Page:De Amicis - Heart, translation Hapgood, 1922.djvu/113

 blue with gilt buttons, as straight and handsome as a statue, we could not help admiring him. In one hour he had learned by heart nearly three pages, which he is to recite the day after to-morrow, for the anniversary of the funeral of King Vittorio. Nelli also gazed at him in wonder and affection, smoothing the folds of his black cloth apron, and smiling with his clear and mournful eyes.

This visit gave me a great deal of pleasure; it left something like sparks in my mind and my heart. And it pleased me, too, when they went away, to see poor Nelli between the other two tall, strong fellows, who carried him home on their arms, and made him laugh as I have never seen him laugh before.

On going back to the dining-room, I noticed that the picture of Rigoletto, the hunchback jester, was no longer there. My father had taken it away in order that Nelli might not see it.

Tuesday, 17th.

To-day at two o'clock, as soon as we had entered the schoolroom, the master called up Derossi, who went and took his place in front of the little table facing us, and began to recite, in his vibrating tones, gradually raising his limpid voice, and growing flushed in the face:—

“Four years ago, on this day, at this hour, there arrived in front of the Pantheon at Rome, the funeral-car which bore the body of Victor Emanuel, the first king of Italy, dead after a reign of twenty-nine years,