Profiting by my father’s absence to treat me with greater harshness, she was eternally scolding and tormenting me; she went so far as to take away my watches and my ring, to give them, as she said, to the great Madonna. Unluckily for me, she managed to procure a piano, at which I was pitilessly forced to work.
One day, having suddenly sent for me, she ordered me to sing for the amusement of two ragged and unpleasant-looking women she told me were intimate friends of hers.
Indignant at such a proposal, I said that a bit of bread was all they needed just at present.
She rose; I rushed to my room; but nothing could save me from her fury.
In vain did I beg her pardon, in vain entreated for mercy; a hail of blows fell upon me; my body was a mass of bruises; the blood streamed from my nose. I could not stand the overcoming pain; I went to bed, and did not rise from it again till we set out for Florence.
In this fashion my visit to Pisa became a real martyrdom for me instead of an amusement.
During my infancy I had been very subject to eruptions which from time to time appeared all over my body; but none had ever equalled that which was caused after my return by weariness and wretchedness. After the doctors had prescribed a lengthy course of cooling remedies, my parents, to rid themselves of such a nuisance, determined to send me to a hospital maintained at the expense of the Grand Duchess, and the admission to which needed great interest. Nevertheless, my father got an order without any difficulty.
I stayed there several weeks, and I must proclaim aloud that I felt as if I had refound my dear Countess in the person of each of the sisters who managed the hospital. Their constant care soon cured me; they were always near me, caressing me, and giving me fruit and sweetmeats.
No, no one could have been kinder, more courteous than those charitable women, to whom I vowed eternal gratitude, and whom I could not leave without anguish.