Heart (de Amicis)/Pride
PRIDE
Saturday, 11th.
The idea of Carlo Nobis rubbing off his sleeve affectedly, when Precossi touches him in passing! That fellow is pride personified because his father is a rich man. But Derossi's father is rich too. Nobis would like to have a bench to himself; he is afraid that the rest will soil it; he looks down on everybody and always has a scornful smile on his lips: woe to him who stumbles over his foot, when we go out in files two by two! For a mere trifle he flings an insulting word in your face, or a threat to get his father to come to the school. It is true that his father did give him a good lesson when he called the little son of the charcoal-man a ragamuffin. I have never seen so disagreeable a schoolboy! No one speaks to him, no one says good-bye to him when he goes out; there is not even a dog who would prompt him when he does not know his lesson. He cannot endure any one, and he pretends to despise Derossi more than all, because he is the head boy; and Garrone, because he is beloved by all. But Derossi pays no attention to him when he is by; and when the boys tell Garrone that Nobis had been speaking ill of him, he says:—
“His pride is so silly that it is not worth fighting about.”
But Coretti said to him one day, when Nobis was smiling disdainfully at his catskin cap:—
“Go to Derossi for a while, and learn how to play the gentleman!”
Yesterday he complained to the teacher, because the Calabrian touched his leg with his foot. The teacher asked the Calabrian:—“Did you do it intentionally?”
“No, sir,” he replied, frankly.
“You are too petulant, Nobis,” said the teacher.
And Nobis retorted, in his airy way, “I shall tell my father about it.” Then the teacher got angry.
“Your father will tell you that you are in the wrong, as he has on other occasions. And besides that, it is the teacher alone who has the right to judge and punish in school.” Then he added pleasantly:—
“Come, Nobis, change your ways; be kind and courteous to your comrades. You see, we have here sons of workingmen and of gentlemen, of the rich and the poor, and all love each other and treat each other like brothers, as they are. Why do not you do like the rest? It would not cost you much to make every one like you, and you would be so much happier yourself, too! Well, have you no reply to make me?”
Nobis, who had listened to him with his customary scornful smile, answered coldly:—
“No, sir.”
“Sit down,” said the master to him. “I am sorry for you. You are a boy without a heart.”
This seemed to be the end of it all; but the little mason, who sits on the front bench, turned his round face towards Nobis, who sits on the back bench, and made such a fine and ridiculous hare's face at him, that the whole class burst into a shout of laughter. The master reproved him; but he was obliged to put his hand over his own mouth to hide a smile. And even Nobis laughed, but not in a pleasant way.