And I who hardly knew how to write. I should never learn then! I must stop where I was! How I longed now for the wasted time, for the classes when I played truant to go birds'-nesting, or to slide on the Saar! The books which I was used to find so wearisome, so heavy to carry--my grammar, my history--now seemed to me old friends whom I was very sorry to part with. The same with M. Hamel. The idea that he was going away, that I should never see him again, made me forget the punishment and the raps with the ruler. Poor man! It was in honor of this last class that he had put on his Sunday clothes, and now I understood why the elders of the village had come and seated themselves in the schoolroom. That meant that they were grieved not to have come oftener to the school. It was a sort of way of thanking our master for his forty years of good service, and of showing their respect for their country that was being taken from them. I had come as far as this in my reflections when I heard my name called. It was my turn to recite. What would I not have given to have been able to say right through that famous rule of the participles, quite loud and very clear, without a stumble; but I bungled at the first word, and stopped short, balancing myself on my bench, with bursting heart, not daring to raise my head. I heard M. Hamel speak to me:-- "I shall not scold thee, my little Franz, thou must be punished enough without that. See how it is. Every day one says, 'Bah! There is time enough. I shall learn tomorrow.' And then see what happens. Ah! that has been the great mistake of our Alsace, always to defer its lesson until tomorrow. Now those folk have a right to say to us, 'What! you pretend to be French and you cannot even speak or write your language!' In all that, my poor Franz, it is not only thou that art guilty. We must all bear our full share in the blame. Your parents have not cared enough to have you taught. They liked better to send you to work on the land or at the factory to gain a few more pence. And I too, have I nothing to reproach myself with? Have I not often made you water my garden instead of learning your lessons? And when I wanted to fish for trout, did I ever hesitate to dismiss you?" Then from one thing to another M. Hamel began to talk to us about the French language, saying that it was the most beautiful language in the world, the clearest, the most forceful; that we must guard it among us and never forget it, because when a people falls into slavery, as long as it holds firmly to its own tongue, it holds the key of its prison. Then he took a grammar and gave us our lesson. I was astonished to find how well I understood. All he said seemed to me so easy, so easy. I think, too, that I never listened so hard, and that he had never taken such pains to explain. One would have said that before going away the poor man wished to give us all his knowledge, to ram it all into our heads at one blow.