Page:De Amicis - Heart, translation Hapgood, 1922.djvu/181

Rh  their song, and the chariot started on again slowly, amid a tempest of hand-clapping and hurrahs.

Thursday, 24th.

The teacher is very ill, and they have sent in his stead the master of the fourth grade, who has been a teacher in the Institute for the Blind. He is the oldest of all the instructors, with hair so white that it looks like a wig made of cotton; and he speaks in a peculiar manner, as though he were chanting a mournful song. But he does it well, and he knows a great deal. No sooner had he entered the schoolroom than, catching sight of a boy with a bandage on his eye, he approached the bench, and asked him what was the matter.

“Take care of your eyes, my boy,” he said to him. And then Derossi asked him:—

“Is it true, sir, that you have been a teacher of the blind?”

“Yes, for several years,” he replied. And Derossi said, in a low tone,—

“Tell us something about it.”

The teacher went and seated himself at his table.

Coretti said aloud, “The Institute for the Blind is in the Via Nizza.”

“You say blind—blind,” said the teacher, “as you would say poor or ill, or I know not what. But do you fully realize the meaning of that word? Reflect a little. Blind! Never to see anything! Not to be