love education

Chapter 39 May (3)
The moment he arrived at his destination was so beautiful, it seemed to be a pretty good omen for him, he was so excited about it, he couldn't wait to see his mother, it seemed that she was only a few kilometers away from him at this time, and in a few days He could see her in an hour.He had come to America now, to a new world, and he had the audacity to come here alone.The extremely long journey of this month seemed to be just a moment, and it passed quickly. He seemed to have arrived in the American continent in a dream, and at this moment, he woke up from his dream.He was so happy that he was not surprised or sad when he found only one coin left in his pocket. Will lose all the money in one fell swoop.He had been stolen before, and he only had a few lire left on him.

But what did it matter when he was already so close to his mother?With his little bag in his hand, he disembarked with some Italians, and they got into a tugboat that would take them ashore.He left the steamboat, climbed into the tugboat named Andrea Doria, and landed safely.After saying good-bye to his old Lombard friends, he strode toward the city.As soon as he stepped onto the first avenue, he stopped a passer-by and asked him to show him the way to the Avenue des Arts, when he happened to stop an Italian workman, who looked at him curiously and asked He can't read or write, the boy nodded and said "knowledge". "If so, then," said the workman, pointing to the street he had just passed, "go straight down that street, reading the name of the street at every corner, and you will Find the street you want."

The boy thanked him and walked up the street opposite him. It was a straight, narrow street with no end in sight. There were small white houses on the side of the road. Like small villas one by one, it was crowded with crowds, carriages and trucks, the noise was almost deafening to the ears, huge banners were hung everywhere, the banners were painted in various colors, and In bold letters there are notices telling steamers to leave for different cities.Every time he walks along the street, he can see two straight and endless avenues stretching out to his left and right. These avenues are also covered with low white houses on both sides, and there are also traffic jams. Crowds and rushing vehicles.Being in a metropolis on the great plains of America is like being on a boundless ocean.

This city looks so big that it seems to have no boundaries. He seems to walk for days, nights, or even weeks, and there will still be the same streets and scenery in front of him. Left and right, front and back, it seems that the whole of America is the same scene. .He carefully read the names of those streets. The unfamiliar names made him look very strenuous. Every time he came to a new street, he would feel his heart beating violently, as if he was about to come to the street he was looking for. .He will pay attention to observe every woman, thinking that one of them may be his mother.He saw the back of a woman, which made his blood boil, and he stopped the woman to turn her around, alas, she was a black man.Marco had no choice but to quicken his pace and continue walking forward.When he came to the intersection, he read the name of the street again, and for a moment he seemed to be nailed to the sidewalk. This was the Avenue des Arts.He went up the street and found a shop numbered 117, while his father's cousin's was numbered 175.He quickened his pace again, and almost started to run. When he reached No. 171, he was exhausted and had to stop to adjust his breathing. He said to himself:

"Oh, my mother! Mother, I'm really going to see you soon, it's true!" He ran on and came to a small tailor's shop, this is it, and he walked up Go and see an old woman with gray hair and glasses.

"What do you want, child?" the old woman asked in Spanish.

"Is this," the boy asked, trying to force himself to speak, "Francisco Marelli's shop?"

"Francisco Malari is dead," replied the old man in Italian.Hearing this, Marco's heart seemed to be hit hard, "When did he die?"

"Well, it's been a while," replied the old man, "a few months ago, he was not in a very good condition, so he left here, and people said he went to Baja Blanche, which is far away from here. , but he died as soon as he got there, and the shop is mine now."

Marco's face immediately turned pale, and he said hurriedly, "I know my mother in Malay, she is working for Mr. McKinney's house now, only he can tell me where my mother is, I came to America specially to find her. My mother's, Malay sent us a letter from home for her, I have to find my mother."

"Poor boy!" said the woman, "I don't know either, I'd better ask that boy in the yard for you, he knows the young man who works for Mr. Malay, maybe he will tell us What's going on."

The old woman came to the back of the store and called the boy. "Tell me," the woman asked, "do you remember that boy who used to work for Mr. Malay, and he used to send letters to a woman for him? The country girl?"

"To Mr. McKinney," replied the boy. "Yes, he does that sometimes. It's at the end of the Rue d'Ross des Arts."

"Ah! Thank you so much, ma'am!" Marco exclaimed excitedly, "Tell me the house number, do you know? Let someone go with me, come with me, I still have a few What about copper coins?"

When he spoke, his words were full of affection, and before the woman could reply, he shouted to the boy, "Come on!" I ran to the end of this extremely long street, walked to the door of a small white house, and stopped in front of a beautiful big iron gate.Through this door they could see a small garden with many potted flowers. Marco reached out to ring the doorbell, and a young woman came out.

"The McGinnies live here, don't they?" the boy asked anxiously. "This is his house," the young woman replied, speaking Italian with a Spanish twist. it's here."

"Where did the McGinnies move?" Marco asked, his heart racing. "They moved to Cordova."

