactly ten o'clock my father saw Signor Coretti the wood-seller and his son waiting for me in the piazza and said, 'There they are, Enrico. Go and see your king.' 1 went down as quick as a flash. Father and son were even more sprightly than usual and 1 thought they had never looked so much alike as they did this morning. The father was wearing his medal for valour on his coat between the two campaign medals, and his moustachios were curled and as sharp as two pins. We set off straight away for the railway station where the King was due to arrive at half past ten. Signor Coretti was smoking his pipe and rubbing his hands together. 'Do you know,' he said, 'I haven't seen him since the War of '66. A little matter of fifteen years and six months. First, three years in France, then in Mondovi. And here, where I would have been able to see him, it's always been my misfortune to be out of town when he came. Talk about luck!' He called the King Umberto as if speaking of a comrade. 'Umberto commanded the 16th Division... Umberto was twenty-two years and so many days old. .. Umberto rode a horse is such and such a way.' 'Fifteen years!' he said in a loud voice, lengthening his stride. 'I certainly want to see him again. When I left him he was a prince, I see him again as a king. And I've changed too - from soldier to woodseller.' He laughed.

His son asked him, 'If he sees you, will he recognize you?' He began to laugh. 'You must have lost your senses,' he replied. 'It couldn't be. There was only one Umberto. We were like a swarm of flies. He would certainly have had his work cut out, looking at each one of us.' We came into Corso Vittorio Emanuele. There were a lot of people on their way to the station. A company of Alpine troops went past with trumpets. Two mounted carabinieri passed by at a gallop. The sun shone in a clear sky. 'Yes,' exclaimed Signor Coretti, growing excited, 'it will be a real pleasure to see him again, the general who commanded my division. Oh, how quickly I've grown old! It seems only the other day I had my pack on my back and my rifle in my hands in that turmoil on the morning of 24th June, just before the fight. Umberto came and went with his officers, and the guns were thundering in the distance, and everybody was looking at him and saying "So long as there isn't a bullet with his name on it!" Nothing could have been further from my thoughts than that in a few seconds I would be so near him, facing the lances of the Austrian uhlans, but you could say we were within a few feet of one another, boys. It was a beautiful day, the sky was like a mirror. But it was hot! Let's see if we can go in.' We had arrived at the station. There was a large crowd, and carriages, policemen, carabinieri and clubs showing their flags. A regimental band was playing. Signor Coretti tried to go in under the portico, but he was stopped. Then it occurred to him to get into the front row of the crowd which formed a line at the exit and, making a way with his elbows, he managed to push us forward too. But the surging of the crowd was pushing us to and fro. The wood-seller had his eye on the nearest pillar of the portico, where the police were not allowing anyone to stand. 'Come with me,' Signor Coretti said suddenly and, taking us by the hand, with two strides he crossed the gap and took up a position with his back to the wall. A police sergeant immediately ran up to him and said, 'You can't stay here.' 'I was in the 4th Battalion of the 49th,' Signor Coretti said, touching his medal. The sergeant looked at him and said, 'Stay where you are.' 'If I say so myself,' Signor Coretti exclaimed triumphantly, 'those are magic words, 4th Battalion of the 49th! Haven't I the right to catch a glimpse of my general in comfort? I was in his squadron. If I saw him close up then, it seems only fair that I should see him close up now. And I do say general. He was my battalion commander for a good half hour, because during that time while he was amongst us he himself commanded the battalion, and not Major Ulrich, by God!' Inside and outside the arrival hall, meanwhile, there was much coming and going of gentlemen and officials to be seen, and the carriages were drawn up in front of the door with the servants dressed in red. Coretti asked his father if Prince Umberto had his sabre in his hand when the square was formed. 'He certainly had his sabre in his hand,' he replied, 'to parry a thrust with a lance which could reach him just as it could anyone else. Oh, the wild devils! They fell on us like the wrath of God, they did. They moved between the groups and the squares and the guns as if they were driven by a hurricane, smashing everything. It was a confusion of cavalry from Alessandria, lancers from Foggia, infantry, uhlans and sharpshooters, an unbelievable hell. 'I heard somebody shout. "Your Highness! Your Highness!" I saw the lowered lances, we fired our rifles, a cloud of dust covered everything. . .. Then the dust cleared. . .. The ground was covered with horses and dead and wounded uhlans. I turned round and saw Umberto in the middle of us, on horseback, looking calmly round as though asking, "None of my boys have been scratched?" And we straight out shouted "Hurrah" to his face like madmen. God, what a moment!... Here's the train coming.' The band played, the officials hastened forward, the crowd stood on tiptoe. 'Oh, he's not getting out straight away,' a policeman said. 'They're presenting him with an address now.' Signor Coretti was beside himself with excitement. 'When I think about it,' he said, 'that's how I still see him. He does very well visiting the cholera patients and the earthquake victims and goodness knows who else. He's been a good man there, too. But in my mind I always see him as I saw him then, there amongst us, looking so calm. And I'm sure that he too remembers the 4th Battalion of the 49th even now that he's King, and that he would enjoy sitting round the table with the men he saw round him in those moments. Now, it's generals, rich men and gold braid he's surrounded by. Then, it was just poor soldiers. If I could only have a few words with him face to face! Our twenty-two-year-old general, our prince, who was entrusted to our bayonets. . . . For fifteen years I haven't seen him our Umberto. Oh, this music stirs my blood, believe me!'

An outburst of shouting and cheering interrupted him and thousands of hats were thrown in the air. Four gentlemen dressed in black got into the first carriage. 'It's him!' cried Signor Coretti, and he was spellbound. Then he said softly, 'Good lord! How grey he's gone!' We uncovered our heads, all three of us. The carriage moved slowly off through the mass of people, who were cheering and waving their hats. I looked at Signor Coretti. He seemed to me to be transformed. He seemed taller, serious, rather pale, standing transfixed by the pillar. The carriage was now in front of us, one step from the pillar. 'Hurrah!' The cry was raised by many voices. 'Hurrah!' cried Signor Coretti, after the others. The King looked him in the face then his eyes rested for a moment on the three medals. Signor Coretti lost his head then, and shouted, 'Fourth Battalion of the 49th!' The King, who had turned in another direction, turned towards us again and, looking Signor Coretti in the eye, put his hand out of the carriage. Signor Coretti leapt forward and shook his hand. The carriage went on its way, the crowd surged forward and separated us. We lost sight of Signor Coretti. But for only a moment. We saw him almost immediately, out of breath, moist-eyed. He was shouting his son's name and holding his hand up. His son rushed towards him and the father cried, 'Here, son, while my hand is still warm', and he stroked the boy's face, saying, 'This is a caress from the King.' He stood there seemingly lost in his own thoughts, his eyes on the distant carriage, smiling, his pipe in his hands, in the middle of a group of curious people who were watching him. 'He was in the stand of the 49th,' they were saying. 'It's a soldier who knows the King.' 'It was the King who recognized him.' 'He's the one who shook his hand.' 'He gave the King a petition,' one of them said, his voice louder than the rest. 'No,' said Signor Coretti, suddenly turning round. 'I gave him no petition. Not I. It's something else I would give him if he asked me.' Everyone looked at him. He said, simply, 'My blood.'

The children's home

Tuesday, 4th My mother took me yesterday after lunch, as she had promised, to the children's home in Corso Valdocco. She was going there to recommend Prescossi's little sister to the lady superintendent. Until then I had never seen an institution like that. How they amused me! There were two hundred of them, boys and girls together, and they were so small that our children in lB at school are grown up in comparison. We arrived just as they were filing into the refectory, where there were two very long tables with holes in them and in each hole there was a black bowl full of rice and beans, and by the side of each bowl there was a tin spoon. Some were playing on their way in and stayed there on the floor till the mistresses came to pull them to their feet. Many of them would stop in front of a bowl, thinking that was their place, quickly swallow a spoonful, then a mistress would appear and say, 'Further along!' They would move on three or four steps, swallow another spoonful and so on till they arrived at their proper place, by which time they had taken half a helping of broth. At last, by pushing, and shouting 'Get a move on!' they got them all in their places and began to say grace. But all those on the inside row, who had to turn their backs on their basins to pray, twisted their heads round to keep an eye on them to see that no one dipped into them. And that is how they prayed: with hands together and their eyes turned to heaven, but their hearts with their food. Then they began to eat. What a pleasing spectacle that was! One was eating with two spoons while another was feeding himself with his hands. Many of them were picking the beans up one at a time and putting them in their pockets others were wrapping them up tight in their pinafores instead, and beating them to make paste. Yet others were not eating, for they were watching the flies. Others coughed, emitting a wide spray of rice. It was like a hen-run, but it was pleasant.

The two rows of little girls with their hair tied on top in red, green and blue ribbons made a pretty picture. 'Where does rice grow?' a mistress asked a row of eight little girls. All eight opened wide their mouths, full of broth, and sang out together, 'It grows in water.' Next the mistress gave the order 'Hands up!', and then it was nice to see those little arms shoot up which a few month ago were still in the cradle, and see those little hands flutter like so many pink and white butterflies. Then they went out to play. But first they all took their little baskets containing their lunches, which were hanging on the walls. They went out into the garden where they unpacked and spread out their provisions: bread, stewed prunes, a little piece of cheese, a hard-boiled egg, some small pears, a handful of boiled chick-peas and a chicken-wing. In a moment the entire garden was covered with bits, as if seed had been scattered for a flock of birds. They ate in all the strangest ways, like rabbits, mice, cats, nibbling, licking, sucking. One little boy held a piece of bread pointing at his chest and began to rub it with a medlar as if he were polishing a sabre. Some little girls were squashing soft cheese in their hands so that it was squeezed between their fingers like milk and ran down the insides of their sleeves, but they hardly noticed. They ran about and chased one another holding apples and bread-rolls in their teeth like dogs. I saw three children digging out a hard-boiled egg with a twig, believing that they would uncover treasure. They spread half of it on the ground and then picked the bits up one by one, very patiently, as if they were pearls. Those who had anything unusual were surrounded by nine or ten others with heads bent, looking into the basket as they would stare at the moon in a well. There must have been twenty clustered round a tiny boy who had a little bag of sugar in his hand, all of them ceremoniously seeking permission to dip their bread in it. To some he gave permission; to others, after earnest requests, he would offer only his finger for them to suck. Meanwhile my mother had come into the garden and was caressing first one child then another. Many clustered round her, or rather on her, to ask for a kiss, their faces raised as though looking up to a third storey, and opening and closing their mouths as if demanding to be fed. One offered her a half eaten segment of orange, another a crust of bread, a little girl gave her a leaf. Another little girl with great seriousness showed her the tip of her forefinger on which, if you looked closely, you could see a microscopic blister which she had got the previous day by touching the flame of a candle. For her inspection, as great marvels, they placed before her minute Insects - I don't know how they managed to see them and pick them up - broken corks, tiny shirt-buttons and little flowers taken from vases. A little boy with a bandaged head, who meant to be heard at all costs, babbled some story about falling head over heels, of which she did not understand a word. Another wanted my mother to bend down, then he said in her ear, 'My father makes brushes.' Meanwhile here and there a thousand little mishaps made mistresses come running: little girls crying because they could not undo a knot in their handkerchiefs, others fighting with scratches and screams over two apple-pips, a little boy who had fallen face downwards over an overturned stool and was crying there, unable to get up. Before leaving, my mother took three or four of them in her arms. Then they ran to her from all sides to be picked up, egg-yolk or orange-juice on their faces, some to take her hands, some to hold her finger to see her ring. One came to pull her watch-chain and another wanted to take hold of her hair. 'Mind they don't ruin your clothes,' the mistresses said. But to my mother her clothes were not important. She continued to kiss them and they pressed upon her more than ever, those in front stretching out their arms as if they wanted to climb on her, those at the back trying to move forward through the crowd, and all of them shouting 'Goodbye! Goodbye! Goodbye!' At last she managed to get out of the garden, whereupon they all ran to put their faces through the railings to see her pass and to stick their hands out to greet her, still offering her pieces of bread, little pieces of medlar, and cheese-rind, and shouting together 'Goodbye! Goodbye! Goodbye! Come back tomorrow! Come again!' As she left, my mother ran her hand along the hundred outstretched little hands as though touching a garland of living roses and at last came safely out on the street, completely covered with crumbs and spots, crumpled and dishevelled, with a hand full of flowers and her eyes swollen with tears, as happy as if she were leaving a fete. You could still hear the shouting from inside and it was like a great whispering of birds saying 'Goodbye! Goodbye! Come again, ma'am!'

Physical training
Wednesday, 5th As the weather continued to be very good, we changed from physical training in the hall to using the apparatus in the garden. Garrone was in the headmaster's office yesterday when Nelli's mother, the fairhaired lady dressed in black, came to have her son excused the new exercises. Every word was an effort for her and her hand stayed on her son's head as she spoke. 'He can't...' she said to the headmaster. But Nelli showed himself very unhappy to be kept away from the apparatus, to have this additional humiliation. 'You'll see, Mother,' he said, 'I shall do like the others.' His mother looked at him without speaking, but with an expression of pity and affection. Then, hesitantly, she said, 'I'm afraid of the other boys.' She wanted to say, 'I'm afraid they will make fun of him.' But Nelli replied, 'Nothing will happen to me.... Anyhow, there's Garrone. I don't care so long as he doesn't laugh.' So they let him come. The teacher, the one with the neck-wound who was with Garibaldi, took us straight away to the vertical bars. They are very high and you have to climb to the top and then stand upright on the horizontal bar. Derossi and Coretti went up like a couple of monkeys. Little Precossi climbed quickly too, even though he was hampered by that big jacket which reaches to his knees, and while he was climbing they all kept repeating his favourite phrase, 'Excuse me, Excuse me', to make him laugh. Stardi lost his breath and went as red as a turkey-cock and clenched his teeth like an angry dog, but he meant to get to the top even if he burst, and get to the top he did. Even Nobis succeeded, and struck an imperious pose when he was at the top. But Votini slid down twice in spite of his fine new outfit with narrow blue stripes made especially for physical training. To climb more easily, everyone had rubbed their hands with resin - colophony, as it is called. Of course it is that big dealer Garoffi who supplies everyone with it, in powder form. Selling it at a centesimo for a small bag, he makes a certain profit. Then it was Garrone's turn, and he climbed, eating bread, as if it were nothing, and 1 believe he would have been capable of taking one of us up on his back, he's so sturdy and strong, that young bull. After Garrone, Nelli. As soon as they saw him get hold of the bar with those long, thin hands, many boys began to laugh and mock him. But Garrone folded his big arms across his chest and flashed round a look so meaningful and let it be so clearly understood that he would thump them even if the master were there that everybody stopped laughing at once. Nelli began to climb and found it difficult, poor boy. His face was purple, he was breathing heavily and sweat ran down his face. The master said 'Come down', but he didn't: he struggled and persisted and I expected to see him fall down at any moment, half dead. Poor Nelli! I thought if I had been in his position how my poor mother would have suffered if she had seen me. With that in mind I sympathized so much with Nelli I would have given anything for him to succeed in getting up, to have been able to give him a push from below without being seen. Meanwhile, Garrone, Derossi and Coretti were saying, 'Up you go, Nelli! Keep at it! Just a bit more! Keep going!' With a groan Nelli made another mighty effort, and he was within a few inches of the crossbar. 'Good lad!' the boys shouted. 'Keep going! One more push!' And there was Nelli clinging to the crossbar. Everybody clapped. 'Well done!' said the master. 'But that's enough. Just come down.' But Nelli was intent on going right to the top, like the others, and after further effort he managed to get his elbows on to the crossbar, then his knees, and then his feet. Finally hl' stood up and, panting and smiling, he looked at us. We clapped again and then he looked into the street. I turned in that direction and over the plants which covered the garden railings I saw his mother walking along the pavement, and not daring to look. Nelli came down and everyone congratulated him. He was excited and flushed, hill eyes were shining, and he no longer seemed the same boy. At home-time, when his mother came to meet him she embraced him and asked rather anxiously, 'Well, my dear, how did you get on, how did you get on?' His class-mates replied all together, 'He did well!', 'He went up like we did!', 'He's strong, you know!', 'He's quick!', 'He does just the same as the rest!' Then you should have seen that woman's delight. She wanted to say thank you, but couldn't. She shook hands with three or four boys and caressed Garrone. She went off with her son and for a while we

saw them hurrying along, talking and gesticulating, both of them happy as no one had ever seen them before.

My father's teacher
Tuesday, 11th What a nice outing I had with my father yesterday! It was like this. At dinner-time the day before yesterday as he was reading the paper my father suddenly cried out in surprise. Then he said, 'And I thought he'd been dead these twenty years! Do you know, he's still alive, my first teacher at the elementary school, Vincenzo Crosetti, and he's eighty-four years old! I see that the Ministry has awarded him the medal of merit for sixty years of teaching. Sixty years, just think! And he stopped teaching only two years ago. Poor Crosetti! He's an hour's train journey from here, at Condove, the village where the wife of our old gardener at Chieri lives.' And he added, 'Enrico, we shall go to see him.' All evening he talked only about him. The name of his elementary-school teacher brought back a thousand memories of boyhood, of his first companions and of his mother, who is now dead. 'Crosetti!' he exclaimed. 'He was forty when I was with him. I can still see him. A small man, already rather bent, bright eyes, always clean-shaven. Strict but fair, he cared for us like a father, and didn't let us get away with anything. He had risen from a peasant background by study and hardship. He was a fine man. My mother was fond of him and my father regarded him as a friend. How has he come to end up in Condove, from Turin? He certainly won't recognize me any more. That doesn't matter, I shall recognize him. Forty-four years have gone by! Forty-four years, Enrico. We shall go to see him tomorrow.' Yesterday morning at nine o'clock we were at Susa railway station. I had wanted Garrone to come too, but he couldn't because his mother is ill. It was a beautiful spring day. The train ran through green meadows, past hedgerows in blossom, and the air was fragrant. My father was happy; from time to time he put his arm round my shoulder and as he looked out of the window he spoke to me as to a friend. 'Poor Crosetti!' he said. 'He was the first man after my father who cared for me and looked after me. I have never forgotten some of his good advice nor some severe reprimands which sent me home with a tightness in my throat. He had capable hands, broad and short. I can still see him as he came into school, putting his walking-stick into a corner and hanging his cloak on the hook, always with the same movement. And every day his attitude was the same, always conscientious, full of care and attention as if every day he was taking a class for the first time. I remember him as if I could hear him now, when he watched me. "Bottini, Oh, Bottini! Your first and second fingers on that pen!" He will have changed a lot after forty four years!' As soon as we arrived at Condove we went to look for the wife of the gardener we had at Chieri. She has a little shop in an alley. We found her with her children. She made us very welcome, gave us news of her husband, who is due back from Greece where he has been working for three years, and of her eldest daughter, who is in the Institute for the Deaf and Dumb at Turin. Then she showed us the way to the teacher's, Everyone knows him. We left the village and followed a steep path between flowering hedges. My father was silent now and seemed completely absorbed in his memories, and every now and then he would smile and then shake his head. Suddenly he stopped, and said, 'There he is. I'd wager that's him.' Coming down towards us along the path was a little old man with a white beard, wearing a broadbrimmed hat and supporting himself on a walking-stick. He dragged his feet and his hands shook. 'That's him,' my father repeated, quickening his step. When we were near him we stopped. The old man stopped too, and looked at my father. His face was still fresh and his eyes clear and lively. 'Are you', my father asked, raising his hat, 'the teacher Vincenzo Crosetti?' The old man also raised his hat and, in a voice that was a little shaky but full, replied, 'I am.' 'Well, then,' said my father, taking his hand, 'permit one of your old pupils to shake your hand and to ask how you are. I have come from Turin to see you.' The old man looked at him in amazement. Then he said, 'You do me too much honour... I don't know when, my pupil? Forgive me. And your name, please. . . .' My father told him his name, Alberto Bottini, the year he had been in his class, and where, and added, 'You won't remember me, naturally. But 1 recognize you very well!'

