excerpt from the book..FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL. Monday, 17th.TO-DAY is the first day of school. These three months of vacation in thecountry have passed like a dream. This morning my mother conducted me tothe Baretti schoolhouse to have me enter for the third elementarycourse: I was thinking of the country and went unwillingly. All thestreets were swarming with boys: the two book-shops were thronged withfathers and mothers who were purchasing bags, portfolios, andcopy-books, and in front of the school so many people had collected,that the beadle and the policeman found it difficult to keep theentrance disencumbered. Near the door, I felt myself touched on theshoulder: it was my master of the second class, cheerful, as usual, andwith his red hair ruffled, and he said to me:--"So we are separated forever, Enrico?"I knew it perfectly well, yet these words pained me. We made our way inwith difficulty. Ladies, gentlemen, women of the people, workmen,officials, nuns, servants, all leading boys with one hand, and holdingthe promotion books in the other, filled the anteroom and the stairs,making such a buzzing, that it seemed as though one were entering atheatre. I beheld again with pleasure that large room on the groundfloor, with the doors leading to the seven classes, where I had passednearly every day for three years. There was a throng; the teachers weregoing and coming. My schoolmistress of the first upper class greeted mefrom the door of the class-room, and said:--