"Twenty years since, I was twenty years old, as you are now, Ascanio, and I was at work with a Florentine goldsmith named Raphael del Moro. He was a good workman and did not lack taste; but he cared more for rest than for work, allowing himself to be inveigled into attending parties with disheartening facility, and, although he had little money, himself leading astray those who were in his studio. Very often I was left alone in the house, singing over some piece of work I had in hand. In those days I sang as Scozzone does. All the sluggards in the city came as a matter of course to Master Raphael for employment, or rather in quest of pleasure, for he had the reputation of being too weak ever to quarrel. One grows rich slowly with such habits as his; so he was always hard up, and soon came to be the most discredited goldsmith in Florence.
"I am wrong. He had a confrère who had even less custom than he, although he was of a noble family. But it was not for irregularity in meeting his obligations that Gismondo Gaddi was cried down, but for his notorious lack of talent and his sordid avarice. As everything intrusted to him left his hands imperfect or spoiled, and not a customer, unless he happened to be a stranger, ventured into his shop, Gismondo undertook to earn his living by usury, and to loan money at enormous interest to young men desirous of discounting their future prospects. This profession succeeded better than the other, as Gaddi always demanded good security, and went into nothing without reliable guaranties. With that exception, he was, as he himself said, very considerate and long-suffering; he loaned to everybody, compatriots and foreigners, Jews and Christians. He would have loaned to St. Peter upon the keys of paradise, or to Satan upon his estates in hell.
"Need I say that he loaned to my poor Raphael del Moro, who consumed every day his provision for the morrow, but whose sterling integrity never wavered. Their constant connection in business, and the social ostracism to which both were subjected, tended to bring the two goldsmiths together. Del Moro was deeply grateful for his confrère's untiring amiability in the matter of advancing money. Gaddi thoroughly esteemed an honest and accommodating debtor. They were, in a word, the best friends in the world, and Gismondo would not have missed for an empire one of the parties with which Del Moro regaled him.
"Del Moro was a widower, but he had a daughter of sixteen, named Stefana. From a sculptor's point of view Stefana was not beautiful, and yet her appearance was most striking. Beneath her forehead, which was almost too high and not smooth enough for a woman, one could see her brain at work, so to speak. Her great, moist eyes, of a velvety black hue, moved you to respect and deep emotion as they rested upon you. An ivory pallor overspread her face, which was lightened by a melancholy yet charming expression, like the faint sunshine of an autumn morning. I forget a crown of luxurious raven locks, and hands a queen might have envied.
"Stefana ordinarily stood bending slightly forward, like a lily swayed by the wind. You might at times have taken her for a statue of Melancholy. When she stood erect, when her lovely eyes sparkled, when her nostrils dilated, when her arm was outstretched to emphasize a command, you would have adored her as the Archangel Gabriel. She resembled you, Ascanio, but you have less weakness of resolution and capacity for suffering. The immortality of the soul was never more clearly revealed to my eyes than in that slender, graceful body. Del Moro, who feared his daughter almost as much as he loved her, was accustomed to say that he had consigned to the tomb only the body of his wife, that Stefana was her dead mother's soul.
"I was at this time an adventurous youth, an impulsive giddy-pated creature. I loved liberty before everything. I was bubbling over with life, and I expended my surplus energy in foolish quarrels and foolish love affairs. I worked nevertheless with no less passion than I put into my pleasures, and despite my vagaries I was Raphael's best workman, and the only one in the establishment who earned any money. But what I did well, I did by instinct, almost by chance. I had studied the ancients to good purpose. For whole days I had gazed upon the bas-reliefs and statues of Athens and Rome, making studies with pencil and chisel, and constant contact with these sublime artists of former days gave me purity and precision of outline; but I was simply a successful imitator; I did not create. Still, I say again, I was incontestably and easily the cleverest and most hardworking of Del Moro's comrades. I have since learned that the master's secret wish was that I should marry his daughter.
"But I was thinking little of settling down; i' faith, I was enamored of independence, freedom from care, and an outdoor life. I was absent from the workshop whole days at a time. I would return completely overdone with fatigue, and yet in a few hours I would have overtaken and passed Raphael's other workmen. I would fight for a word, fall in love at a glance. A fine husband I should have made!
"Moreover, my feelings when I was with Stefana in no wise resembled those aroused by the pretty girls of Porta del Prato or Borgo Pinti. She almost overawed me; if I had been told that I loved her otherwise than as an elder sister I should have laughed. When I returned from one of my escapades I dared not look Stefana in the face. She was more than stern, she was sad. On the other hand, when fatigue or a praiseworthy zealous impulse had detained me at home, I always sought Stefana's companionship, her sweet face, and her sweet voice; my affection for her had in it something serious and sacred, which I did not at the time fully understand, but which was very pleasant to me. Very often, amid my wildest excesses, the thought of Stefana would pass through my mind, and my companions would ask me why I had suddenly become thoughtful. Sometimes, when I was in the act of drawing my sword or my dagger, I would pronounce her name as it were that of my patron saint, and I noticed that whenever that occurred I retired from the contest unhurt. But this tender feeling for the dear child, innocent, lovely, and affectionate as she was, lay dormant at the bottom of my heart as in a sanctuary.
"For her part, it is certain, that she was as full of indulgence and kindly feeling for me as she was cold and dignified with my slothful comrades. She sometimes came to sit in the studio beside her father, and I would sometimes feel her eyes fixed on my face as she bent over my work. I was proud and happy in her preference, although I did not explain my feeling to myself. If one of my comrades indulged in a little vulgar flattery, and informed me that my master's daughter was in love with me, I received his insolence so wrathfully that he never repeated it.
"An accident which befell Stefana proved to me how deeply she had become rooted in my heart.