The teacher bent his head and stared at the ground, thinking, and he muttered my father's name two or three times. My father; meanwhile, watched him and smiled. Suddenly the old man looked up, his eyes wide open, and said slowly, 'Alberto Bottini? The son of Bottini the engineer who was in Piazza della Consolata?' 'The very one,' said my father, holding out his hand. 'Well, then,' said the old man, 'permit me, dear sir, permit me', and moving forward he embraced my father. The white head hardly reached his shoulder. My father rested his cheek on his forehead. 'Be good enough to come with me,' the teacher said. Saying no more, he turned and retraced his steps towards his house. In a few minutes we reached a yard in front of a little house with two doors. Round one of them the wall was whitewashed. The teacher opened the second one and bade us enter a room. There were four white walls, in one corner a trestle bed with a blue and white check cover, in another corner a little table with a small collection of books. There were four chairs and an old map was pinned to the wall. There was a pleasant smell of apples. All three of us sat down. My father and the teacher looked at one another for a few moments in silence. 'Bottini!' the teacher then exclaimed, staring at the stone floor on which the sun made a chequered pattern. 'Oh, 1 remember well. Your mother was such a nice lady! And you, for a while in your first year, you sat in the first desk on the left near the window. One moment, see if I can remember. I can still see your curly head.' Then he thought for a while. 'You were a lively boy, indeed. In your second year you were ill with croup. I remember when they brought you back to school you had lost weight and were wrapped in a shawl. It's forty years ago, isn't it? It was so good of you to remember your poor old teacher. Some of my other old pupils have come here to see me over the years - a colonel, priests, several gentlemen. ' He asked my father what his profession was. Then he said, 'I'm so pleased, so very pleased. I haven't seen anyone fm quite a time now. I am very much afraid that you will be the last one, dear sir.' 'What on earth are you saying?' my father exclaimed. 'You are well and still active. You mustn't say such things.' 'Well, no,' replied the teacher. 'Do you see this shaking?' And he showed his hands. 'This is a bad sign. It started three years ago when I was still teaching. At first I took no notice of it, I thought it would go. But instead if stayed and got worse! A day came when I could no longer write. Ah, that day, that first time I made a blot on the exercise book of one of my pupils, it was a blow to the heart for me, dear sir. I carried on quite well for a little while, but then I could do no more. After sixty years of teaching I had to say goodbye to school, pupils and work. And it was hard, you know, it was hard. The last time I took a class they all came home with me and feted me. But I was sad, I realized my life was over. Already in the previous year I had lost my wife and my only son. All I had left were two peasant nephews. Now I live on a pension of a few hundred lire. I do nothing any more - the days seem never ending. My only occupation is to look through my old school books, collections of educational journals, and a few books they gave me. There they are,' he said, pointing to the small library, 'there are my memories, all my past... 1 have nothing else in the world.' Then, in a tone suddenly cheerful: 'I want to give you a surprise, dear Signor Bottini.' He got up, went to the little table and opened a long drawer which contained many packets, all tied with string, and on each one a year was written. After searching a little he opened one, leafed through many sheets, took out a piece of paper yellow with age and held it out to my father. It was one of his school exercises of forty years ago. At the top was written Alberto Bottini, Dictation, 3rd April 1838. My father immediately recognized the large handwriting of his boyhood and began to read it with a little smile. But suddenly his eyes moistened. 1 got up, asking him what was the matter. He put an arm round my waist and, drawing me to his side, he said, 'Look at this paper. Do you see? These are my poor mother's corrections. She always went over my l's and t's. And the last lines are all hers. She had learnt to imitate my handwriting and when I was tired and sleepy she would finish my work for me. My dear mother!' He kissed the page. 'Here they are,' said the teacher, showing us the other packets, 'my memories. Every year I put aside a piece of work by each of my pupils, and they are all here, arranged and numbered. Sometimes I look through them like this, read a line here and a line there and a thousand things come back into my mind and I seem to live again in times gone by. How many have passed on, dear sir! I close my eyes and see faces and more faces, class upon class, hundreds and hundreds of boys, and who knows how many of them are already dead. I remember many of them well. I remember clearly the best and ..he naughtiest, those who

gave me a great deal of satisfaction and those who brought me unhappy moments for I have had rascals too, you know, amongst such large numbers! But now, you understand, it is as if I were already in the next world, and I like them all equally.' He sat down again and look my hand in his. 'And tell me,' my father said, smiling, 'don't you remember any mischief?' 'From you?' replied the old man, also smiling. 'Not at the moment. But that certainly does not mean that you never got up to any. But you were sensible, you were serious for your age. I remember how much you loved your mother But it has been so good and kind of you to come and see me! How have you been able to leave your work to come and see a poor old teacher?' 'Listen, Signor Crosetti,' my father replied with feeling. 'I remember the first time my poor mother took me to school. It was the first time she had had to part with me for two hours and leave me away from home in the care of someone other than my father, in the care of a stranger, in fact. For that good creature my going to school was, as it were, my going out into the world, the first of a long series of separations, necessary and sad. Society was taking her little boy away for the first time, never to give him completely back again. She was deeply moved, and I was too. In an unsteady voice she committed me to you, then as she left she said goodbye to me again through the opening in the door and her eyes were full of tears. At the very same moment you made a gesture with one hand and put the other on your breast as if to say, "Signora, have faith in me." Well, that gesture of yours and that look which told me you had understood all my mother's feelings and all her thoughts, that look which said "Be brave" and the gesture which was an honest promise of protection, affection, indulgence, I have never forgotten them, they have remained engraved on my heart for ever, and it is that memory which made me set out from Turin. And here I am after forty-foul years to say to you, "Thank you, dear teacher".' The teacher did not reply. He was stroking my hair with his hand, and his hand kept trembling and jumped from my hair to my forehead to my shoulder. Meanwhile my father was looking at those bare walls, the wretched bed and at a piece of bread and a cruet of oil on till window-sill, and it seemed as if he would like to have said, 'Poor teacher, after sixty years of work, is this your reward!' But the good old man was content and began to talk animatedly again about our family, the other teachers of that time and the boys who were at the school with my father, who remembered some but not others, and they exchanged news of this one and that one. My father interrupted the conversation to ask the teacher to come down into the village to have lunch with us. 'Thank you, thank you,' he replied with feeling, but he seemed uncertain. My father took both of his hands and asked him again. 'But how shall I manage to eat,' the teacher said, 'with these poor hands that shake like this? It is a penance for other people, too.' 'We shall help you, sir,' said my father. He accepted, then shook his head and smiled. 'This is a lovely day,' he said as he closed the door, 'a lovely day, dear Signor Bottini! I assure you I shall remember it as long as I live.' My father offered his arm to the teacher, who took me by the hand, and we went down the path. We met two barefooted little girls leading cows, and a boy ran past with a big load of straw on his back. The teacher told us they were two Standard 2 girls and a Standard 2 boy who took the animals out to pasture and worked in the fields barefooted in the mornings, and put their shoes on and went to school in the afternoons. It was almost midday. We met no one else. In a few minutes we arrived at the inn, sat down at a big table, putting the teacher between us, and immediately started lunch. The inn was as quiet as a convent. The teacher was very happy and the excitement made his shaking worse; he could hardly manage to eat. But my father cut his meat, broke his bread and put salt on his plate. In order to drink, he had to hold his glass with both hands, and even then it rattled against his teeth. But he talked incessantly and enthusiastically about the reading-books when he was young, about present-day timetables, about the eulogies his superiors had pronounced on him, about the regulations of recent years, his face invariably serene, if a little more flushed than before, his voice gay and his laugh almost that of a young man. My father watched him all the time with the expression I see on his face sometimes when he is watching me at home, and thinking and smiling to himself, his head on one side. The teacher spilt wine on his chest. My father got up and wiped it WII h his table napkin. 'But no, sir, I cannot allow you!' he said, and laughed. He said some words in Latin. Finally he raised his glass, which shook in his hand, and said very seriously, 'To your health then, my dear engineer, to your children, to the memory of your dear mother!' 'And to your health, my dear master!' replied my father, shaking his hand.

At the back of the room were the innkeeper and a few other people, watching and smiling as if they were pleased with this celebration in honour of the teacher from their village. It was after two o'clock when we left and the teacher wanted to accompany us to the station. My father gave him his arm again and once more he took my hand. I carried his stick. People stopped for a moment to look, for everyone knew him. From a window at one point in the road we heard the voices of many children, spelling out loud together. The old man stopped and he seemed to grow sad. 'There it is, dear Signor Bottini,' he said, 'that is what hurts me. To hear the voices of children in school and not to be there any more, to think that it is someone else. I have heard it for sixty years, this music, and it was part of my life. Now I am without a family. I no longer have any children.' 'No, sir,' said my father as he started to walk again, 'you still have many children scattered throughout the world who remember you, just as I have always remembered you.' 'No, no,' the teacher replied sadly, 'I no longer have a class, I no longer have children. And without children I shall not live much longer. My time must soon come.' 'Do not say that, sir, do riot think it,' said my father. 'III every way you have done so much good! You have spent your life so nobly!' The old teacher leant his white head on my fathers shoulder for a moment, and squeezed my hand. We had arrived at the station. The train was ready to leave. 'Goodbye, sir,' said my father, kissing him on both cheeks. 'Goodbye, thank you, goodbye,' replied the teacher taking my father's hand in his two trembling hands and pressing it to his heart. Then I kissed him and felt that his face was wet. My father pushed me up into the carriage and, at the very moment the train started, he quickly took the rough stick from the teacher's hand and put in its place his own fine cane with a silver head, bearing his initials, saying to him, 'Keep it to remember me by.' The old man tried to give it back and take his own, but my father was already inside the carriage and had closed the window. 'Goodbye, my dear teacher!' 'Goodbye, my son,' replied the teacher as the train moved off, 'and may God bless you for the comfort you have brought to a poor old man.' 'Till we meet again,' cried my father in a voice charged with emotion. But the teacher shook his head as if to say, 'We shall not see one another again.' 'Yes, yes,' replied my father, 'Till we meet again.' The teacher replied by raising his shaking hand to the sky. 'Above!' And like that, with his hand raised, he disappeared out of sight.

Convalescence
Thursday, 20th Who would have said when I came back so happy from that lovely excursion with my father that for ten days I should see neither fields nor sky! I have been very ill and my life has been in danger. I heard my mother sobbing, I saw my father, very pale, watching me closely, and my sister Silvia and my brother talking to one another in low voices, and the doctor with spectacles, who was constantly there, who said things to me that I did not understand. Truly, I was on the point of saying Goodbye to everyone. Oh, my poor mother! At least three or four days went by of which I remember almost nothing, as if I had had a complicated and obscure dream. It seems to me that I saw my nice mistress from lA at my bedside, trying hard to stifle a cough with her handkerchief so as not to disturb me. I remember equally vaguely my teacher, who leant to kiss me, and pricked my face a bit with his beard! And I saw pass by, as in a haze, Crossi's red head, Derossi's fair curls, the Calabrian dressed in black, and Garrone, who brought me a tangerine with its leaves on and left immediately because his mother was ill. Then I woke up as from a very long sleep and, seeing my father and mother smiling and hearing Silvia singing quietly, I realized that I was better. Oh, what a bad dream it was! Then I began to improve every day. The little bricklayer came and made me laugh for the first time, with his hare-face. And how well he does it now that his face has grown a little longer through illness, poor boy! Coretti came, and Garoffi came to present me with two tickets in his new lottery for 'a penknife with five surprises' which he

bought from a second-hand dealer in Via Bertola. Then yesterday, while I was asleep, Precossi came, and he put his cheek on my hand without waking me and, as he had come from his father's smithy with his face covered with coal-dust, he left a black mark on my sleeve which it gave me much pleasure to see when I woke up. How green the trees have become in these few days! How envious it makes me to see the boys running with their books to school when my father carries me to the window! But soon I shall be returning there too. I am so impatient to see all those boys again, and my desk, the garden and those streets, to know all that happened to me in this period; to turn again to my textbooks and exercise books - I feel as if I haven't seen them for a year! My poor mother, how thin and pale she is! And my father, what a tired look he has! My good friends who came to see me and walked on tiptoe and kissed my forehead - it makes me sad now to think that one day we shall part. Derossi and a few more of us, we shall continue to study together, perhaps, bill what about all the others? After Standard 4, goodbye. We shall not see one another again. I shall never again see them" I my bedside when I am ill: Garrone, Precossi, Coretti, so many good boys, so many good and dear companions, never again!

Working-class friends
Thursday, 20th Why never again', Enrico? That will depend on you. After Standard 4 you will go to the grammar school and they will start work. But you will stay in the same town, perhaps for many years. Why, then, will you not see one another again? When you are at the university or the academy you will go to visit them in their shops or workshops and it will be a great pleasure for you to meet again the friends of your childhood, now men, at their work. I cannot imagine your not seeking out Coretti and Precossi wherever they may be! You will visit them and spend hours in their company and you will see, as a student of life and the world, how many things you can learn from them which no one else can teach you, about their work, their background and about your country. Bear in mind that if you do not maintain these friendships it will be very difficult for you to form similar ones in the future. By that I mean friendships outside your own class. And so you would live within one class, and the man who associates with only one social class is like a student who reads only one book. Resolve, therefore, from now on to keep those good friends after you are separated and to give them special attention, from now on, just because they are the sons of workmen. You see, men from the higher social classes are the officers, and workmen are the soldiers of work; but in society as in the army not only is the soldier no less noble than the officer, for nobility depends on work and not on earnings, on worth and not rank, but if there is a higher degree of merit it belongs to the soldier, to the workman who receives less for his work. Cherish, then, and respect above others amongst your friends the sons of the soldiers of work. Through them honour their parents' efforts and sacrifices. Hold in contempt the differences in fortune and class which for foolish people are the only regulators of feeling and courtesy. Remember that almost all the blessed blood which redeemed our country flowed from the veins of those who laboured in the fields and workshops. Cherish Garrone, cherish Precossi, cherish Coretti and cherish your little bricklayer, whose young workmen's breasts enclose the hearts of princes, and swear to yourself that no change of fortune will ever be able to wrest those blessed friendships of infancy from your soul. Swear that if entering a railway station forty years from now, you recognize your old friend Garrone with blackened face, in engine-driver's clothes. . . ah, but I do not need you to swear. I am sure that you will climb on to the engine and throw your arms round his neck, even if you are a senator of the realm. Father

Garrone's mother
Friday, 28th As soon as I was back at school there was sad news. For several days Garrone had not been coming because his mother was seriously ill. She died on Saturday evening. Yesterday morning as soon as we entered school the teacher said, 'The greatest misfortune which can befall a child has befallen poor Garrone. His mother has died. Tomorrow he will come back to school. I beg you now, boys, respect the terrible sorrow which is torturing his soul. When he comes in, greet him gravely and with affection. Let no one joke or laugh with him, I beg you. This morning, a little later than the others, poor Garrone arrived. I felt a blow to my heart when I saw him. His face was pale, his eyes were red and he stood unsteady. He looked as if he had been ill for a month and I hardly recognized him. He was dressed all in black and was a pitiful figure. No one said a word. Everybody looked at him. He had hardly come inside and seen school again, where his mother had come for him nearly every day, and seen that desk over which she had stooped so many times on examination days to give him a last piece of advice, and where he had so often thought of her, impatient to leave and run to her, than in despair he burst out crying. The teacher drew him close, held him to his breast and said, 'Yes, cry, cry, poor boy. But take heart. Your mother is no longer here, but she can see you, she still loves you, she is still by your side. . . and one day you will see her again, because like her you have a good heart and honest soul. Take heart.' When he had said this he came with him to the desk, next to me. I did not dare look at him. He took out his exercise books and textbooks, which he had not opened for many days and, opening the readingbook where there is a picture showing a mother holding a little child by the hand, he burst into tears again and leant his head on his arm. The teacher made a sign to us to leave him as he was and started the lesson. I should have liked to say something to him, but I was at a loss for words. I put a hand on his arm and whispered to him, 'Don't cry, Garrone.' He did not reply but, without raising his head from the desk, he put his hand on mine and left it there awhile. At home-time no one spoke to him, everyone passed him respectfully and silently. I saw my mother waiting for me and ran to embrace her, but she did not respond; she was looking at Garrone. I did not understand immediately. I became aware that Garrone, who was standing apart, was watching me, and watching me with a look of inexpressible sadness, as though to say, 'You embrace your mother and I shall never embrace mine again. You still have your mother, and mine is dead!' Then I understood why my mother had not responded, and I left without giving her my hand.

Giuseppe Mazzini
Saturday, 29th This morning Garrone was still pale and his eyes were swollen with crying when he came to school. He hardly glanced at the little presents we had put on the desk to console him. But the teacher had brought a passage from a book to read to him to give him courage. First, he told us that tomorrow at one o'clock we should all be going to the town hall to see the presentation of the medal for civil valour to a boy who saved a child from the River Po, and that on Monday he would dictate an account of the ceremony in place of the monthly story. Then, once more addressing Garrone, whose head was still bowed, he said, 'Garrone, make an effort, and you too set down what I dictate.' Everyone took up their pens. The teacher gave the dictation. 'Giuseppe Mazzini, who was born in Genoa in 1805 and died in Pisa in 1872, was a great patriot, a great literary genius, a spiritual leader and the leading prophet of the Italian revolution. For love of his country he lived through forty years of poverty, exile, persecution and homeless ness, and remained heroically steadfast in his principles and aims. 'Giuseppe Mazzini, who worshipped his mother and who owed to her that which was best and purest in his strong and gentle soul, wrote as follows to one of his faithful friends to offer consolation at the time of the greatest of all misfortunes. These are almost his exact words: '''My friend, you will never see your mother again on this earth. This is the awful truth. I am not coming to see you because yours is one of those solemn and holy sorrows which must be suffered and

conquered alone. Do you understand what I mean by these words: grief must be conquered? Conquer that in grief which is less worthy, less purifying, that which rather than improving the soul weakens and debases it. But the other element in grief, the noble element, which enlarges and elevates the soul, that must stay with you, never to leave you. '''Here on earth nothing takes the place of a good mother. In all the sorrows and consolations that life can still bring you, you will never forget her. But you must remember her, love her and mourn her death in a way worthy of her. Oh, my friend, take heed. Death does not exist, it is nothing. Nor can one comprehend it. Life is life and follows life's rule, progress. Yesterday you had a mother on earth; today you have an angel in some other realm. All that which is good survive from life on earth, but with greater strength. Thus, your mother's love. She loves you now more than ever. And you are more than ever responsible to her for your action! It depends on you, on your actions, whether you will meet her and see her again in another existence. You must, then, for the love you bear her and the reverence in which you hold her become a better man and give her cause to rejoice in you. You must henceforth ask yourself about each of your actions, would my mother approve of it? Her transformation has given you a guardian angel in the world, to whom you must refer all your affairs. Be steadfast and righteous. Resist hopeless and vulgar grief. Know the tranquillity of great suffering in great souls. That is what she wants." 'Garrone!' the teacher said. 'Be steadfast and tranquil, that is what she wants. Do you understand?' Garrone nodded his head, while big tears fell freely on his hands, on his exercise book, on the desk.

CIVIL VALOUR
The monthly story
By one o'clock we were with our teacher in front of the town hall to see the presentation of the medal for civil valour to the boy who saved one of his companions from the River Po. A large tricolour flew from the balcony on the front of the building. We went into the town-hall courtyard. It was already full of people. You could see at the far end a table with a red cloth with papers on it and behind it a row of large gilded chairs for the mayor and council. The municipal ushers were there in their blue waist coats and white stockings. To the right of the courtyard a much bemedalled squad of policemen was drawn up, and next to them a group of customs officer. On the other side were the firemen in dress uniform and many off-duty soldiers who had come to watch: cavalrymen, riflemen and artillerymen. And everywhere there were gentlemen, local people, officers, and women and children who had crowded in. We squeezed ourselves into a corner where there were already a lot of pupils from other schools with their teachers. Near us was a group of working-class boys aged between ten and eighteen years old who were laughing and talking loudly, and we realized that they were all from Borgo Po and schoolfellows or acquaintances of the boy who was going to receive the medal. Up above, there were council employees at all the windows. Even the balcony of the library was full of people, pressing against the balustrade. And on the balcony on the opposite side, which is over the main entrance, a lot of girls from the council schools and many army daughters with their lovely sky-blue veils were crowded together. It was like a theatre. Everybody was talking happily, casting an occasional glance towards the red table to see if anyone had appeared. The band was playing gently at the back of the portico. The sun beat down on the high walls. It was marvellous. Suddenly everyone in the courtyard, on the balconies and at the windows began to clap. I stood on tiptoe to see. The crowd behind the red table had opened up and a man and a woman had come forward. The man was holding a boy by the hand, it was the boy who had saved his friend. The man was his father, a bricklayer, dressed in his best. The woman, his mother, was small and fair and dressed in black. The boy, also small and fair, was wearing a grey jacket. On seeing all those people and hearing that roar of applause, the three of them halted, not daring to look or move. An usher guided them to a place on the right of the table. Everyone stayed quiet for a moment, then once more applause broke out on all sides. The boy looked up at the windows and then at the balcony where the army daughters were. He was holding his cap in his hands and seemed hardly to know where he was. I thought that he resembled Coretti slightly in the face, but he was rather more highly coloured. His father and mother stared fixedly at the table.

