Chapter 19: - Page 7 of 8

In view of all this I had to give up my system, which, after so much toil, was just beginning to produce results.  In desperation I carried the whips bank to the school the next day and began the barbarous practice again.  Serenity disappeared and sadness reigned in the faces of the children, who had just begun to care for me, and who were my only kindred and friends.  Although I tried to spare the whippings and to administer them with all the moderation possible, yet the children felt the change keenly, they became discouraged and wept bitterly.  It touched my heart, and even though in my own mind I was vexed with the stupid parents, still I was unable to take any spite out on those innocent victims of their parents’ prejudices.  Their tears burned me, my heart seemed bursting from my breast, and that day I left the school before closing-time to go home and weep alone.  Perhaps my sensitiveness may seem strange to you, but if you had been in my place you would understand it.  Old Don Anastasio said to me, ‘So the parents want floggings? Why not inflict them on themselves?’ As a result of it all I became sick.  Ibarra was listening thoughtfully.

Scarcely had I recovered when I returned to the school to find the number of my pupils reduced to a fifth.  The better ones had run away upon the return to the old system, and of those who remained—mostly those who came to school to escape work at home—not one showed any joy, not one congratulated me on my recovery.  It would have been the same to them whether I got well or not, or they might have preferred that I continue sick since my substitute, although he whipped them more, rarely went to the school.  My other pupils, those whose parents had obliged them to attend school, had gone to other places.  Their parents blamed me for having spoiled them and heaped reproaches on me for it.  One, however, the son of a country woman who visited me during my illness, had not returned on account of having been made a sacristan, and the senior sacristan says that the sacristans must not attend school: they would be dismissed.

Were you resigned in looking after your new pupils? asked Ibarra.