Cuore (Heart) Part 9

"You did not burn this leaf," the teacher says to him, showing him his work, half burned.

"Yes," he replies, in a trembling voice; "I let it fall on the fire."

But we know very well, nevertheless, that his drunken father overturned the table and the light with a kick, while the boy was doing his work.

He lives in a garret of our house, on another staircase. The portress tells my mother everything: my sister Silvia heard him screaming from the terrace one day, when his father had sent him headlong down stairs, because he had asked for a few soldi to buy a grammar. His father drinks, but does not work, and his family suffers from hunger. How often Precossi comes to school with an empty stomach and nibbles in secret at a roll which Garrone has given him, or at an apple brought to him by the schoolmistress with the red feather, who was his teacher in the first lower cla.s.s. But he never says, "I am hungry; my father does not give me anything to eat." His father sometimes comes for him, when he chances to be pa.s.sing the schoolhouse,--pallid, unsteady on his legs, with a fierce face, and his hair over his eyes, and his cap awry; and the poor boy trembles all over when he catches sight of him in the street; but he immediately runs to meet him, with a smile; and his father does not appear to see him, but seems to be thinking of something else. Poor Precossi! He mends his torn copy-books, borrows books to study his lessons, fastens the fragments of his shirt together with pins; and it is a pity to see him performing his gymnastics, with those huge shoes in which he is fairly lost, in those trousers which drag on the ground, and that jacket which is too long, and those huge sleeves turned back to the very elbows. And he studies; he does his best; he would be one of the first, if he were able to work at home in peace. This morning he came to school with the marks of finger-nails on one cheek, and they all began to say to him:--

"It is your father, and you cannot deny it this time; it was your father who did that to you. Tell the head-master about it, and he will have him called to account for it."

But he sprang up, all flushed, with a voice trembling with indignation:--

"It's not true! it's not true! My father never beats me!"

But afterwards, during lesson time, his tears fell upon the bench, and when any one looked at him, he tried to smile, in order that he might not show it. Poor Precossi! To-morrow Derossi, Coretti, and Nelli are coming to my house; I want to tell him to come also; and I want to have him take luncheon with me: I want to treat him to books, and turn the house upside down to amuse him, and to fill his pockets with fruit, for the sake of seeing him contented for once, poor Precossi! who is so good and so courageous.

A FINE VISIT.

Thursday, 12th.

This has been one of the finest Thursdays of the year for me. At two o'clock, precisely, Derossi and Coretti came to the house, with Nelli, the hunchback: Precossi was not permitted by his father to come. Derossi and Coretti were still laughing at their encounter with Crossi, the son of the vegetable-seller, in the street,--the boy with the useless arm and the red hair,--who was carrying a huge cabbage for sale, and with the soldo which he was to receive for the cabbage he was to go and buy a pen. He was perfectly happy because his father had written from America that they might expect him any day. Oh, the two beautiful hours that we pa.s.sed together! Derossi and Coretti are the two jolliest boys in the school; my father fell in love with them. Coretti had on his chocolate-colored tights and his catskin cap. He is a lively imp, who wants to be always doing something, stirring up something, setting something in motion. He had already carried on his shoulders half a cartload of wood, early that morning; nevertheless, he galloped all over the house, taking note of everything and talking incessantly, as sprightly and nimble as a squirrel; and pa.s.sing into the kitchen, he asked the cook how much we had to pay a myriagramme for wood, because his father sells it at forty-five centesimi. He is always talking of his father, of the time when he was a soldier in the 49th regiment, at the battle of Custoza, where he served in the squadron of Prince Umberto; and he is so gentle in his manners! It makes no difference that he was born and brought up surrounded by wood: he has n.o.bility in his blood, in his heart, as my father says. And Derossi amused us greatly; he knows geography like a master: he shut his eyes and said:--

