Page:De Amicis - Heart, translation Hapgood, 1922.djvu/16

 keep the entrance clear. Near the door, I felt myself touched on the shoulder: it was my master of the second grade, cheerful, as usual, and with his red hair ruffled. He said to me:—

"So we are to part forever, Enrico?"

I knew it well, yet the words pained me.

We made our way in with difficulty. Ladies, gentlemen, women of the people, workmen, officials, nuns, and 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 like entering a theatre. I was glad to see once more 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 of teachers 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 not even see you pass by any more!" And she gazed sadly at me.

The principal was surrounded by women who were much worried 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 sections, who did not want to enter the class-rooms, and who pulled back like donkeys: they had to be dragged in by force, and some