Meanwhile all the Borgo Po boys, who were near us, pushed forward, gesturing towards their companion to make him look, and calling to him quietly, 'Pin! Pin! Pinot!' The insistence of their calling made him hear, and he looked at them and hid a smile behind his cap. At a given moment, all the policemen came to attention. The mayor appeared, accompanied by many gentlemen. The mayor, all in white except for a large tricolour sash, stood at the table. All the others stood behind him and at the sides. The band stopped playing, the mayor gave a sign, and everyone fell silent. He began to speak. I did not hear his first words very well, but I understood that he was giving an account of the boy's deed. Then he raised his voice and it filled the courtyard so clearly and resoundingly that I did not miss a word. 'When, from the bank, he saw his friend struggling in the river, already seized by the fear of death, he tore his clothes from his back arid rushed forward without a moment's hesitation. People shouted, "You will drown." He did not reply. They took hold of him. He fought loose. They called his name. He was already in the water. The river was swollen, the risk fearful, even for a man. But he flung himself against death with all the strength of his small body and his great heart. 'Eventually he reached and grasped the wretched boy, who was already under the water, and pulled him to the surface. He struggled furiously against the flood which would carry him away and with his friend who was trying to clasp him tightly, and several times he disappeared under the water but with a desperate effort came to the surface again. Obstinate, invincible in his holy purpose, not like a boy who wants to save another boy, but like a man, like a father fighting to save a son who is the embodiment of his hopes, and his life. In the end God did not allow such an unselfish act of bravery to he in vain. The boy swimmer wrested the victim from the mighty river and brought him to land, and even, with others, attended to his first needs. After which he went home safe and sound to give a plain account of what he had done. 'Gentlemen, fine and venerable is the heroism of a man. But in a boy in whom no ambition or other self-interest is yet possible, in a boy whose daring must be the greater, the less his strength is, in a boy from whom we ask nothing and from whom nothing is expected, who seems to us noble enough and lovable not when he achieves but even when he understands and recognizes sacrifice in others, heroism in such a boy is divine. I shall say no more, gentlemen. I do not wish to adorn with praise an act of such simple greatness. Here he is in front of you, the generous and gracious deliverer. Soldiers, salute him as a brother. Mothers, bless him as a son. Children, remember his name, imprint Ills face on your mind so that it may never be effaced from your memory or from your heart. Come forward, my son. In the name of the King of Italy I award you the medal for civil valour.' A great cheer went up from many voices at the same moment, making the town hall echo. The mayor took the medal from the table and fastened it on the boy's chest. Then he embraced him and kissed him. His mother put a hand to her eyes, his father rested his chin on his breast. The mayor shook them both by the hand, took the citation of the award, which was tied with a ribbon, and offered it to the lady. Then he turned to the boy again and said, 'May the memory of this day, so glorious for you, and so happy for your father and mother, keep you all your life on the path of virtue and honour. Goodbye.' The mayor left, the band played and all seemed over, when the squad of firemen opened ranks and a boy, eight or nine years old, prompted by a woman who disappeared almost immediately, rushed towards the hero and fell into his arms. Another outburst of cheering and applause made the courtyard resound. Everyone had understood immediately: this was the boy saved from the River Po and he was coming to thank his rescuer. When he had kissed him, he clung to his arm to accompany him on the way out. These two first, with the father and mother behind them, proceeded towards the exit, moving with difficulty through the crowd which made a way for them, boys, soldiers and women, all in confusion. Everybody pushed forward and stood on tiptoe to see the boy. Those in front touched his hand. When he passed the boys from the schools they all waved their caps in the air. Those from Borgo Po made a great uproar, pulling his arms and his jacket and shouting, 'Pin! Good old Pin! Bravo, Pinot!' I saw him pass very close. His face was quite flushed, he was happy and the medal had a white, red and green ribbon. His mother wept and laughed. His father twisted his moustache with a hand that trembled violently as if he had fever. And up there at the windows and on the balconies people were still straining forward and applauding.

Suddenly, just before they entered the portico, a veritable shower of pansies, little bunches of violets, and daisies fell from the balcony where the army daughters were on to the heads of the boy and his father and mother, and scattered on the ground. Many people hastily gathered them up and offered them to the mother. The band at the end of the courtyard quietly played a very beautiful melody which seemed like a song from many silvery voices as they slowly moved away down by the banks of the river.

MAY The disabled children

Friday, 5th Today I did not go to school because I was not well and my mother took me with her to the Institute for Disabled Children where she went to propose one of the porter's little girls. But she did not let me go into the school. Did you not understand, Enrico, why I did not let you go in? It was so as not to put before those unfortunate children, there in the middle of the school almost as if on display, a strong, healthy boy. There are already too many occasions on which they find themselves the subjects of painful comparisons. How sad it is! I was moved to tears when I went inside. Boys and girls together, there were about sixty children. Poor tortured hones! Poor hands, poor little stunted and twisted feet! Poor misshapen little bodies! I noticed immediately many pleasant laces, the eyes full of understanding and feeling. The thin nose and pointed chin of one small girl made her look like a little old woman, but she had a divinely gentle smile. Some, seen from the front, look fine and seem to be without defect, but if they turn round - well, you feel a pang in your heart. The doctor was visiting. He stood them on a bench and lifted their clothes to touch their swollen stomachs and enlarged joints. But they were not in the least embarrassed, poor things. You could see that they were used to being undressed, examined, and turned this way and that. And to think that they are now in a better phase of their illness, that they hardy suffer any more. But who can tell what they suffered when their bodies were first becoming deformed, when, as their infirmity increased, they saw that people liked them less. Poor children, left alone for hours and hours in the corner of a room or courtyard, fed badly and sometimes even mocked, or tormented for months by bandages and ineffective orthopaedic appliances! Now, however, thanks to the treatment, good food and gymnastics, many are improving. The mistress makes them do gymnastics. After some commands it was pitiful to see them stretch those bandaged legs, bound in splints, knobbly and deformed, under the benches; legs that should be covered with kisses. Some could not raise themselves from the bench and stayed where they were, head resting on an arm and a hand caressing their crutches. Others, making an effort with their arms and finding themselves short of breath, fell back on their seats again, looking pale. But they smiled to conceal their difficulties in breathing. Ah, Enrico, you who do not appreciate health and to whom it seems such a small thing to be well! I thought of the lovely, strong and thriving children whose mothers take them about as if in triumph, proud of their beauty, and I could have taken all those poor heads and pressed them desperately to my heart. I would have said, if I had been without a family, I shall never move from here, I mean to consecrate my life to you, to be a mother to you till the day I die. Meanwhile they were singing. They sang in voices which were weak, sweet, sad and moving, and they showed their pleasure when the mistress praised them. While she moved between the benches they kissed her hands and arms, for they feel so much gratitude towards those who are good to them and they are very affectionate. They have ability, too, these little darlings, and they study, the mistresses told me. There is one sweet young mistress whose kind face expresses a certain sadness as if reflecting the suffering which she embraces and relieves. Dear girl! Amongst all human creatures who earn their living by work, there is none who earns it in a more saintly way than you, my dear girl. Mother

Making sacrifices
Tuesday, 9th My mother is good and my sister Silvia is like her, she has the same warm and generous heart. Yesterday evening I was copying out part of the monthly story, 'From the Apennines to the Andes', of which the teacher has given us all a small part to copy because it is so long, when Silvia came in on tiptoe and said to me quickly and quietly, 'Come with me to see Mother. I heard them talking this morning. A business affair has gone wrong for Father. He was unhappy and Mother was reassuring him. We're short of money, do you understand? There's no money left. Father was saying he will have to make sacrifices to get straight again. Now we must make sacrifices too, mustn't we? Are you coming? Good, I shall speak to Mother and you must nod your head and promise her on your honour that you will do everything I say.' That said, she took my hand and led me to our mother who was sewing, and in a very pensive mood. I sat down at one end of the sofa, Silvia at the other, and straight away she said, 'Listen, Mother, 1 have something to say to you. We both have something to say to you.' Mother looked at us in astonishment. Silvia began, 'Father has no money, has he?' 'What are you saying?' Mother replied, blushing. 'It isn't true! What do you know about it? Who told you that?' 'I know,' said Silvia resolutely. 'So listen, Mother. We must make sacrifices too. You had promised me a fan at the end of May, and Enrico is expecting his box of paints. We don't want anything now. We don't want you to waste your money. We shall be just as happy, do you see?' Mother tried to speak, but Silvia said, 'No, that is how it will be. We have decided. And as long as Father has no money we don't want any fruit or other things like that. Soup will be enough for us, and in the morning for breakfast we shall eat bread. So, less will be spent on food - we've been spending too much on it, and we promise, you will see, we shall still be happy that way. Isn't that true, Enrico?' 1 replied that it was. 'Just as happy that way,' Silvia repeated, putting a hand over Mother's mouth, 'and if there are other sacrifices to make, in clothes or other things, we shall make them willingly, and we could sell our presents too. I can give all my things, I can be your maid, we shall not have any outside help any more, I shall work with you all day, I shall do all you want, I'm willing to do everything! Everything!' she exclaimed throwing her arms round Mother's neck, 'so that Father and Mother won't have any more troubles, so that I can see both of you happy again and in a good humour like you used to be, with your Silvia and Enrico who love you so much, who would give their lives for you!' Ah! I had never seen my mother as happy as she was when she heard these words. She had never kissed our faces like that, crying and laughing and unable to speak. Then she assured Silvia that she had not properly understood, that fortunately we were by no means in such financial difficulties as she believed. She thanked us a hundred times and was happy all evening till Father came home, and she told him everything. ' He did not say anything, my poor father. But this morning, sitting at table, I experienced both great pleasure and great sadness. I found my paint-box under my napkin, and under hers Silvia found her fan.

The fire
Thursday, 11 th This morning I had finished copying my part of the story 'From the Apennines to the Andes' and I was looking for, subject for the free composition the teacher had given us to do when I heard unusual shouting on the stairs and, shortly afterwards, two firemen entered our apartment and asked my father for permission to examine the stoves and fireplaces because a chimney was on fire on the roof and they did not know whose it was. My father said 'Go ahead' and, though we hadn't got a fire lit anywhere, the firemen began to go through the rooms and to put their 'ears to the walls to find out whether a fire was rumbling in the flues which go up to the other floors of the house. While they were going through the rooms, my father said to me, 'Enrico, here's a subject for your composition: firemen. Just try to write what I tell you. I saw them at work two years ago when I was coming out of the Balbo Theatre late at night. (the event occurred on the night of 27th January 1880).

Going into Via Roma I saw an unusual light and a crowd of people hurrying forward., A house was on fire. Tongues of flame and clouds of smoke were coming from the windows and the roof. Men and women appeared at the window-sills, then disappeared, crying desperately. There was a great tumult in front of the main door. The crowd was shouting, "They're burning alive! Help! Firemen!" 'At that moment a fire-engine arrived and four firemen, the first at the town hall, jumped out and rushed into the house. No sooner were they inside than a fearful thing was seen. A woman appeared, shouting, at a window on the third floor, grasped the balcony, climbed over it and remained clinging to it like that, half suspended in mid-air with her back bent under the smoke and flames which were pouring from the room and almost licking her head. The crowd gave a cry of horror. The firemen, halted in error at the second floor by the terrified tenants there, had already broken down a wall and rushed into a room when a hundred voices told them, "To the third floor! The third floor!" They rushed to the third floor. Here there was a roaring inferno, roof beams falling down, corridors full of flames, suffocating smoke. 'The only way left to reach the trapped tenants was along the roof. The firemen immediately rushed up, and a minute litter a figure like a black phantom was seen to leap through the smoke on to the tiles. It was the corporal, who had arrived first. But to reach the part of the roof which corresponded to the rooms cut off by the fire, it was necessary to go along a very narrow space between a skylight and the gutter. Everything else was on fire, and that narrow path was covered with snow and ice and there was nothing to hold on to. '''It's impossible for him to get across," cried the crowd down below. 'The corporal moved forward along the edge of the roof. Everyone shuddered and watched with bated breath. He got across. A great cheer rose to the heavens. The corporal went on, and when he had reached the threatened place he began furiously to smash tiles and beams and battens with his axe to make a hole, in order to get inside. 'Meanwhile the woman was still hanging out of the window and the fire was raging about her head. One minute more and she would have fallen down into the street. The hole was made. We saw the corporal take off his shoulder-belt and lower himself down. The other firemen, the ones who had arrived later, followed him. At the same moment, a very long fire-ladder which had now arrived was put against the eaves of the house in front of the window from which flames and frenzied cries were coming. But it seemed to be too late. ''No one can be saved now," they cried. "The firemen are caught in the fire. It's all over. They're dead." 'Suddenly the black figure of the corporal was seen to appear at the balcony window, illuminated from head to fool by the flames. The woman clasped him by the neck. He seized her by the waist with both his arms, pulled her up and set her down inside the room. A thousand voices from the crowd cried out above the crashing of the fire. 'But what about the others? And getting down? The ladder, leaning against the roof in front of another window, was some distance away from the window-sill. How could it be repositioned there? While this was being discussed, one of till firemen got out of the window, put his right foot on the window-sill, his left foot on the ladder, and, standing like that in mid-air, one by one he took hold of the occupants whom the others passed to him from inside, handed them on to a comrade who had come up from the street and who, setting them firmly on the rungs of the ladder, sent them down, one after the other, helped from beow by other firemen. 'First he passed on the woman from the balcony, then a little girl, another woman and an old man. All were saved. After the old man, th~ firemen who had stayed behind came down. The last to come down was the corporal, who had been the first to rush up. The crowd welcomed them all with a burst of applause, but when the last one appeared, the man in the forefront of the others, the man who had faced the abyss in front of the others, the man who would be dead if anyone were to die, the crowd greeted him as a victor, shouting and reaching out their arms to him in an outburst of warm admiration and gratitude, and in a few moments his name, till then unknown - Giuseppe Robbino - was on a thousand lips. 'Have you understood? That is courage, courage from the heart, which does not reason, does not hesitate, which goes directly, blindly on, at once, towards the cry of the dying. I will take you one day to the firemen's drill, and let you see Corporal Robbino, for you would be very pleased to know him, wouldn't you?' I replied that I would. 'Here he is!' said my father.

I quickly turned round. The two firemen, the inspection finished, were crossing the room to leave. My father indicated the smaller of the two, the one with the stripes, and said to me, 'Shake hands with Corporal Robbino.' The corporal stopped and held out his hand to me, smiling. 1 took it. He saluted me and left. 'Remember him well,' said my father, 'for, of the thousands of hands you will shake in your lifetime, there may not be ten as worthy as his.'

FROM THE APENNINES TO THE ANDES

The monthly story
Many years ago a thirteen-year-old boy, a workman's son, travelled alone from Genoa to America to look for his mother. Two years earlier his mother had gone to Buenos Aires, the capital city of the Argentine Republic, to enter the service of a rich household, so as to ('am in a short time enough money to rescue the family which, following several misfortunes, had fallen into poverty and debt. Not .1 few courageous women make a similarly long journey with that intention and, thanks to the high pay domestic workers receive over there, they return to their native land after a few years with a few thousand lire. The poor mother had wept bitter tears at the separation from her sons, one of whom was eighteen and the other eleven, but she set out bravely and full of hope. The journey went well. Hardly had she arrived in Buenos Aires when she found, with the help of a Genoese shopkeeper who was her husband's cousin and long settled there, a good Argentine family who paid her well and treated her kindly. For a short while she kept up a regular correspondence with her family. As they had arranged, the husband sent his letters to his cousin, who forwarded them to the wife. She sent her replies to him and he sent them on to Genoa, adding a few lines of his own. She earned twenty-two pesos a month, spent nothing on herself, and so every three months sent home a good sum with which her husband, a fine man, was gradually paying off the most urgent debts, thus redeeming his good name. Meanwhile he worked and was content with his lot, hoping that his wife would return before very long. The house seemed empty without her and the younger son in particular, who loved his mother very much, was grieving and could not resign himself to her being so far away. But a year had gone by since her departure. After a short letter in which she said she was not very well, they received no more. They wrote twice to the cousin, but he did not reply. They wrote to the Argentine family with whom the woman was in service, but as the letter possibly had not arrived - they may have misspelt the name in the address - they received no reply. Fearing some misfortune, they wrote to the Italian consul in Buenos Aires requesting him to make inquiries. After three months the consul replied that in spite of the notice he had put in the newspapers no one had come forward, not even with information. The only other possibility was this: with the intention of preserving the family name, which the good woman thought could be tarnished by her being a domestic servant, she had not given her real name to the Argentine family. Months passed without news. Father and sons were in dismay, the younger one weighed down by a sadness he could not overcome. What was to be done? To whom could they turn? The father's first idea had been to set out to America to look for his wife. But what about work? Who would keep his sons? Nor could the older one go, for he was just beginning to earn some money and the family needed it. They lived with this anxiety, repeating the same unhappy things every day, or looking at one another in silence. Then one evening Marco, the younger boy, resolutely proclaimed, 'I will go to America to look for Mother.' His father shook his head sadly and did not reply. It was a generous thought but an impossibility: at thirteen, alone, to go to America, a journey which takes a month! But the boy patiently persisted. He persisted that day, the following day and every day, perfectly calmly, arguing with the good sense of a man. 'Others have gone,' he said, 'and smaller than I. Once I am on the boat I shall get there like anyone else. When I am there, all I have to do is look for our cousin's shop. There are so many Italians, someone will show me the way. Once I find our cousin I shall find my mother, and if I don't find her I'll go to the consul and I shall look for the Argentine family. Whatever happens, there's work for everybody over there. I shall find work too, at least to earn enough to come home.'

And so, gradually, he almost succeeded in persuading his father. His father had a good opinion of him, he knew that he had common sense and courage, that he was accustomed to privations and sacrifices and that the strength of all these good qualities would be redoubled in his heart by the sacred aim of finding his mother whom he adored. Moreover, the captain of a ship, the friend of an acquaintance, had heard about the affair and undertook to see that he got a free third-class ticket to the Argentine. So then, after a little more hesitation, the father gave his consent and the journey was decided upon. They filled a bag with bread for him, put some coins in his pocket, they gave him the cousin's address and one fine evening in April they look him on board ship. 'Marco, my son,' his father said with tears in his eyes, giving him a last kiss on the gangway of the ship as it was ready to depart, 'be brave. You are leaving for a hallowed purpose, and God will help you.' Poor Marco! His brave heart was ready for even the hardest trials of that voyage; but when he saw his beautiful Genoa disappear on the horizon and found himself on the high seas on that big ship crowded with peasant emigrants, alone, knowing no one, with that little bag which held everything he possessed, he was assailed by sudden misgivings. For two days he remained crouching like a dog in the bows of the ship, hardly eating and overwhelmed by a great desire to weep. Every kind of unhappy thought went through his head and the unhappiest, the most terrible, was the one which recurred most: the thought that his mother might be dead. In his broken and troubled sleep he kept seeing the face of a stranger who looked at him with an expression of pity and then said in his ear, 'Your mother is dead.' At that point he woke up, stifling a cry. However, when they had passed through the Straits of Gibraltar and he saw the Atlantic Ocean for the first time, his courage and his hopes revived a little. But the relief was short-lived. That immense. unchanging sea, the growing heat, the sadness of all the poor people round him, his own feeling of being alone, returned to dishearted him. The days, each one following another, empty and monotonous, were confused in his mind as they are with sick people. It seemed to him that he had been at sea for a year. Every morning, when he woke up he experienced all over again a feeling of astonishment that he was there alone in the middle of that va~1 expanse of water, on his way to America. The pretty flying fish which sometimes fell on board, these wonderful tropical sunsets with huge clouds the colour of fire and blood, and the night-time phosphorescence which made the ocean appear to be on fire like a sea of lava, did not seem real to him but rather to be wonders seen in a dream. There were days of bad weather when he stayed in the sleeping-quarters, where everything shook and collapsed, to a frightening chorus of groans and curses; and he thought that his last hour was near. There were other days, when the sea was calm and yellowish, of unbearable heat and infinite weariness: endless, ominous hours during which the exhausted passengers lay motionless on the deck, to all appearances dead. And the journey was endless; sea and sky, sky and sea, today like yesterday, tomorrow like today again, always, for ever. For long hours he remained leaning against the bulwarks, staring at that limitless sea, bewildered, vaguely thinking of his mother until II!' eyes closed and his head fell in sleep. Then he would see once more that nameless face which looked at him with pity and repeated in his ear 'Your mother is dead!' and hearing the voice he awoke again with a start, to continue dreaming with his eyes open and to watch the unchanged horizon. Twenty-seven days the journey lasted! And the last ones were the best. The weather was good and the air was fresh. He had got to know a kindly old Lombard who was going to America to be with his son, a farmer near the town of Rosario. Marco had told him all about his home and, slapping him on the shoulder, the old man would repeat from time to time, 'Have courage, lad, you'll find your mother well and happy.'" His company comforted the boy and his presentiments turned from sad to cheerful. Sitting next to the old peasant, who was smoking his pipe, in the prow, with a group of emigrants as they sang under a beautiful, starry sky, he pictured his arrival at Buenos Aires a hundred times. He saw himself in the street, he found the shop, he rushed to meet his cousin: 'How is my mother? Where is she? Let's go now! Let's go now!' Together they hastened off, climbed some stairs, a door opened. . .. And here his silent soliloquy would stop, his imagination would lose itself in a feeling of great tenderness, which made him secretly take out a little medallion that he wore round his neck and, kissing it, murmur his prayers. On the twenty-seventh day after their departure they arrived. It was a lovely, rosy May dawn when the ship cast anchor in the immense River Plate, along one of whose banks stretches the great city of Buenos Aires, the capital of the Argentine Republic. This splendid weather seemed to him to augur well.

