(_Monthly Story._)
He was in the fourth elementary class. He was a graceful Florentine lad
of twelve, with black hair and a white face, the eldest son of an
employee on the railway, who, having a large family and but small pay,
lived in straitened circumstances. His father loved him and was
tolerably kind and indulgent to him--indulgent in everything except in
that which referred to school: on this point he required a great deal,
and showed himself severe, because his son was obliged to attain such a
rank as would enable him to soon obtain a place and help his family; and
in order to accomplish anything quickly, it was necessary that he should
work a great deal in a very short time. And although the lad studied,
his father was always exhorting him to study more.
His father was advanced in years, and too much toil had aged him before
his time. Nevertheless, in order to provide for the necessities of his
family, in addition to the toil which his occupation imposed upon him,
he obtained special work here and there as a copyist, and passed a good
part of the night at his writing-table. Lately, he had undertaken, in
behalf of a house which published journals and books in parts, to write
upon the parcels the names and addresses of their subscribers, and he
earned three lire[1] for every five hundred of these paper wrappers,
written in large and regular characters. But this work wearied him, and
he often complained of it to his family at dinner.
[1] Sixty cents.
"My eyes are giving out," he said; "this night work is killing me." One
day his son said to him, "Let me work instead of you, papa; you know
that I can write like you, and fairly well." But the father answered:--
"No, my son, you must study; your school is a much more important thing
than my wrappers; I feel remorse at robbing you of a single hour; I
thank you, but I will not have it; do not mention it to me again."
The son knew that it was useless to insist on such a matter with his
father, and he did not persist; but this is what he did. He knew that
exactly at midnight his father stopped writing, and quitted his workroom
to go to his bedroom; he had heard him several times: as soon as the
twelve strokes of the clock had sounded, he had heard the sound of a
chair drawn back, and the slow step of his father. One night he waited
until the latter was in bed, then dressed himself very, very softly, and
felt his way to the little workroom, lighted the petroleum lamp again,
seated himself at the writing-table, where lay a pile of white wrappers
and the list of addresses, and began to write, imitating exactly his
father's handwriting. And he wrote with a will, gladly, a little in
fear, and the wrappers piled up, and from time to time he dropped the
pen to rub his hands, and then began again with increased alacrity,
listening and smiling. He wrote a hundred and sixty--one lira! Then he
stopped, placed the pen where he had found it, extinguished the light,
and went back to bed on tiptoe.
At noon that day his father sat down to the table in a good humor. He
had perceived nothing. He performed the work mechanically, measuring it
by the hour, and thinking of something else, and only counted the
wrappers he had written on the following day. He seated himself at the
table in a fine humor, and slapping his son on one shoulder, he said to
him:--
"Eh, Giulio! Your father is even a better workman than you thought. In
two hours I did a good third more work than usual last night. My hand is
still nimble, and my eyes still do their duty." And Giulio, silent but
content, said to himself, "Poor daddy, besides the money, I am giving
him some satisfaction in the thought that he has grown young again.
Well, courage!"
Encouraged by these good results, when night came and twelve o'clock
struck, he rose once more, and set to work. And this he did for several
nights. And his father noticed nothing; only once, at supper, he uttered
this exclamation, "It is strange how much oil has been used in this
house lately!" This was a shock to Giulio; but the conversation ceased
there, and the nocturnal labor proceeded.
However, by dint of thus breaking his sleep every night, Giulio did not
get sufficient rest: he rose in the morning fatigued, and when he was
doing his school work in the evening, he had difficulty in keeping his
eyes open. One evening, for the first time in his life, he fell asleep
over his copy-book.
"Courage! courage!" cried his father, clapping his hands; "to work!"
He shook himself and set to work again. But the next evening, and on the
days following, the same thing occurred, and worse: he dozed over his
books, he rose later than usual, he studied his lessons in a languid
way, he seemed disgusted with study. His father began to observe him,
then to reflect seriously, and at last to reprove him. He should never
have done it!
"Giulio," he said to him one morning, "you put me quite beside myself;
you are no longer as you used to be. I don't like it. Take care; all the
hopes of your family rest on you. I am dissatisfied; do you understand?"
