“HE STOOD WATCHING THE CONVOY UNTIL IT WAS LOST TO SIGHT.”“HE STOOD WATCHING THE CONVOY UNTIL IT WAS LOST TO SIGHT.”View larger image.
“HE STOOD WATCHING THE CONVOY UNTIL IT WAS LOST TO SIGHT.”
View larger image.
One thing, on the other hand, comforted him a little from the first. After all those days of travel across that endless plain, which was forever the same, he saw before him a chain of mountains very high and blue, with white summits, which reminded him of the Alps, and gave him the feeling of having drawn near to his own country once more. They were the Andes, the dorsal spine of the American continent, that immense chain which extends from Tierra del Fuego to the glacial sea of the Arctic pole, through a hundred and ten degrees of latitude. And he was also comforted by the fact that the air seemed to him to grow constantly warmer; and this happened, because, in ascending towards the north, he was slowly approaching the tropics. At great distances apart there were tiny groups of houses with a petty shop; and he bought something to eat. He encountered men on horseback; every now and then he saw women and children seated on the ground, motionless and grave, with faces entirely new to him, of an earthen hue, with oblique eyes and prominent cheek-bones, who looked at him intently, and accompanied him with their gaze, turning their heads slowly like automatons. They were Indians.
The first day he walked as long as his strength would permit, and slept under a tree. On the second day he made considerably less progress, and with less spirit. His shoes were dilapidated, his feet wounded, his stomach weakened by bad food. Towards evening he began to be alarmed. He had heard, in Italy, that in this land there were serpents; he fancied that he heard them crawling; he halted, then set out on a run, and with cold chills in all his bones. At times he was seized with a profound pity for himself, and he wept silently as he walked. Then he thought, “Oh, how much my mother would suffer if she knew that I am afraid!” and this thought restored his courage. Then, in order to distract his thoughts from fear, he meditated much of her; he recalled to mind her words when she had set out from Genoa, and the movement with which she had arranged the coverlet beneath his chin when he was in bed, and when he was a baby; for every time that she took him in her arms, she said to him, “Stay here a little while with me”; and thus she remained for a long time, with her head resting on his, thinking, thinking.
And he said to himself: “Shall I see thee again, dear mother? Shall I arrive at the end of my journey, my mother?” And he walked on and on, among strange trees, vast plantations of sugar-cane, and fields without end, always with those blue mountains in front of him, which cut the sky with their exceedingly lofty crests. Four days, five days—a week, passed. Hisstrength was rapidly declining, his feet were bleeding. Finally, one evening at sunset, they said to him:—
“Tucuman is fifty miles from here.”
He uttered a cry of joy, and hastened his steps, as though he had, in that moment, regained all his lost vigor. But it was a brief illusion. His forces suddenly abandoned him, and he fell upon the brink of a ditch, exhausted. But his heart was beating with content. The heaven, thickly sown with the most brilliant stars, had never seemed so beautiful to him. He contemplated it, as he lay stretched out on the grass to sleep, and thought that, perhaps, at that very moment, his mother was gazing at him. And he said:—
“O my mother, where art thou? What art thou doing at this moment? Dost thou think of thy son? Dost thou think of thy Marco, who is so near to thee?”
Poor Marco! If he could have seen in what a case his mother was at that moment, he would have made a superhuman effort to proceed on his way, and to reach her a few hours earlier. She was ill in bed, in a ground-floor room of a lordly mansion, where dwelt the entire Mequinez family. The latter had become very fond of her, and had helped her a great deal. The poor woman had already been ailing when the engineer Mequinez had been obliged unexpectedly to set out far from Buenos Ayres, and she had not benefited at all by the fine air of Cordova. But then, the fact that she had received no response to her letters from her husband, nor from her cousin, the presentiment, always lively, of some great misfortune, the continual anxiety in which she had lived, between the parting and staying, expecting every day some bad news, had caused her to grow worse out of all proportion.Finally, a very serious malady had declared itself,—a strangled internal rupture. She had not risen from her bed for a fortnight. A surgical operation was necessary to save her life. And at precisely the moment when Marco was apostrophizing her, the master and mistress of the house were standing beside her bed, arguing with her, with great gentleness, to persuade her to allow herself to be operated on, and she was persisting in her refusal, and weeping. A good physician of Tucuman had come in vain a week before.
“No, my dear master,” she said; “do not count upon it; I have not the strength to resist; I should die under the surgeon’s knife. It is better to allow me to die thus. I no longer cling to life. All is at an end for me. It is better to die before learning what has happened to my family.”
And her master and mistress opposed, and said that she must take courage, that she would receive a reply to the last letters, which had been sent directly to Genoa; that she must allow the operation to be performed; that it must be done for the sake of her family. But this suggestion of her children only aggravated her profound discouragement, which had for a long time prostrated her, with increasing anguish. At these words she burst into tears.
