To my delight I looked forth next morning on a sunny and calm sky,
such as I had not seen during all my stay at Cotrone. I felt better,
and decided to leave for Catanzaro by train in the early afternoon.
Shaking still, but heartened by the sunshine, I took a short walk,
and looked for the last time at the Lacinian promontory. On my way
back I passed a little building from which sounded an astonishing
noise, a confused babble of shrill voices, blending now and then
with a deep stentorian shout. It was the communal school--not
during playtime, or in a state of revolt, but evidently engaged as
usual upon its studies. The school-house was small, but the volume
of clamour that issued from it would have done credit to two or
three hundred children in unrestrained uproariousness. Curiosity
held me listening for ten minutes; the tumult underwent no change of
character, nor suffered the least abatement; the mature voice
occasionally heard above it struck a cheery note, by no means one of
impatience or stern command. Had I been physically capable of any
effort, I should have tried to view that educational scene.
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