Friday, 24th.
Why, Enrico, after our father has already reproved you for having
behaved badly to Coretti, were you so unkind to me? You cannot
imagine the pain that you caused me. Do you not know that when you
were a baby, I stood for hours and hours beside your cradle,
instead of playing with my companions, and that when you were ill,
I got out of bed every night to feel whether your forehead was
burning? Do you not know, you who grieve your sister, that if a
tremendous misfortune should overtake us, I should be a mother to
you and love you like my son? Do you not know that when our father
and mother are no longer here, I shall be your best friend, the
only person with whom you can talk about our dead and your infancy,
and that, should it be necessary, I shall work for you, Enrico, to
earn your bread and to pay for your studies, and that I shall
always love you when you are grown up, that I shall follow you in
thought when you go far away, always because we grew up together
and have the same blood? O Enrico, be sure of this when you are a
man, that if misfortune happens to you, if you are alone, be very
sure that you will seek me, that you will come to me and say:
"Silvia, sister, let me stay with you; let us talk of the days when
we were happy--do you remember? Let us talk of our mother, of our
home, of those beautiful days that are so far away." O Enrico, you
will always find your sister with her arms wide open. Yes, dear
Enrico; and you must forgive me for the reproof that I am
administering to you now. I shall never recall any wrong of yours;
and if you should give me other sorrows, what matters it? You will
always be my brother, the same brother; I shall never recall you
otherwise than as having held you in my arms when a baby, of having
loved our father and mother with you, of having watched you grow
up, of having been for years your most faithful companion. But do
you write me a kind word in this same copy-book, and I will come
for it and read it before the evening. In the meanwhile, to show
you that I am not angry with you, and perceiving that you are
weary, I have copied for you the monthly story, _Blood of Romagna_,
which you were to have copied for the little sick mason. Look in
the left drawer of your table; I have been writing all night, while
you were asleep. Write me a kind word, Enrico, I beseech you.