“O my sons! my sons!” she exclaimed, wringing her hands; “perhaps they are no longer alive! It is better that I should die also. I thank you, my good master and mistress; I thank you from my heart. But it is better that I should die. At all events, I am certain that I shall not be cured by this operation. Thanks for all your care, my good master and mistress. It is useless for the doctor to come again after to-morrow.I wish to die. It is my fate to die here. I have decided.”
And they began again to console her, and to repeat, “Don’t say that,” and to take her hand and beseech her.
But she closed her eyes then in exhaustion, and fell into a doze, so that she appeared to be dead. And her master and mistress remained there a little while, by the faint light of a taper, watching with great compassion that admirable mother, who, for the sake of saving her family, had come to die six thousand miles from her country, to die after having toiled so hard, poor woman! and she was so honest, so good, so unfortunate.
Early on the morning of the following day, Marco, bent and limping, with his bag on his back, entered the city of Tucuman, one of the youngest and most flourishing towns of the Argentine Republic. It seemed to him that he beheld again Cordova, Rosario, Buenos Ayres: there were the same straight and extremely long streets, the same low white houses, but on every hand there was a new and magnificent vegetation, a perfumed air, a marvellous light, a sky limpid and profound, such as he had never seen even in Italy. As he advanced through the streets, he experienced once more the feverish agitation which had seized on him at Buenos Ayres; he stared at the windows and doors of all the houses; he stared at all the women who passed him, with an anxious hope that he might meet his mother; he would have liked to question every one, but did not dare to stop any one. All the people who were standing at their doors turned to gaze after the poor, tattered, dusty lad, who showed that he had come from afar. And he was seeking, among all these people, a countenance which should inspire him with confidence, in order to direct to its owner that tremendous query, when his eyes fell upon the sign of an inn upon which was inscribed an Italian name. Inside were a man with spectacles, and two women. He approached the door slowly, and summoning up a resolute spirit, he inquired:—
“Can you tell me, signor, where the family Mequinez is?”
“The engineer Mequinez?” asked the innkeeper in his turn.
“The engineer Mequinez,” replied the lad in a thread of a voice.
“The Mequinez family is not in Tucuman,” replied the innkeeper.
A cry of desperate pain, like that of one who has been stabbed, formed an echo to these words.
The innkeeper and the women rose, and some neighbors ran up.
“What’s the matter? what ails you, my boy?” said the innkeeper, drawing him into the shop and making him sit down. “The deuce! there’s no reason for despairing! The Mequinez family is not here, but at a little distance off, a few hours from Tucuman.”
“Where? where?” shrieked Marco, springing up like one restored to life.
“Fifteen miles from here,” continued the man, “on the river, at Saladillo, in a place where a big sugar factory is being built, and a cluster of houses; Signor Mequinez’s house is there; every one knows it: you can reach it in a few hours.”
“I was there a month ago,” said a youth, who had hastened up at the cry.
Marco stared at him with wide-open eyes, and askedhim hastily, turning pale as he did so, “Did you see the servant of Signor Mequinez—the Italian?”
“The Genoese? Yes; I saw her.”
Marco burst into a convulsive sob, which was half a laugh and half a sob. Then, with a burst of violent resolution: “Which way am I to go? quick, the road! I shall set out instantly; show me the way!”
“But it is a day’s march,” they all told him, in one breath. “You are weary; you should rest; you can set out to-morrow.”
“Impossible! impossible!” replied the lad. “Tell me the way; I will not wait another instant; I shall set out at once, were I to die on the road!”
On perceiving him so inflexible, they no longer opposed him. “May God accompany you!” they said to him. “Look out for the path through the forest. A fair journey to you, little Italian!” A man accompanied him outside of the town, pointed out to him the road, gave him some counsel, and stood still to watch him start. At the expiration of a few minutes, the lad disappeared, limping, with his bag on his shoulders, behind the thick trees which lined the road.