He was beside himself with joy and impatience. His mother was a few miles away from him! In a few hours he might see her! And he was in America, in the New World, and had had the courage to come here alone! The whole of that very long voyage now appeared to have been accomplished in no time at all. He seemed to have flown across in a dream, and to have awakened only now. He was so happy that he felt hardly taken aback or worried when he searched his pockets and failed to find one of the two portions into which she had divided his small treasure so as to be more certain not to lose everything. It had been stolen from him and he had only a few lire left; but what did it matter to him now that he was near his mother? With his bag in his hand, along with many other Italians he climbed down into a little steamer which took him near the shore, he got down from the steamer into a boat which bore the name Andrea Doria, and disembarked on the pier. He bade farewell to his elderly friend from Lombardy and strode out in the direction of the city. When he had reached the entrance to the first street, he stopped a man who was passing and asked him to show him the way to the street called Los Artes. In fact he had stopped an Italian workman. The man looked at him with curiosity and asked him if he could read. Marco nodded his head. 'Well, then,' the workman said, pointing to the street he was coming from, 'keep going, straight along, and read the names of the streets at every corner. You'll find yours eventually.' The boy thanked him and went down the street facing him. It was straight, very long but narrow, and on each side were low white houses which looked like cottages. It was full of people and carriages and big wagons which made a deafening noise. Here and there enormous banners in various colours hung down bearing announcements in large letters of steamship departures for towns with strange names. Along the way, looking to the right and the left, he kept seeing two other streets stretching as far as the eye could see, also flanked by low white houses and full of people and wagons, and they were crossed at the end by the straight line of the boundless American plain, like the horizon at sea. The town appeared limitless. It seemed to Marco that he could walk for days, for weeks, constantly seeing everywhere other streets like these and that all America must be covered with them. He looked closely at their names, strange name he had difficulty in reading. At each new street he felt his heart beat, thinking that it might be his. He looked at all the women with the expectation of encountering his mother, He saw one ahead of him who made his heart leap. He caught up with her and looked at her: she was a black woman. On he went, pressing ahead, He reached a corner, read the name and stood as though nailed to the spot. It was the street of Los Artes. He turned the corner and saw number 117; his cousin's shop was number 175. He hastened his steps and was almost running. At 171 he had to stop to get his breath. And he said to himself, 'Oh, Mother! Mother! It's really true I shall see you in a moment!' He ran forward and reached a small haberdasher's shop! That was the one. He went in. He saw a woman with grey hair and spectacles. 'What do you want, boy?' she asked him in Spanish. 'Isn't this', said the boy, speaking with difficulty, 'Francesco Merelli's shop?' 'Francesco Merelli is dead,' replied the woman in Italian. Marco felt as if he had received a blow to the chest. 'When did he die?' 'Oh, a while ago,' replied the woman, 'a few months ago. His business was doing badly and he moved away. They say he may have gone to Bahia Blanca, a long way from here. And he died soon after he got there. The shop is mine now.' Marco grew pale. Then he said quickly, 'Signor Merelli knew my mother, my mother was here as a servant to Senor Mequinez. He's the only one who could tell me where she is. I've come to America to look for my mother. Signor Merelli sent the letters to her. I must find my mother.' 'Poor boy,' replied the woman. 'I don't know. I can ask the boy in the yard. He knew the lad who ran errands for Signor Merelli. Perhaps he knows something.' She went to the back of the shop and called the boy, who came at once. 'Tell me,' the shopkeeper said to him, 'do you remember Signor Merelli's assistant sometimes took letters to a maidservant at the Casa di Figli del Paese?' 'Senor Mequinez's house,' the boy replied. 'Yes, senora, sometimes. At the end of Calle de los Artes.' 'Oh, thank you, senora!' cried Marco. 'Tell me the number. Do you not know it?' He turned to the boy. 'Come with me. Take me now. I still have some money.' He said this with such feeling that, without waiting for the woman to ask him, the boy said 'Let's go' and, moving quickly, led the way. Half running, without saying a word, they went right to the end of the very long street, down the path of a little white house and stopped in front of a handsome iron gate, from which a small courtyard could be seen, full of flowers in pots. Marco pulled the bell.

A young lady appeared. 'They used to,' the young lady said, speaking the Italian with a Spanish accent. 'Now we do, the Zeballos.' 'And-where have the Mequinez family gone?' asked Marco, his heart pounding. 'They have gone to Cordoba.' 'Cordoba!' Marco exclaimed. 'Where is Cordoba? And the servant they had? The lady, my mother. The woman servant was my mother! Di4 they take my mother too?' The young lady looked at him and said, '1 don't know. Perhaps my father will know. He knew them just when they left. Wait a moment.' She went off and returned soon with her father, a tall man with a grey beard. He looked hard for a moment at this appealing little Genoese seafarer with his fair hair and aquiline nose and, in bad Italian, asked him, 'Your mother is Genoese?' Marco replied that she was. 'Well then, the Genoese servant has gone with them. 1 know that for certain.' 'Where have they gone?' 'To a town called Cordoba.' The boy gave a sigh, then said resignedly, 'Then I'll go to Cordoba. ' 'Ah, pobre nino!' the man exclaimed, looking at him pityingly, 'Poor boy! It's hundreds of miles from here, Cordoba.' Marco went as pale as death and had to support himself with a hand on the railings. 'We'll see, we'll see,' went on the old man, moved to pity. He opened the door as he spoke. 'Come inside a moment. We'll just see if we can do something about it.' He sat down, offered Marco a seat, and made him tell his story He listened very attentively and remained awhile in thought. Then he said resolutely, 'You have no money, have you?' '1 still have. . . a little,' Marco replied. The man thought again, then sat at a desk, wrote a letter, sealed it, and holding it out to the boy said, 'Listen, italianito. Go with this letter to La Boca. It's a little town, half-Genoese, two hours along the road from here. Anyone can show you the way. Go there and look for the gentleman to whom this letter is addressed. Everybody knows him. Give him this letter. He will set you on your way tomorrow for the town of Rosario and recommend you to someone there who will work out how to send you on your journey to Cordoba, where you will find the Mequinez family and your mother. Meanwhile, take this.' And he put some pesos in Marco's hand. 'Go, and have courage. Here you have fellow-countrymen everywhere, you won't be abandoned. Adios.' The boy said 'Thank you' and could think of nothing else to say. He left with his bag and, taking leave of his little guide, set out slowly on the way to La Boca, very sad and bewildered, across the great, noisy city. Everything that happened to him from that moment until the evening of the next day remained confused and uncertain in his memory, like a feverish day-dream, so tired, worried and dejected was he. And at dusk on the following day, after he had slept during the night next to a dock-worker in a poor little room in a house in La Boca and spent nearly all the day sitting on a pile of girders, bewildered by the sight of thousands of ships, large boats and steamboats, he found himself in the stern of a big sailing-boat loaded with fruit, which was leaving for the town of Rosario, manned by three sturdy Genoese bronzed by the sun. Their voices and the much-loved dialect they spoke comforted his heart a little. They set out, and the voyage which lasted three days and four nights was a constant wonder to the young traveller. Three days and four nights sailing up that wonderful River Parana, in comparison with which our great River Po is only a little stream. The length of Italy multiplied by four would fall short of the length of its course. . the boat moved slowly against the flow of that enormous volume of water. They passed between long islands, the homes of snakes and jaguars, covered with orange trees and willows, like floating forests; and now they would enter narrow canals from which it seemed they could never emerge; and then they would move into vast expanses of water which had the appearance of great calm lakes. Then again they move between islands, along the intricate canals of an archipelago, through great masses of vegetation. A profound silence reigned. For long stretches the shores and vast, lonely waters gave the impression of an undiscovered river on which this insignificant barque was the first to venture. The further they went, the more this monstrous river sapped his spirit. He imagined that his mother was at its source and that to navigate it would take many years.

Twice a day he ate a little bread and salted meat with the boatmen, who, seeing that he was depressed, did not speak to him. At night he slept on deck. He would wake up suddenly from time to time, surprised by the clear light of the moon which painted white the great waters and distant banks. Then his heart tightened. Cordoba! He repeated the name - Cordoba -like the name of one of those mysterious towns of which he had heard in fables. He thought, my mother has passed by here, has seen these islands, these banks. Then they no longer seemed strange and lonely to him, these places on which his mother's eyes had rested. At night one of the boatmen would sing. This reminded him of the songs his mother sang as she lulled him to sleep when he was a little child. On the last night when he heard the singing, he sobbed. The boatman broke off. Then he called out, 'Cheer up, cheer up, lad! Come on! A Genoese crying because he's a long way from home? The Genoese go round the world proud and triumphant!' When he heard those words he roused himself. He recognized the true Genoese spirit. He proudly raised his head, striking the helm with his fist. 'Well then,' he said to himself, 'even if I have to go right round the world and travel for many years and walk hundreds of miles, I shall keep going until I find my mother. Even if I should be dying when I reach her and fall dead at her feet! So long as I see her once more! I must keep going!' He was in this mood when one cold and rosy dawn they reached a point opposite the town of Rosario, situated on the high bank of the Parana, where the flag-decked spars of a hundred ships from many countries were reflected in the waters. Soon after he landed, he went up to the town, his bag in his hand, to look for the Argentine gentleman for whom his protector in La Boca had given him a note of recommendation. Entering Rosario was like entering a town he already knew. There were those endless straight streets flanked by low white houses, crossed in all directions above the roofs by great clusters of telegraph- and telephone-lines looking like enormous spiders' webs, and a great racket of people, horses and carts. His head was spinning, he almost believed himself to be entering Buenos Aires to look for his cousin again. He wandered about for nearly an hour, turning corners, turning back again, always seeming to end up in the same street. By inquiring, he found his new protector's house. He pulled the bell. A big fair man with a gruff manner appeared at the door. He seemed to be a steward and, in a foreign accent, roughly asked Marco, 'What do you want?' The boy gave the name of the master of the house. 'The master', the steward said, 'left yesterday evening for Buenos Aires with the whole family.' Marco stood speechless. Then he stammered, 'But I . . . I know no one here! I'm alone.' And he held out the note. The steward took it, read it, then said gruffly, 'I don't know what to do about it. I'll give it to him in a month when he comes back.' 'But I'm alone! I need help!' Marco exclaimed entreatingly. 'Be off with you,' said the other. 'There's enough rabble from your country in Rosario already! Go away and do a bit of begging in Italy.' And he shut the gate in his face. The boy stood there as though turned to stone. Then slowly he picked his bag up again and left, with anguish in his heart, his mind in turmoil, suddenly assailed by a thousand anxious thoughts. What should he do? Where should he go? From Rosario to Cordoba was a day's journey by train. He had only a few pesos. Deduct what he would have to spend that day and he would be left with almost nothing. Where could he find the money to pay for the journey? He could work. But how? Whom should he ask for work? To ask for charity! Oh no, to be repelled, insulted and humiliated as he had been just now, no, never, never again - he would rather die! With this in mind, and seeing in front of him again the long street which faded away in the distance on the limitless plain, once more he felt his courage ebb. He threw his bag on to the pavement, sat there with his back against the wall and rested his head in his hands not crying but in an attitude of dejection. He was struck by the feet of passers-by. Carts filled the street with noise. Some boys stopped to look at him. Thus he remained for a while. He was startled by someone saying to him half in Italian, half in the Lombardy dialect, 'What's the matter, young fellow?' Raising his head at these words, he leapt to his feet, crying out in astonishment, 'You, here!' It was the old peasant from Lombardy he had made friends with on the voyage. The man's astonishment was no less than his. Marco did not give him time to ask questions but quickly explained his situation. 'So now I am here without money. I need to work. Find me work so that I

can earn a few pesos. I'll do anything, carry things, sweep the streets. I can run errands, work in the country as well. I'm content to live on black bread. But so I can leave soon, so that I can just find my mother, do me this favour - work, find me work for goodness' sake, because I can't go on!' 'Good lord!' said the peasant looking around and scratching his chin. 'What a story! Work. . . it's easily said. Let's see. Don't tell me we can't find eight pesos amongst so many fellow-countrymen!' The boy looked at him, comforted by a ray of hope. 'Come with me,' said the peasant. 'Where to?' asked the boy, picking up his bag again. 'Come with me.' The peasant started off. Marco followed him and they went a long way down the street together without speaking. The peasant stopped at the door of a tavern which had a star on its sign; and underneath it was written La Estrella de Italia. He looked inside and, turning to the boy, he said happily, 'We've arrived at a good time.' They went into a big room where there were several tables with a lot of men sitting round them, drinking and talking loudly. The old Lombard went up to the first table and, from the way he greeted the six customers sitting round it, you could see he had been in their company very recently. Their faces were flushed and they made their glasses ring, shouting and laughing. 'Friends,' said the Lombard without further ado, standing there and introducing Marco, 'here's a poor boy, a countryman of ours who's come alone from Genoa to Buenos Aires to look for his mother. At Buenos Aires they told him, "She's not here, she's at Cordoba." He came in a boat to Rosario, three days and four nights it took, with a note of recommendation. He handed it in, they were nasty to him. He hasn't got a centavo. He's here alone and he's in a desperate plight. He's a very brave boy. Now let's see. He has to find enough to pay for a ticket to Cordoba to find his mother. Are we going to leave him here like a stray dog?' 'Not likely, by God! Never let that be said of us!' They all shouted together, banging their fists on the table. 'A countryman of ours!' 'Come here, little 'un.' 'Immigrants, that's us!' 'See what a good little chap he is.' 'Let's see your money, friends.' 'Well done! Came alone! He's got guts!' 'Take a sip, countryman.' 'We'll send you to your mother, don't worry.' And one pinched his cheek, another slapped him on the back, a third relieved him of his bag. Other immigrants got up from nearby tables and came forward. The boy's story went round the tavern, and three Argentine customers came in from the next room. In less than ten minutes the Lombard peasant, who was holding out his hat, had twelve pesos in it. 'Did you notice', he said then, turning to the boy, 'how quickly things are done in America?' 'Drink,' someone else shouted to him, offering him a glass of wine. 'To your mother's health!' They all raised their glasses. Marco repeated, 'To my ' But a sob of joy choked him and he put the glass back on the table and threw his arms round the old man's neck. By daybreak the next morning he had already left for Cordoba, confident, laughing and full of happy expectations. But happiness does not last long when confronted by some of the sinister aspects of nature. The sky was grey and overcast; the almost empty train was travelling across an immense plain devoid of any sign of habitation. He found himself alone in a very long carriage which resembled those used in hospital trains. He looked to right and to left and saw only an endless plain sparsely covered by small, deformed trees with twisted branches and trunks in shapes he had never seen before, suggesting anguish and anger; a strange dark vegetation which gave the plain the appearance of an immense cemetery. He would doze off .for half an hour, then look again: it was always the same spectacle. The railway stations stood alone, like the homes of hermits, and when the train stopped not a voice was heard. He felt that he was alone in a lost train, abandoned in the middle of a desert. It seemed that every station must be the last before one entered the mysterious and frightening lands of savages. An icy breeze bit his face. When his family sent him off from Genoa at the end of April, they had not realized that in America he would find winter, and they had dressed him for summer. After a few hours he began to suffer from the cold and, with the cold, the fatigue of the last few days, so full of violent emotions and sleepless, troubled nights. He fell asleep, slept for a long time and woke up feeling stiff. He felt unwell. He

was now seized by a vague fear of falling ill and dying on the journey and being abandoned there in the middle of that desolate plain where his body would be torn to pieces by dogs and birds of prey, like the bodies of cows he saw from time to time near the track and from which he turned his eyes with a shudder. Unwell and restless as he was, immersed in nature's gloomy silence, his imagination was stimulated and became morbid. Could he really be sure of finding his mother at Cordoba? What if she wasn't there? What if that man in Calle de los Artes had been mistaken? What if she were dead? With these thoughts, he fell asleep again. He dreamt that he was in Cordoba at night, and from all the doors and windows he heard people shouting 'She isn't here! She isn't here! She isn't here!' He woke up with a start, terrified, and at the end of the carriage saw three bearded men wrapped in shawls of various colours; they were looking at him and talking to one another in low voices. There flashed into his mind the suspicion that they were assassins and wanted to kill him so as to steal his bag. To his cold and sickness, fear was added. His fevered imagination distorted the three men. They kept looking at him. One of them moved towards him. Then Marco lost his reason and, running towards him with his arms wide open, he shouted. 'I have nothing. I'm a poor boy. I've come from Italy, I'm going to look for my mother, I'm alone. Don't hurt me!' The men understood immediately and took pity on him. They caressed him and calmed him, saying many words to him that he did not understand, and seeing that his teeth were chattering with cold they put one of their shawls round him and made him sit down again so that he would sleep. And when it was growing dark, he fell asleep again. By the time they woke him up, he was at Cordoba. Ah, what a deep breath he drew and with what energy he flung himself out of the carriage! He asked a railwayman where the house of Senor Mequinez the engineer was. The man told him the name of a church - the house was next door to the church - and the boy hastened away. It was night-time. He entered the town. It seemed to him that he was entering Rosario once more when he saw those straight streets of little white houses, crossed by other long, straight streets. But there were few people about and by the light of the occasional street lamp he saw faces strange to him, faces of an unusual colour, between black and green. And raising his eyes from time to time, he saw churches of strange design standing out black and huge against the heavens. The town was sombre and silent, but to Marco, after crossing that immense desert, it seem cheerful. He asked a priest and soon found the church and the house. He pulled the bell with a trembling hand and pressed his other hand to his chest in order to contain the beating of his heart. An old woman with a lamp in her hand came to open the door. Marco could not speak at first. 'Who do you want?' she asked, speaking in Spanish. 'Senor Mequinez, the engineer,' said Marco. The old woman crossed her arms on her breast and shaking her head she said, 'You too have a grudge against Senor Mequinez! It seems to me time to put a stop to it. They have been bothering us for three months now. Putting it in the papers wasn't enough. A notice will have to be put on the corner of the house that Senor Mequinez has gone to stay in Tucuman!' The boy made a gesture of despair. Then he raged. 'It's a curse, then. I shall have to die in the street without finding my mother! I'm going mad, I'm killing myself! Oh, God! What's that place called? Where is it? How far is it?' 'Oh, poor boy,' the old woman replied, moved to pity, 'no distance at all! It'll be four hundred or five hundred miles, at least.' The boy covered his face with his hands. Then he demanded, with a sob, 'So, now. .. what shall I do?' 'What can I say, poor lad?' replied the woman. 'I don't know.' But suddenly an idea struck her and she added hastily, 'Listen, I've thought of something. This is what you can do. Turn to the right along the road and behind the third gate you'll see a courtyard. It's a capataz, a merchant who's leaving tomorrow for Tucuman with his carretas and oxen. Go and see if he will take you, say you will work for him. Perhaps he will give you a place on a cart. Go straight away.' The boy seized his bag, offered his thanks as he hurried off, and in two minutes found himself in a large courtyard lit by lanterns where some men were working, loading sacks of wheat into enormous carts like circus caravans with round roofs and very big wheels. A tall man with a large moustache, wrapped in a kind of black and white check cloak and wearing high boots, was directing the work. Marco approached him and timidly made his request, saying that he had come from Italy and was going to look for his mother.

