Cuore (Heart), Edmondo De Amicis [best books to read ever .txt] 📗

shouts gave them warning:—

“‘On the third floor! On the third floor!’

“They flew to the third floor. There there was an infernal uproar,—beams from the roof crashing in, corridors filled with a suffocating smoke. In order to reach the rooms where the lodgers were imprisoned, there was no other way left but to pass over the roof. They instantly sprang upon it, and a moment later something which resembled a black phantom appeared on the tiles, in the midst of the smoke. It was the corporal, who had been the first to arrive. But in order to get from the roof to the small set of rooms cut off by the fire, he was forced to pass over an extremely narrow space comprised between a dormer window and the eavestrough: all the rest was in flames, and that tiny space was covered with snow and ice, and there was no place to hold on to.

“‘It is impossible for him to pass!’ shouted the crowd below.

“The corporal advanced along the edge of the roof. All shuddered, and began to observe him with bated breath. He passed. A tremendous hurrah rose towards heaven. The corporal resumed his way, and on arriving at the point which was threatened, he began to break away, with furious blows of his axe, beams, tiles, and rafters, in order to open a hole through which he might descend within.

“In the meanwhile, the woman was still suspended outside the window. The fire raged with increased violence over her head; another moment, and she would have fallen into the street.

“The hole was opened. We saw the corporal pull off his shoulder-belt and lower himself inside: the other firemen, who had arrived, followed.

“At that instant a very lofty Porta ladder, which had just arrived, was placed against the entablature of the house, in front of the windows whence issued flames, and howls, as of maniacs. But it seemed as though they were too late.

“‘No one can be saved now!’ they shouted. ‘The firemen are burning! The end has come! They are dead!’

“All at once the black form of the corporal made its appearance at the window with the balcony, lighted up by the flames overhead. The woman clasped him round the neck; he caught her round the body with both arms, drew her up, and laid her down inside the room.

“The crowd set up a shout a thousand voices strong, which rose above the roar of the conflagration.

“But the others? And how were they to get down? The ladder which leaned against the roof on the front of another window was at a good distance from them. How could they get hold of it?

“While the people were saying this to themselves, one of the firemen stepped out of the window, set his right foot on the window-sill and his left on the ladder, and standing thus upright in the air, he grasped the lodgers, one after the other, as the other men handed them to him from within, passed them on to a comrade, who had climbed up from the street, and who, after securing a firm grasp for them on the rungs, sent them down, one after the other, with the assistance of more firemen.

“First came the woman of the balcony, then a baby, then another woman, then an old man. All were saved. After the old man, the fireman who had remained inside descended. The last to come down was the corporal who had been the first to hasten up. The crowd received them all with a burst of applause; but when the last made his appearance, the vanguard of the rescuers, the one who had faced the abyss in advance of the rest, the one who would have perished had it been fated that one should perish, the crowd saluted him like a conqueror, shouting and stretching out their arms, with an affectionate impulse of admiration and of gratitude, and in a few minutes his obscure name—Giuseppe Robbino—rang from a thousand throats.

“Have you understood? That is courage—the courage of the heart, which does not reason, which does not waver, which dashes blindly on, like a lightning flash, wherever it hears the cry of a dying man. One of these days I will take you to the exercises of the firemen, and I will point out to you Corporal Robbino; for you would be very glad to know him, would you not?”

I replied that I should.

“Here he is,” said my father.

I turned round with a start. The two firemen, having completed their inspection, were traversing the room in order to reach the door.

My father pointed to the smaller of the men, who had straps of gold braid, and said, “Shake hands with Corporal Robbino.”

The corporal halted, and offered me his hand; I pressed it; he made a salute and withdrew.

“And bear this well in mind,” said my father; “for out of the thousands of hands which you will shake in the course of your life there will probably not be ten which possess the worth of his.”

FROM THE APENNINES TO THE ANDES.

(Monthly Story.)

Many years ago a Genoese lad of thirteen, the son of a workingman, went from Genoa to America all alone to seek his mother.

His mother had gone two years before to Buenos Ayres, a city, the capital of the Argentine Republic, to take service in a wealthy family, and to thus earn in a short time enough to place her family once more in easy circumstances, they having fallen, through various misfortunes, into poverty and debt. There are courageous women—not a few—who take this long voyage with this object in view, and who, thanks to the large wages which people in service receive there, return home at the end of a few years with several thousand lire. The poor mother had wept tears of blood at parting from her children,—the one aged eighteen, the other, eleven; but she had set out courageously and filled with hope.

