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
passed 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 passing 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 nobility 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 buttons, 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 apron 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.