始业日 十七日
今天开学了，乡间的三个月，梦也似的过去，又回到了这丘林的学校里来了。早晨母亲送我到学校里去的时候，心还一味只想着在乡间的情形哩。不论哪一条街道，都充满着学校的学生们；书店的门口呢，学生的父兄们都拥挤着在那里购买笔记簿、书袋等类的东西，校役和警察都拼命似的想把路排开。到了校门口，觉得有人触动我的肩膀，原来这就是我三年级时候的先生，是一位头发赤而卷缩、面貌快活的先生。先生看着我的脸孔说：
“我们不再在一处了！安利柯！”
这原是我早已知道的事，今被先生这么一说，不觉重新难过起来了。我们好容易地到了里面，许多夫人、绅士、普通妇人、职工、官吏、女僧侣、男佣人、女佣人，都一手拉了小儿，一手抱了成绩簿，在接待所楼梯旁挤满着，嘈杂得如同戏馆里一样。我重新看这大大的待息所的房子，非常欢喜，因为我这三年来，每月到教室去，都穿过这室的。我的二年级时候的女先生见了我：
“安利柯！你现在要到楼上去了！要不走过我的教室了！”
说着，恋恋地看我。校长先生被妇人们围绕着，头发好像比以前白了。学生们也比夏天的时候长大强壮了许多。才来入一年级的小孩们，不愿到教室里去，像驴马似的倔强着，勉强拉了进去，有的仍旧逃出，有的因为找不着父母，哭了起来，做父母的回了进去，有的诱骗，有的叱骂，先生们也弄得没有办法了。
我的弟弟被编在名叫代尔卡谛的女先生所教的一组里。午前十时，大家进了教室，我们的一级共五十五人。从三年级一同升上来的只不过十五六人。经常得一等奖的代洛西也在里面。一想起暑假中跑来跑去游过的山林，觉得学校里闷得讨厌。又忆起三年级时候的先生来：那是常常对我们笑着的好先生，是和我们差不多大的先生。那个先生的红而缩拢的头发，已不能看见了，一想到此，就有点难过。这次的先生，身材高长，没有胡须，长长地留着花白的头发，额上皱着直纹，说话大声，他瞪着眼一个一个地看我们的时候，眼光竟像要透到我们心里似的。而且还是一位没有笑容的先生。我想：
“唉！一天总算过去了，还有九个月呢！什么用功，什么月试，多么讨厌啊！”
一出教室，恨不得就看见母亲，飞跑到母亲面前去吻她的手。母亲说：
“安利柯啊！要用心啰！我也和你大家用功呢！”
· 5 ·
我高高兴兴地回家了。可是因为那位亲爱快活的先生已不在，学校也不如以前的有趣味了。
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 class-room, and said:—
“Enrico, you are going to the floor above this year. I shall never see you pass by any more!” and she gazed sadly at me. The director was surrounded by women in distress because there was no room for their sons, and it struck me that his beard was a little whiter than it had been last year. I found the boys had grown taller and stouter. On the ground floor, where the divisions had already been made, there were little children of the first and lowest section, who did not want to enter the class-rooms, and who resisted like donkeys: it was necessary to drag them in by force, and some escaped from the benches; others, when they saw their parents depart, began to cry, and the parents had to go back and comfort and reprimand them, and the teachers were in despair.
My little brother was placed in the class of Mistress Delcati: I was put with Master Perboni, up stairs on the first floor. At ten o’clock we were all in our classes: fifty-four of us; only fifteen or sixteen of my companions of the second class, among them, Derossi, the one who always gets the first prize. The school seemed to me so small and gloomy when I thought of the woods and the mountains where I had passed the summer! I thought again, too, of my master in the second class, who was so good, and who always smiled at us, and was so small that he seemed to be one of us, and I grieved that I should no longer see him there, with his tumbled red hair. Our teacher is tall; he has no beard; his hair is gray and long; and he has a perpendicular wrinkle on his forehead: he has a big voice, and he looks at us fixedly, one after the other, as though he were reading our inmost thoughts; and he
never smiles. I said to myself: “This is my first day. There are nine months more. What toil, what monthly examinations, what fatigue!” I really needed to see my mother when I came out, and I ran to kiss her hand. She said to me:—
“Courage, Enrico! we will study together.” And I returned home content. But I no longer have my master, with his kind, merry smile, and school does not seem pleasant to me as it did before.
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