The voyage was prosperous: she had no sooner arrived at Buenos Ayres than she found, through a Genoese shopkeeper, a cousin of her husband, who had been established there for a very long time, a good Argentine family, which gave high wages and treated her well. And for a short time she kept up a regular correspondence with her family. As it had been settled between them, her husband addressed his letters to his cousin, who transmitted them to the woman, and the latter handed her replies to him, and he despatched them to Genoa, adding a few lines of his own. As she was earning eighty lire a month and spending nothing for herself, she sent home a handsome sum every three months, with which her husband, who was a man of honor, gradually paid off their most urgent debts, and thus regained his good reputation. And in the meantime, he worked away and was satisfied with the state of his affairs, since he also cherished the hope that his wife would shortly return; for the house seemed empty without her, and the younger son in particular, who was extremely attached to his mother, was very much depressed, and could not resign himself to having her so far away.

But a year had elapsed since they had parted; after a brief letter, in which she said that her health was not very good, they heard nothing more. They wrote twice to the cousin; the cousin did not reply. They wrote to the Argentine family where the woman was at service; but it is possible that the letter never reached them, for they had distorted the name in addressing it: they received no answer. Fearing a misfortune, they wrote to the Italian Consulate at Buenos Ayres to have inquiries made, and after a lapse of three months they received a response from the consul, that in spite of advertisements in the newspapers no one had presented herself nor sent any word. And it could not have happened otherwise, for this reason if for no other: that with the idea of sparing the good name of her family, which she fancied she was discrediting by becoming a servant, the good woman had not given her real name to the Argentine family.

Several months more passed by; no news. The father and sons were in consternation; the youngest was oppressed by a melancholy which he could not conquer. What was to be done? To whom should they have recourse? The father’s first thought had been to set out, to go to America in search of his wife. But his work? Who would support his sons? And neither could the eldest son go, for he had just then begun to earn something, and he was necessary to the family. And in this anxiety they lived, repeating each day the same sad speeches, or gazing at each other in silence; when, one evening, Marco, the youngest, declared with decision, “I am going to America to look for my mother.”

His father shook his head sadly and made no reply. It was an affectionate thought, but an impossible thing. To make a journey to America, which required a month, alone, at the age of thirteen! But the boy patiently insisted. He persisted that day, the day after, every day, with great calmness, reasoning with the good sense of a man. “Others have gone thither,” he said; “and smaller boys than I, too. Once on board the ship, I shall get there like anybody else. Once arrived there, I only have to hunt up our cousin’s shop. There are plenty of Italians there who will show me the street. After finding our cousin, my mother is found; and if I do not find him, I will go to the consul: I will search out that Argentine family. Whatever happens, there is work for all there; I shall find work also; sufficient, at least, to earn enough to get home.” And thus little by little he almost succeeded in persuading his father. His father esteemed him; he knew that he had good judgment and courage; that he was inured to privations and to sacrifices; and that all these good qualities had acquired double force in his heart in consequence of the sacred project of finding his mother, whom he adored. In addition to this, the captain of a steamer, the friend of an acquaintance of his, having heard the plan mentioned, undertook to procure a free third-class passage for the Argentine Republic.

And then, after a little hesitation, the father gave his consent. The voyage was decided on. They filled a sack with clothes for him, put a few crowns in his pocket, and gave him the address of the cousin; and one fine evening in April they saw him on board.

“Marco, my son,” his father said to him, as he gave him his last kiss, with tears in his eyes, on the steps of the steamer, which was on the point of starting, “take courage. Thou hast set out on a holy undertaking, and God will aid thee.”

Poor Marco! His heart was strong and prepared for the hardest trials of this voyage; but when he beheld his beautiful Genoa disappear on the horizon, and found himself on the open sea on that huge steamer thronged with emigrating peasants, alone, unacquainted with any one, with that little bag which held his entire fortune, a sudden discouragement assailed him. For two days he remained crouching like a dog on the bows, hardly eating, and oppressed with a great desire to weep. Every description of sad thoughts passed through his mind, and the saddest, the most terrible, was the one which was the most persistent in its return,—the thought that his mother was dead. In his broken and painful slumbers he constantly beheld a strange face, which surveyed him with an air of compassion, and whispered in his ear, “Your mother is