The capataz, which means chief (chief driver of the convoy of carts), looked him up and down from top to toe and replied briefly, 'There isn't a place.' 'I've got four pesos,' pleaded the boy. 'I'll give you my four pesos. I'll work on the way. I'll get the water and fodder for the animals and do all the jobs. A bit of bread is enough for me. Just make a little room for me, senor!' The capataz turned to look at him and said, with rather better grace, 'There isn't a place...' and then, '... we're not going to Tucuman, we're going to another town, Santiago del Estero. When we come to a certain point we should have to leave you and then you would have a long way to walk.' 'Oh, I could do twice that!' Marco exclaimed. 'I'll walk, don't worry. I'll get there somehow. Give me a bit of room, senor, please don't leave me here alone!' 'The journey takes twenty days!' 'That doesn't matter.' 'It's a hard journey!' 'I can stand it.' 'You'll have to travel on your own!' 'I'm not afraid of anything. So long as I find my mother. Have pity, senor!' The capataz shone a lantern on his face and looked at him. Then he said, 'All right.' Marco kissed his hand. 'Tonight you'll sleep in a cart,' the capataz added as he left him. 'I'll wake you up tomorrow morning at four o'clock. Buenas noches.' At four o'clock in the morning by the light of the stars the long line of carts with a great clamour began to move. Each cart was drawn by six oxen and followed by a large number of spare animals. Marco was awakened and put on the sacks inside one of the carts, where he immediately fell sound asleep again. When he woke up, the convoy had stopped at a solitary spot in the sun, and all the men, the peones, were sitting in a circle round a quarter of veal which was being roasted in the open air. It was impaled by a kind of large sword which was stuck in the ground near a big fire played on by the wind. They ate together, they slept, they set off again, and thus the journey proceeded, with the regularity of a route march. Every morning they started on their way at five o'clock, stopped at nine, set off again at five o'clock in the afternoon, and stopped again at ten. The peones rode on horseback and urged on the oxen with long canes. The boy lit the fire for the roast, fed the animals, cleaned the lanterns and brought the drinking water. He had a blurred impression of the country they passed through: great woods of small brown trees, villages of a few scattered houses, redfronted and fortified; vast areas, perhaps the ancient beds of great salt lakes whitened with salt as far as the eyes could see, and always and everywhere the plain, deserted and silent. Very occasionally they met travellers on horseback followed by herds of free-running horses galloping by like a whirlwind. The days were all alike, as they had been at sea - monotonous, endless. But the weather was fine. However, the peones were more demanding every day, as if the boy were their bound servant. Some of them threatened him and treated him brutally, all of them made him work without giving him a thought. They made him carry enormous loads of forage, they ordered him to bring water from far off. And aching as he was with tiredness, constantly disturbed by the violent jolting of the cart and the deafening creaking of the wheels and wooden axles, he could not even sleep at night. In addition, the wind had got up and a fine, reddish, greasy dust which covered everything penetrated the cart, got under his clothes, into his eyes and mouth and affected his sight and breathing. It was continuous, overwhelming, unbearable. Exhausted by his exertions and lack of sleep, now ragged and dirty, shouted at and abused from morning till night, the poor boy was more discouraged every day and would have lost heart completely had not the capataz occasionally said a few kind words to him. Often, unseen, in a corner of the cart he wept, his face in the bag which now contained only rags. Every morning he got up weaker and more discouraged and, looking at the country and seeing always that limitless, implacable plain like an ocean of land, he would say to himself, 'Oh, 1 shall not live till tonight! I shall die today on the road!' The work increased, the ill-treatment got worse. One morning, because he was late bringing the water, and because the capataz was not about, one of the men struck him. Then they started to do this regularly. When they gave him an order they would hit him and say, 'Put that in your bag, tramp! Take that to your mother!' His heart was breaking; he became ill. For three days he stayed III the cart with a cover over him, shaking with fever, seeing no on(' except the capataz who came to give him something to drink and to feel his pulse. Then he believed himself lost and in despair invoked his mother calling her a hundred times by

name. 'Oh, Mother! My mother! Help me! Come to me, for 1 am dying! Oh, my poor mother, I shall never see you again! My poor mother, you will find me dead by the roadside!' And he put his hands together on his breast and prayed. Then his condition improved, thanks to the ministrations of the capataz, and he got better. But with his recovery came the most terrible day of the journey, the day he was to be left alone. They had been on the journey for more than two weeks. When they reached the place where the road to Tucuman branches off from the road to Santiago del Estero, the capataz told him they must separate. He gave him directions for the way, fastened the boy's bags on his back in such a manner that it would not give him trouble when walking, and cutting things short as though afraid of getting emotional, he said farewell. Marco scarcely had time to kiss his arm. It seemed that the other men too, who had ill-treated him so badly, felt some pity when they saw him left alone like that and they waved goodbye to him as they moved off. He waved back and stood watching the convoy until it was lost in the red dust of the countryside and then, with a heavy heart, set off on his way. Nevertheless, from beginning to end one thing comforted him a little. After all those days travelling across that endless, montonous plain he saw in front of him a range of very high mountains, blue with white peaks, which reminded him of the Alps and gave him a sense of returning to his own country. These were the Andes, the backbone of the American continent, the southern half of the immense chain which extends from the Tierra del Fuego to the icy seas of the Arctic, through one hundred and ten degrees of latitude. He was also comforted by his awareness that the air was getting warmer all the time: this was because, going north again, he was approaching the tropics. He found small groups of houses, long distances apart, with a meagre little shop where he would buy something to eat. He met men on horseback. From time to time he saw women and children squatting on the ground, motionless and grave, their faces strange to him, the colour of earth, with slanting eyes and prominent cheekbones. They stared at him and their eyes followed him as they turned their heads slowly like automatons. They were Indians. The first day he walked as long as his strength lasted, and slept under a tree. The second day he walked very much less and with less will. His shoes were split, his feet torn and his stomach was weakened by bad food. Towards evening he began to be afraid. In Italy he had heard that in these countries there were snakes: he thought he could hear them moving. He stopped, he started to run, shivers ran up and down his spine. Sometimes he felt very sorry for himself and quietly wept as he walked along. Then he would think, Oh, how my mother would suffer if she knew how afraid I am! And with this thought his courage returned. Then, to take his mind off his fears, he would think about all sorts of things concerning her. He would recall what she said when she left Genoa, and the way she used to arrange the covers under his chin when he was in bed, and how sometimes when he was small she would take him in her arms and say 'Stay here with me awhile,' and thus she would remain for a long time with her head next to his, thinking. And he said to himself, 'Shall I see you again one day, dear Mother? Shall I reach the end of my journey, Mother?' He kept on walking, amongst strange trees and through vast plantations of sugar-cane, over the limitless prairie. And always those great blue mountains were ahead of him, thrusting their high peaks into the dear sky. Four days, five, a week went by. His strength was failing rapidly, his feet were bleeding. At last one evening at sunset he was told, 'Tucuman is five miles from here.' He gave a shout of joy and hastened his steps as if he had suddenly recovered all his lost strength. It was a short-lived illusion. His strength suddenly left him and he fell down exhausted at the edge of a ditch. But his heart beat contentedly. The sky, full of brightly shining stars, had never seemed so beautiful. He contemplated them as he lay down to sleep on the grass and thought that perhaps at the same moment his mother too was watching them. And he said, 'Oh, my mother, where are you? What are you doing at this moment? Are you thinking of your son? Are you thinking of your Marco who is so near to you?' Poor Marco, if he had been able to see the condition his mother was in at that moment he would have made a superhuman effort to keep going and reach her a few hours earlier. She was lying ill in bed in a room on the ground floor of a gentleman's house in which the Mequinez family were living. They had grown deeply attached to her and were giving her all the help they could. The poor woman was already becoming unwell when Senor Mequinez, the engineer, suddenly had to leave Buenos Aires, and she had not improved in the good air of Cordoba. Then, since she had received no further replies to her letters from her husband or her cousin, her strong presentiment of some misfortune, the constant anxiety of her life, the uncertainty as to whether they would leave or stay, and the expectation every day of bad news, these things had made her very much worse. Recently a serious illness, a rupture, had been diagnosed. For a fortnight

she had not got out of bed. An operation was necessary to save her life. At the very moment Marco was invoking her, the master and mistress of the house were at her bedside trying very gently to persuade her to allow herself to be operated on and she was tearfully persisting in her refusal. A fine doctor from Tucuman had already come, in vain, the previous week. 'No, dear master and mistress,' she was saying, 'it's no use. I haven't the strength to resist any more. I would die under the surgeon's knife. It is better that I let myself die like this. I have nothing to live for now. Everything is finished for me. It is better that I die without knowing what has happened to my family.' Her employers told her that was not so and she should take heart, that she might receive a reply to the last letters she had sent directly to Genoa and that she should allow herself to be operated on - she should do this for her children. But the thought of her children only added greater anguish to the profound hopelessness which had laid her low for a long time. At those words she broke into tears. 'Oh, my children! My children!' she cried, wringing her hands. 'Perhaps they are no more. Better that I should die too. I thank you, good friends, I thank you with all my heart. But it is better that I should die. I would not get well enough even with the operation, I am sure. Thank you for so much care, good friends. There is no point in the doctor coming back the day after tomorrow. I want to die here. It is my fate that I should die here. I have made up my mind.' Again they tried to console her, and repeated, 'No, do not say that.' They took her hand and pleaded with her. But she closed her eyes now, exhausted, and fell into a slumber. She appeared to be dead. Her employers stayed there awhile by the faint light of a little lamp to look with great pity upon that wonderful mother who, to save her family, had come to die six thousand miles from her homeland, to die after suffering so much, poor woman, so honest, so good, so unfortunate. Early in the morning of the next day, with his bag on his back, bent and limping but full of determination, Marco entered the town of Tucuman, one of the newest and most flourishing towns of the Argentine Republic. It seemed to him that he was seeing Cordoba, Rosario and Buenos Aires all over again: there were the same long, straight streets and low white houses; but there was fresh rich vegetation everywhere, scented air, wonderful light and a high, clear sky such as he had never seen, even in Italy. Walking through the streets, he experienced once more the feverish excitement which had seized him in Buenos Aires. He looked at the windows and doors of every house; he looked at all the women he passed in anxious anticipation of meeting his mother. He would have liked to question everybody, but he did not dare to stop anyone. From their doorways everyone turned to look at the poor boy, tattered and dusty, whose appearance showed that he had travelled far. For his part he scanned people's faces, looking for one which would give him the confidence to ask the fateful question, when his eyes fell on a shop-sign bearing an Italian name. In the shop was a man with spectacles, and two women. Slowly he went to the door, plucked up his courage, and said, 'Can you tell me, senor, where the Mequinez family lives?' 'Senor Mequinez, the engineer?' the shopkeeper asked in turn. 'Senor Mequinez, the engineer,' the boy replied in a weak voice. 'The Mequinez family', the shopkeeper said, 'is not in Tucuman.' A cry of desperate pain as from someone stabbed came like all echo to those words. The shopkeeper and the women leapt up, neighbours rushed in. 'What is it? What's the matter, my boy?' the shopkeeper said, pulling him into the shop and making him sit down. 'There's no need to lose heart, goodness me! The Mequim family are not here, but they're not far away - just a few hours from Tucuman!' 'Where? Where?' cried Marco, jumping up as though restored to life. 'About fifteen miles from here,' went on the man, 'on the bank.. III the Saladillo at a place where they're building a big sugar refinery. In a group of houses, there's Senor Mequinez's house. Everybody knows him, you'll get there in a few hours.' 'I was there a month ago,' said a boy, who had come running up when he heard the cry. Marco looked at him wide-eyed, and growing pale he quickly asked him, 'Did you see Senor Mequinez's servant, the Italian woman?' 'The jenovesa? Yes, I saw her.' Marco cried out, half in laughter, half weeping. Then, with a violent resolve, he said, 'Which is the way, quick, the way? I'm going now. Show me the way!' 'But it's a day's walk,' they all told him. 'You're tired, you must rest, you can go tomorrow morning.' 'Impossible! Impossible!' Marco replied. 'Tell me where it is, I'm not waiting a minute longer. I'm going now, even if I die on the way!' Seeing that he was not to be persuaded, they opposed him no longer. 'God be with you,' they said. 'Be careful on the road through the forest. May you have a good journey, italianito.'

A man went with him to the edge of the town, pointed the way, gave him advice and waited awhile when the boy set off. In a few minutes, limping along with his bag on his back, he disappeared behind the dense foliage of the trees which lined the way. That night was terrible for the poor invalid. She suffered dreadful pains that rung from her cries which threatened to burst a blood vessel and gave her moments of delirium. The women who were nursing her lost their heads. The mistress would come rushing in, in alarm. They all began to fear that even if she decided to allow herself to be operated on the doctor, who was due to come next morning, would arrive too late. In the moments when she was not delirious, however, they saw that her most terrible suffering came not from physical pain but from the thought of her family far away. Pale as death and exhausted, her face transformed, she thrust her hands into her hair in a gesture of despair which came from her soul and cried, 'Oh God! Oh God! To die so far away, to die without seeing them again! My poor boys, without a mother, my poor children, my poor family! My poor Marco who is still so small, so noble, so good and loving! You don't know what kind of a boy he was! Senora, if you only knew! I couldn't get away from his embrace when I left, he wept pitifully, he wept so. It seemed as if he knew he would never see his mother again, my poor baby! I thought my heart would break. Ah, if I had died then, died while he was saying goodbye, if I had been struck dead! Without a mother, poor baby, who loved me so much, who needed me so much, with no mother, living in poverty he'll have to go begging - Marco, my Marco, holding out his hand, starving! Oh, eternal God, no! I don't want to die! The doctor! Call him at once! Let him come, and cut me, cut open my breast, drive me mad, but save my life! I want to get better, I want to go, to hurry, tomorrow, straight away! The doctor! Help me! Help!' The women held her hands, calmed her, prayed, and gradually brought her back to herself. They spoke to her of God and of hope. Then she relapsed into a mortal depression, and wept with her hands in her grey hair. She moaned like a little girl, she uttered a prolonged wail and murmured from time to time, 'Oh, my Genoa! My home! That great ocean!... Oh, my Marco, my poor Marco! Where will he be now, my poor child?' It was midnight. Her poor Marco had spent many hours on the edge' of a ditch, exhausted, and was now walking through a vast forest of gigantic trees, monsters of vegetation with enormous trunks like the pillars of a cathedral, whose prodigious foliage, silvered by the moon, was entwined at an astonishing height. Dimly in that half light he saw countless trunks of all shapes, upright, sloping, twisted, entangled, in strange attitudes of menace and conflict. Some were overthrown like towers that had fallen still entire, and were covered with a thick tangle of vegetation like furious insurgents who disputed every inch of it; others stood together in enormous cluster, straight and close like bundles of giant lances whose points touche',1 the clouds - a superb grandeur, a prodigious confusion of colossal shapes, the most majestically impressive spectacle the world of vegetation had ever put before him. There were moments when he was overwhelmed. But suddenly his heart and mind would turn again to his mother. He was exhausted, his feet were bleeding, and he was alone in the middle c" that threatening forest where only at long intervals did he see small human dwellings, which at the foot of those trees looked like ants nests, and a few buffalo sleeping along the way. He was exhausted but unaware of his fatigue, he was alone and not afraid. The grandeur of the forest enlarged his spirit, and nearness of his mother gave him the strength and courage of a man, his memories of the see, of setbacks, of pain suffered and overcome, of efforts made, of the inflexible determination he had shown, made him hold his head high. All his strong and noble Genoese blood flowed back into his heart in an eager wave of pride and boldness. And something new happened to him: until now the picture of his mother which he carried in his mind was somewhat darkened and faded by the two years of separation; now the picture was becoming clear. He saw her face completely and distinctly again as he had not seen it for a long time. He saw it near, animated and speaking. He saw again the most fleeting movements of her eyes and lips, all her postures, all her gestures, all the shadows of her thoughts, and impelled by those potent memories he hastened his steps. A new love, an indescribable tenderness was growing, growing in his heart, causing gentle, quiet tears to run down his face, and walking forward in the darkness he spoke to her, he said the words he would soon murmur in her ear: 'I'm here, Mother, here 1 am and 1 shall never leave you again. We shall go home together and 1 shall always be beside you on the ship, close to you, and no one will ever take me away from you again, no one, ever again, so long as I live.' Meanwhile he did not notice that the silver light of the moon on the tops of the great trees was giving way to the delicate whiteness of dawn.

At eight o'clock that morning the doctor from Tucuman, a young Argentinian, accompanied by an assistant, was already at the invalid's bedside to try for the last time to persuade her to be operated on. Senor Mequinez, the engineer, and his wife were there with him, repeating their urgent pleas. But it was all to no avail. Feeling drained of strength, the woman no longer had any faith in the operation. She was convinced she would die during it or survive only a few hours, after having suffered in vain pains more dreadful than those which would kill her in the normal course of events. The doctor made a point of saying again, 'But the operation is safe, your recovery is certain, provided you have a little courage! And your death is equally certain if you refuse!' They were wasted words. 'No,' she replied in a weak voice. 'I still have the courage to meet death, but not to suffer uselessly. Thank you, doctor. It was meant to be. Let me die in peace.' Discouraged, the doctor was silent. No one spoke again. The woman turned to look at her mistress and in a fading voice made her last requests. 'Dear senora,' she said, sobbing, and with a great effort, 'will you send these few coins and my poor things to my family . .. through the consul. I hope they're all still alive. My heart reassures me in these last moments. Will you do me the favour of writing. .. that I was always thinking about them, I was always working for them. . . for my children. . . and that my only sorrow was not to see them again. . . but that I died bravely. . . resigned. . . blessing them. And that 1 commit my youngest, my poor Marco, who was in my heart up to my last moment, to the care of my husband and my elder son.' And with a sudden surge of feeling she put her hands together and cried, 'My Marco! My baby! My life!' But looking round with eyes full of tears, she saw that the mistress was no longer there: she had been summoned quietly away. She looked for the master: he had disappeared. Only the two nurses and the assistant remained. From the next room came the sound of quick footsteps and the murmur of subdued voices speaking quickly, and restrained exclamations. The invalid stared at the door with half closed eyes, waiting. After a few minutes she saw the doctor appear, with a strange look on his face; then the mistress and the master, and they too wore a different expression. All three looked at her strangely and exchanged a few words in hushed voices. She thought the doctor said to her mistress, 'Better straight away.' The sick woman did not understand. 'Josefa,' the mistress said, her voice trembling, '1 have some good news for you. Prepare your heart for good news.' The woman looked at her closely. 'News', the lady continued with growing excitement, 'that will give you great joy.' The sick woman opened her eyes wide. 'Be ready', the mistress went on, 'to see someone. . . you love very much.' The woman quickly raised her head and, her eyes flashing, looked quickly now at the lady, now at the door. 'Someone', the lady added, growing pale, 'who has just arrived ... unexpectedly.' 'Who is it?' cried the woman in a strange choking voice like that of someone terrified. A moment later she gave a piercing cry, sat "I' quickly and remained motionless and wide-eyed, her hands at her temples, as though confronting a ghostly apparition. Marco, ragged and dusty, was standing in the doorway, supported by the doctor's arm. His mother shrieked three times. 'God! God! My God!' Marco rushed forward, she held out her thin arms and, grasping him to her breast with the strength of a tigress, burst into violent laughter broken by deep, tearless sobs which made her fall back breathless on the pillow. But she recovered immediately and cried out, delirious with joy, as she covered his head with kisses, 'How have you got here? Why? Is it you? How you have grown! Who brought you? Are you alone? You're not ill? Is it you, Marco? It isn't a dream? My God! Speak to me!' Then, in a sudden change of tone, 'No! Hush! Wait!' And turning to the doctor she said suddenly, 'Quickly, now, doctor. 1 want to get better. I'm ready. Not a moment to lose. Take Marco away so that he doesn't hear. Marco, my Marco, it's nothing. You will agree. Another kiss. Go. Here I am, doctor.' Marco was led away. The master and mistress and the women quickly left. There remained the surgeon and his assistant, who closed the door. Senor Mequinez tried to lead Marco to a room some distance away, but it was impossible, he seemed nailed to the floor. 'What is it?' he asked. 'What is the matter with my mother? What are they doing to her?' Senor Mequinez said quietly, trying all the time to lead him away. 'It's this. Listen. 1 shall tell you now. Your mother is ill, she must have a little operation. I shall explain it all to you. Come with me.'

