Friday, 7th.
This morning we had our oral examinations. At eight o'clock we were all
in the schoolroom, and at a quarter past they began to call us, four at
a time, into the big hall, where there was a large table covered with a
green cloth; round it were seated the head-master and four other
masters, among them our own. I was one of the first called out. Poor
master! how plainly I perceived this morning that you are really fond of
us! While they were interrogating the others, he had no eyes for any one
but us. He was troubled when we were uncertain in our replies; he grew
serene when we gave a fine answer; he heard everything, and made us a
thousand signs with his hand and head, to say to us, "Good!--no!--pay
attention!--slower!--courage!"
He would have suggested everything to us, had he been able to talk. If
the fathers of all these pupils had been in his place, one after the
other, they could not have done more. They would have cried "Thanks!"
ten times, in the face of them all. And when the other masters said to
me, "That is well; you may go," his eyes beamed with pleasure.
I returned at once to the schoolroom to wait for my father. Nearly all
were still there. I sat down beside Garrone. I was not at all cheerful;
I was thinking that it was the last time that we should be near each
other for an hour. I had not yet told Garrone that I should not go
through the fourth grade with him, that I was to leave Turin with my
father. He knew nothing. And he sat there, doubled up together, with his
big head reclining on the desk, making ornaments round the photograph
of his father, who was dressed like a machinist, and who is a tall,
large man, with a bull neck and a serious, honest look, like himself.
And as he sat thus bent together, with his blouse a little open in
front, I saw on his bare and robust breast the gold cross which Nelli's
mother had presented to him, when she learned that he protected her son.
But it was necessary to tell him sometime that I was going away. I said
to him:--
"Garrone, my father is going away from Turin this autumn, for good. He
asked me if I were going, also. I replied that I was."
"You will not go through the fourth grade with us?" he said to me. I
answered "No."
Then he did not speak to me for a while, but went on with his drawing.
Then, without raising his head, he inquired:
"And shall you remember your comrades of the third grade?"
"Yes," I told him, "all of them; but you more than all the rest. Who can
forget you?"
He looked at me fixedly and seriously, with a gaze that said a thousand
things, but he said nothing; he only offered me his left hand,
pretending to continue his drawing with the other; and I pressed it
between mine, that strong and loyal hand. At that moment the master
entered hastily, with a red face, and said, in a low, quick voice, with
a joyful intonation:--
"Good, all is going well now, let the rest come forwards; _bravi_, boys!
Courage! I am extremely well satisfied." And, in order to show us his
contentment, and to exhilarate us, as he went out in haste, he made a
motion of stumbling and of catching at the wall, to prevent a fall; he
whom we had never seen laugh! The thing appeared so strange, that,
instead of laughing, all remained stupefied; all smiled, no one laughed.
Well, I do not know,--that act of childish joy caused both pain and
tenderness. All his reward was that moment of cheerfulness,--it was the
compensation for nine months of kindness, patience, and even sorrow! For
that he had toiled so long; for that he had so often gone to give
lessons to a sick boy, poor teacher! That and nothing more was what he
demanded of us, in exchange for so much affection and so much care!
And, now, it seems to me that I shall always see him in the performance
of that act, when I recall him through many years; and when I have
become a man, he will still be alive, and we shall meet, and I will tell
him about that deed which touched my heart; and I will give him a kiss
on his white head.