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]