276
POETRY 278
THE DEAF-MUTE 280

JUNE.

GARIBALDI 290
THE ARMY 291
ITALY 293
THIRTY-TWO DEGREES 295
MY FATHER 297
IN THE COUNTRY 298
THE DISTRIBUTION OF PRIZES TO THE WORKINGMEN 302
MY DEAD SCHOOLMISTRESS 305
THANKS 308
_Shipwreck_ 309

JULY.

THE LAST PAGE FROM MY MOTHER 317
THE EXAMINATIONS 318
THE LAST EXAMINATION 321
FAREWELL 323

CUORE.

AN ITALIAN SCHOOLBOY'S JOURNAL.

_OCTOBER._

FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL.

Monday, 17th.

TO-DAY is the first day of school. These three months of vacation in the
country have passed like a dream. This morning my mother conducted me to
the Baretti schoolhouse to have me enter for the third elementary
course: I was thinking of the country and went unwillingly. All the
streets were swarming with boys: the two book-shops were thronged with
fathers and mothers who were purchasing bags, portfolios, and
copy-books, and in front of the school so many people had collected,
that the beadle and the policeman found it difficult to keep the
entrance disencumbered. Near the door, I felt myself touched on the
shoulder: it was my master of the second class, cheerful, as usual, and
with his red hair ruffled, and he said to me:--

"So we are separated forever, Enrico?"

I knew it perfectly well, yet these words pained me. We made our way in
with difficulty. Ladies, gentlemen, women of the people, workmen,
officials, nuns, servants, all leading boys with one hand, and holding
the promotion books in the other, filled the anteroom and the stairs,
making such a buzzing, that it seemed as though one were entering a
theatre. I beheld again with pleasure that large room on the ground
floor, with the doors leading to the seven classes, where I had passed
nearly every day for three years. There was a throng; the teachers were
going and coming. My schoolmistress of the first upper class greeted me
from the door of the cl