Cuore (Heart) Part 31

THE DEAF-MUTE.

Sunday, 28th.

The month of May could not have had a better ending than my visit of this morning. We heard a jingling of the bell, and all ran to see what it meant. I heard my father say in a tone of astonishment:--

"You here, Giorgio?"

Giorgio was our gardener in Chieri, who now has his family at Condove, and who had just arrived from Genoa, where he had disembarked on the preceding day, on his return from Greece, where he has been working on the railway for the last three years. He had a big bundle in his arms.

He has grown a little older, but his face is still red and jolly.

My father wished to have him enter; but he refused, and suddenly inquired, a.s.suming a serious expression:

"How is my family? How is Gigia?"

"She was well a few days ago," replied my mother.

Giorgio uttered a deep sigh.

"Oh, G.o.d be praised! I had not the courage to present myself at the Deaf-mute Inst.i.tution until I had heard about her. I will leave my bundle here, and run to get her. It is three years since I have seen my poor little daughter! Three years since I have seen any of my people!"

My father said to me, "Accompany him."

"Excuse me; one word more," said the gardener, from the landing.

My father interrupted him, "And your affairs?"

"All right," the other replied. "Thanks to G.o.d, I have brought back a few soldi. But I wanted to inquire. Tell me how the education of the little dumb girl is getting on. When I left her, she was a poor little animal, poor thing! I don't put much faith in those colleges. Has she learned how to make signs? My wife did write to me, to be sure, 'She is learning to speak; she is making progress.' But I said to myself, What is the use of her learning to talk if I don't know how to make the signs myself? How shall we manage to understand each other, poor little thing?

That is well enough to enable them to understand each other, one unfortunate to comprehend another unfortunate. How is she getting on, then? How is she?"

My father smiled, and replied:--

"I shall not tell you anything about it; you will see; go, go; don't waste another minute!"

We took our departure; the inst.i.tute is close by. As we went along with huge strides, the gardener talked to me, and grew sad.

"Ah, my poor Gigia! To be born with such an infirmity! To think that I have never heard her call me _father_; that she has never heard me call her _my daughter_; that she has never either heard or uttered a single word since she has been in the world! And it is lucky that a charitable gentleman was found to pay the expenses of the inst.i.tution. But that is all--she could not enter there until she was eight years old. She has not been at home for three years. She is now going on eleven. And she has grown? Tell me, she has grown? She is in good spirits?"

"You will see in a moment, you will see in a moment," I replied, hastening my pace.

"But where is this inst.i.tution?" he demanded. "My wife went with her after I was gone. It seems to me that it ought to be near here."

We had just reached it. We at once entered the parlor. An attendant came to meet us.

"I am the father of Gigia Voggi," said the gardener; "give me my daughter instantly."

"They are at play," replied the attendant; "I will go and inform the matron." And he hastened away.

The gardener could no longer speak nor stand still; he stared at all four walls, without seeing anything.

The door opened; a teacher entered, dressed in black, holding a little girl by the hand.

Father and daughter gazed at one another for an instant; then flew into each other's arms, uttering a cry.

The girl was dressed in a white and reddish striped material, with a gray ap.r.o.n. She is a little taller than I. She cried, and clung to her father's neck with both arms.

Her father disengaged himself, and began to survey her from head to foot, panting as though he had run a long way; and he exclaimed: "Ah, how she has grown! How pretty she has become! Oh, my dear, poor Gigia!

My poor mute child!--Are you her teacher, signora? Tell her to make some of her signs to me; for I shall be able to understand something, and then I will learn little by little. Tell her to make me understand something with her gestures."

The teacher smiled, and said in a low voice to the girl, "Who is this man who has come to see you?"

And the girl replied with a smile, in a coa.r.s.e, strange, dissonant voice, like that of a savage who was speaking for the first time in our language, but with a distinct p.r.o.nunciation, "He is my fa-ther."

The gardener fell back a pace, and shrieked like a madman: "She speaks!

Is it possible! Is it possible! She speaks? Can you speak, my child? can you speak? Say something to me: you can speak?" and he embraced her afresh, and kissed her thrice on the brow. "But it is not with signs that she talks, signora; it is not with her fingers? What does this mean?"

"No, Signor Voggi," rejoined the teacher, "it is not with signs. That was the old way. Here we teach the new method, the oral method. How is it that you did not know it?"

"I knew nothing about it!" replied the gardener, lost in amazement. "I have been abroad for the last three years. Oh, they wrote to me, and I did not understand. I am a blockhead. Oh, my daughter, you understand me, then? Do you hear my voice? Answer me: do you hear me? Do you hear what I say?"

"Why, no, my good man," said the teacher; "she does not hear your voice, because she is deaf. She understands from the movements of your lips what the words are that you utter; this is the way the thing is managed; but she does not hear your voice any more than she does the words which she speaks to you; she p.r.o.nounces them, because we have taught her, letter by letter, how she must place her lips and move her tongue, and what effort she must make with her chest and throat, in order to emit a sound."

The gardener did not understand, and stood with his mouth wide open. He did not yet believe it.

"Tell me, Gigia," he asked his daughter, whispering in her ear, "are you glad that your father has come back?" and he raised his face again, and stood awaiting her reply.

The girl looked at him thoughtfully, and said nothing.

Her father was perturbed.

The teacher laughed. Then she said: "My good man, she does not answer you, because she did not see the movements of your lips: you spoke in her ear! Repeat your question, keeping your face well before hers."

The father, gazing straight in her face, repeated, "Are you glad that your father has come back? that he is not going away again?"

The girl, who had observed his lips attentively, seeking even to see inside his mouth, replied frankly:--

"Yes, I am de-light-ed that you have re-turned, that you are not go-ing a-way a-gain--nev-er a-gain."

Her father embraced her impetuously, and then in great haste, in order to make quite sure, he overwhelmed her with questions.

"What is mamma's name?"

"An-to-nia."

"What is the name of your little sister?"

"Ad-e-laide."

"What is the name of this college?"