"There, I see the whole of Italy; the Apennines, which extend to the Ionian Sea, the rivers flowing here and there, the white cities, the gulfs, the blue bays, the green islands;" and he repeated the names correctly in their order and very rapidly, as though he were reading them on the map; and at the sight of him standing thus, with his head held high, with all his golden curls, with his closed eyes, and all dressed in bright blue with gilt b.u.t.tons, as straight and handsome as a statue, we were all filled with admiration. In one hour he had learned by heart nearly three pages, which he is to recite the day after to-morrow, for the anniversary of the funeral of King Vittorio. And even Nelli gazed at him in wonder and affection, as he rubbed the folds of his ap.r.o.n of black cloth, and smiled with his clear and mournful eyes.

This visit gave me a great deal of pleasure; it left something like sparks in my mind and my heart. And it pleased me, too, when they went away, to see poor Nelli between the other two tall, strong fellows, who carried him home on their arms, and made him laugh as I have never seen him laugh before. On returning to the dining-room, I perceived that the picture representing Rigoletto, the hunchbacked jester, was no longer there. My father had taken it away in order that Nelli might not see it.

THE FUNERAL OF VITTORIO EMANUELE.

January, 17th.

To-day, at two o'clock, as soon as we entered the schoolroom, the master called up Derossi, who went and took his place in front of the little table facing us, and began to recite, in his vibrating tones, gradually raising his limpid voice, and growing flushed in the face:--

"Four years ago, on this day, at this hour, there arrived in front of the Pantheon at Rome, the funeral car which bore the body of Vittorio Emanuele II., the first king of Italy, dead after a reign of twenty-nine years, during which the great Italian fatherland, broken up into seven states, and oppressed by strangers and by tyrants, had been brought back to life in one single state, free and independent; after a reign of twenty-nine years, which he had made ill.u.s.trious and beneficent with his valor, with loyalty, with boldness amid perils, with wisdom amid triumphs, with constancy amid misfortunes. The funeral car arrived, laden with wreaths, after having traversed Rome under a rain of flowers, amid the silence of an immense and sorrowing mult.i.tude, which had a.s.sembled from every part of Italy; preceded by a legion of generals and by a throng of ministers and princes, followed by a retinue of crippled veterans, by a forest of banners, by the envoys of three hundred towns, by everything which represents the power and the glory of a people, it arrived before the august temple where the tomb awaited it. At that moment twelve cuira.s.siers removed the coffin from the car. At that moment Italy bade her last farewell to her dead king, to her old king whom she had loved so dearly, the last farewell to her soldier, to her father, to the twenty-nine most fortunate and most blessed years in her history. It was a grand and solemn moment. The looks, the souls, of all were quivering at the sight of that coffin and the darkened banners of the eighty regiments of the army of Italy, borne by eighty officers, drawn up in line on its pa.s.sage: for Italy was there in those eighty tokens, which recalled the thousands of dead, the torrents of blood, our most sacred glories, our most holy sacrifices, our most tremendous griefs. The coffin, borne by the cuira.s.siers, pa.s.sed, and then the banners bent forward all together in salute,--the banners of the new regiments, the old, tattered banners of Goito, of Pastrengo, of Santa Lucia, of Novara, of the Crimea, of Palestro, of San Martino, of Castelfidardo; eighty black veils fell, a hundred medals clashed against the staves, and that sonorous and confused uproar, which stirred the blood of all, was like the sound of a thousand human voices saying all together, 'Farewell, good king, gallant king, loyal king! Thou wilt live in the heart of thy people as long as the sun shall shine over Italy.'

"After this, the banners rose heavenward once more, and King Vittorio entered into the immortal glory of the tomb."

FRANTI EXPELLED FROM SCHOOL.

Sat.u.r.day, 21st.

Only one boy was capable of laughing while Derossi was declaiming the funeral oration of the king, and Franti laughed. I detest that fellow.