At this reproof, the first severe one, in truth, which he had ever
received, the boy grew troubled.
"Yes," he said to himself, "it is true; it cannot go on so; this deceit
must come to an end."
But at dinner, on the evening of that very same day, his father said
with much cheerfulness, "Do you know that this month I have earned
thirty-two lire more at addressing those wrappers than last month!" and
so saying, he drew from under the table a paper package of sweets which
he had bought, that he might celebrate with his children this
extraordinary profit, and they all hailed it with clapping of hands.
Then Giulio took heart again, courage again, and said in his heart, "No,
poor papa, I will not cease to deceive you; I will make greater efforts
to work during the day, but I shall continue to work at night for you
and for the rest." And his father added, "Thirty-two lire more! I am
satisfied. But that boy there," pointing at Giulio, "is the one who
displeases me." And Giulio received the reprimand in silence, forcing
back two tears which tried to flow; but at the same time he felt a great
pleasure in his heart.
And he continued to work by main force; but fatigue added to fatigue
rendered it ever more difficult for him to resist. Thus things went on
for two months. The father continued to reproach his son, and to gaze at
him with eyes which grew constantly more wrathful. One day he went to
make inquiries of the teacher, and the teacher said to him: "Yes, he
gets along, he gets along, because he is intelligent; but he no longer
has the good will which he had at first. He is drowsy, he yawns, his
mind is distracted. He writes short compositions, scribbled down in all
haste, in bad chirography. Oh, he could do a great deal, a great deal
more."
That evening the father took the son aside, and spoke to him words which
were graver than any the latter had ever heard. "Giulio, you see how I
toil, how I am wearing out my life, for the family. You do not second my
efforts. You have no heart for me, nor for your brothers, nor for your
mother!"
"Ah no! don't say that, father!" cried the son, bursting into tears, and
opening his mouth to confess all. But his father interrupted him,
saying:--
"You are aware of the condition of the family; you know that good will
and sacrifices on the part of all are necessary. I myself, as you see,
have had to double my work. I counted on a gift of a hundred lire from
the railway company this month, and this morning I have learned that I
shall receive nothing!"
At this information, Giulio repressed the confession which was on the
point of escaping from his soul, and repeated resolutely to himself:
"No, papa, I shall tell you nothing; I shall guard my secret for the
sake of being able to work for you; I will recompense you in another way
for the sorrow which I occasion you; I will study enough at school to
win promotion; the important point is to help you to earn our living,
and to relieve you of the fatigue which is killing you."
And so he went on, and two months more passed, of labor by night and
weakness by day, of desperate efforts on the part of the son, and of
bitter reproaches on the part of the father. But the worst of it was,
that the latter grew gradually colder towards the boy, only addressed
him rarely, as though he had been a recreant son, of whom there was
nothing any longer to be expected, and almost avoided meeting his
glance. And Giulio perceived this and suffered from it, and when his
father's back was turned, he threw him a furtive kiss, stretching forth
his face with a sentiment of sad and dutiful tenderness; and between
sorrow and fatigue, he grew thin and pale, and he was constrained to
still further neglect his studies. And he understood well that there
must be an end to it some day, and every evening he said to himself, "I
will not get up to-night"; but when the clock struck twelve, at the
moment when he should have vigorously reaffirmed his resolution, he felt
remorse: it seemed to him, that by remaining in bed he should be failing
in a duty, and robbing his father and the family of a lira. And he rose,
thinking that some night his father would wake up and discover him, or
that he would discover the deception by accident, by counting the
wrappers twice; and then all would come to a natural end, without any
act of his will, which he did not feel the courage to exert. And thus he
went on.
But one evening at dinner his father spoke a word which was decisive so
far as he was concerned. His mother looked at him, and as it seemed to
her that he was more ill and weak than usual, she said to him, "Giulio,
you are ill." And then, turning to his father with anxiety: "Giulio is
ill. See how pale he is Giulio, my dear, how do you feel?"
His father gave a hasty glance, and said: "It is his bad conscience that
produces his bad health. He was not thus when he was a studious scholar
and a loving son."
