Studying the short-story / Sixteen short-story classics with introductions, notes and a new laboratory study method for individual reading and use in colleges and schools.

by Unknown

THE LAST CLASS

(La Dernière Classe)

The Story of a Little Alsatian

BY ALPHONSE DAUDET

Translation by The Editor

Introduction plunges us at once into the action. There is one main incident throughout. The narrator is immediately seen to be a child, and surmised to be a boy.

That morning I was very late for school, so I was terribly afraid of a scolding—particularly since Master Hamel had said that he would examine us on participles, and I knew not the first word about them! For a little while I thought of playing truant and wandering the fields.

2. The day was so warm, so clear!

Setting. Note how the rural community is suggested.

3. I could hear the blackbirds whistling on the border of the wood; and back of the sawmill, in the Rippert field, the Prussian soldiers were drilling. All of this was much more tempting to me than participial rules—but I was strong enough to resist and away to school I ran, as fast as I could.

Small municipalities have mayors, in France.

4. As I passed by the mayor’s office, I observed that a number of people were assembled before the little board on which notices were generally posted.The tone is struck here. Forecast of crisis. For two years every piece of bad news had come from that board—defeats in battle, Franco-Prussian War.conscriptions, orders from headquarters—and, without stopping, I wondered:

Forecasts a crisis.

5. “What can it be this time!”

6. Just then, as I was running across the square, Wachter the blacksmith,Note the Prussian name. Alsace was a border province. who with his apprentice stood reading the placard, called after me:

Hint of crisis to come. Contributory Incident.

7. “You needn’t hurry so fast, my lad, you’ll get to school soon enough!”

The school was held in the master’s house.

8. I thought he was making game of me, and I kept right on, reaching Master Hamel’s little yard quite out of breath.

Unusual air depicted by contrast.
The story proper begins.

9. Ordinarily, as school was opening, the uproar was so great that it could be heard clear out on the street—desk-lids opening and shutting, lessons droned aloud in unison, pupils holding their ears shut to learn their An old custom. lessons easier, while the master’s great ferrule beat upon the desks:

10. “A little quietness!”

Contrast.

11. I had counted on all this noise to enable me to reach my seat unnoticed; but on that particular day everything was as quiet as a Sabbath morning. Through the open window I saw my schoolmates already ranged in their places, and Master Hamel pacing to and fro, his formidable iron ferrule under his arm. In the midst of that complete silence I had to open the door and go in! You can well imagine whether I blushed and was afraid!

Contrast.

12. But, quite to the contrary, Master Hamel looked at me with no sign of anger, and then very gently said:

Evidently a small school.

13. “Go directly to your seat, my little Frantz—we were about to begin without you.”

14. Immediately I stepped over the bench and sat down at my desk.At which others were also seated. Only then, when I had partly gotten over my fright, did I observe that our master was wearing his handsome blue riding-coat, his plaited ruff, and his black silk embroidered breeches—worn only on inspection days or when prizes were awarded.All the contrasts prepare us for the crisis. Furthermore, there was something extraordinary, something solemn, about the whole school. But what astounded me more than anything else was to see a number of people from the village sitting, as silent as we, on the usually empty benches at the back of the room: old Father Hauser Prussian name.with his three-cornered hat, the ex-mayor, the former postman, besides a number of others. All seemed cast down, and Father Hauser had brought with him an old primer, with chewed up leaves, Dazed. which he held wide-open up-side-down on his knees, and lying on it his huge spectacles.

15. While I was marvelling at all this, Master Hamel had mounted his platform, and in the same gentle and serious voice with which he had greeted me, he said to us:

Foundation of Climax. Summary of the theme. Compare with Longfellow’s Evangeline.

16. “My children, this is the last day that I shall keep school. The order has come from Berlin that nothing but German shall be taught in the schools of Alsace and Lorraine.This law went into effect July 1, 1870. The new school-master will arrive to-morrow. This is the last class in French—I beg of you to be very attentive!”

17. His simple words overwhelmed me. This, then, was the notice they had posted at the mayor’s office. Oh, the scoundrels!

The crisis becomes personal.

18. My last lesson in French!

19. And I was scarcely able to write! Then I was never to learn! I must stop short just where I was!Scarcely a paragraph but appeals to emotion in some form. How angry with myself it made me to remember the time I had frittered away, and the lessons I had missed while hunting birds’ nests or sliding on the Saar! My books now seemed to me like old comrades from whom it broke my heart to part, and The Saar flows northward into the Moselle. only a moment since I had found them—my grammar, my sacred history—so dull, and so heavy to carry! It was just the same when I thought of Master Hamel. He was going away. I should never see him again—the thought made me forget all his punishments and strokes with the ferrule.

Shift to interest in the Master.

20. Poor old man! So it was in honor of that last lesson in French that he had donned his Sunday best—and now I understood why those old folks from the village were seated at the back of the room. Now to the villagers. It seemed to say they regretted that they had not visited the school oftener. Age indicated, thus adding to the pathos. Besides, it was a sort of way of thanking our teacher for his forty years of devoted service, and of showing These are the key words. their love for the fatherland which was passing away.