He is wicked. When a father comes to the school to reprove his son, he enjoys it; when any one cries, he laughs. He trembles before Garrone, and he strikes the little mason because he is small; he torments Crossi because he has a helpless arm; he ridicules Precossi, whom every one respects; he even jeers at Robetti, that boy in the second grade who walks on crutches, through having saved a child. He provokes those who are weaker than himself, and when it comes to blows, he grows ferocious and tries to do harm. There is something beneath that low forehead, in those turbid eyes, which he keeps nearly concealed under the visor of his small cap of waxed cloth, which inspires a shudder. He fears no one; he laughs in the master's face; he steals when he gets a chance; he denies it with an impenetrable countenance; he is always engaged in a quarrel with some one; he brings big pins to school, to p.r.i.c.k his neighbors with; he tears the b.u.t.tons from his own jackets and from those of others, and plays with them: his paper, books, and copy-books are all crushed, torn, dirty; his ruler is jagged, his pens gnawed, his nails bitten, his clothes covered with stains and rents which he has got in his brawls. They say that his mother has fallen ill from the trouble that he causes her, and that his father has driven him from the house three times; his mother comes every now and then to make inquiries, and she always goes away in tears. He hates school, he hates his companions, he hates the teacher. The master sometimes pretends not to see his rascalities, and he behaves all the worse. He tried to get a hold on him by kind treatment, and the boy ridiculed him for it. He said terrible things to him, and the boy covered his face with his hands, as though he were crying; but he was laughing. He was suspended from school for three days, and he returned more perverse and insolent than before.

Derossi said to him one day, "Stop it! don't you see how much the teacher suffers?" and the other threatened to stick a nail into his stomach. But this morning, at last, he got himself driven out like a dog. While the master was giving to Garrone the rough draft of _The Sardinian Drummer-Boy_, the monthly story for January, to copy, he threw a petard on the floor, which exploded, making the schoolroom resound as from a discharge of musketry. The whole cla.s.s was startled by it. The master sprang to his feet, and cried:--

"Franti, leave the school!"

The latter retorted, "It wasn't I;" but he laughed. The master repeated:--

"Go!"

"I won't stir," he answered.

Then the master lost his temper, and flung himself upon him, seized him by the arms, and tore him from his seat. He resisted, ground his teeth, and made him carry him out by main force. The master bore him thus, heavy as he was, to the head-master, and then returned to the schoolroom alone and seated himself at his little table, with his head clutched in his hands, gasping, and with an expression of such weariness and trouble that it was painful to look at him.

"After teaching school for thirty years!" he exclaimed sadly, shaking his head. No one breathed. His hands were trembling with fury, and the perpendicular wrinkle that he has in the middle of his forehead was so deep that it seemed like a wound. Poor master! All felt sorry for him.

Derossi rose and said, "Signor Master, do not grieve. We love you." And then he grew a little more tranquil, and said, "We will go on with the lesson, boys."

THE SARDINIAN DRUMMER-BOY.

(_Monthly Story._)

On the first day of the battle of Custoza, on the 24th of July, 1848, about sixty soldiers, belonging to an infantry regiment of our army, who had been sent to an elevation to occupy an isolated house, suddenly found themselves a.s.saulted by two companies of Austrian soldiers, who, showering them with bullets from various quarters, hardly gave them time to take refuge in the house and to barricade the doors, after leaving several dead and wounded on the field. Having barred the doors, our men ran in haste to the windows of the ground floor and the first story, and began to fire brisk discharges at their a.s.sailants, who, approaching gradually, ranged in a semicircle, made vigorous reply. The sixty Italian soldiers were commanded by two non-commissioned officers and a captain, a tall, dry, austere old man, with white hair and mustache; and with them there was a Sardinian drummer-boy, a lad of a little over fourteen, who did not look twelve, small, with an olive-brown complexion, and two small, deep, sparkling eyes. The captain directed the defence from a room on the first floor, launching commands that seemed like pistol-shots, and no sign of emotion was visible on his iron countenance. The drummer-boy, a little pale, but firm on his legs, had jumped upon a table, and was holding fast to the wall and stretching out his neck in order to gaze out of the windows, and athwart the smoke on the fields he saw the white uniforms of the Austrians, who were slowly advancing. The house was situated at the summit of a steep declivity, and on the side of the slope it had but one high window, corresponding to a chamber in the roof: therefore the Austrians did not threaten the house from that quarter, and the slope was free; the fire beat only upon the front and the two ends.

