Heart/The Sick Teacher
THE SICK TEACHER
Yesterday afternoon, on coming out of school, I went to pay a visit to my sick teacher. He made himself ill by overworking. Five hours of teaching a day, then an hour of gymnastics, then two hours more of evening school, which is saying little sleep, getting his food by snatches, and working breathlessly from morning till night. He has ruined his health. That is what my mother says. My mother was waiting for me at the big door. I came out alone, and on the stairs I met the teacher with the black beard—Coatti,—the one who frightens every one and punishes no one. He stared at me with wide-open eyes, and made his voice like that of a lion, in jest, but without laughing. I was still laughing when I pulled the bell on the fourth floor; but I ceased very suddenly when the servant let me into a wretched, half-lighted room, where my teacher was lying. He was in a little iron bed. His beard was long. He put one hand to his brow in order to see better, and exclaimed in his affectionate voice:—
“Oh, Enrico!”
I came to the bed. He laid one hand on my shoulder and said:—
“Good, my boy. You have done well to come and see your poor teacher. I am reduced to a sad state, as you see, my dear Enrico. And how fares the school? How are your comrades getting along? All well, eh? Even without me? You do very well without your old master, do you not?”
I was on the point of saying “no,” but he interrupted me.
“Come, come, I know that you do not hate me!” and he heaved a sigh.
I glanced at some photographs fastened to the wall.
“Do you see?” he said to me. “All of them are of boys who gave me their photographs more than twenty years ago. They were good boys. These are my souvenirs. When I die, my last glance will be at them; at those roguish urchins among whom my life has been passed. You will give me your portrait, also, will you not, when you have finished the elementary course?” Then he took an orange from his nightstand, and put it in my hand.
“I have nothing else to give you,” he said; “it is the gift of a sick man.”
I looked at it, and my heart was heavy.
“Listen to me,” he began again. “I hope to get over this; but if I should not recover, see that you strengthen yourself in arithmetic, which is your weak point. Make an effort. It is merely a question of a first effort: because sometimes there is no lack of aptitude; there is merely an absence of a fixed purpose—of stability, as it is called.”
But in the meantime he was breathing hard; and it was evident that he was suffering.
“I am feverish,” he sighed; “I am half gone; I beg of you, therefore, to apply yourself to arithmetic, to problems. If you don't succeed at first, rest a little and begin afresh. And press forward, but quietly, without fagging yourself, without straining your mind. Go! My respects to your mamma. And do not mount these stairs again. We shall see each other again in school. And if we do not, you must now and then call to mind your master of the third grade, who was fond of you.”
I felt like weeping at these words.
“Bend down your head,” he said. I bent my head to his pillow; he kissed my hair. Then he said to me, “Go!” and turned his face to the wall.
I flew down the stairs; for I longed to embrace my mother.