love education

Chapter 23 February (5)
"Stay here, Enrico, I'll wait for you outside." After talking to his father for a few words, the clown began to perform another trick, which was to stand upright on the back of a galloping horse, Four appearances: Pilgrim, Sailor, Soldier and Acrobat.He looked at me every time he passed me, and when he got off his horse he began to salute around the circus, the clown's hat in his hand.Everyone threw coppers or candy into his hat.When he walked up to me, there were already two copper coins in the hat, but instead of raising the hat to me, he withdrew it back, took a good look at me, and then walked away.I was so depressed, why did he humiliate me in this way?

Soon, the performance came to an end, the circus master thanked the audience present, all the people stood up and rushed to the exit, I was so dizzy in the crowd, I wanted to go out quickly.At this time, I felt someone pulling my clothes. I turned my head and saw that it was the clown, with the same light brown face and black curly hair. He was smiling at me, holding a bag full of candy.I soon understood what he meant. "Will you accept these candies from my clown?" he said to me in his native dialect, and I nodded and took three candies from him.

"Then," he added, "accept my kisses too!"

"Kiss me twice, please."

I replied, putting my cheek in front of him, and he wiped his big white face with his hand, then put his arms around my neck, kissed my cheek twice, and said:

"Please bring one of these kisses to your father!"

last day of carnival

Tuesday the 21st

Today's mask show parade was spectacular, but there was an accident in the middle, which almost turned into a tragedy, but fortunately, it ended well.It was in the San Carlo Square, all people were wearing red, white and yellow festoons, a large crowd gathered here wearing various masks, the masks were full of colorful colors, There are also all kinds of cars, which are inlaid with gold rims and newly decorated, like pavilions.Clowns, warriors, cooks, sailors, and shepherds gathered everywhere in small theaters and bars, and the crowd was so mixed that it was dizzying.

Horns, large and small, clashed and sounded, stimulating people's ears strongly, and masked people drank and sang on chariots, cheering for the people standing on the street and on the windowsills, and those people shouted loudly, Throw oranges and candies on others happily.Just above the chariots and the crowd, as far as the eye can see, there are waving flags, shining helmets, feathers swaying in the wind, and the heads of huge playing cards swinging from side to side.Some people wore huge headdresses, blowing huge trumpets, and those strange weapons, small drums, castanets of various colors, red hat ornaments, and bottles of all sizes, and the whole world went crazy.

As our carriage entered the square, a splendid chariot, drawn by four horses, passed before us, decorated with ornaments embroidered with gold thread, and went round and round. Surrounded by artificial roses.There are about fourteen or fifteen people on this chariot who are the gentlemen of the French Grand Court, all of them are shining silver, wearing huge white wigs, feathers in their hats, and they all hold short swords , with tufts of ribbons and ribbons on their chests, they all looked stunningly handsome, humming beautiful French ditties emotionally together, and throwing candied fruit at passers-by, while the crowd applauded them.

Suddenly, on our left, we saw a person lifting a five or six-year-old child over his head. It was a poor child, and she was crying sadly, waving her hands spasmodically. , the man struggled towards the chariot where the gentlemen were, and one of the gentlemen bent over him.The person holding the child said to him:
"Take this child, she and her mother got lost in the crowd, please hold her in your arms, her mother must be not far away, she will see her child, I don't have any now There are other ways."

The gentleman held the child in his arms, and the others stopped singing, only the shrill cry of the child was heard as she struggled to find her mother.The gentleman then took off his mask, and the chariot continued to move forward slowly.And we are also later told that a poor mother on the other side of the square, almost driven mad by despair, made her way through the crowd with all her might, constantly opening her way with her hands and elbows, screaming:

"Maria, Maria! I can't see my little girl, she's been stolen! They've strangled my baby!"

For a full 15 minutes, she kept roaring, expressing her despair of losing her beloved daughter. She just walked around here for a while, and ran there for a while, being squeezed by the crowd.At this time, the gentleman on the chariot had been holding the child, and he hugged the crying little girl tightly to his chest, which was the part that was inlaid with various ribbons.While coaxing the little girl to try to calm her down, he kept looking around the square.The little girl covered her face with her little hands and didn't know where she was. Her crying was so heartbreaking, as if someone had broken her heart. The gentleman was deeply moved.Obviously, these heartbreaking screams went straight to the deepest part of his heart, and everyone else sent the little girl oranges, candied fruit, and other things to eat.However, she seemed to hate everyone, her reaction to the crowd became stronger, and her heart became more panicked.

"Help find her mother!"

The gentleman called out to the crowd, "Please find her mother!"

Everyone looked around except the mother, and finally, at the entrance to Via Roma, a woman rushed frantically towards the chariot.ah!I've never seen anything like this before, and I'll never forget what I saw, she didn't look like a normal person anymore, her hair was dancing in the air, her face was distorted, and her clothes were distorted Torn, she ran forward so quickly that there was a rattling sound in her throat, no one knew whether this woman was happy, painful, or angry, she stretched out her hands to snatch own children.The chariot also stopped at this time.