That night was a dreadful one for the poor sick woman. She suffered atrocious pain, which wrung from her shrieks that were enough to burst her veins, and rendered her delirious at times. The women waited on her. She lost her head. Her mistress ran in, from time to time, in affright. All began to fear that, even if she had decided to allow herself to be operated on, the doctor, who was not to come until the next day, would have arrived too late. During the moments when she was not raving, however, it was evident that her most terrible torture arose not from her bodily pains, but from the thought of her distantfamily. Emaciated, wasted away, with changed visage, she thrust her hands through her hair, with a gesture of desperation, and shrieked:—
“My God! My God! To die so far away, to die without seeing them again! My poor children, who will be left without a mother, my poor little creatures, my poor darlings! My Marco, who is still so small! only as tall as this, and so good and affectionate! You do not know what a boy he was! If you only knew, signora! I could not detach him from my neck when I set out; he sobbed in a way to move your pity; he sobbed; it seemed as though he knew that he would never behold his poor mother again. Poor Marco, my poor baby! I thought that my heart would break! Ah, if I had only died then, died while they were bidding me farewell! If I had but dropped dead! Without a mother, my poor child, he who loved me so dearly, who needed me so much! without a mother, in misery, he will be forced to beg! He, Marco, my Marco, will stretch out his hand, famishing! O eternal God! No! I will not die! The doctor! Call him at once I let him come, let him cut me, let him cleave my breast, let him drive me mad; but let him save my life! I want to recover; I want to live, to depart, to flee, to-morrow, at once! The doctor! Help! help!”
And the women seized her hands and soothed her, and made her calm herself little by little, and spoke to her of God and of hope. And then she fell back again into a mortal dejection, wept with her hands clutched in her gray hair, moaned like an infant, uttering a prolonged lament, and murmuring from time to time:—
“O my Genoa! My house! All that sea!—O my Marco, my poor Marco! Where is he now, my poor darling?”
It was midnight; and her poor Marco, after having passed many hours on the brink of a ditch, his strength exhausted, was then walking through a forest of gigantic trees, monsters of vegetation, huge boles like the pillars of a cathedral, which interlaced their enormous crests, silvered by the moon, at a wonderful height. Vaguely, amid the half gloom, he caught glimpses of myriads of trunks of all forms, upright, inclined, contorted, crossed in strange postures of menace and of conflict; some overthrown on the earth, like towers which had fallen bodily, and covered with a dense and confused mass of vegetation, which seemed like a furious throng, disputing the ground span by span; others collected in great groups, vertical and serrated, like trophies of titanic lances, whose tips touched the clouds; a superb grandeur, a prodigious disorder of colossal forms, the most majestically terrible spectacle which vegetable nature ever presented.
At times he was overwhelmed by a great stupor. But his mind instantly took flight again towards his mother. He was worn out, with bleeding feet, alone in the middle of this formidable forest, where it was only at long intervals that he saw tiny human habitations, which at the foot of these trees seemed like the ant-hills, or some buffalo asleep beside the road; he was exhausted, but he was not conscious of his exhaustion; he was alone, and he felt no fear. The grandeur of the forest rendered his soul grand; his nearness to his mother gave him the strength and the hardihood of a man; the memory of the ocean, of the alarms and the sufferings which he had undergone and vanquished, of the toil which he had endured, of the iron constancy which he had displayed, caused him to uplift his brow. All his strong and noble Genoeseblood flowed back to his heart in an ardent tide of joy and audacity. And a new thing took place within him; while he had, up to this time, borne in his mind an image of his mother, dimmed and paled somewhat by the two years of absence, at that moment the image grew clear; he again beheld her face, perfect and distinct, as he had not beheld it for a long time; he beheld it close to him, illuminated, speaking; he again beheld the most fleeting motions of her eyes, and of her lips, all her attitudes, all the shades of her thoughts; and urged on by these pursuing recollections, he hastened his steps; and a new affection, an unspeakable tenderness, grew in him, grew in his heart, making sweet and quiet tears to flow down his face; and as he advanced through the gloom, he spoke to her, he said to her the words which he would murmur in her ear in a little while more:—
“I am here, my mother; behold me here. I will never leave you again; we will return home together, and I will remain always beside you on board the ship, close beside you, and no one shall ever part me from you again, no one, never more, so long as I have life!“
And in the meantime he did not observe how the silvery light of the moon was dying away on the summits of the gigantic trees in the delicate whiteness of the dawn.
At eight o’clock on that morning, the doctor from Tucuman, a young Argentine, was already by the bedside of the sick woman, in company with an assistant, endeavoring, for the last time, to persuade her to permit herself to be operated on; and the engineer Mequinez and his wife added their warmest persuasions to those of the former. But all was in vain. The woman, feeling her strength exhausted, had nolonger any faith in the operation; she was perfectly certain that she should die under it, or that she should only survive it a few hours, after having suffered in vain pains that were more atrocious than those of which she should die in any case. The doctor lingered to tell her once more:—
“But the operation is a safe one; your safety is certain, provided you exercise a little courage! And your death is equally certain if you refuse!” It was a sheer waste of words.
“No,” she replied in a faint voice, “I still have courage to die; but I no longer have any to suffer uselessly. Leave me to die in peace.”
The doctor desisted in discouragement. No one said anything more. Then the woman turned her face towards her mistress, and addressed to her her last prayers in a dying voice.
