Kornel Esti Read Online Free PDF Page A

He knew that quinine was bitter and ipecacuanha sweet. He also knew that just then it was evening in America. But they didn’t know that he knew all that.
    The little bell of the Red Ox tinkled melodiously in the little wooden tower on the roof, indicating that it was eight o’clock and lessons were about to start. While the bell was ringing, on and on, heartbreakingly, like the bell that mourns the dead, he took leave of everything that was dear, the rooms at home, the garden, and all his individual toys too, the soap bubbles and the balloons. Close to fainting, he clung to the cold tinplate stove.
    Silence fell. The teacher had appeared in the doorway, a stout man with cropped dark gray hair and a very ample light gray suit. He took great strides, like an elephant. He rolled onto the dais.
    The teacher asked the children one by one if they had slates and pencils, and then spoke of all the fine, noble, useful things that they were going to learn there. But then he suddenly stopped speaking. He had caught sight of the boy lurking beside the stove.
    “Now then, what’re you doing there?” he asked, turning his great face in his direction. “Who put you there? Come over here.”
    The little boy hurried, almost ran, to the dais. In terror, almost beside himself, he gabbled:
    “Please let me go home.”
    “Why?” inquired the teacher.
    “I don’t want to come to school anymore.”
    The class roared with laughter.
    “Silence!” said the teacher. “Why don’t you want to come to school?”
    “Because nobody likes me here.”
    “Has anybody hurt you?”
    “No.”
    “Then why’re you talking such nonsense? Aren’t you ashamed of yourself, you little sissy? Just understand, you’re the same as everyone else here. No exceptions here, everybody’s equal. Understand?”
    The class nodded in approval.
    The teacher looked again at the frightened little boy. This time he saw that his face was quite green.
    “Are you feeling ill?” he asked, in a kinder tone.
    “No.”
    “Got a pain anywhere?”
    “No.”
    “All right,” he said, “go back to your place. Where is your place?”
    “Nowhere.”
    “Nowhere?” The teacher was puzzled. “ Well, sit down somewhere.”
    The little boy turned toward the class. Faces grinned at him, lots and lots of little faces, which blended into a single huge, frightening idol-face. He stumbled unsteadily this way and that. Once more he had to pass the first bench, where there was no room for him. He found a tiny place somewhere in the middle, on the very end of a bench. He could only get one leg onto the seat, the other dangled in space. Anyway, it was better to sit there away from the eyes, to vanish into the crowd.
    “Children,” said the teacher, “take your slates and pencils. We’ll do some writing. We’ll write the letter i .”
    Slates rattled. He too tried to place his slate on the desk but the surly, swarthy boy at his side pushed it off in an unfriendly fashion. The boy didn’t let him write.
    At that he burst loudly and bitterly into tears.
    “What’s going on?” asked the teacher.
    “He’s crying,” reported the surly, swarthy boy.
    “Who is?”
    “This boy here.”
    All the children looked in his direction. Many stood up to get a better view.
    “He’s giving the mice a drink,” they exclaimed.
    “Be quiet!” the teacher exploded, striking the table with his cane.
    He came down from the dais and went and stood by the little boy. He stroked his face with his warm, tobacco-scented hand.
    “Don’t cry,” he calmed him. “Sit properly on the bench, square on. Why don’t you move over for him? There’s plenty of room. There you are, now. Put the slate in front of you, get hold of your pencil. Wipe your nose. Now, we’re going to learn to write. Or don’t you want to learn to write?”
    “Yes, I do,” sniveled the little boy.
    “Right, then,” said the teacher approvingly.
    He went and wrote a letter i on the blackboard.
    “Up,” he showed