Page:De Amicis - Heart, translation Hapgood, 1922.djvu/153

 in a humble and much moved voice, that he might be allowed to touch the teacher's hand. The teacher offered him his hand, and he kissed it; then he said:—“Thanks! thanks!” and disappeared. The master drew back his hand; it was bathed with tears. After that he did not see the man again.

Six years passed.

“I was thinking of anything except that unfortunate man,” said the teacher, “when, the other morning, I saw a stranger come to the house,—a man with a large, black beard already sprinkled with gray, and badly dressed, who said to me: ‘Are you the teacher So-and-So, sir?’ ‘Who are you?’ I asked him. ‘I am prisoner No. 78,’ he replied; ‘you taught me to read and write six years ago; if you recollect, you gave me your hand at the last lesson; I have now expiated my crime, and I have come—to beg you to do me the favor of accepting a memento of me, a poor little thing which I made in prison. Will you accept it in memory of me, Signor Master?’

“I stood there speechless. He thought that I did not wish to take it, and he looked at me as much as to say, ‘So six years of suffering are not sufficient to cleanse my hands’! But he gazed at me with so much pain, that I instantly extended my hand and took the little object. This is it.”

We looked closely at the inkstand: it seemed to have been carved very laboriously with the point of a nail. On its top was graven a pen lying across a copy-book, and around it was written: ''“To my teacher. A memento of No. 78. Six years!” And below, in small letters, “Study and hope.''”