And I, who had forgotten all about this little escapade from the toil of my everyday life, I looked at the sweet face smiling through the tears, I looked at the long row of dolls who stared approvingly at me from among all my medical paraphernalia on the writing-table. And for the first and last time in my life did I feel the ineffable joy of literary triumph, for the first and last time in my life did I feel that mystic power of being able to move others.
A smart carriage was waiting for her at the door, but we sent it away, and I put the kind donor and some of her dolls in a cab, and I remember we went to see Petruccio. I could see by her shyness that it was the first time she had entered the home of the poor. She gave each child a magnificent doll, and she blushed with delight when she saw the little sisters' beaming faces and heard the poor mother's "God bless you!" Hardly had a week passed before she brought me another dozen of dolls, and twelve more sick and destitute children forgot all about their misery. At Christmas I got up a big festa at the Jardin-des-Plantes quarter, where most of the poor Italians live, and the Christmas-tree was loaded with dolls of all sizes and descriptions. She went on bringing me more and more dolls, and there came a time when I did not know what to do with them, for I had more dolls than patients. Every chair and table in my rooms was occupied by a doll, and people asked me to show them "the dear children," and when I told them I was a bachelor and had not got any they would not believe me. To tell you the truth, when spring came I sent the lady to St. Moritz for change of air. I have never seen her since, but should she come across this book she may know that it was she and her dolls who decided its publication, and it is in her honour I have given the Toy article the first place.
There is nothing like success. Some time ago I received a letter from a man I do not know, who wrote me that he was the mayor of a large town. He said that after having read a little paper called "For those who love Music"[2] he had revoked the order which forbade organ-grinders to play in the streets of his town, and had told his children always to give the old man a penny, for "perhaps it is Don Gaetano!" I admit I was immensely flattered by this, and in honour of the kind mayor I have placed his paper second.
But is this to be the end of my literary fame, or will any other laurel-leaf mark some hitherto unpublished page of this volume? What about "Blackcock-shooting"? Will ever an English mother write to me that she is teaching her son that he can grow up every inch a man without having ever killed a half-tame pheasant or a grouse, or stealthily crept up to murder a beautiful stag?
I have not heard from the Germans in Capri yet, but when that letter comes I believe my literary ambition will have reached its zenith, and that I shall relapse into silence again.
Rome, Spring 1898.