Note how Daudet arouses our sympathies by avoiding generalities and centering our interest upon persons.

21. Just at this point in my reflections I heard my name called—it was my turn to recite. Oh, I would have given anything to be able to recite without a slip, in a strong, clear voice, that celebrated rule about participles; but at the very first words I grew confused and I only stood there at my bench swaying back and forward, my heart swelling, not daring to lift my head. At length I heard Master Hamel saying to me:

Ordinary rebuke is swallowed up in the great common sorrow.

22. “My little Frantz, I shall not scold you; you are punished enough, I think. It is so with all of us; every day we reassure ourselves: ‘Bah! I have plenty of time. To-morrow I shall learn.’ Then you see what happens. Alas! it has ever been the great misfortune of our Alsace to defer its lessons until the morrow.Daudet here teaches all France a lesson—and all nations as well. And now these people are justified in saying to us, ‘What, you pretend to be French, and you are able neither to speak nor to write your language!’ But in all this you are not the most guilty one, my poor Frantz—we are all worthy of a full measure of self-reproach.

Note M. Hamel’s simple sincerity.

23. “Your parents have not taken enough care to see that you got an education. They preferred to save a few more sous by putting you to work in the fields or in the factories. And I—have I nothing for which to blame myself? Have I not frequently sent you to water my garden instead of keeping you at your books? Or have I ever hesitated to dismiss school when I wanted to go trout-fishing?”

24. So Master Hamel, passing from one theme to another, began to speak to us about our French language. He said that it was the most beautiful language in the whole world—the most clear, the most substantial; that we must ever cherish it among ourselves, and never forget it, for when a nation falls into bondage, just so long as it clings to its language, it holds the key of its prison.[21]

The attention follows the lead of the emotions.

25. Then he took a grammar and read us our lesson. I was astonished to see how readily I understood! Everything he said seemed to me so easy—so very easy. I believe that never before had I listened so attentively, and that he, in turn, had never explained things with such So does the teacher’s skill. infinite patience. It almost seemed as though the poor fellow wished to impart all his knowledge to us before he left us—to drive it all into our heads with one blow.

26. The lesson ended, we went on to the exercises in penmanship. For that day Master Hamel had gotten ready some entirely new copies on which he had written in a neat, round hand: “France, Alsace, France, Alsace.”A proof of unusual absorption. The slips of paper looked like tiny flags, waving all about the room and hanging from the rods of our desks. You should have seen how diligently everyone worked, and how quiet it was! Only the scratching of the pens over the paper could be heard. Once some beetles flew in, but nobody paid any attention to them—not even the very smallest chaps, who were struggling to draw their oblique lines with a will and an application as sincere as though even the lines themselves were French....Note the pathos of the appeal. Pigeons cooed in low tones on the roof of the schoolhouse, and as I listened to them I thought to myself:

27. “I wonder if they are going to make them coo in German too!”

A picture. All of these contributory pictures stand in lieu of contributory incidents. The whole is highly unified.

28. Now and then, as I lifted my eyes from my task, I saw Master Hamel seated motionless in his chair, and staring at things about him as though in that look he would carry away with him the whole of his little schoolhouse. Think of it! For forty years he had occupied that same place, his yard in front of him, and his school always unchanged. Only the benches and desks were rubbed by use until they were polished; the walnuts in the yard had grown large, and the hop-vine he himself had planted now hung in festoons from The lad reasons as a lad—to him the pathos is not for himself but for the old man. the windows clear to the roof. How heartbreaking it must have been for that poor man to leave all this—to hear his sister moving to and fro in the room overhead as she packed their trunks! Next day they were going away—to leave the fatherland forever.

29. All the same, he had the courage to keep the school to the very closing minute. The writing over, we had our lesson in history. Then the little ones sang in unison their ba, be, bi, bo, bu. Yonder, at the back of the room, old Father Hauser was holding his spelling-book with both hands, and with the aid of his great spectacles he spelled out the letters—one could see that even he too was applying himself. Emotion shook his voice, and to hear him was so droll that we all wanted to laugh—and to cry. Ah! I shall always remember that last class.

Preparation for Climax.
Formal Crisis—the end approaches.
Note the force of this.
Moral qualities affect the physical.

30. Suddenly the church clock sounded twelve. Then the Angelus. At the same instant were heard under our very windows the trumpets of the Prussians returning from drill. Pale as death, Master Hamel rose from his chair. Never had he seemed so large.

31. “My friends,” he began; “my friends, I—I—”

32. But something choked him. He could not end the sentence.

Note the intensity.

33. Then he turned to the blackboard, seized a piece of chalk, and, bearing with all his strength, he wrote in the largest letters he could make:

Full Climax.

34. “VIVE LA FRANCE!”

35. Then he stood there, his head leaning against the wall, and without a word he signed to us with his hand:

36. “It is the end ... go!”