Until '6 o - '61, after the 'examination of elementary school, if you wanted to go to school, the one with the Latin, it was necessary to support the' entrance exam. It was hard, it was necessary to bring a program that included all subjects studied in primary school, also a number of poems and prose from memory and some biographies of famosi.C 'was the first day of writings which took place in a theme, another dedicated to mathematics and then oral . Everything was happening at the middle school where we would be attending and was examined by the professors of the medium. If not passed, we went to the school of professional training to work, a kind of series B. I prepared my grandmother, one from Milan, the mother of my mother, a teacher herself, who, having a surname different from mine, he could sign the program to be presented. I had enrolled in a public school, but that year, because of 'high number of pupils and the small number schools, began (and would last almost 20 years) the tremendous double shifts: one went to school for three days of morning and three in the afternoon and as many classes were the opposite and therefore each school could hold twice as many students. Councils in the family, his grandmother promised financial help, I sustained the 'entrance exam, brilliantly, at the public school and then was enrolled in a prestigious private school run by nuns French mother, aunts and grandmothers of both arms the family had attended small
I loved those years, but I never forgave my mother that his inconsistency: on a normal school, where c 'and donkeys were the good, the rich and poor, the doctor's son and partner who called me 'four' uocchie "I was in a rarefied environment, frequented by noblemen. We were a family of high but normal economic conditions, with a maid, a house of the bourgeois type, five rooms and accessories and I suddenly found myself to share the bench with the sons of princes, counts, large industrial a caste where it seemed that everyone knew all along.
not felt any discomfort, then, my academic performance was very high and gentle companions to me, the chances of being out of school were few: in those days, 's winter home and was studying . Was in summer, during the long holidays by the sea that began in June and ended in September, who enjoyed more freedom, we went out with friends in Vico's "party", all children that our parents knew exactly why children of their friends.
In reality, the sense of having something irretrievably lost, the noise, the first strikes, the casualty, a mirror of life which is the public school, with all its faults and its shortcomings, the 'I felt later, when I taught myself. I think I enjoyed it all the way and loved you so much for this. because I had missed in the years of 'adolescence. A
"Mary Help of Christians", that was the school, the walls were painted a pale green, chosen because he was resting his sight in the morning before class, we put her veil and went to the chapel for prayer; we entered divided into two rows and we get up there and knelt at the sound of a small wooden clam that the nun was snapped, then the school hours. Once a week, the Mass, after which we went to the dining room for breakfast with milk and chocolate brioche. Every morning in class was given a notebook where, who wanted, marking the favorite snack for 'recreational time (usually bread and ham or salami and bread, a chocolate bar); during the 'interval were janitors distributed by giving each class its trash.
We had more excellent teachers, the nuns were modern and available for interview, and despite what that wonderful sense of chaos that the school gives you, I missed. We were still paying, and on that, we needed special care.
Every fortnight was given to those who had a pin high marks: "decoration", blue if you had not carried out in 10, red if it had. At the end of the quarter who had obtained all the decorations had a red ribbon with a red cross that was called "Cross of excellence" and was paraded on the uniform for the entire quarter next. My grades were high, as a discipline leaves much to be desired: I think maybe it had, in eight years, one and all. We wore a uniform that was sewn in one of the best tailors in Naples: Piégon front skirt with blue, white blouse, a sweater around his neck blue 's winter, spring blue cardigan, blue shoes, all the same model and a tee made from blue apron, and I think in high school do not wear them anymore. At the end of the quarter we met in the chapel of the 'old building and in the presence of female teachers, sisters, mother and mother superior principal, were called one by one, the first class in every subject. In middle school, except in the gym, I was first in everything at school, fortunately, went back to normal. Not that I studied a lot, in fact, I was easy, I had memory in a short time doing homework, and if I could help. Throughout high school I always played during the task of Italian class in three areas: mine and two of my companions behind, waiting patiently for their turn came.