“Dear, good signora,” she said with a great effort, sobbing, “you will send this little money and my poor effects to my family—through the consul. I hope that they may all be alive. My heart presages well in these, my last moments. You will do me the favor to write—that I have always thought of them, that I have always toiled for them—for my children—that my sole grief was not to see them once more—but that I died courageously—with resignation—blessing them; and that I recommend to my husband—and to my elder son—the youngest, my poor Marco—that I bore him in my heart until the last moment—” And suddenly she became excited, and shrieked, as she clasped her hands: “My Marco, my baby, my baby! My life!—” But on casting her tearful eyes round her, she perceived that her mistress was no longer there; she had been secretly called away.She sought her master; he had disappeared. No one remained with her except the two nurses and the assistant. She heard in the adjoining room the sound of hurried footsteps, a murmur of hasty and subdued voices, and repressed exclamations. The sick woman fixed her glazing eyes on the door, in expectation. At the end of a few minutes she saw the doctor appear with an unusual expression on his face; then her mistress and master, with their countenances also altered. All three gazed at her with a singular expression, and exchanged a few words in a low tone. She fancied that the doctor said to her mistress, “Better let it be at once.” She did not understand.
“Josefa,” said her mistress to the sick woman, in a trembling voice, “I have some good news for you. Prepare your heart for good news.”
The woman observed her intently.
“News,” pursued the lady, with increasing agitation, “which will give you great joy.”
The sick woman’s eyes dilated.
“Prepare yourself,” continued her mistress, “to see a person—of whom you are very fond.”
The woman raised her head with a vigorous movement, and began to gaze in rapid succession, first at the lady and then at the door, with flashing eyes.
“A person,” added the lady, turning pale, “who has just arrived—unexpectedly.”
“Who is it?” shrieked the woman, with a strange and choked voice, like that of a person in terror. An instant later she gave vent to a shrill scream, sprang into a sitting posture in her bed, and remained motionless, with starting eyes, and her hands pressed to her temples, as in the presence of a supernatural apparition.
Marco, tattered and dusty, stood there on the threshold, held back by the doctor’s hand on one arm.
The woman uttered three shrieks: “God! God! My God!”
Marco rushed forward; she stretched out to him her fleshless arms, and straining him to her heart with the strength of a tiger, she burst into a violent laugh, broken by deep, tearless sobs, which caused her to fall back suffocating on her pillow.
But she speedily recovered herself, and mad with joy, she shrieked as she covered his head with kisses: “How do you come here? Why? Is it you? How you have grown! Who brought you? Are you alone? You are not ill? It is you, Marco! It is not a dream! My God! Speak to me!”
Then she suddenly changed her tone: “No! Be silent! Wait!” And turning to the doctor, she said with precipitation: “Quick, doctor! this instant! I want to get well. I am ready. Do not lose a moment. Take Marco away, so that he may not hear.—Marco, my love, it is nothing. I will tell you about it. One more kiss. Go!—Here I am, doctor.”
Marco was taken away. The master, mistress, and women retired in haste; the surgeon and his assistant remained behind, and closed the door.
Signor Mequinez attempted to lead Marco to a distant room, but it was impossible; he seemed rooted to the pavement.
“What is it?” he asked. “What is the matter with my mother? What are they doing to her?”
And then Mequinez said softly, still trying to draw him away: “Here! Listen to me. I will tell you now. Your mother is ill; she must undergo a little operation; I will explain it all to you: come with me.”
“No,” replied the lad, resisting; “I want to stay here. Explain it to me here.”
The engineer heaped words on words, as he drew him away; the boy began to grow terrified and to tremble.
Suddenly an acute cry, like that of one wounded to the death, rang through the whole house.
The boy responded with another desperate shriek, “My mother is dead!”
The doctor appeared on the threshold and said, “Your mother is saved.”
The boy gazed at him for a moment, and then flung himself at his feet, sobbing, “Thanks, doctor!”
But the doctor raised him with a gesture, saying: “Rise! It is you, you heroic child, who have saved your mother!”
Wednesday, 24th.
Marco, the Genoese, is the last little hero but one whose acquaintance we shall make this year; only one remains for the month of June. There are only two more monthly examinations, twenty-six days of lessons, six Thursdays, and five Sundays. The air of the end of the year is already perceptible. The trees of the garden, leafy and in blossom, cast a fine shade on the gymnastic apparatus. The scholars are already dressed in summer clothes. And it is beautiful, at the close of school and the exit of the classes, to see how different everything is from what it was in the months that are past. The long locks which touched the shoulders have disappeared; all heads are closely shorn; bare legs and throats are to be seen; little straw hats of every shape, with ribbons that descend even on thebacks of the wearers; shirts and neckties of every hue; all the little children with something red or blue about them, a facing, a border, a tassel, a scrap of some vivid color tacked on somewhere by the mother, so that even the poorest may make a good figure; and many come to school without any hats, as though they had run away from home. Some wear the white gymnasium suit. There is one of Schoolmistress Delcati’s boys who is red from head to foot, like a boiled crab. Several are dressed like sailors.