But it was an infernal fire, a hailstorm of leaden bullets, which split the walls on the outside, ground the tiles to powder, and in the interior cracked ceilings, furniture, window-frames, and door-frames, sending splinters of wood flying through the air, and clouds of plaster, and fragments of kitchen utensils and gla.s.s, whizzing, and rebounding, and breaking everything with a noise like the crushing of a skull. From time to time one of the soldiers who were firing from the windows fell crashing back to the floor, and was dragged to one side. Some staggered from room to room, pressing their hands on their wounds. There was already one dead body in the kitchen, with its forehead cleft. The semicircle of the enemy was drawing together.

At a certain point the captain, hitherto impa.s.sive, was seen to make a gesture of uneasiness, and to leave the room with huge strides, followed by a sergeant. Three minutes later the sergeant returned on a run, and summoned the drummer-boy, making him a sign to follow. The lad followed him at a quick pace up the wooden staircase, and entered with him into a bare garret, where he saw the captain writing with a pencil on a sheet of paper, as he leaned against the little window; and on the floor at his feet lay the well-rope.

The captain folded the sheet of paper, and said sharply, as he fixed his cold gray eyes, before which all the soldiers trembled, on the boy:--

"Drummer!"

The drummer-boy put his hand to his visor.

The captain said, "You have courage."

The boy's eyes flashed.

"Yes, captain," he replied.

"Look down there," said the captain, pushing him to the window; "on the plain, near the houses of Villafranca, where there is a gleam of bayonets. There stand our troops, motionless. You are to take this billet, tie yourself to the rope, descend from the window, get down that slope in an instant, make your way across the fields, arrive at our men, and give the note to the first officer you see. Throw off your belt and knapsack."

The drummer took off his belt and knapsack and thrust the note into his breast pocket; the sergeant flung the rope out of the window, and held one end of it clutched fast in his hands; the captain helped the lad to clamber out of the small window, with his back turned to the landscape.

"Now look out," he said; "the salvation of this detachment lies in your courage and in your legs."

"Trust to me, Signor Captain," replied the drummer-boy, as he let himself down.

"Bend over on the slope," said the captain, grasping the rope, with the sergeant.

"Never fear."

"G.o.d aid you!"

In a few moments the drummer-boy was on the ground; the sergeant drew in the rope and disappeared; the captain stepped impetuously in front of the window and saw the boy flying down the slope.

He was already hoping that he had succeeded in escaping un.o.bserved, when five or six little puffs of powder, which rose from the earth in front of and behind the lad, warned him that he had been espied by the Austrians, who were firing down upon him from the top of the elevation: these little clouds were thrown into the air by the bullets. But the drummer continued to run at a headlong speed. All at once he fell to the earth. "He is killed!" roared the captain, biting his fist. But before he had uttered the word he saw the drummer spring up again. "Ah, only a fall," he said to himself, and drew a long breath. The drummer, in fact, set out again at full speed; but he limped. "He has turned his ankle,"

thought the captain. Again several cloudlets of powder smoke rose here and there about the lad, but ever more distant. He was safe. The captain uttered an exclamation of triumph. But he continued to follow him with his eyes, trembling because it was an affair of minutes: if he did not arrive yonder in the shortest possible time with that billet, which called for instant succor, either all his soldiers would be killed or he should be obliged to surrender himself a prisoner with them.