I was sympathetic to the other, not because I was good, but in my imagination endless' hold harmless pranks and practical jokes of all kinds. As a child I was a little timid and full of fear, 'he took away all my teenage years. C
end of the year 'was the feast, the May 24, the day of Mary Help of Christians. It began with mass at the end of which is sang 'anthem "A toi mon coeur, Marie Auxiliatrice", then prepare for the "festival" organized a class all his stall, raffles, peaches Benefit tickets were purchased by parents and relatives lenient and generous, the proceeds going to the poor. A girl, Anna M, great family, beautiful and sweet that it is now very old and sick, played the guitar always sang "old Lisbon, a year he sang:" Do not be ashamed ", the sisters showed torn ' bold text.
begin the first strikes, the students of the nearby high school "Mercalli, one year attempted an assault on school girls to convince us to take off: the sisters, from the walls above them whaling.
When, years ago, my mother had attended the same school, the nuns were all French, had remained in the 60's a few: Mère Marie Agathe, very old and a redhead, he called all of us "mon petit" , Mère Marie Josephine who was a teacher of singing and had his own method for deciding whether or not you were in tune, all the other Italian. Even among the nuns c 'was the list: those who were taught mothers, those involved in service manuals were nuns. Few
years after my maturity, the school closed for lack of vocations: the last three mothers were living together, one of them, while remaining a nun, took its name from secular and continued to teach mathematics and physics in state schools.
When he was young he taught us, we already saw the adult: we called "Nun of Monza" because we questioned curiously insistent about our first love ... who knows!
We also lay teachers, including some very respectable, then grew to the public school: the gymnasium had a teacher of letters which said "It 's an old maid" was 25 years old ...
I sometimes went to study to become companions princely houses, servants in livery, an unknown world that I never embarrassed, but do not ever tried to share, as did others of my level trying to join. By the end of high school I decided to return to the normal world that I used and I broke, just any relationship. In school we were the fourth
32, arrived in the third school in 18. We, being the only third, the third was associated with the nearby high school, "Umberto", the state high school in Naples well. Many of my friends had girlfriends with kids who would take the 'exam with us, some were married and the wedding still going on.
I was one of the best hunting and began to hoard the good to study together: I studied with Grace L.; his mother was a princess, his father Earl, when studying at home was a pleasure for me that the waiter served us breakfast in bed, the more complicated was at lunch when the waiter came to the side and I had to serve the dish. When she was coming to my house, I realized that there 'was compared, but it did not bother me that much more, our economy was a difference rather than birth, my family being one of the most famous in Naples I then had no uncertainty, and I think that I had never in life felt inferior to other, different but never less. A few years ago I talked to a classmate that she lives in Milan, also her large family with those names that never end and I remember he asked me, as a girl, he said he envied me because there seems to be afraid of anything, maybe it was just the security in me, in my capacity , the 'attach importance to things that really matter. That ended, perhaps as a reaction, I was to be, although cordial, detached and as proud them.
When we studied the maturity, that long ago, with four all written and oral materials, "you did the night", was almost a rite of initiation into the study night, a tangible sign of 'maturity exam.
My father, God bless him, We obtain the cigarettes smoked in the package than the Mercedes flat ten. My father was a maverick, he gave us freedom in years in which no girl was free ... in Naples, then.
For the year-end school party nigth club booked a sophisticated, inviting teachers (those lay), who had a boyfriend, took it. I know that in that same room they celebrated twenty years and thirty years: I have never gone. They were people who belonged, attended the same parties, they married each other, they were members of the Club 'Union, whose rooms were accessed directly from the stages of S. Charles, without going into the street ... I just did not feel that world.
In the early years of university, when the dispute erupted, the more angry they were, you always find a flyer in the front row at meetings, even that they lived as a game, never give up their caste.
I saw some of them, I felt Grace recently: from young people has been harsh judgments, had good memories of me, the better, maybe my them.
maturity came and went, one of the companions was married in the fall, we disperse and began the fun of the Roaring Twenties and 'University.
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