But the finest of all is the little mason, who has donned a big straw hat, which gives him the appearance of a half-candle with a shade over it; and it is ridiculous to see him make his hare’s face beneath it. Coretti, too, has abandoned his catskin cap, and wears an old travelling-cap of gray silk. Votini has a sort of Scotch dress, all decorated; Crossi displays his bare breast; Precossi is lost inside of a blue blouse belonging to the blacksmith-ironmonger.
And Garoffi? Now that he has been obliged to discard the cloak beneath which he concealed his wares, all his pockets are visible, bulging with all sorts of huckster’s trifles, and the lists of his lotteries force themselves out. Now all his pockets allow their contents to be seen,—fans made of half a newspaper, knobs of canes, darts to fire at birds, herbs, and maybugs which creep out of his pockets and crawl gradually over the jackets.
Many of the little fellows carry bunches of flowers to the mistresses. The mistresses are dressed in summer garments also, of cheerful tints; all except the “little nun,” who is always in black; and the mistress with the red feather still has her red feather, and a knot of red ribbon at her neck, all tumbled with thelittle paws of her scholars, who always make her laugh and flee.
It is the season, too, of cherry-trees, of butterflies, of music in the streets, and of rambles in the country; many of the fourth grade run away to bathe in the Po; all have their hearts already set on the vacation; each day they issue forth from school more impatient and content than the day before. Only it pains me to see Garrone in mourning, and my poor mistress of the primary, who is thinner and whiter than ever, and who coughs with ever-increasing violence. She walks all bent over now, and salutes me so sadly!
Friday, 26th.
You are now beginning to comprehend the poetry of school, Enrico; but at present you only survey the school from within. It will seem much more beautiful and more poetic to you twenty years from now, when you go thither to escort your own boys; and you will then survey it from the outside, as I do. While waiting for school to close, I wander about the silent street, in the vicinity of the edifice, and lay my ear to the windows of the ground floor, which are screened by Venetian blinds. At one window I hear the voice of a schoolmistress saying:—“Ah, what a shape for at! It won’t do, my dear boy! What would your father say to it?”At the next window there resounds the heavy voice of a master, which is saying:—“I will buy fifty metres of stuff—at four lire and a half the metre—and sell it again—”Further on there is the mistress with the red feather, who is reading aloud:—“Then Pietro Micca, with the lighted train of powder—”From the adjoining class-room comes the chirping of a thousand birds, which signifies that the master has stepped out for a moment. I proceed onward, and as I turn the corner, I hear a scholar weeping, and the voice of the mistress reproving and comforting him. From the lofty windows issue verses, names of great and good men, fragments of sentences which inculcate virtue, the love of country, and courage. Then ensue moments of silence, in which one would declare that the edifice is empty, and it does not seem possible that there should be seven hundred boys within; noisy outbursts of hilarity become audible, provoked by the jest of a master in a good humor. And the people who are passing halt, and all direct a glance of sympathy towards that pleasing building, which contains so much youth and so many hopes. Then a sudden dull sound is heard, a clapping to of books and portfolios, a shuffling of feet, a buzz which spreads from room to room, and from the lower to the higher, as at the sudden diffusion of a bit of good news: it is the beadle, who is making his rounds, announcing the dismissal of school. And at that sound a throng of women, men, girls, and youths press closer from this side and that of the door, waiting for their sons, brothers, or grandchildren; while from the doors of the class-rooms little boys shoot forth into the big hall, as from a spout, seize their little capes and hats, creating a great confusion with them on the floor, and dancing all about, until the beadle chases them forth one after the other. And at length they come forth, in long files, stampingtheir feet. And then from all the relatives there descends a shower of questions: “Did you know your lesson?—How much work did they give you?—What have you to do for to-morrow!—When does the monthly examination come?”And then even the poor mothers who do not know how to read, open the copy-books, gaze at the problems, and ask particulars: “Only eight?—Ten with commendation?—Nine for the lesson?”And they grow uneasy, and rejoice, and interrogate the masters, and talk of prospectuses and examinations. How beautiful all this is, and how great and how immense is its promise for the world!Thy Father.
You are now beginning to comprehend the poetry of school, Enrico; but at present you only survey the school from within. It will seem much more beautiful and more poetic to you twenty years from now, when you go thither to escort your own boys; and you will then survey it from the outside, as I do. While waiting for school to close, I wander about the silent street, in the vicinity of the edifice, and lay my ear to the windows of the ground floor, which are screened by Venetian blinds. At one window I hear the voice of a schoolmistress saying:—
“Ah, what a shape for at! It won’t do, my dear boy! What would your father say to it?”
