Friday, 16th.
During the five days which have passed since the National Festival, the
heat has increased by three degrees. We are in full summer now, and
begin to feel weary; all have lost their fine rosy color of springtime;
necks and legs are growing thin, heads droop and eyes close. Poor Nelli,
who suffers much from the heat, has turned the color of wax in the face;
he sometimes falls into a heavy sleep, with his head on his copy-book;
but Garrone is always watchful, and places an open book upright in front
of him, so that the master may not see him. Crossi rests his red head
against the bench in a certain way, so that it looks as though it had
been detached from his body and placed there separately. Nobis complains
that there are too many of us, and that we corrupt the air. Ah, what an
effort it costs now to study! I gaze through the windows at those
beautiful trees which cast so deep a shade, where I should be so glad to
run, and sadness and wrath overwhelm me at being obliged to go and shut
myself up among the benches. But then I take courage at the sight of my
kind mother, who is always watching me, scrutinizing me, when I return
from school, to see whether I am not pale; and at every page of my work
she says to me:--
"Do you still feel well?" and every morning at six, when she wakes me
for my lesson, "Courage! there are only so many days more: then you will
be free, and will get rested,--you will go to the shade of country
lanes."
Yes, she is perfectly right to remind me of the boys who are working in
the fields in the full heat of the sun, or among the white sands of the
river, which blind and scorch them, and of those in the glass-factories,
who stand all day long motionless, with head bent over a flame of gas;
and all of them rise earlier than we do, and have no vacations. Courage,
then! And even in this respect, Derossi is at the head of all, for he
suffers neither from heat nor drowsiness; he is always wide awake, and
cheery, with his golden curls, as he was in the winter, and he studies
without effort, and keeps all about him alert, as though he freshened
the air with his voice.
And there are two others, also, who are always awake and attentive:
stubborn Stardi, who pricks his face, to prevent himself from going to
sleep; and the more weary and heated he is, the more he sets his teeth,
and he opens his eyes so wide that it seems as though he wanted to eat
the teacher; and that barterer of a Garoffi, who is wholly absorbed in
manufacturing fans out of red paper, decorated with little figures from
match-boxes, which he sells at two centesimi apiece.
But the bravest of all is Coretti; poor Coretti, who gets up at five
o'clock, to help his father carry wood! At eleven, in school, he can no
longer keep his eyes open, and his head droops on his breast. And
nevertheless, he shakes himself, punches himself on the back of the
neck, asks permission to go out and wash his face, and makes his
neighbors shake and pinch him. But this morning he could not resist, and
he fell into a leaden sleep. The master called him loudly; "Coretti!" He
did not hear. The master, irritated, repeated, "Coretti!" Then the son
of the charcoal-man, who lives next to him at home, rose and said:--
"He worked from five until seven carrying faggots." The teacher allowed
him to sleep on, and continued with the lesson for half an hour. Then he
went to Coretti's seat, and wakened him very, very gently, by blowing in
his face. On beholding the master in front of him, he started back in
alarm. But the master took his head in his hands, and said, as he kissed
him on the hair:--
"I am not reproving you, my son. Your sleep is not at all that of
laziness; it is the sleep of fatigue."