Page:De Amicis - Heart, translation Hapgood, 1922.djvu/190

162 boys who gave me their photographs more than twenty years ago. They were good boys. These are my souvenirs. When I die, my last glance will be at them; at those roguish urchins among whom my life has been passed. You will give me your portrait, also, will you not, when you have finished the elementary course?” Then he took an orange from his nightstand, and put it in my hand.

“I have nothing else to give you,” he said; “it is the gift of a sick man.”

I looked at it, and my heart was heavy.

“Listen to me,” he began again. “I hope to get over this; but if I should not recover, see that you strengthen yourself in arithmetic, which is your weak point. Make an effort. It is merely a question of a first effort: because sometimes there is no lack of aptitude; there is merely an absence of a fixed purpose—of stability, as it is called.”

But in the meantime he was breathing hard; and it was evident that he was suffering.

“I am feverish,” he sighed; “I am half gone; I beg of you, therefore, to apply yourself to arithmetic, to problems. If you don't succeed at first, rest a little and begin afresh. And press forward, but quietly, without fagging yourself, without straining your mind. Go! My respects to your mamma. And do not mount these stairs again. We shall see each other again in school. And if we do not, you must now and then call to mind your master of the third grade, who was fond of you.”

I felt like weeping at these words.

“Bend down your head,” he said.