At the next window there resounds the heavy voice of a master, which is saying:—
“I will buy fifty metres of stuff—at four lire and a half the metre—and sell it again—”
Further on there is the mistress with the red feather, who is reading aloud:—
“Then Pietro Micca, with the lighted train of powder—”
From the adjoining class-room comes the chirping of a thousand birds, which signifies that the master has stepped out for a moment. I proceed onward, and as I turn the corner, I hear a scholar weeping, and the voice of the mistress reproving and comforting him. From the lofty windows issue verses, names of great and good men, fragments of sentences which inculcate virtue, the love of country, and courage. Then ensue moments of silence, in which one would declare that the edifice is empty, and it does not seem possible that there should be seven hundred boys within; noisy outbursts of hilarity become audible, provoked by the jest of a master in a good humor. And the people who are passing halt, and all direct a glance of sympathy towards that pleasing building, which contains so much youth and so many hopes. Then a sudden dull sound is heard, a clapping to of books and portfolios, a shuffling of feet, a buzz which spreads from room to room, and from the lower to the higher, as at the sudden diffusion of a bit of good news: it is the beadle, who is making his rounds, announcing the dismissal of school. And at that sound a throng of women, men, girls, and youths press closer from this side and that of the door, waiting for their sons, brothers, or grandchildren; while from the doors of the class-rooms little boys shoot forth into the big hall, as from a spout, seize their little capes and hats, creating a great confusion with them on the floor, and dancing all about, until the beadle chases them forth one after the other. And at length they come forth, in long files, stampingtheir feet. And then from all the relatives there descends a shower of questions: “Did you know your lesson?—How much work did they give you?—What have you to do for to-morrow!—When does the monthly examination come?”
And then even the poor mothers who do not know how to read, open the copy-books, gaze at the problems, and ask particulars: “Only eight?—Ten with commendation?—Nine for the lesson?”
And they grow uneasy, and rejoice, and interrogate the masters, and talk of prospectuses and examinations. How beautiful all this is, and how great and how immense is its promise for the world!
Thy Father.
Sunday, 28th.
The month of May could not have had a better ending than my visit of this morning. We heard a jingling of the bell, and all ran to see what it meant. I heard my father say in a tone of astonishment:—
“You here, Giorgio?”
Giorgio was our gardener in Chieri, who now has his family at Condove, and who had just arrived from Genoa, where he had disembarked on the preceding day, on his return from Greece, where he has been working on the railway for the last three years. He had a big bundle in his arms. He has grown a little older, but his face is still red and jolly.
My father wished to have him enter; but he refused, and suddenly inquired, assuming a serious expression:
“How is my family? How is Gigia?”
“She was well a few days ago,” replied my mother.
Giorgio uttered a deep sigh.
“Oh, God be praised! I had not the courage to present myself at the Deaf-mute Institution until I had heard about her. I will leave my bundle here, and run to get her. It is three years since I have seen my poor little daughter! Three years since I have seen any of my people!”
My father said to me, “Accompany him.”
“Excuse me; one word more,” said the gardener, from the landing.
My father interrupted him, “And your affairs?”
“All right,” the other replied. “Thanks to God, I have brought back a few soldi. But I wanted to inquire. Tell me how the education of the little dumb girl is getting on. When I left her, she was a poor little animal, poor thing! I don’t put much faith in those colleges. Has she learned how to make signs? My wife did write to me, to be sure, ‘She is learning to speak; she is making progress.’ But I said to myself, What is the use of her learning to talk if I don’t know how to make the signs myself? How shall we manage to understand each other, poor little thing? That is well enough to enable them to understand each other, one unfortunate to comprehend another unfortunate. How is she getting on, then? How is she?”
My father smiled, and replied:—
“I shall not tell you anything about it; you will see; go, go; don’t waste another minute!”
We took our departure; the institute is close by. As we went along with huge strides, the gardener talked to me, and grew sad.
“Ah, my poor Gigia! To be born with such an infirmity! To think that I have never heard her call mefather; that she has never heard me call hermy daughter; that she has never either heard or uttered a singleword since she has been in the world! And it is lucky that a charitable gentleman was found to pay the expenses of the institution. But that is all—she could not enter there until she was eight years old. She has not been at home for three years. She is now going on eleven. And she has grown? Tell me, she has grown? She is in good spirits?”
“You will see in a moment, you will see in a moment,” I replied, hastening my pace.
“But where is this institution?” he demanded. “My wife went with her after I was gone. It seems to me that it ought to be near here.”
We had just reached it. We at once entered the parlor. An attendant came to meet us.
“I am the father of Gigia Voggi,” said the gardener; “give me my daughter instantly.”
