評論
打印
"Bottini!" exclaimed the master at length, fixing his eyes on the brick floor where the sunlight formed a checker-board. "Oh! I remember well! Your mother was such a good woman! For a while, during your first year, you sat on a bench to the left near the window. Let us see whether I do not recall it. I can still see your curly head." Then he thought for a while longer. "You were a lively lad, eh? Very. The second year you had an attack of croup. I remember when they brought you back to school, emaciated and wrapped up in a shawl. Forty years have elapsed since then, have they not? You are very kind to remember your poor teacher. And do you know, others of my old pupils have come hither in years gone by to seek me out: there was a colonel, and there were some priests, and several gentlemen." He asked my father what his profession was. Then he said, "I am glad, heartily glad. I thank you. It is quite a while now since I have seen any one. I very much fear that you will be the last, my dear sir."
“勃諦尼君！”先生注視著受著日光的地板說。“啊！我還很記得呢！你母親是個很好的人。你在一年級的時候坐在窗口左側的位置上。慢點！是了，是了！你那鬈曲的頭發還如在眼前哩！”先生又追憶了一會兒；“你曾是個活潑的孩子，非常活潑。不是嗎？在二年級那一年，曾患過喉痛病，回到學校來的時候非常消瘦，裹著圍巾。到現在已四十年了，居然還不忘記我，真難得！舊學生來訪我的很多，其中有做了大住的，做牧師的也有好幾個，此外，還有許多已成了紳士。”先生問了父親的職業，又說：“我真快活！謝謝你！近來已經不大有人來訪問我了，你恐怕是最后的一個了！”
"Don't say that," exclaimed my father. "You are well and still vigorous. You must not say that."
“哪里！你還康健呢！請不要說這樣的話！”父親說。
"Eh, no!" replied the master; "do you see this trembling?" and he showed us his hands. "This is a bad sign. It seized on me three years ago, while I was still teaching school. At first I paid no attention to it; I thought it would pass off. But instead of that, it stayed and kept on increasing. A day came when I could no longer write. Ah! that day on which I, for the first time, made a blot on the copy-book of one of my scholars was a stab in the heart for me, my dear sir. I did drag on for a while longer; but I was at the end of my strength. After sixty years of teaching I was forced to bid farewell to my school, to my scholars, to work. And it was hard, you understand, hard. The last time that I gave a lesson, all the scholars accompanied me home, and made much of me; but I was sad; I understood that my life was finished. I had lost my wife the year before, and my only son. I had only two peasant grandchildren left. Now I am living on a pension of a few hundred lire. I no longer do anything; it seems to me as though the days would never come to an end. My only occupation, you see, is to turn over my old schoolbooks, my scholastic journals, and a few volumes that have been given to me. There they are," he said, indicating his little library; "there are my reminiscences, my whole past; I have nothing else remaining to me in the world."
“不，不！你看！手這樣顫動呢！這是很不好的。三年前患了這毛病，那時還在學校就職，最初也不注意，總以為就會痊愈的，不料竟漸漸重起來，終于宇都不能寫了。啊！那一天，我從做教師以來第一次把墨水落在學生的筆記簿上的那一天，真是裂胸似的難過啊！雖然這樣，總還暫時支持著。后來真的盡了力，在做教師的第六十年，和我的學校，我的學生，我的事業分別了，真難過啊！在最后授課的那天，學生一直送我到了家里，還戀戀不舍。我悲哀之極，以為我的生涯從此完了！不幸，妻適在前一年亡故，一個獨子，不久也跟著死了，現在只有兩個做農夫的孫子。我靠了些許的養老金，終目不做事情。日子長長地，好像竟是不會夜！我現在的工作，每日只是重讀以前學校里的書，或是翻讀日記，或是閱讀別人送給我的書。在這里呢。”說著指書架，“這是我的記錄，我的全生涯都在蟲面。除此以外，我沒有留在世界上的東西了！”
