When I went out, I felt oppressed by the commotion. We all ran out confusedly. Boys were emerging from all the other class-rooms also. There was a great mixing and tumult of boys and parents, bidding the masters and the mistresses good by, and exchanging greetings among themselves. The mistress with the red feather had four or five children on top of her, and twenty around her, depriving her of breath; and they had half torn off the little nun’s bonnet, and thrust a dozen bunches of flowers in the button-holes of her black dress, and in her pockets. Many were making much of Robetti, who had that day, for the first time, abandoned his crutches. On all sides the words were audible:—
“Good by until next year!—Until the twentieth of October!” We greeted each other, too. Ah! now all disagreements were forgotten at that moment! Votini, who had always been so jealous of Derossi, was the first to throw himself on him with open arms. I saluted the little mason, and kissed him, just at the moment when he was making me his last hare’s face, dear boy! I saluted Precossi. I saluted Garoffi, who announced to me the approach of his last lottery, and gave me a little paper weight of majolica, with a broken corner; I said farewell to all the others. It was beautiful to see poor Nelli clinging to Garrone, so that he could not be taken from him. All thronged around Garrone, and it was, “Farewell, Garrone!—Good by until we meet!” And they touched him, and pressed his hands, and made much of him, that brave, sainted boy; and his father was perfectly amazed, as he looked on and smiled.
Garrone was the last one whom I embraced in the street, and I stifled a sob against his breast: he kissed my brow. Then I ran to my father and mother. My father asked me: “Have you spoken to all of your comrades?”
I replied that I had. “If there is any one of them whom you have wronged, go and ask his pardon, and beg him to forget it. Is there no one?”
“No one,” I answered.
“Farewell, then,” said my father with a voice full of emotion, bestowing a last glance on the schoolhouse. And my mother repeated: “Farewell!”
And I could not say anything.
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE
The original language and spelling have been retained, except where noted. Minimal typographical errors concerning punctuation have been corrected without notes.