"But he is ill!" exclaimed the mother.
"I don't care anything about him any longer!" replied the father.
This remark was like a stab in the heart to the poor boy. Ah! he cared
nothing any more. His father, who once trembled at the mere sound of a
cough from him! He no longer loved him; there was no longer any doubt;
he was dead in his father's heart. "Ah, no! my father," said the boy to
himself, his heart oppressed with anguish, "now all is over indeed; I
cannot live without your affection; I must have it all back. I will tell
you all; I will deceive you no longer. I will study as of old, come what
will, if you will only love me once more, my poor father! Oh, this time
I am quite sure of my resolution!"
Nevertheless he rose that night again, by force of habit more than
anything else; and when he was once up, he wanted to go and salute and
see once more, for the last time, in the quiet of the night, that little
chamber where he toiled so much in secret with his heart full of
satisfaction and tenderness. And when he beheld again that little table
with the lamp lighted and those white wrappers on which he was never
more to write those names of towns and persons, which he had come to
know by heart, he was seized with a great sadness, and with an impetuous
movement he grasped the pen to recommence his accustomed toil. But in
reaching out his hand he struck a book, and the book fell. The blood
rushed to his heart. What if his father had waked! Certainly he would
not have discovered him in the commission of a bad deed: he had himself
decided to tell him all, and yet--the sound of that step approaching in
the darkness,--the discovery at that hour, in that silence,--his mother,
who would be awakened and alarmed,--and the thought, which had occurred
to him for the first time, that his father might feel humiliated in his
presence on thus discovering all;--all this terrified him almost. He
bent his ear, with suspended breath. He heard no sound. He laid his ear
to the lock of the door behind him--nothing. The whole house was asleep.
His father had not heard. He recovered his composure, and he set himself
again to his writing, and wrapper was piled on wrapper. He heard the
regular tread of the policeman below in the deserted street; then the
rumble of a carriage which gradually died away; then, after an interval,
the rattle of a file of carts, which passed slowly by; then a profound
silence, broken from time to time by the distant barking of a dog. And
he wrote on and on: and meanwhile his father was behind him. He had
risen on hearing the fall of the book, and had remained waiting for a
long time: the rattle of the carts had drowned the noise of his
footsteps and the creaking of the door-casing; and he was there, with
his white head bent over Giulio's little black head, and he had seen the
pen flying over the wrappers, and in an instant he had divined all,
remembered all, understood all, and a despairing penitence, but at the
same time an immense tenderness, had taken possession of his mind and
had held him nailed to the spot suffocating behind his child. Suddenly
Giulio uttered a piercing shriek: two arms had pressed his head
convulsively.
"Oh, papa, papa! forgive me, forgive me!" he cried, recognizing his
parent by his weeping.
"Do you forgive me!" replied his father, sobbing, and covering his brow
with kisses. "I have understood all, I know all; it is I, it is I who
ask your pardon, my blessed little creature; come, come with me!" and he
pushed or rather carried him to the bedside of his mother, who was
awake, and throwing him into her arms, he said:--
"Kiss this little angel of a son, who has not slept for three months,
but has been toiling for me, while I was saddening his heart, and he was
earning our bread!" The mother pressed him to her breast and held him
there, without the power to speak; at last she said: "Go to sleep at
once, my baby, go to sleep and rest.--Carry him to bed."
The father took him from her arms, carried him to his room, and laid him
in his bed, still breathing hard and caressing him, and arranged his
pillows and coverlets for him.
"Thanks, papa," the child kept repeating; "thanks; but go to bed
yourself now; I am content; go to bed, papa."
But his father wanted to see him fall asleep; so he sat down beside the
bed, took his hand, and said to him, "Sleep, sleep, my little son!" and
Giulio, being weak, fell asleep at last, and slumbered many hours,
enjoying, for the first time in many months, a tranquil sleep, enlivened
by pleasant dreams; and as he opened his eyes, when the sun had already
been shining for a tolerably long time, he first felt, and then saw,
close to his breast, and resting upon the edge of the little bed, the
white head of his father, who had passed the night thus, and who was
still asleep, with his brow against his son's heart.