Heart/The Assistant Master
the benches, and snapped pellets of paper at each other with the elastics of their garters.
The assistant grasped now one, now another, by the arm, and shook him; and he placed one of them against the wall—time wasted. He no longer knew what to do, and he entreated them. “Why do you behave like this? Do you wish to make me punish you?” Then he thumped the little table with his fist, and shouted in a voice, angry but tearful, “Silence! silence! silence!” It was hard to hear him. But the noise kept getting louder. Franti threw a paper dart at him; some gave cat-calls; others thumped each other on the head. The hurly-burly was indescribable; when, all of a sudden, the beadle entered and said:—
“Signor Master, the principal has sent for you.”
The teacher rose and went out in haste, with a gesture of despair. Then the tumult began more vigorously than ever. But suddenly Garrone sprang up, his face all flaming, his fists clenched, and shouted in a voice choked with rage:—
“Stop this! You are brutes! You take advantage of him because he is kind. II he were to bruise your bones for you, you would be as humble as dogs. You are a pack of cowards! The first one of you that jeers at him again, I shall wait for outside, and I shall break his teeth for him,—I swear it,—even under his father's very eyes!”
All grew silent. Ah, what a fine thing it was to see Garrone, with his eyes darting flames! He seemed to be a furious young lion. He stared at the most daring, one after the other, and all hung their heads.
When the assistant came back, with red eyes, not a breath was to be heard. He stood in amazement; then, catching sight of Garrone, who was still all fiery and trembling, he understood it all, and he said to him, with accents of great affection, as to a brother, “I thank you, Garrone.”
STARDI'S LIBRARY
I have been home with Stardi, who lives opposite the schoolhouse; and I really felt some envy at the sight of his library. He is not at all rich, and he cannot buy many books; but he preserves his schoolbooks with great care, as well as those which his relatives give him; and he lays aside every soldo that is given to him, and spends it at the bookseller's. In this way he has collected quite a little library; and when his father saw that he had this passion, he bought him a handsome bookcase of walnut wood, with a green curtain, and he has had most of his volumes bound for him in the colors that he likes.
When he draws a little cord, the green curtain runs back, and three rows of books of every color are seen, all ranged in order, and shining, with gilt titles on their backs, books of tales, of travels, and of poetry; and some illustrated ones. He understands how to combine colors well: he places the white volumes next to the red ones, the yellow next the black, the blue beside the white, so that, viewed from a distance, they make a very fine show; and he amuses himself by varying the combinations.
He has made himself a catalogue. He is like a