Page:De Amicis - Heart, translation Hapgood, 1922.djvu/260

228 the fields barefoot; and in the afternoon they put on their shoes and went to school. It was nearly midday. We met no one else. In a few minutes we reached the inn, seated ourselves at a large table, with the master between us, and began our lunch. The inn was as silent as a convent. The teacher was very merry, and his excitement increased his palsy: he could hardly eat. But my father cut up his meat, broke his bread, and put salt on his plate. In order to drink, he was obliged to hold the glass with both hands, and even then he struck his teeth. But he talked constantly, and with ardor, of the reading-books of his young days; of schools of the present day; of the praises bestowed on him by his superiors; of the rules of late years: and all with that serene countenance, a trifle redder than at first, and with that gay voice of his, and that laugh which was almost the laugh of a young man. And my father gazed and gazed at him, with that same expression with which I sometimes catch him looking at me, at home, when he is thinking and smiling to himself, with his face turned aside.

The teacher let some wine trickle down on his breast; my father rose, and wiped it off with his napkin. “No, sir; I cannot permit this,” the old man said, and smiled. He said some words in Latin. And, finally, he raised his glass, which wavered about in his hand, and said very gravely. “To your health, my dear signer, to that of your children, to the memory of your good mother!”

“To yours, my good master!” replied my father, pressing his hand. And at the end of the room stood the innkeeper and several others, watching us, and