'No,' Marco replied, refusing to move, 'I want to stay here. Explain it to me here.' Talking all the time, the engineer drew him away. The boy began to be afraid, and to tremble. Suddenly a piercing cry, like the cry of one mortally wounded, rang through the house. The boy responded with a cry of despair. 'My mother has died!' The doctor appeared at the door and said, 'Your mother is saved.' Marco looked at him for a moment then threw himself at his feet, sobbing, 'Thank you, doctor!' But the doctor bade him rise, saying, 'Get up!... It is you, a heroic son, who saved your mother.'

Summer
Wednesday, 24th Marco the Genoese is the last but one of the young heroes whose acquaintance we shall make this year: there remains just one, for the month of June. There are only two more monthly examinations, twenty-six school-days, six Thursdays and five Sundays. There is already an end-of-term atmosphere. The trees in the garden are leafy and in bloom and cast a welcome shadow over the physical-training apparatus. The scholars are already dressed for summer. It is nice now to see the children coming out of school, with everything changed from recent months. Shoulder-length hair has been cut back: all heads are short-cropped. You see bare arms and open necks, little straw hats of all shapes with ribbons hanging right down the back, shirts and ties of all colours. All the smallest wear something in red or blue, a lapel, a hem, a little tassel, some brightly coloured item even if it is Mother's, so long as it cuts a dash - even the poorest. Many come to school bareheaded as if they have just run out of the house. Some are wearing their white gym clothes. There's a boy in Signorina Delcati's class who is red from top to toe like a boiled lobster. Some are dressed in sailor-suits. But the nicest is the little bricklayer who now wears a big straw hat which makes him look like half a candle with a lampshade, and It makes us laugh to see him put on his hare-face under it Coretti too has discarded his cat's skin cap and is wearing all old travelling cap in grey silk. Votini has a kind of garment ill the Scottish style, very dashing. Crossi reveals a bare chest Precossi has on a blacksmith's blue shirt that is much too big. And Garoffi? Now that he has had to leave off the big cloak, which concealed his commerce, all the pockets swollen with every kind of second-hand junk and with lottery lists peeping out are clearly revealed. Now you can see what everyone has with him: fans made from half a newspaper, pea-shooters cut from reeds, arrows to shoot at birds, leaves, May-bugs which emerge fro II I pockets and crawl very slowly up jackets. Many of the small ones take little bunches of flowers to the mistresses. The mistresses too are all dressed for summer in cheerful colours, except for the little nun who is always in black, and the mistress who still has her red feather and a bow of red ribbons at her neck, all crumpled by the little hands of her pupils, who keep her laughing and running about all the time. It is the season of cherries and butterflies, of music in the byways, and of country walks. A lot of boys from Standard 4 already go off to bathe in the River Po. Everybody's heart is now set on the holidays, every day they impatient and happier than the day before. But it saddens me to see Garrone in mourning and my poor teacher from Standard 1 becoming thinner and paler and coughing more all the time. She walks bent now and gives me such a sad greeting.

Poetry
Friday, 26th You are beginning to appreciate the poetry of school, Enrico; but at present you see school only from the inside. You will find it much more inspiring and more poetic thirty years from now when you take your children there and see it from the outside, as I see it. Waiting for the end of school I walk through the silent streets around the building and listen at the shuttered windows on the ground floor. From one window I hear the voice of a mistress who is saying, 'Oh, what a poor letter t! It won't do, my boy! What would your father say about it?' From the next window comes the strong voice of a master saying slowly, 'I buy fifty metres of cloth at fifty-four lire a metre. . .

sell them again. . . . ' Further along is the little mistress with the red feather who is reading out loud: 'Allora Pietro Micca con la miccia accesa. . . .' A noise like the twittering of a hundred birds comes from the next class, which means that the teacher has left the room for a moment. I move on and when I turn the corner I hear a pupil crying and the voice of the mistress reproving him and comforting him. From other windows come lines of verse, names of good and great men, fragments of sentences which counsel virtue, patriotism, courage. Then follow moments of silence during which you might say that the building is empty, that it does not seem possible for there to be seven hundred boys in it. Then you hear noisy outbursts of hilarity provoked by the joke of a good humoured teacher. . . . And passers-by pause for a moment to listen; they all turn to look affectionately at that beneficent building, so full of youth and hope. Suddenly a dull rumble is heard, a banging of books and satchels, the shuffling of feet, a buzz spreads from room to room and from bottom to top like that which follows the unexpected spreading of good news: the caretaker is going round to announce home-time. With that noise men and women, girls and youths, converge on the door from various points to wait for their sons, brothers and grandchildren. Meanwhile little boys dash out from the class-rooms as if ejected into the hall to get their little coats and hats, making a confused heap of them on the floor, and scrambling and chattering round it until the caretaker drives them back one by one. At last they come out, in long lines, stamping their feet. Then comes the shower of questions from all the parents and relations. 'Did you know the lesson? How many marks did he give you for the exercise? What have you got for tomorrow? When is the monthly examination?' Even the poor mothers who cannot read open the exercise books, look at the sums and ask what the mark is. 'Only eight?' 'Ten with credit?' 'Nine for class-work?' They worry and rejoice, question the teachers and talk about syllabuses and examinations. How marvellous all this is, how fine, and how well it augurs for mankind! Father

The deaf and dumb girl

Sunday, 28th I could not finish the month of May better than with an account of this morning's visit. Hearing a loud ring at, the door we all ran to answer it. I heard my father saying in astonishment, 'You here, Giorgio?' It was Giorgio who was our gardener at Chieri and whose family is now at Condove. He had just arrived from Genoa, where he had disembarked the previous day on his return from Greece after working there for three years on the railways. He had a big bundle in his arms. He looks a bit older but still has a ruddy complexion and he is still cheerful. My father wanted him to come in but he said he would not, and looking serious asked immediately, 'How is my family? How is Gigia?' 'She was very well a few days ago,' my mother replied. Giorgio gave a sigh of relief. 'Oh, the Lord be praised! I hadn't the courage to go to the Deaf and Dumb School without first having news of her. I'll leave my bundle here and go to pick her up. It's three years since I've seen my poor little girl! For three years I've seen nothing of my family!' 'Go with him,' my father said to me. 'Just one other thing, if I may,' said the gardener from the landing. My father interrupted him. 'And how are finances?' 'Fine,' he replied, 'thank goodness. I've brought a bit of money back. But I wanted to ask, how is the education of my little dumb girl going? Can you give me an idea? When I left her she was like a poor little animal, poor little creature. I didn't used to have much faith in these institutes. Has she learnt to make the signs? My wife used to write good reports she is learning to speak, she is making progress. But I said, what use is it if she learns to talk and I can't make the signs? I low shall we understand one another, poor little thing? It's .111 right for them, they can understand one another, but unfortunate for anyone else. How is she getting on, then? How is she getting on?' My father smiled and replied, 'I am not going to tell you anything. You will see for yourself. You go, go. I'm not taking a minute more of your time.' We left. The institute is quite near. Striding out along the way the gardener talked to me and became sad. 'Ah, my poor Gigia! To be born with that misfortune! To think that I have never heard her call me

Father, that she has never heard me call her my little girl, that she has never in her whole life said or heard one word! Fortunately there was a charitable man who met the cost of the institute. But... she could not go before she was eight years old. She's been away from home for three years. She's getting on for eleven now. Has she grown, just tell me, has she grown? Has she a nice nature?' 'You'll see in a moment, you'll see,' I replied, walking more quickly 'But where is this institute?' he asked. 'My wife took her there, I had already left. I should think it must be near here.' We arrived at that very moment. We went straight into the visitors' room. An attendant came up to us. 'I am the father of Gigia Voggi,' the gardener said. 'Let me see my daughter straight away.' 'I'm off duty,' the attendant replied. 'I'll go and tell the mistress.' And off he went. The gardener could neither speak nor stand still now; he looked at the pictures on the walls without seeing them. The door opened. A mistress dressed in black came in holding a girl by the hand. Father and daughter looked at one another for a moment and then with a cry flung themselves into one another's arms. The girl was dressed in red and white stripes with a white smock. She was taller than 1. She was crying and held her father tight with both her arms round his neck. Her father freed himself and looked at her from head to toe, with tears in his eyes and breathing hard as if he had just run a long race. 'Oh, how she's grown!' he exclaimed. 'How bonny she's become! Oh, my dear, my poor Gigia! My poor little dumb one! Are you her teacher, signora? Just tell her to make her signs for me, perhaps I'll understand something, and tht"1I learn bit by bit. Tell her to make me understand something with her signs.' The mistress smiled and said to the girl in a quiet voice 'Who is this man who has come to see you?' In a loud voice, strange and unmodulated, like that of a savage who is speaking our language for the first time, but with clear pronunciation, and smiling, the girl replied, 'He is my father.' The gardener took a step back and cried out like a madman, 'She speaks! Is it possible? Is it possible? Does she speak? Do you speak, my baby, do you speak? Just tell me, do you speak?' Once again he embraced her, and kissed her face three times. 'But don't they speak with signs, signorina, don't they do it with their fingers like this? So what is this?' 'No, Signor Voggi,' the mistress replied, 'it isn't done with signs. That was the old method. Here we teach the new method, the oral method. Didn't you know?' 'I knew nothing,' the gardener replied in amazement. 'It's three years that I've been away. Oh, they will have written to me about it and I didn't understand. I'm a blockhead, I am. Oh, my little girl, do you understand me then? Can you hear what I say to you?' 'But no, my friend,' the mistress said, 'she can't hear your voice, because she is deaf. She understands from the movements of your mouth what words you are saying, that's how it is. But she can't hear your words or those she says to you. She pronounces them because we have taught her, letter by letter, how she must shape her lips and move her tongue and what effort she must make with her chest and throat to project her voice.' The gardener did not understand and stood open-mouthed. He had not yet taken it in. 'Tell me, Gigia,' he asked his daughter, speaking in her ear, 'are you pleased that your father has come back?' He looked up and waited for a reply. The girl gazed at him thoughtfully and said nothing. Her father looked anxious. The mistress laughed. Then she said, 'My friend, she is not replying to you because she did not see the movements of your lips. You spoke in her ear! Repeat the question face to face.' Looking her full in the face, her father repeated, 'Are you pleased that your father has come back? That he is not going away again?' The girl had watched his lips closely and even tried to look into his mouth. She replied artlessly , 'Yes, I am pleased that you have come back and are not go-ing a-way, e-ver a-gain.' Impetuously her father embraced her and then quickly, to make doubly sure, he showered her with questions. 'What is your mother called?' 'An-tonia.' 'What is your sister called?' A-de-Iaide.'

'What is this school called?' 'The Deaf and Dumb.' 'What is two times ten?' 'Twenty.' When we were thinking that he would laugh with happiness, he suddenly began to cry. But even that was happiness. 'Never mind,' the mistress said to him, 'you have cause to rejoice, not to cry. Look, you are making your daughter cry too. Are you pleased then?' The gardener took the mistress's hand and kissed it two or three times, saying, 'Thank you, thank you, a hundred times thank you, a thousand thanks, my dear teacher! And forgive me for not knowing what else to say!' But she not only speaks,' the mistress told him, 'your daughter can write. She can do sums. She knows the names of all the everyday things. She knows a little history and geography. She is in the normal class now. When she has been through the other two classes she will know a great deal, a great deal more. When she leaves here she will be able to take a job. We already have deaf and dumb people in shop, serving customers, and they manage their affairs like other people.' Once more the gardener was astonished. It seemed as if these thoughts confused him again. He looked at his little daughter and scratched his head. His face demanded another explanation. So the mistress turned to the attendant and said, 'Bring me a child from the preparatory class.' The attendant returned soon with a deaf and dumb girl eight or nine years old, who had entered the institute a few days earlier. 'This', said the mistress, 'is one of those we are teaching the first principles. This is how it is done. I want to have her say e. Watch.' The mistress opened her mouth as you open it to say the vowel e and gave a sign to the little girl that she should open her mouth in the same way. The little girl obeyed. Then the mistress indicated to her that she should project her voice. She projected her voice, but instead of e, she pronounced an o. 'No,' said the mistress 'that isn't it.' She took the child's hands, put one, open on her throat, the other on her chest and repeated "e'. Feeling with her hands the movement of the mistress's throat and chest, the child opened her mouth as before and said "e' very well. In the same way, holding the two little hands on her chest and throat all the time, the mistress made her say c and d. 'Do you understand now?' she asked. The father did understand, but it seemed more wonderful than when he did not understand. He thought for a minute and then, looking at the mistress, he asked her, 'And they learn to speak like that? You have the patience to teach them to speak like that, bit by bit, all of them? One by one, year after year? But you are saints, you are! You are angels from heaven! There is no recompense on earth good enough for you! What can I say?.. Ah! Leave me a short while with my daughter now. Leave me alone with her for five minutes.' When he had taken her to one side to sit down, he began to ask questions and she to reply. He laughed, his eyes shone, he struck his knees with his fists, he took his daughter's hands and looked at her. Hearing her, he was beside himself with joy, as if the voice had come from heaven. Then he said to the teacher, 'The director, may I be permitted to thank him?' 'The director isn't here,' the teacher replied, 'but there is someone else you should thank. Every little girl here is put in the care of a bigger companion, who is a sister and mother to her. Your little girl is entrusted to a seventeen-year-old deaf and dumb girl, a baker's daughter, a good girl who loves her very much. For two months she has helped her to dress every morning, she combs her hair, teaches her to sew, looks after her things and is a good companion for her. Gigia, what is your school mother called?' The girl smiled and replied, 'Ca-te-rina Gior-dano.' Then, turning to her father, 'Ve-ry, ve-ry nice.' The attendant, who had left at a sign from the teacher, returned almost immediately with a fairhaired girl. She was deaf and dumb, sturdy, with a cheerful face, and she too was dressed in red stripes and wore a grey smock. She stopped in the doorway and blushed, then laughing lowered her head. She had the body of a woman but seemed like a child. Giorgio's daughter immediately ran to her, took her arm like a child and led her to her father, saying in her loud voice, 'Ca-te-rina Gior-dano.' 'Ah! What a good girl!' exclaimed her father and he stretched out his hand to caress her, but withdrew it, and repeated, 'Ah! What a good girl, may God bless her and give her good fortune and all the joys of life. May He make her happy, her and those near to her, a good girl like that, my poor Gigia. It's an honest workman, the poor father of a family who wishes her these things with all his heart!'

The big girl caressed the small one, still with her eyes cast down, and smiling; and the gardener continued to look at her as if she were an angel. 'Today you can take your daughter out with you,' said the mistress. 'I certainly shall take her with me!' replied the gardener. 'I shall take her to Condove and bring her back tomorrow morning. Do you think for a moment I would not take her? The girl went off to get ready. 'After not seeing her for three years,' continued the gardener. 'Now she speaks! I'll take her to Condove soon. But first I want to walk through Turin arm in arm with my little deaf girl so that everybody can see her, and take her to visit four friends of mine so they can hear her! Ah, what a wonderful day! This is true happiness! Link arms with your father, my Gigia!' The girl, who had come back with a cape and a little bonnet, gave him her arm. 'And thank you, everyone,' the father said at the door. 'My thanks to everyone with all my heart! I shall come back once more to thank everyone!' He stood for a moment in thought, then suddenly detached himself from his daughter, turned back, searching his waistcoat pocket with one hand, and shouted, 'Well, I'm a poor devil, but look, I'm leaving twenty lire for the institute, a beautiful new golden marengo!' With a hearty slap he put the coin on the table. 'No, no, my friend.' The mistress was touched. 'Take your money back. I cannot accept it. Take it back. It's not my concern. You will be coming when the director is here. But he won't accept it either, you can be sure of that. You worked too hard to earn it, my poor friend. Everyone will be grateful to you all the same.' 'No, I'm leaving it,' the gardener replied stubbornly. 'Well, you'll see.' But giving him no chance to refuse it, the teacher put the money back in his pocket. Shaking his head, he gave in, then after quickly kissing his hand to the mistress and the older girl and taking his daughter's arm again, 'he hurried out of the door with her, saying, 'Come then, my girl, my poor little dumb thing, my treasure!' And in her loud voice his daughter exclaimed, 'Oh the love-Iy sun!'

JUNE Garibaldi
Saturday,3rd Tomorrow is our National Day. Today the nation is in mourning. Yesterday evening Garibaldi died. Do you know who he was? He is the man who freed ten million Italians from the tyranny of the Bourbons. He died at the age of seventyfive. He was born in Nice, the son of a ship's captain. When he was eight he saved a woman's life. At thirteen he pulled a boat full of shipwrecked companions to safety. When he was twenty-seven he dragged a drowning youth from the water at Marseilles. At forty-one he saved a ship at sea from fire. For ten years he fought in America for the freedom of another nation. He fought in three wars against the Austrians for the liberation of Lombardy and Trentino. He defended Rome against the French in 1849. He liberated Palermo and Naples in 1860. He fought for Rome again in 1867. In 1870 he fought to defend France against the Germans. His was a heroic spirit, and he was a military genius. He fought in forty battles and was victorious in thirty-seven. When he was not fighting he worked for his living or withdrew to a lonely island to cultivate the soil. He was a teacher, sailor, workman, trader, soldier, general and arbiter. He was great, simple and good. He hated all oppressors, loved the common people and protected the weak. His only aim was the common good. He refused honours, scorned death and loved Italy. When he raised his standard, legions of the brave hastened to him from all corners of the land: noblemen left their mansions, workmen their workshops and young men their studies to go to fight in the radiance of his glory. In time of war he donned a red shirt. He was strong, fair and handsome. A thunderbolt on the battlefield, he was like a young boy in his affections, a saint in suffering. A thousand Italians have died for their country, happy in their last moments because they saw him pass in the distance, victorious. Thousands would have died for him. Millions have blessed him and will bless him. . He is dead. The whole world mourns him. You do not yet understand. But you will read about his deeds and you will constantly hear him spoken of, and gradually as you grow up your image of him will also grow. When you are a man you will see him as a giant; and when you and your children's children, and those who are born to them, have left this world, the generations will still look up and see the shining head of this redeemer of the people crowned with the names of his victories like a circle of stars, and the face of every Italian will shine and his soul kindle when he speaks his name. Father

The army
Sunday, 11 th National Day has been postponed for a week owing to the death of Garibaldi. We went to Piazza Castello to see the military review at which the salute was taken by the corps commander, between two long lines of spectators. As they went by one by one, to the accompaniment of fanfares and military bands, my father identified the regiments for me and the battle honours attached to their colours. First, the officer cadets from the Academy, the ones who will be officers in the engineers and the artillery, about three hundred of them dressed in black, marched past, with the easy, dashing grace of young men who are both soldiers and students. After them, the infantry filed by: the Aosta Brigade which fought at Goito and San Martino, and the Bergamo Brigade which fought at Castelfidardo, four regiments, company after company, thousands of red badges which looked like two immensely long garlands of blood-red flowers carried forward past the crowds by the two leaders. After the infantry came the sappers, the workmen of war, with their black horsehair plumes and crimson chevrons. And while they were filing past you could see coming up behind them hundreds of tall, straight plumes above the heads of the spectators: they were the Alpine troops, the defenders of Italy's portals, all of them tall, fresh-complexioned

and strongly built, with their wide brimmed hats and bright-green lapels the colour of the grass on their mountains. The Alpinists were still marching by when a tremor ran through the crowd, and the Bersaglieri, the old twelfth battalion, the first to enter Rome through the breach in Porta Pia, brown, quick, alert, their plumes waving, went past like the surge of a black flood, making the piazza resound with shrill trumpet blasts like shouts of joy. Their fanfare was smothered by a heavy and irregular clamour which heralded the field artillery; and then, haughtily, they passed by, seated on high ammunition wagons drawn by three hundred pairs of spirited horses, the handsome soldiers of the yellow lines, the long bronze and steel guns gleaming on the light gun carriages which leapt and clattered and made the earth tremble. And then, slow and heavy, and handsome in its hard, rough way, came the mountain artillery which, with its tall soldiers and powerful mules, brings dismay and death as high as the foot of man can climb. Finally, their helmets shining in the sun, lances erect, their colours in the wind sparkling silver and gold, that fine regiment, the Genoese Cavalry, which has fought on ten battlefields from Santa Lucia to Villafranca, rode by at a gallop, filling the air with jangling and neighing. 'How splendid it is!' I exclaimed. My father almost reproved me for using that word and said, 'Do not look upon the army as a splendid spectacle. All these young men, so strong an4. full of hope, can be called upon any day to defend our country and within a few hours they could be mutilated by bullets and grapeshot. Every time you hear someone call out at a festival "Long live the Army! Long live Italy!", just picture from the regiments passing by a battlefield covered with bodies and drenched with blood, and then your cheers for the army will come more from the depths of your heart, and your vision of Italy will be more serious and majestic.'