"Cordois!" cried Marco. "Where is Cordois? And the one who served them? That woman, she is my mother, and their maid is my mother! They took my mother away too." Are you here?" The young lady looked at him and said:
"I don't know, maybe my father did, because he knew what was going on with their house when they left, and so on!" The young woman ran away and came back with her father a moment later.Her father, a tall gentleman with a gray beard, looked at Marco for a minute with sympathetic eyes.Marco looked like a little Genoese sailor, with fair hair and a hooked nose.The gentleman asked him in broken Italian:

"Is your mother a Genoese?" Marco replied yes. "Well, yes, I'm sure the Genoese maid left with them."

"Then where did they go?"

"To a city called Cordova." The boy sighed, and then said helplessly, "Then I can only go to Cordova."

"Ah, poor boy," said the gentleman in Spanish, "you are really miserable, Cordoba is hundreds of kilometers away from here." Marco's face immediately became as pale as death, and he did not Ban held on to the fence around him with his hands. "Let me think about it, let me think about it," said the gentleman, full of emotion, and opening the door, he said:
"Come in for a while and see what we can do for you."

He sat down, found a chair for the boy too, and asked Marco to tell what had happened to him.He listened attentively, and after a little thought he said firmly:
"You've got no money, have you?"

"I still have some, just a little," Marco replied.The gentleman thought for another 5 minutes or so, then sat down at a table, wrote a letter, sealed it, handed it to the boy, and said to him:

"Listen, little fellow from Italy, take this letter to Boca, it's a small city, half of the population is Genoese, it's only two hours away, anyone can point How do you get there. Go, find this man on the envelope, everyone knows him, give him this letter, and he will send you to Roserio tomorrow and introduce you to Somebody there, that one will help you get to Cordova. There you'll find the McKennies and your mother, and take this with you."

He stuffed a few lires into Marco's hand, "Go, kid, don't be afraid, you can find your compatriots anywhere, you won't be abandoned by others, goodbye!"

Marco thanked him, couldn't find any words to express his feelings, and left with his bag.After saying goodbye to the boy who led the way, he walked towards Boca, his heart full of grief and consternation.He has been walking forward numbly, through this huge and noisy city, through unknown paths, until it is completely dark and the road ahead cannot be seen clearly.What happened that day is looming in his memory, hazy, he can't tell whether it is real or a dream, he feels like a person who has a high fever and behaves strangely, so tired, so troubled and frustrated.At night, he slept with the stevedores in a small, rough room in Boca.The next day, he sat on a pile of logs like a mentally ill patient all day long, watching thousands of ferries, boats, or tugboats pass by before his eyes, until dusk, when he boarded a pile of wood. A huge ship full of fruit, headed for Rosario.In charge of the ship were three sturdy Genoese, their skins all bronzed by the sun, and their voices and accents gave the little Italian some comfort .

The voyage lasted three days and four nights, and for the little traveler, he was greeted with an overwhelming number of anecdotes.Compared with the mighty Paraná, our Po River is a small ditch, and we cannot walk four times around Italy to reach the length of that river.The cruise ship was sailing through the waves in this big river.The river is so full of water that the boats pass among the slender islands, overrun by pythons and tigers, and overgrown with orange trees and willows that look like floating coppice ; for a while the ship had to pass through several narrow canals, and the canals seemed to be too narrow to allow the ship to pass at all; On the quiet lake, the boat sailed to the archipelago in a short while, where there were intricate waterways and all kinds of dazzling vegetation.

Immediately afterwards, a deep silence enveloped the entire surface of the water, the river bank stretched endlessly, and the river surface was silent and far away, making one wonder how this tiny boat broke into this mysterious waters with its head covered.The further they went to the depths of the river, the more they felt that the huge river was like a monster, and Marco began to imagine that his mother was at the source of the river, and their voyage might last for several years.Every day, he can only eat two meals, and each meal only has a little bread and bacon. He eats with a group of crew members. Those crew members can see that Marco's heart is not peaceful, so they never talk to him. say a word.At night, Marco slept on the deck. He slept very unsteadily. Whenever there was a noise, he woke up from his sleep, and then looked at the bright moonlight in horror, which made the entire vast water surface and the distant The banks of the river were all plated with a bright silver edge. Seeing this, the boy's heart sank again. "Cawdova!" Marco kept repeating the name, "Cawdova!" The name was like those mysterious cities he had heard in fables and fairy tales, but then he thought again, "My mother also Having passed by this place, she has seen these islands and these banks."

Perhaps his mother's eyes had gazed on these places curiously. Thinking of this, they became less grotesque, less bleak, and even more lovely.One of the sailors sang at night, and his voice reminded the boy of his mother, who used to sing him to sleep when he was a child.Last night, when he heard the song again, Marco burst into tears, causing the crew to stop singing immediately.Marco cried even harder.

"Be brave, be brave, good boy! You can't embarrass the Genoese, but you can't cry because you are far away from your hometown! The Genoese have left footprints all over the world, we are glorious and proud!"

Hearing the crewman say this, Marco's body trembled. What he heard was the heartfelt voice of a Genoese man, and the pride of being a Genoese immediately filled his originally sad face.He raised his head, looked straight ahead, and slammed the rudder hard with his fist. "Well," he said to himself, "even if I have to continue wandering year after year, even if I have to circle the earth, even if I have to walk thousands of miles, I will not retreat until I find my mother! Even if I am dying when I see her, I will die at my mother's feet, if only I can see her again. Be brave!"

(End of this chapter)