“They are at play,” replied the attendant; “I will go and inform the matron.” And he hastened away.
The gardener could no longer speak nor stand still; he stared at all four walls, without seeing anything.
The door opened; a teacher entered, dressed in black, holding a little girl by the hand.
Father and daughter gazed at one another for an instant; then flew into each other’s arms, uttering a cry.
The girl was dressed in a white and reddish striped material, with a gray apron. She is a little taller than I. She cried, and clung to her father’s neck with both arms.
Her father disengaged himself, and began to survey her from head to foot, panting as though he had run a long way; and he exclaimed: “Ah, how she has grown! How pretty she has become! Oh, my dear, poor Gigia! My poor mute child!—Are you herteacher, signora? Tell her to make some of her signs to me; for I shall be able to understand something, and then I will learn little by little. Tell her to make me understand something with her gestures.”
The teacher smiled, and said in a low voice to the girl, “Who is this man who has come to see you?”
And the girl replied with a smile, in a coarse, strange, dissonant voice, like that of a savage who was speaking for the first time in our language, but with a distinct pronunciation, “He is my fa-ther.”
The gardener fell back a pace, and shrieked like a madman: “She speaks! Is it possible! Is it possible! She speaks? Can you speak, my child? can you speak? Say something to me: you can speak?” and he embraced her afresh, and kissed her thrice on the brow. “But it is not with signs that she talks, signora; it is not with her fingers? What does this mean?”
“No, Signor Voggi,” rejoined the teacher, “it is not with signs. That was the old way. Here we teach the new method, the oral method. How is it that you did not know it?”
“I knew nothing about it!” replied the gardener, lost in amazement. “I have been abroad for the last three years. Oh, they wrote to me, and I did not understand. I am a blockhead. Oh, my daughter, you understand me, then? Do you hear my voice? Answer me: do you hear me? Do you hear what I say?”
“Why, no, my good man,” said the teacher; “she does not hear your voice, because she is deaf. She understands from the movements of your lips what the words are that you utter; this is the way the thing is managed; but she does not hear your voice any morethan she does the words which she speaks to you; she pronounces them, because we have taught her, letter by letter, how she must place her lips and move her tongue, and what effort she must make with her chest and throat, in order to emit a sound.”
The gardener did not understand, and stood with his mouth wide open. He did not yet believe it.
“Tell me, Gigia,” he asked his daughter, whispering in her ear, “are you glad that your father has come back?” and he raised his face again, and stood awaiting her reply.
The girl looked at him thoughtfully, and said nothing.
Her father was perturbed.
The teacher laughed. Then she said: “My good man, she does not answer you, because she did not see the movements of your lips: you spoke in her ear! Repeat your question, keeping your face well before hers.”
The father, gazing straight in her face, repeated, “Are you glad that your father has come back? that he is not going away again?”
The girl, who had observed his lips attentively, seeking even to see inside his mouth, replied frankly:—
“Yes, I am de-light-ed that you have re-turned, that you are not go-ing a-way a-gain—nev-er a-gain.”
Her father embraced her impetuously, and then in great haste, in order to make quite sure, he overwhelmed her with questions.
“What is mamma’s name?”
“An-to-nia.”
“What is the name of your little sister?”
“Ad-e-laide.”
“What is the name of this college?”
“The Deaf-mute Insti-tution.”
“How many are two times ten?”
“Twen-ty.”
While we thought that he was laughing for joy, he suddenly burst out crying. But this was the result of joy also.
“Take courage,” said the teacher to him; “you have reason to rejoice, not to weep. You see that you are making your daughter cry also. You are pleased, then?”
The gardener grasped the teacher’s hand and kissed it two or three times, saying: “Thanks, thanks, thanks! a hundred thanks, a thousand thanks, dear Signora Teacher! and forgive me for not knowing how to say anything else!”
“But she not only speaks,” said the teacher; “your daughter also knows how to write. She knows how to reckon. She knows the names of all common objects. She knows a little history and geography. She is now in the regular class. When she has passed through the two remaining classes, she will know much more. When she leaves here, she will be in a condition to adopt a profession. We already have deaf-mutes who stand in the shops to serve customers, and they perform their duties like any one else.”
Again the gardener was astounded. It seemed as though his ideas were becoming confused again. He stared at his daughter and scratched his head. His face demanded another explanation.
Then the teacher turned to the attendant and said to him:—
“Call a child of the preparatory class for me.”
The attendant returned, in a short time, with a deaf-mute of eight or nine years, who had entered the institution a few days before.
“This girl,” said the mistress, “is one of those whom we are instructing in the first elements. This is the way it is done. I want to make her saya. Pay attention.”
