“Tinamaan ng—!” [28] he
muttered, biting his lips.
He hesitated about entering, for the mark was already
down against him and was not to be erased. One
did not go to the class to learn but in order not
to get this absence mark, for the class was reduced
to reciting the lesson from memory, reading the book,
and at the most answering a few abstract, profound,
captious, enigmatic questions. True, the usual
preachment was never lacking—the same as
ever, about humility, submission, and respect to the
clerics, and he, Placido, was humble, submissive,
and respectful. So he was about to turn away
when he remembered that the examinations were approaching
and his professor had not yet asked him a question
nor appeared to notice him—this would be
a good opportunity to attract his attention and become
known! To be known was to gain a year, for if
it cost nothing to suspend one who was not known, it
required a hard heart not to be touched by the sight
of a youth who by his daily presence was a reproach
over a year of his life wasted.
So Placido went in, not on tiptoe as was his custom,
but noisily on his heels, and only too well did he
succeed in his intent! The professor stared at
him, knitted his brows, and shook his head, as though
to say, “Ah, little impudence, you’ll
pay for that!”
CHAPTER XIII
THE CLASS IN PHYSICS
The classroom was a spacious rectangular hall with
large grated windows that admitted an abundance of
light and air. Along the two sides extended three
wide tiers of stone covered with wood, filled with
students arranged in alphabetical order. At the
end opposite the entrance, under a print of St. Thomas
Aquinas, rose the professor’s chair on an elevated
platform with a little stairway on each side.
With the exception of a beautiful blackboard in a
narra frame, scarcely ever used, since there was still
written on it the viva that had appeared on
the opening day, no furniture, either useful or useless,
was to be seen. The walls, painted white and covered
with glazed tiles to prevent scratches, were entirely
bare, having neither a drawing nor a picture, nor
even an outline of any physical apparatus. The
students had no need of any, no one missed the practical
instruction in an extremely experimental science;
for years and years it has been so taught and the
country has not been upset, but continues just as
ever. Now and then some little instrument descended
from heaven and was exhibited to the class from a
distance, like the monstrance to the prostrate worshipers—look,
but touch not! From time to time, when some complacent
professor appeared, one day in the year was set aside
for visiting the mysterious laboratory and gazing from
without at the puzzling apparatus arranged in glass
cases. No one could complain, for on that day
there were to be seen quantities of brass and glassware,
tubes, disks, wheels, bells, and the like—the
exhibition did not get beyond that, and the country
was not upset.
Copyrights
The Reign of Greed from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.