Italy
Tuesday, 13th Salute your homeland on its days of celebration like this. Italy, my country, dear and noble land where my father and mother were born and will be buried, where I hope to live and die; beautiful Italy, great and glorious for many centuries, united and free now for some years; you have shed such divine intellectual light on the world, and for you so many valiant men have died on the battlefield and so many heroes on the scaffold; august mother of three' hundred towns and thirty million sons and daughters. I, your child, who do not yet fully understand you or properly know you, venerate and love you with all my soul, and I am proud that I was born to you, and proud to call myself your child. I love your splendid seas and sublime Alps. I love your solemn monuments and immortal relics. I love your glory and your beauty and I venerate the whole of you as much as the dear place in which I first saw the sun and heard your name. I love you all with the same love and equal gratitude, gallant Turin, proud Genoa, learned Bologna, enchanting Venice, powerful Milan; with the same filial reverence I love you, gentle Florence and awesome Palermo, immense, beautiful Naples, Rome, wonderful and eternal. I love you, my sacred homeland! I swear to you that I shall love all your children as brothers; that your great and good sons living and dead will always have an honoured place in my heart; that I shall be an industrious and honest citizen, intent always on improving myself to make myself worthy of you, so that I may use my modest powers to work for a day when poverty, ignorance, injustice and crime may be banished from your borders and you will be able to live and expand, calm in the majesty of your right and strength. I swear that I shall serve you as best I can, with head, hands and heart, humbly and boldly; and that if a day comes when I must give my blood and my life for you, I shall give my blood and I shall die crying to the heavens your holy name and offering my last kiss to your blessed flag. Father

Thirty-two degrees
Friday, 16th In the five days since our National Day the temperature has gone up three degrees. It is high summer now. Everyone is becoming weary and they have lost the nice rosy colour they had in spring. Their necks and legs are getting thinner, heads are drooping and eyes tend to close. Poor Nelli, who feels the heat very much and now looks rather pale, sometimes falls fast asleep with his head on his exercise book; but Garrone is always careful to put an open book upright in front of him so that the teacher will not see him. Crossi rests his red pate on his desk in such a way that it seems as if it has been detached from his chest and placed there. Nobis complains that there are too many of us and we are spoiling the air for him. Oh, what will-power one requires to study now! I look through the windows at home at those beautiful trees that give such deep shade, to which I would resort so happily, and I feel sad and angry that I have to confine myself at a desk. Then I take heart when I see my good mother who always looks at me as I come out of school to see if I am pale, and asks as I do each page of homework, 'Do you feel quite well now?' And every morning at six o'clock when she awakens me for school she says, 'Cheer up! Not many days now and you will be free and can relax and go to the shady places.' Yes, she is certainly right to remind me of the children who work in the fields under the scourge of the sun or in the white gravel of the rivers, who are dazzled and scorched, and those in glass-works who stand motionless all day with head bent over a gas flame, all of whom get up earlier than we do, and have no holidays. So we must keep our spirits up! Derossi is pre-eminent here, too: he is not tormented by heat or sleep, but is still lively and cheerful with his fair curls as he was in winter. He studies without becoming tired and keeps everyone around him alert as if his very voice freshened the air. There are also two others who are always wide awake and attentive: stubborn Stardi, who pinches his own cheek to stay awake, and the more exhausted he is and the hotter it gets, the more he grits his teeth and the wider he opens his eyes, so that you would think he wanted to devour the teacher; and that big business man Garoffi, who is very busy making fans from red paper and decorating them with cuttings from matchboxes, which he sells at a penny each. But the bravest is Coretti - poor Coretti, who gets up at five o'clock to help his father carry wood! At eleven o'clock in school he cannot keep his eyes open any longer and his head falls on to his chest. Nevertheless he rouses himself, slaps the back of his neck and asks permission to leave the room to wash his face, and gets his neighbours to shake and pinch him. However, this morning he could not continue any longer and fell into a heavy sleep. The master shouted, 'Coretti!' He did not hear. Annoyed, the master repeated, 'Coretti!' Then the coal-merchant's son, who lives next door to him, stood up and said, 'He was working from five o'clock to seven o'clock carrying firewood.' The teacher let him sleep and went on with the lesson for half an hour. Then he went to Coretti's desk and, blowing in his face, very gently woke him up. Seeing the master in front of him, he drew back, frightened. But the master took his face between his hands and kissing his head said to him, 'Do not reproach yourself, my son. Yours is certainly not the sleep of laziness. It is the sleep of exhaustion.'

My father
Saturday, 17th Your friend Coretti, or Garrone, would certainly never answer his father the way you answered yours this evening. Enrico! How can it be? You must swear to me that this will never happen again as long as I live. Every time your father reproaches you and an ill-natured reply springs to your lips, think of the day which will inevitably come when he will call you to his bedside and say, Enrico, I am leaving you. ' Oh, my son, when you hear his voice for the last time, and even much later when you weep alone in his empty room, surrounded by those books he will never open again, and remember that you sometimes showed a lack of respect, you too will ask, 'How can it be?' Then you will understand that he has always been your best friend, that when he had to punish you he suffered more than you, and that he never made

you cry except for your own good, and then you will weep as you kiss the desk at which he has worked so hard, at which he has worn himself out for his children. You do not understand yet. He conceals from you everything but his kindness and love. You are not to know that he is sometimes so exhausted by work that he thinks he has only a few days to live, and that at those times he talks only about you and his one fear is of leaving you poor and unprotected! So, often with these thoughts in mind, he goes to your bedroom when you are asleep, stands there with the lamp in his hand looking at you and then makes an effort, worn out and sorrowful as he is, and goes back to work! Nor do you know that he often looks for you to be with you because there is bitterness in his heart caused by the troubles which affect every man in this world, and he seeks you out as a friend to find comfort and to forget. He needs to find comfort in your love to recover his serenity and courage. Think, then, how painful it must have been for him when instead of finding affection he found indifference and disrespect. Never tarnish yourself again with this horrible ingratitude! Bear in mind that even if you were as virtuous as a saint you could never sufficiently repay him for what he has done and continues to do for you. Remember, too, nothing is certain in this life: one accident could deprive you of your father while you are still a boy, in two years, in three months, tomorrow. Ah, my poor Enrico! How you would see everything around you change, then! How empty and desolate your home would seem, with your poor mother dressed in black! Go, my son, go to your father. He is working in his room. Go on tiptoe so that he does not hear you come in, put your head on his knees, and ask him to forgive you and bless you. Mother

In the country
Monday, 19th My kind father forgave me this time too and let me go on the picnic arranged on Wednesday, with Coretti's father, the wood-seller. We all needed a breath of mountain air. It was a holiday. So at two o'clock yesterday there we were in Piazza dello Statuto - Derossi, Garrone, Garoffi, Precossi, Coretti father and son, and I - with our supplies of fruit, sausages and hard-boiled eggs. We also had leather flasks and tin beakers. Garrone had a gourd with white wine in it, Coretti had his father's army water-bottle, full of red wine, and little Precossi in his blacksmith's smock had a two-kilo loaf of bread under his arm. We went by omnibus to Gran Madre di Dio, and then walked quickly up into the hills. It was green and fresh and shady . We turned somersaults in the grass, we dipped our faces in the streams, we jumped over hedges. Coretti's father followed some way behind, his jacket over his shoulder, smoking his clay pipe and occasionally signalling to us not to tear our trousers. Precossi whistled - I had never heard him whistle before. Coretti joined in everything as we went along. That young man can make anything with his stubby old clasp-knife, little mill-wheels, forks, water-pistols. He insisted on carrying everyone else's things and was so burdened that sweat was pouring from him, but he was still as agile as a deer. Derossi kept stopping to tell us the names of the plants and insects. I can't imagine how he can know so much. Garrone ate his bread in silence, but he doesn't attack it anywhere near as joyfully as he used to, poor Garrone, since he lost his mother. He is still the same boy though, as good as his own bread. When one of us ran to jump over a ditch, he would run up to the other side to hold out his hands. And because Precossi has been afraid of cows since he was butted by one when he was small, Garrone went in front of him each time he passed one. We went up as far as Santa Margherita, and then downhill, jumping and rolling with many a scratch and tumble. Precossi, entangled in a bush, tore his smock and, embarrassed, stayed there with the tear hanging down. But Garoffi, who always has pins in his jacket, fastened it up for him so that it would not be noticed. Meanwhile Precossi made a point of saying 'Excuse me, excuse me', then started to run again. Garoffi did not waste time as he went along. He gathered greens for salads, and snails, and he put any stone that shone a bit into his pocket, thinking there might be gold or silver in it. On we went, running, rolling and climbing, in sunshine and shade, up and down the little hills and along paths until, hot and breathless, we reached the top of a hill where we sat down to have our picnic on the grass. We could see an immense plain and the blue, snow-capped Alps.

We were all dying of hunger and the bread seemed to melt in our mouths. Coretti's father gave us our slices of sausage on pumpkin leaves. Then we all began to talk at the same time, about our teachers, our friends who had not been able to come, and about the examinations. Precossi was rather shy about eating, so Garrone thrust the choicest morsel from his own portion into Precossi's mouth. Coretti sat cross-legged beside his father. Together like that they looked more like two brothers than father and son, both of them a good colour and smiling, showing their white teeth. The father drank heartily, he even disposed of anything we left in our flasks and mugs. He said, 'Wine is bad for you when you are studying. It's wood-sellers who need it!' Then he went and shook his son by the nose and said, 'Boys, I want you to like this one here. He's a good lad, I'm telling you!' Everyone was laughing except Garrone. He went on drinking. 'Now, what a pity! You're all together now, good friends. In a few years, who knows, Enrico and Derossi will be lawyers or teachers or I don't know what, and you other four in a shop or in a trade, who knows where. Then it's goodbye, friends.' 'What!' Derossi replied. 'To me, Garrone will always be Garrone, Precossi will always be Precossi, and the same with the others, even if I should become Emperor of All the Russias. Wherever they are, I shall go there.' 'Bless you!' Coretti's father exclaimed, raising his flask. 'That's the way to talk, my word. Drink to that! Long live the good companions, and long live the school which makes you into one family, rich and poor.' With our flasks and mugs we all touched his army bottle and drank the last toast. As for Coretti's father: 'Long live the 49th!' he cried, getting to his feet and swallowing the last drops. 'And if you too have to make a stand, be sure to stand firm like we did, boys!' It was late now. We came down running and singing, all of us arm in arm for much of the way, and reached the River Po when it was getting dark, and there were thousands of fireflies on the wing. We did not split up till we reached Piazza dello Statuto, after arranging that we would all meet on Sunday to go to the Victor Emmanuel Theatre to see the distribution of prizes to the night-school pupils. What a lovely day! How happy I would have been when I got home if I had not met my poor teacher! I met her as she was coming down the stairs in our house, when it was almost dark, and no sooner did she recognize me than she took both my hands and said close to my ear, 'Goodbye, Enrico, remember me!' I noticed that she was weeping. I went up and told my mother, 'I met my teacher.' 'She is on her way home to go to bed,' my mother said, red eyed. Then she added very sorrowfully, looking fixedly at me, 'Your poor teacher. . . is very ill.'

Night-school prize-giving
Sunday, 25th As we had agreed, we all went together to the Victor Emmanuel Theatre to see the presentation of prizes to the working students. The theatre was decorated as it had been on 14th March and it was full, but almost entirely' of workmen's families. The stalls and pit were occupied by the students, and the pupils of the choral-singing class, who sang a hymn to the soldiers who died in the Crimea, which was so beautiful that when it came to an end everyone stood up, clapping and shouting, and they had to sing it again from the beginning. Immediately afterwards the prize-winners began to file past the mayor, the prefect and many others who were giving out books, savings-bank books, diplomas and medals. In one part of the stalls I saw the little bricklayer sitting with his mother, in another part was the headmaster, and behind him the red head of my Standard 2 teacher. First came students from the evening classes in design, jewellery, stonemasonry, lithography and also joinery and bricklaying; then those from classes in commerce, then students from the Academy of Music, amongst whom there were some working girls, all dressed up, who responded with laughter to the warm applause they received. And last came pupils from the elementary evening classes; and then the ceremony became a fascinating spectacle. There were people of all ages, of all crafts, dressed in all kinds of ways - grey haired men, factory children, workmen with big black beards. The young ones were unselfconscious, the men rather embarrassed. People clapped the oldest and the youngest. But no one in the

audience laughed as they had at our ceremony. Everyone was attentive and serious. Many of the prizewinners had their wives and families in the theatre, and some small children, when they saw their fathers up on the stage, shouted out to them, and pointed to them, laughing loudly. Peasants and porters filed past. They were from the Boncompagnia School. From the Cittadella School there was a shoeblack my father knows, and he was given a diploma by the prefect. After him came a man of giant size whom I thought I had seen before. It was the little bricklayer's father and he was receiving the second prize! I remembered the time I had seen him in the attic at the bedside of his sick child, and I immediately looked for the boy in the theatre, poor little bricklayer! He was watching his father with shining eyes and to hide his emotion he made his hare-face. Just then a burst of applause made me turn towards the platform. There was a little chimney-sweep, his face washed, in his working clothes, and the mayor was talking to him while holding him by the hand.' After the chimney-sweep came a cook. Then a council road-sweeper from Raineri School received his medal. I cannot define what I felt in my heart, something akin to great affection and great respect at the thought of how much the prizes had cost all those workmen, fathers of families with many cares - how many tasks had been added to their usual ones, how many hours taken from much-needed sleep, and how much effort had been expended by minds not used to study and by big hands coarsened by work! A boy from a workshop came up and it was obvious that his father had lent him his jacket for the occasion. The sleeves hung down so much that up there on the stage he had to turn them back to be able to take his prize, and many people laughed, but the laughter was immediately drowned by applause. Then came an old man with a bald head and a white beard. Next came artillerymen, some of those who attended classes in our school, then customs officers, and policemen from amongst those who look after our schools. Finally, the evening-school students sang again the hymn to those who died in the Crimea. But they sang it with such warmth this time, with a feeling which came so sincerely from the heart, that people hardly applauded and, deeply moved, left slowly without making a noise. In a few moments the whole street was crowded. There in front of the theatre entrance was the chimney-sweep with his prize bound in red, and some gentlemen were standing round him talking. Many were greeting each other from one side of the street to the other, workmen, children, policemen, teachers. My teacher came out between two artillerymen. There were workmen's wives with little children in their arms who were holding their father's diplomas in their little hands and proudly showing them to people.

The death of my teacher

Tuesday, 27th While we were at the Victor Emmanuel Theatre my poor teacher was dying. She died at two o'clock, a week after she had been to see my mother. The headmaster came yesterday morning to make the announcement to the class. He said, 'Those of you who were her pupils know how kind she was, how she loved her pupils. She was a mother to them. She is no longer with us. She had suffered from a terrible illness for a long time. If she had not had to work for her daily bread she would have been able to take care of herself, and perhaps get better. She would at least have prolonged her life for a few months if she had taken leave. But she wanted to be with her children to the last. On the afternoon of Saturday the 17th she said goodbye to them in the certain knowledge that she would never see them again. Once more she gave them good advice, kissed each one and went away sobbing. And now no one will ever see her again. Remember her, children.' Little Precossi, who had been her pupil in lA, put his head on his desk and began to cry. Yesterday afternoon after school we all went together to the dead woman's home to accompany her to the church. There was already a hearse with two horses in the street and many people were waiting, talking in low voices. The headmaster was there and all the masters and mistresses from our school and from other schools too where she had taught in former years. Nearly all the children from her class were there, hand in hand with their mothers who were carrying the candles; and there were many from other classes and about fifty girls from the Baretti School, some with wreaths in their hands, others with little bunches of roses. Many bunches of flowers had already been put on the hearse and a large wreath of acacias was hanging on it, bearing these words in black letters: To their teacher, from former pupils of Standard 4. And under the big wreath a little one was hanging, which her children had brought.

Many maidservants were to be seen in the crowd, sent by their mistresses, with their tapers, as well as two menservants in livery, carrying a lighted candle. And a rich gentleman, the father of one of the teacher's pupils, had sent his carriage, draped in blue silk. Everyone was assembling in front of the door. Some girls were drying their eyes. We waited awhile in silence. At last they brought the coffin down. When they slid the coffin into the hearse some children began to weep loudly, and one began to cry as if he realized only then that his teacher was dead, and he sobbed so convulsively that he had to be taken away. Slowly the procession arranged itself, and moved off. First were the girls from the Retreat of the Conception, dressed in green; then the Daughters of Mary, in white with a blue ribbon; then the priests; and behind the hearse the masters and mistresses, the little scholars of lA, and all the others, and finally the other mourners. People came to their doors and windows and when they saw all those children and the wreath, they said, 'It is a teacher.' Even some of the ladies who accompanied the little children were crying. When they arrived at the church, the coffin was lifted from the hearse and carried down the middle of the nave and put in front of the high altar. The mistresses placed the wreaths on it, the children covered it with flowers, and around it people with lighted tapers began to chant prayers in the great, dim church. Suddenly, when the priest had said the last amen, the tapers were extinguished, everyone quickly left and the teacher remained there alone. Poor teacher, she was so good to me, she was so patient, she laboured for so many years! She has left her few books to her scholars, to one an ink-well, to another a small picture, everything she possessed. And two days before she died she told the headmaster not to let the smallest children go to her funeral because she did not want them to cry. She did good, she suffered, she died. Poor teacher, left alone in the dark church! Goodbye! Goodbye for ever, my good friend, sweet, sad memory of my childhood!

Thanks
Wednesday, 28th My poor teacher had wanted to finish her school year; she passed away only three days before lessons ended. After tomorrow we shall be in class just once more, to hear a reading of 'Shipwreck', the last monthly story, and then we shall have finished. On Saturday, 1st July we have the examinations. So another school year, the fourth, has gone by. If my teacher had not died, it would have passed happily. I think back to what I knew last October and it seems to me that I know much more, there are so many new things in my mind. I am now better at saying and writing what I think. Also I shall be able to do calculations for adults who cannot do them and help them with their affairs. I understand much more, I understand nearly everything I read. I am pleased. . . . But many people have encouraged me and helped me to learn in one way or another, at home, at school, in the street, no matter where I have been or where I have seen things! I am now offering my thanks to everyone. Let me thank you first, my good teacher, for you have been so lenient with me, and concerned, and every new piece of knowledge I now rejoice in and am proud of is the result of your effort. Thank you, Derossi, my excellent class-mate, for your prompt and patient explanations have so often helped me to understand difficult points and overcome obstacles in examinations. And you too, Stardi, brave and strong, who have shown me that an iron determination can succeed in everything. And you, Garrone, kind and generous, who make everyone who knows you kind and generous. You too, Precossi and Coretti, who have always been an example to me of courage in suffering and calm application to work. My thanks to you and to all the others. But above all I thank you, my father, my first teacher, my first friend, you who have given me so much good advice and taught me so many things, while you worked for me, always hiding your own troubles, while trying in every way you could to make study easy and my life happy. And you, my gentle mother, my beloved, my blessed guardian angel, who have shared all my joys and suffered when I suffered, who have studied, toiled and wept with me, stroking my face with one hand while pointing to the sky with the other, I kneel down before you as I did when I was a little child and I thank you with all the tenderness you have fostered in my soul during twelve years of sacrifice and love.