The teacher opened her mouth, as one opens it to pronounce the vowela, and motioned to the child to open her mouth in the same manner. Then the mistress made her a sign to emit her voice. She did so; but instead ofa, she pronouncedo.
“No,” said the mistress, “that is not right.” And taking the child’s two hands, she placed one of them on her own throat and the other on her chest, and repeated, “a.”
The child felt with her hands the movements of the mistress’s throat and chest, opened her mouth again as before, and pronounced extremely well, “a.”
In the same manner, the mistress made her pronouncecandd, still keeping the two little hands on her own throat and chest.
“Now do you understand?” she inquired.
The father understood; but he seemed more astonished than when he had not understood.
“And they are taught to speak in the same way?” he asked, after a moment of reflection, gazing at the teacher. “You have the patience to teach them to speak in that manner, little by little, and so many of them? one by one—through years and years? But you are saints; that’s what you are! You are angels of paradise! There is not in the world a reward that is worthy of you! What is there that I can say? Ah! leave me alone with my daughter a little while now. Let me have her to myself for five minutes.”
And drawing her to a seat apart he began to interrogate her, and she to reply, and he laughed with beaming eyes, slapping his fists down on his knees; and he took his daughter’s hands, and stared at her, beside himself with delight at hearing her, as though her voice had been one which came from heaven; then he asked the teacher, “Would the Signor Director permit me to thank him?”
“The director is not here,” replied the mistress; “but there is another person whom you should thank. Every little girl here is given into the charge of an older companion, who acts the part of sister or mother to her. Your little girl has been intrusted to the care of a deaf-mute of seventeen, the daughter of a baker, who is kind and very fond of her; she has been assisting her for two years to dress herself every morning; she combs her hair, she teaches her to sew, she mends her clothes, she is good company for her.—Luigia, what is the name of your mamma in the institute?”
The girl smiled, and said, “Ca-te-rina Gior-dano.” Then she said to her father, “She is ve-ry, ve-ry good.”
The attendant, who had withdrawn at a signal from the mistress, returned almost at once with a light-haired deaf-mute, a robust girl, with a cheerful countenance, and also dressed in the red and white striped stuff, with a gray apron; she paused at the door and blushed; then she bent her head with a smile. She had the figure of a woman, but seemed like a child.
Giorgio’s daughter instantly ran to her, took her by the arm, like a child, and drew her to her father, saying, in her heavy voice, “Ca-te-rina Gior-dano.”
“Ah, what a splendid girl!” exclaimed her father; and he stretched out one hand to caress her, but drewit back again, and repeated, “Ah, what a good girl! May God bless her, may He grant her all good fortune, all consolations; may He make her and hers always happy, so good a girl is she, my poor Gigia! It is an honest workingman, the poor father of a family, who wishes you this with all his heart.”
The big girl caressed the little one, still keeping her face bent, and smiling, and the gardener continued to gaze at her, as at a madonna.
“You can take your daughter with you for the day,” said the mistress.
“Won’t I take her, though!” rejoined the gardener. “I’ll take her to Condove, and fetch her back to-morrow morning. Think for a bit whether I won’t take her!”
The girl ran off to dress.
“It is three years since I have seen her!” repeated the gardener. “Now she speaks! I will take her to Condove with me on the instant. But first I shall take a ramble about Turin, with my deaf-mute on my arm, so that all may see her, and take her to see some of my friends! Ah, what a beautiful day! This is consolation indeed!—Here’s your father’s arm, my Gigia.”
The girl, who had returned with a little mantle and cap on, took his arm.
“And thanks to all!” said the father, as he reached the threshold. “Thanks to all, with my whole soul! I shall come back another time to thank you all again.”
He stood for a moment in thought, then disengaged himself abruptly from the girl, turned back, fumbling in his waistcoat with his hand, and shouted like a man in a fury:—
“Come now, I am not a poor devil! So here, I leave twenty lire for the institution,—a fine new gold piece.”
And with a tremendous bang, he deposited his gold piece on the table.
“No, no, my good man,” said the mistress, with emotion. “Take back your money. I cannot accept it. Take it back. It is not my place. You shall see about that when the director is here. But he will not accept anything either; be sure of that. You have toiled too hard to earn it, poor man. We shall be greatly obliged to you, all the same.”
“No; I shall leave it,” replied the gardener, obstinately; “and then—we will see.”
But the mistress put his money back in his pocket, without leaving him time to reject it. And then he resigned himself with a shake of the head; and then, wafting a kiss to the mistress and to the large girl, he quickly took his daughter’s arm again, and hurried with her out of the door, saying:—
“Come, come, my daughter, my poor dumb child, my treasure!”
And the girl exclaimed, in her harsh voice:—
“Oh, how beau-ti-ful the sun is!”
June 3d.To-morrow is the National Festival Day.