"Here she is!"

exclaimed the gentleman, kissed the child, and handed it to the mother, who placed it in her arms, who clasped it madly to her breast .However, the child's small hand lingered a little longer in the gentleman's.So the gentleman quickly put the gold ring set with a huge diamond on his right hand on the little girl's finger and said:
"Take this, it's my dowry for you little girl!"

And the mother stood there in a daze, as if possessed by a demon.There was a burst of applause from the crowd, the gentleman put on his mask again, and his companions began to sing again. Amidst the stormy applause and cheers, the chariot moved slowly.

blind child
Thursday the 24th

The head teacher was already very ill, and a fifth-grade teacher was sent to take his place. This new teacher used to teach at a school for the blind and was the oldest of the teachers.His hair was so white it looked like a cotton wig, and he had a peculiar way of talking, as if singing a sad carol.However, his books are very good and his knowledge is very profound. As soon as he entered the classroom, he saw a boy with a bandage on his head. The bandage was wrapped around the boy's eyes. He went to the boy's desk. Beside, ask him what's going on. "Take care of your own eyes, my child!" said the teacher to him.Then Dross asked him:

"Teacher, is it true that you have been teaching blind children?"

"Yes, for a few years," he replied.Dross said to the teacher again in a low voice:
"Tell us the story there." The teacher walked to the podium and sat down.Kletti shouted loudly at this time: "The school for the blind is in Faneza."

"When you say blind," said the teacher, "it's like you say someone is poor or sick, or some other word I don't know, but do you really understand the meaning of the word? Think about it! Once a person's eyes are blind, it means that he can't see anything, he can never tell the difference between night and day, he can never see the sky, the sun, his parents, or anything around him, anything he can touch , life will always be shrouded in darkness, as if buried in the heart of the earth.

"Please close your eyes and imagine that you will always be like that. I think you will suffer from great mental torture because of fear. You will feel that the pain is irresistible. You will scream, even would think of not living in this world anymore. But, my poor children, when you first walked into that school for the blind, when you saw them at recess, either playing the violin here, or When you play the flute over there, when you hear them talking loudly, laughing, and sprinting up and down the stairwells, when they move freely between the corridors and the dormitories, you will never put these unfortunate words Use it on them.

"Of course, we also need to observe these children carefully. They are all young people of seventeen or eighteen years old. They are physically strong and energetic. They can calmly face the fact that they are blind, and they even show resolute character. However, You must also read from the proud and angry expressions that they must have suffered a terrible test before they began to resolve to overcome their misfortune. There are also some children, they have sweet and pale faces, you can see They fight against fate, but their hearts are so sad, and people understand that they cry secretly in private occasionally.

"Oh, my poor children, just think about it, some children lose their sight in a matter of days, others after years of all sorts of horrible and painful operations, and many are born with Blind, they were born into an eternal night, and this night will never dawn, they came to this world, it means entering a huge tomb, they don't know what the face of a person looks like. In their hearts Describe the torment they must have endured in their hearts when they contemplate in confusion the great difference between them and those who can see, which will accompany them all their lives, and they will Ask yourself: 'I didn't do anything wrong, why did I have to suffer?'”

"I have lived among them for many years. Whenever I think of those children, I think of all the children whose eyes will never be opened, and those pupils will never lose their sight, and they will never lose the brilliance of life. But, looking at Look at you children, I really can't believe that there are still some of you who don't feel happy, think about it, there are [-] blind people in Italy, they can't see the light anymore, can you understand? If Organize these blind people into an army, and they will pass under the windows of our house for four hours in a row." The teacher paused for a moment, and the whole class was so quiet that they couldn't even hear a breath.

Dross asked the teacher, is it true that other senses are more acute in blind people than in normal people?The teacher said: "It is true that the other senses of human beings are more acute in them, because they have to replace their eyes with other senses, so their other sense organs are more sensitive than those of people who can see." developed."

"One morning in the dormitory, one kid asked the other, 'Is the sun out there?' The kid who was good at changing clothes according to the weather immediately ran out into the yard, waving his hands in the air, To see if there is warmth in the air that I can feel with my hands, and run to tell that kid the good news—'There's sun out there!'”

"From the sound of a person's voice, they can judge his height. We judge a person's quality by his eyes, but they rely on their voice. They can not forget a person's voice and his personality for many years. accent, even if only one person in the room is speaking and the rest are not moving, they can tell that there is more than one person in the room. They can feel with their fingers whether a spoon has been cleaned, and the little girls In the same way they can distinguish dyed wool from those of natural color. When they walk the street two by two, they can identify almost all shops by the smell of each shop, even in those We couldn't smell any scents in the shop.

"They can even spin the thread, for they can hear the humming of the spindle, and go straight to the thread with their hands, without error. They can play hoops, and they can play skittles. They can skip rope, build little houses out of stones, pick violets as if they could see them, weave mats and baskets, and weave straws of different colors quickly and well, their sense of touch is already Such superb skills. They use touch instead of sight, and they have a great hobby of grabbing something, touching it, and guessing what shape it is. And watching them visit the industrial museum is a very moving thing, There, they are free to touch anything they want. Can you imagine how enthusiastic they are to touch the geometry? They will touch those house models and musical instruments, you can imagine How happy are they to hold those trinkets in their hands, to touch here and there? Because they want to know what they're made of, which they call 'seeing.'"

(End of this chapter)