He said that it would always be the most
beautiful language of the world. He said that he wanted it treasured
in Alsace and never forgotten, because, when a people fall into
slavery it is almost like holding the key to their prison if they can
speak to each other in the same tongue. Afterward he took a grammar
and went over the lesson with the children. All that he read seemed
suddenly quite easy to Franz; he had never attended so well, and never
before had he understood how patient the school-master was in his
explanations.
When the lesson was finished, writing was begun. For this last day,
the master had prepared fresh copies.
_France, Alsace. France, Alsace_.
The copies were like little flags, floating all over the schoolroom
from the tops of the desks. Nothing broke the great silence but the
scratching of the pens upon the paper. Suddenly some May bugs flew in
through the window, but no one noticed them. On the roof of the school
some pigeons began to coo, and Franz thought to himself, "Will it be
commanded that the birds, too, speak to us in a foreign language?"
From time to time, as Franz lifted his eyes from his paper, he saw the
school-master sitting quietly in his chair, and looking all about him,
as if he wanted to remember always every child and every bit of
furniture in his little schoolroom.
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