Thursday, 27th.
My schoolmistress has kept her promise which she made, and came to-day
just as I was on the point of going out with my mother to carry some
linen to a poor woman recommended by the _Gazette_. It was a year since
I had seen her in our house. We all made a great deal of her. She is
just the same as ever, a little thing, with a green veil wound about her
bonnet, carelessly dressed, and with untidy hair, because she has not
time to keep herself nice; but with a little less color than last year,
with some white hairs, and a constant cough. My mother said to her:--
"And your health, my dear mistress? You do not take sufficient care of
yourself!"
"It does not matter," the other replied, with her smile, at once
cheerful and melancholy.
"You speak too loud," my mother added; "you exert yourself too much with
your boys."
That is true; her voice is always to be heard; I remember how it was
when I went to school to her; she talked and talked all the time, so
that the boys might not divert their attention, and she did not remain
seated a moment. I felt quite sure that she would come, because she
never forgets her pupils; she remembers their names for years; on the
days of the monthly examination, she runs to ask the director what marks
they have won; she waits for them at the entrance, and makes them show
her their compositions, in order that she may see what progress they
have made; and many still come from the gymnasium to see her, who
already wear long trousers and a watch. To-day she had come back in a
great state of excitement, from the picture-gallery, whither she had
taken her boys, just as she had conducted them all to a museum every
Thursday in years gone by, and explained everything to them. The poor
mistress has grown still thinner than of old. But she is always brisk,
and always becomes animated when she speaks of her school. She wanted to
have a peep at the bed on which she had seen me lying very ill two years
ago, and which is now occupied by my brother; she gazed at it for a
while, and could not speak. She was obliged to go away soon to visit a
boy belonging to her class, the son of a saddler, who is ill with the
measles; and she had besides a package of sheets to correct, a whole
evening's work, and she has still a private lesson in arithmetic to give
to the mistress of a shop before nightfall.
"Well, Enrico," she said to me as she was going, "are you still fond of
your schoolmistress, now that you solve difficult problems and write
long compositions?" She kissed me, and called up once more from the foot
of the stairs: "You are not to forget me, you know, Enrico!" Oh, my kind
teacher, never, never will I forget thee! Even when I grow up I will
remember thee and will go to seek thee among thy boys; and every time
that I pass near a school and hear the voice of a schoolmistress, I
shall think that I hear thy voice, and I shall recall the two years that
I passed in thy school, where I learned so many things, where I so often
saw thee ill and weary, but always earnest, always indulgent, in despair
when any one acquired a bad trick in the writing-fingers, trembling when
the examiners interrogated us, happy when we made a good appearance,
always kind and loving as a mother. Never, never shall I forget thee, my
teacher!