MY SCHOOLMISTRESS OF THE UPPER FIRST
Thursday, 27th.
My schoolmistress kept her promise, and came today just as I was on the point of going out with my mother to carry some linen to a poor woman recommended by the Gazette. It was a year since I had seen her in our house. We all made a great deal of her. She is just the same as ever,—a little thing, with a green veil wound about her bonnet, carelessly dressed, and with untidy hair, because she has not time to adorn herself; but with a little less color than last year, with some white hairs, and a constant cough. My mother said to her:—
“And your health, my dear mistress? You do not take sufficient care of yourself!”
“It does not matter,” the other replied, with her smile, at once bright and sad.
“You speak too loud,” my mother added; “you exert yourself too much with your boys.”
That is true; her voice is always to be heard; I remember how it was when I went to school to her; she talked and talked all the time, so that the boys might not lose their attention, and she did not remain seated a moment. I felt quite sure that she would come, because she never forgets her pupils; she remembers their names for years. On the days of the monthly examinations, she runs to ask the director what marks they have won; she waits for them at the entrance, and makes them show her their compositions, in order that she may see what progress they have made; and many, who are now in the grammar school and wear long trousers and a watch, still come to see her.
To-day she had come back in a great state of excitement, from the picture-gallery, whither she had taken her boys, just as she had conducted them all to a museum every Thursday in years gone by, and explained everything to them. The poor mistress has grown still thinner than of old. But she is always brisk, and always becomes animated when she speaks of her school. She wanted to have a peep at the bed on which she had seen me lying very ill two years ago, and which is now occupied by my brother; she gazed at it for a while, and could not speak. She was obliged to go away soon to visit a boy belonging to her class, the son of a saddler, who is ill with the measles; and she had besides a package of sheets to correct, a whole evening's work; and she had still a private lesson in arithmetic to give to the mistress of a shop before nightfall.
“Well, Enrico,” she said to me as she was going, “are you still fond of your schoolmistress, now that you do hard sums and write long compositions?” She kissed me, and called up once more from the foot of the stairs: “You are not to forget me, you know, Enrico!”
Oh, my kind teacher, never, never shall I forget you! Even when I grow up I shall remember you and shall go to seek you among your boys; and every time I pass near a school and hear the voice of a schoolmistress, I shall think that I hear your voice, and I shall recall the two years I passed in your school, where I learned so many things, where I so often saw you ill and weary, but always earnest, always indulgent, in despair when any one was clumsy with his pen, trembling when the examiners asked us questions, happy when we made a good showing, always kind and loving as a mother. Never, never shall I forget you, my teacher!