SHIPWRECK
The last monthly story
One morning in the month of December some years ago a great steamship sailed from the port of Liverpool carrying two hundred people, including a crew of seventy. The captain and nearly all the seamen were English. Amongst the passengers were several Italians: three gentlemen, a priest and a company of musicians. The ship was bound for the island of Malta. The weather was overcast. Amongst the third-class passengers in the forward quarters there was an Italian boy about twelve years old, small for his age but sturdy. His handsome Sicilian face was bold and strong. He was alone near the foremast, sitting on a pile of rope beside a battered suitcase which he kept a hand on and which contained his possessions. He had a dark complexion and his wavy black hair almost reached his shoulders. He was shabbily dressed and loosely wrapped in a tattered blanket and he had a leather bag slung over his shoulder. He looked thoughtfully around, at the passengers, the ship, at the sailors hurrying by and at the restless sea. He had the appearance of a boy who had just come through a great family misfortune. He had a boy's face but his expression was that of a man. Soon after their departure one of the sailors, a grey-haired Italian, appeared in the prow leading a little girl by the hand. He stopped in front of the young Sicilian and said, 'Here is a travelling companion for you, Mario.' Then he left. The girl sat on the pile of rope next to the boy. They looked at one another. 'Where are you going?' the Sicilian asked her. 'To Malta, on my way to Naples,' the girl replied. Then she added, 'I'm going .back to my father and mother, they're expecting me. My name is Giulietta Faggiani.' The boy was silent. A few minutes later he took some bread and dried fruit from his bag. The girl had some biscuits. They ate. 'Look lively!' shouted the Italian sailor as he passed quickly by. 'It's getting rough!' The wind was getting stronger all the time and the ship was rolling heavily. But the two children, who were not suffering from seasickness, took no notice. The girl was smiling. She was about the same age as her companion but much taller. She was dark-complexioned, thin, and looked rather unwell. She was quite well dressed. Her hair was cut short, and curly, and she wore a red handkerchief on her head, and two little silver ear-rings. As they ate they told one another about themselves. The boy no longer had a father or mother. His father, who had been a workman, had died at Liverpool a few days ago, leaving him on his own, and the Italian consul arranged for him to return to his home town, Palermo, where he had distant relatives. The little girl had been taken to London the previous year by a widowed aunt who loved her very much and into whose care her parents, who were poor people, had entrusted her for a time, accepting the promise of an inheritance. But a few months later the aunt had been run over by an omnibus, and died without leaving a penny. Then she too had sought help from the consul, who had put her on board ship for Italy. Both of them had been placed in the care of the Italian sailor. 'So', the girl concluded, 'my father and mother thought I would come back rich, and instead I am going back poor. But they love me very much all the same. And my brothers do too. I have four, all of them small. I'm the eldest. I dress them. They'll make a big fuss when they see me. I shall go in on tiptoe... . The sea is nasty.' Then she asked the boy, 'And are you going to live with your relatives?' 'Yes. . . if they want me,' he replied. 'Aren't they very fond of you?' 'I don't know.' 'I shall be thirteen at Christmas,' the girl said. Later they began to talk about the sea and the people near them. They stayed together all day, exchanging a few words from time to time. The passengers thought they were brother and sister. The girl was knitting, the boy was absorbed in his thoughts. The sea was getting rougher all the time. In the evening, as they separated to go to bed, the girl said to Mario, 'Sleep well.' 'No one is going to sleep well, poor children!' the Italian sailor exclaimed as he hurried past in response to a summons by the captain. The boy was on the point of replying with a 'Good-night' to his friend when a sudden wave struck him violently and flung him against a bench. 'My goodness, you're bleeding!' cried the girl, rushing to him.

The passengers, who were seeking refuge down below, took no notice of them. The girl knelt next to Mario, who was still dazed by the blow, wiped his forehead, which was bleeding, took the red handkerchief from her hair and wrapped it round his head. Then she pulled his head to her breast so as to tie the ends. A blood-stain formed on the sash of her yellow dress. Mario recovered and got up. 'Are you feeling better,' the girl asked. 'I'm all right now,' he replied. 'Sleep well,' said Giulietta. 'Good-night,' Mario replied. They went down neighbouring companion-ways to their sleeping-quarters. The sailor had forecast correctly. They had not yet fallen asleep when a fearful storm arose. It was an unexpected onslaught by violent waves which in a few moments broke a mast in pieces and swept three boats from their davits as if they were leaves, and four oxen in the prow were swept overboard. Below deck there was confusion, fear and uproar, and a clamour of shouting, weeping and prayers, enough to make the hair stand on end. The storm increased in fury all through the night. At daybreak it grew markedly worse. The frightening waves struck the steamer on her side and rushed over her deck, smashing, overturning and sweeping everything into the sea. The platform deck over the engine was smashed and the water rushed in with a frightful noise, the boiler fires were extinguished, the engineers fled. Great, violent streams of water penetrated everywhere. A voice thundered, 'To the pumps!' It was the voice of the captain. The sailors flung themselves on the pumps. But the sea suddenly struck the ship in the stern, smashed the bulwarks and the ports, and a torrent of water poured in. All the passengers, more dead than alive, had taken refuge in the main saloon. Then the captain appeared. Everybody shouted at once, 'Captain! Captain! What shall we do? Are we all right? Is there any hope for us? Save us!' The captain waited till everyone was quiet and then said coolly, 'Prepare for the worst.' One woman alone cried out, 'Mercy!' No one else could speak. Everyone was frozen with terror. And so, much time passed in silence as of a tomb. People looked at one another, white-faced. The sea became wilder and fearful. The ship rolled heavily. There came a point when the captain tried to launch a lifeboat: five sailors got in and the boat was lowered, but the waves capsized it and two of the sailors were drowned, one of them the Italian. The others managed with difficulty to grasp the ropes and climb up again. After this the sailors themselves lost all heart. Two hours later the ship was in the sea to the height of the channels. Meanwhile the scene below deck was awful. Mothers desperately clasped their children to their breasts, friends embraced one another and said goodbye. Some people went down to the cabins to await death out of sight of the sea. One traveller shot himself in the head with a pistol and fell face downwards on the companion-way to the sleeping-quarters, where he died. Many people clung frantically to one another and some of the women writhed in dreadful convulsions. Several people surrounded the priest, on their knees. A chorus of sobbing was to be heard, of childlike lamentation, of strange, shrill voices, and there were people motionless as statues, stupefied, their eyes dilated and unseeing, their faces those of corpses and madmen. The two children, Mario and Giulietta, stared at the sea as though struck dumb. The sea had calmed down a little, but the ship continued to sink, slowly. Only a few minutes remained. 'Launch the boat!' the captain shouted. The one remaining lifeboat was cast into the sea and fourteen sailors, with three passengers, climbed into it. The captain remained on board ship. 'Come with us!' they shouted from below. 'I must die at my post,' replied the captain. 'We'll meet a ship,' the sailors shouted to him. 'We'll be saved. Come down! You're lost: 'I'm staying.' The sailors then turned to the other passengers. 'There's a place left. A woman!' Supported by the captain a woman came forward, but when she saw how far away the lifeboat was, she dared not jump, and stepped back on deck. Almost all the other women were on the edge of consciousness and seemed about to expire. 'A child!' the sailors shouted. When they heard this, the Sicilian boy and his companion, who until that moment had seemed petrified, as if in a trance, were suddenly roused by a powerful instinct to live, and at that moment they

detached themselves from the mast, rushed to the edge of the ship, and cried with one voice 'Me!', trying to push the other back, like enraged animals. 'The smallest!' shouted the sailors. 'The boat's overloaded! The smallest!' Hearing that the girl, thunderstruck, let fall her arms and became still, looking at Mario with lifeless eyes. Mario glanced at her. He saw the blood-stain on her breast - he remembered. For a moment his face betrayed a divine thought. 'The smallest!' the sailors shouted in chorus, with commanding impatience. 'We're going!' Then, in a voice which no longer seemed to be his own, Mario cried, 'You're the lightest. It's you, Giulietta! You have a father and mother! I have no one! Take my place! Go on!' 'Throw her into the sea!' the sailors shouted. Mario seized Giulietta by the waist and threw her into the sea. The girl gave a cry and there was a splash. A sailor seized her by the arm and pulled her into the boat. The boy remained standing at the edge of the deck, his head held high, his hair in the wind, still, calm, sublime. The lifeboat moved away only just in time to escape from the vortex made by the ship as it went down, threatening to capsize it. Then the girl who had remained almost numb until that moment raised her eyes to the boy and burst into tears. 'Goodbye, Mario!' she cried to him between sobs, her arms held out towards him. 'Goodbye! Goodbye! Goodbye!' 'Goodbye!' replied the boy, raising his hand high. The boat moved away quickly over the rough sea under the gloomy sky. There was no more shouting on the ship. The sea was lapping over the edges of the deck now. Suddenly the boy fell to his knees, with his hands together and his eyes raised to the sky. The girl covered her face. When she lifted her eyes again she scanned the sea: the ship was no longer there.

JULY The last page by my mother

Saturday, 1st So the school year has come to an end, Enrico. It is good that the image of the noble boy who gave his life for his friend should remain with you as your memory of the last day. Now you are about to leave your teachers and your friends, and I have to give you some sad news. The separation will not be for only three months, but for ever. For professional reasons your father must leave Turin, and we of course must go too. We shall be leaving in the autumn. You will have to go to a new school. This is sad, isn't it? For I am sure you love your old school, where twice a day for four years you have known the satisfaction that comes from work; where for so long you have regularly seen the same boys and the same teachers, the same families, your father or your mother waiting to greet you with a smile; your old school where your abilities were developed, where you found so many good friends, where every word you heard was intended for your good, and where you experienced no discomfort that may not be useful to you! Take this love with you, then, and offer a heartfelt goodbye to all those boys. Some will have misfortunes: they will lose their father and mother early in life. Others perhaps will die young. Some may shed their blood nobly in battle. Many will be good, decent workmen, and fathers of decent, industrious families like themselves; and, who knows, one of them may render great services to his country and make his name glorious. Take affectionate leave of them, then. Leave a little of your heart with that large family you joined as a child and which you are leaving as a young man, and which your father and mother love because you were so much loved there. School is a mother, dear Enrico. It took you from my arms when you could only just speak and now it is giving you back to me big and strong, well behaved and studious. May it be blessed and may you never forget it, my son. Oh, it is impossible that you should ever forget it. You will become a man, you will go round the world, you will see great cities and marvellous buildings, and forget many of them; but until your dying day you will see that simple white building with the closed shutters and the little garden, where your understanding first blossomed, just as I shall see the house in which I heard your voice for the first time. Mother

The examinations
Tuesday, 4th And so the examinations are upon us. In streets round the school you hear nothing talked about by boys and fathers and mothers, even by housekeepers, but examinations, marks, composition, averages, staying down and being promoted. The same words are on everyone's lips. Yesterday morning it was composition, this morning it was arithmetic. It was touching to see all the parents who were bringing their boys to school giving them their last pieces of advice there in the street, and many mothers going with their children to the desks to see if there was ink in the ink-well and to try the pen, and turn again at the door to say, 'Keep your spirits up! Think what you're doing! Please!' The master invigilating was Signor Coatti, the one with the awful black beard who roars like a lion and never punishes anyone. Some boys were white with fear. When the teacher opened the envelope from the town hall and took out the questions, everyone held his breath. He read the problem out in a loud voice, looking at one and then another with a menacing expression. But one knew that if he had been able to dictate the solution to us to ensure that everyone moved up, he would have been very pleased.

After an hour of work many boys began to be worried, for the problem was difficult! One was crying. Crossi was beating his brow. Many of those who could not do it were by no means to blame, poor boys, for they have not had much time to study, and have been neglected by their parents. But fortune smiled. You should have seen how Derossi manoeuvred in order to help them, how he contrived to pass on a figure and suggest a method without being noticed, so concerned was he for everyone that he might have been our teacher. Garrone, too, who is good at arithmetic, helped those he could. He even helped Nobis who, finding himself in a muddle, was very polite. Stardi, his fists at his temples, remained motionless for more than an hour, staring at the problem, and then completed it in five minutes. The teacher moved between the desks saying, 'Be calm! I advise you to be calm!' And when he saw someone discouraged, in order to make him laugh and take heart he opened his mouth wide as though to eat him like a lion. Towards eleven o'clock, looking through the shutters, I saw many parents walking impatiently up and down the street. There was Precossi's father in his blue smock, his face still black, having just left his workshop. There was Crossi's mother, the vegetable-seller; and dressed in black there was Nelli's mother, unable to keep still. A little before midday my father arrived, and raised his eyes to our window. Dear Father! At noon we had all finished. The scene when we left school was something to behold. Everyone converged on the boys to ask questions, to leaf through exercise books and to compare work. How many stages? What was the total? And the subtraction? And the answer? What about the decimal point? All the teachers moved about, appealed to from a hundred directions. My father immediately took the rough copy from my hand, looked at it, and said, 'That's good.' Near us, Precossi the blacksmith was also looking at his son's work rather anxiously, unable to make anything of it. He turned to my father. 'Would you please tell me the answer?' My father read out the figure. The blacksmith looked: it was the same. 'Well done, my boy!' he exclaimed happily, and he and my father looked at one another briefly, smiling broadly like two friends. My father held out his hand to him and he shook it. As they separated they said, 'Till the oral.' 'Till the oral.' We had just taken a few steps when we heard a falsetto voice which made us turn our heads. The blacksmith was singing.

The last examination

Friday, 7th This morning we had the oral examination. At eight o'clock we were all in our class-room and at a quarter past eight they began to call us four at a time to the hall, where there was a big table covered with a green cloth at which the headmaster and four teachers, including our own, were sitting. I was one of the first to be called. Our poor teacher! How clearly I saw this morning that he cares for us very much indeed. While the others were questioning us he had eyes only for us. He was anxious when we were uncertain in our replies and relaxed when we gave a good answer. He heard everything and made a thousand signs with hands and head as if to say, 'Good - no - be careful- slower - come on!' He would have helped us with everything if he had been able to speak. If the fathers of a11 the pupils had been in his place one after the other, they could have done no more. I could have cried thank you to him many times while facing them all. When the other teachers said to me 'That's fine, you may go', his eyes shone with satisfaction. I went straight back to the class-room to wait for my father. Nearly everyone was still there. I sat down next to Garrone. I was not at all happy. I was aware that it was the last time we should spend an hour together. I had not yet told Garrone that I should not now be going into Standard 4 with him, that I must leave Turin with my father. He knew nothing about it. And there he was, almost bent double, his big head bowed over his desk, making decorations round a photograph of his father in his engine-driver's clothes. The father is a big, tall man with a neck like a bull and he gives an impression of seriousness and frankness, just as his son does. As he bent over his work, his shirt open a little, I saw on his strong, bare chest the little gold cross Nelli's mother had given him when she learnt that he had been protecting her son. But I still had to tell him some time that I must go away. I said, 'Garrone, this autumn my father is leaving Turin for good.'

He asked me if I was going too, and I replied that I was. 'So won't you be going into Standard 4 with us now?' he asked me. I told him that I would not. He said nothing for a while and went on with his drawing. Then, without raising his head, he asked, 'Will you remember your friends in Standard 3?' 'Yes,' I told him, 'all of them, but you. . . most of all. Who could forget you?' He looked at me steadily and earnestly, and his look said a great deal. He did not say anything but simply gave me his left hand while pretending to go on drawing with the other. I pressed that strong, dependable hand between my own. At that moment our teacher hurried in. His face was flushed and in a low but cheerful voice he said quickly, 'Good boys, everything is going well so far. Keep it up, the rest of you. Good boys! Keep your spirits up! I am very pleased. ' To show us how happy he was and to cheer us up, when he rushed out he pretended to stumble and to lean on the wall to avoid falling - he whom we had never seen laugh! The incident seemed so strange that instead of laughing everyone was amazed. Everyone smiled, but no one laughed. I don't know why, but that act of boyish high spirits made me feel a mixture of pity and tenderness for him. This moment of happiness was his entire reward, his payment for nine months of kindness, patience and even tribulation! For this he had toiled so long, and come to school so often when he was ill, poor teacher! This and nothing else is what he asked of us in return for so much care and attention! It seems to me now that when I remember him, for many years to come, I shall always see him as he was at that moment; and if he is still alive when I am a man, I shall tell him, if we meet, about the action which touched my heart, and I shall kiss his white head.

Goodbye
Monday, 10tb At one o'clock we were all at school for the last time to hear the examination results and receive the promotion. The street was full of parents, who had also invaded the school hall, and many had come into the class rooms, even pressing round the teachers' desks. In ours they filled all the space between the wall and the front benches. There was Garrone's father, Qerossi's mother, Precossi the blacksmith, Signor Coretti, Signora Nelli the vegetable-seller, the little bricklayer's father, Stardi's father, and many others whom I had not seen before. There was an undercurrent of noise and movement as in a public square. The master entered, the room became very quiet. He had the list in his hand and without delay began to read from it. 'Abatucci, promoted, sixty out of seventy. Archinti, promoted, fifty-five out of seventy.' The little bricklayer was promoted, Crossi was promoted. Then he raised his voice: 'Ernesto Derossi, promoted, seventy out of seventy and the first prize.' All the parents there knew him and said, 'Well done, well done, Derossi!' He shook his fair curls and who waved a hand at him. Garoffi, Garrone and the Calabrian, promoted. Then three or four in succession kept down, one of whom began to cry because his father, who was standing by the door, made a threatening gesture. But the teacher said to the father, 'No sir, excuse me. It isn't always a boy's fault. It is often misfortune. It is so in this case.' He read on: 'Nelli, promoted, sixty-two out of seventy.' His mother sent him a kiss with her fan. Stardi was promoted with sixty-seven out of seventy, but when he heard his good mark he did not even smile, nor did he take his fists from his temples. Last was Votini, who had come well dressed and carefully groomed. He was promoted. When he had read out the last name the master stood up and said, 'Boys, this is the last time the class will meet. We have been together for a year now, and I think you will agree we are leaving as good friends. I am sorry to be leaving you, my dear boys.' He broke off, then resumed, 'If I have sometimes been impatient, if sometimes I have been unfair, without meaning to be, or too strict, I hope you will excuse me.' 'No, no,' the parents and many of the pupils said. 'No, never.' '... that you will excuse me,' the master repeated, 'a.nd that I have your goodwill. In the coming year you will no longer be with me, but I shall see you, and you will always have a place in my heart. Goodbye, boys!'

When he had said that, he came amongst us and everyone stretched out their hands to him, standing on the benches, and held him by the arm or his coat-tails. Many kissed him. Fifty voices together said, 'Goodbye, sir! Thank you, sir! Farewell! Don't forget us!' As he left he seemed overcome with emotion. We all made our own way out. The other classes were coming out too. There was a crowd of people, a clamour of boys and parents saying goodbye to masters and mistresses, and greeting one another. The mistress with the red feather had four or five little ones hanging on to her and about twenty pressing round her, leaving her breathless. They had nearly pulled the little nun's hat off, and put a dozen bunches of flowers between the buttons of her black dress and in her pockets. Many were warmly greeting Robetti, who that very day had set aside his crutches for the first time. Everywhere you heard 'Till next term!' 'Till the 20th of October!' 'See you on All Saints' Day!' We too said farewell to one another. Ah, how all disagreements were forgotten at that moment! Votini, who had always been so jealous of Derossi, was the first to throw himself upon him with open arms. I said goodbye to the little bricklayer and kissed him just as he was making his last hareface for me, dear little friend! I said goodbye to Precossi, and to Garoffi, who told me what the prize was in his last lottery, and he gave me a small paperweight made of majolica and broken at one corner. And I said goodbye to all the others. It was good to see poor Nelli and how he clung to Garrone and could not be separated from him. Everyone crowded round Garrone, and it was 'Goodbye, Garrone, goodbye till we meet again', and they touched and embraced and made a fuss of this good, selfless boy. His father, completely taken aback, looked on and smiled. Garrone was the last I embraced, in the street, and I stifled a sob against his chest. He kissed my forehead. Then I ran to my father and mother. 'Have you said goodbye to all your friends?' my father asked me. I said that I had. 'If there is anyone you have wronged, go and ask him to forgive you, and forget. Is there no one?' 'No one,' I replied. 'Then goodbye!' said my father in an unsteady voice as he looked at the school for the last time. 'Goodbye!' echoed my mother. But I could say nothing.