Our Master

My new teacher pleases me since this morning. While we were coming in, he stood at his post, and many of his pupils of last year peeped in through the door to salute him: "Good day, Signor teacher," "Good day, Signor Perboni;" some would enter, touch his hand and run away. It was plain that they liked him and would have been pleased to remain with him. He answered: "Good day," shook the hands that were tendered him, but looked at no one, and at every salute remained serious, with the straight wrinkle on his forehead, turning his head toward the window and looking at the roof of the house opposite. Instead of enjoying those salutations he seemed to suffer from them. Then he looked at us, one after the other, attentively. While dictating, he came walking down between the benches, and seeing a scholar whose face was all red with pimples, he paused, took the boy's face between his hands and looked at him; asked the cause of the trouble and felt his forehead to see if it were warm. In the meanwhile, the boy behind him stood up on the bench and began to play the marionette. Our master turned around suddenly; the boy sat down quickly and awaited his punishment. The teacher placed his hand on his head and said: "Do not do it any more!" and returned to his desk. When he had finished dictating, he looked at us silently for a moment, and then said very slowly, in his heavy yet kind voice:

"Listen, we have a year to pass together, let us seek to pass it well. Study and be good. I have no family. You may take the place of my family. I had a mother last year but she is dead. I have no one else in the world now but you. I have no other affection, no other thought than you. You must be my sons; I love you; you must love me. I do not want to be obliged to punish any one. Show me that you are boys with good hearts, and our school will be a family and you will be my consolation and my pride. I do not ask a promise of you, I am sure that in your hearts you have already told me 'yes' and I thank you."

At that moment the janitor came in to announce that the class was over, and we left our desks very quietly. The boy who had stood up on his bench approached the master and said to him in a trembling voice:

"Signor master, will you forgive me?"

The master kissed his forehead and said: "Go, my son."