"'"Tell me, my child, have you no remembrance of the earlier time?--how it passed?--how things were with you before you became a poor wretched fellow here, scarce able to keep body and soul together?"
"'Antonio heaved a profound sigh, sat down beside her, and said:
"'"Ah, mother! I know but too well that my parents were in the most prosperous circumstances; but as to who they were, or how I lost them, not the faintest remembrance remains to me, or could remain to me. I distinctly remember a tall, handsome man, who used to take me up in his arms, and pet me, and give me sweetmeats; and also I recollect a kind, pretty woman, who dressed me and undressed me, put me into a little soft bed every evening, and was good to me in every way. They both talked to me in a rich-sounding foreign language, and I myself used to stammer many words of this language after them. In the days when I was a boatman, my comrades--who hated me--used to say always that, from my hair, my eyes, and the build of my body, I must be of German blood. I think so too, and I have little doubt that the language of those people who cared for me (I am certain the man was my father) was German. My most vivid remembrance of those times is a picture of terror; of a night when I was roused from a deep sleep by screams of anguish. People were hurrying up and down in the house; doors kept opening and shutting. I grew terribly frightened, and began to cry. Then the woman who took care of me came rushing in, lifted me from my bed, stopped my mouth, wrapped me in clothes, and ran with me from thence. From that moment my memory is a blank, till I find myself again in a fine house, surrounded by beautiful country. The image of a man comes out, whom I called 'father,' and who was a stately gentleman, noble-looking and kind. He, and every one in the house, spoke Italian. Once, when there had been several weeks when I had not seen him, a day came when repulsive-looking strangers arrived, who made a great disturbance, turning everything upside down. When they saw me they asked who I was, and what I was doing there. I said I was Antonio, the son of the house. On my repeating this they laughed in my face, tore the clothes off my back, and turned me out of doors, telling me that I should be beaten if I showed my face there any more. I ran away, crying loudly. Scarce a hundred paces from the house an old man met me whom I recognized as one of my foster-father's servants. 'Come, Antonio; come, poor boy!' he cried, taking me by the hand. 'That house is closed to both of us for ever. We must do the best we can to get a bit of bread.' This old man brought me here. Scarce had we come when I saw that he pulled out zecchini from his ragged doublet, and went up and down all day on the Rialto, doing business, sometimes as a broker, sometimes as a merchant. I had to be always close at his heels; and whenever he did a bit of business, he always asked for a trifle for the figliulo, as he called me. Everybody whom I looked boldly in the eyes would pull out a quattrino or two, which he used to pocket with much satisfaction, stroking my cheeks, and saying he was saving them up to buy me a new doublet. I was happy enough with this old man, whom people called 'Father Bluenose,' I don't know why.
"'"You remember that terrible time when one day the earth began to tremble; when the palaces and the towers wavered backwards and forwards as if shaken to their foundations, and the bells tolled as if swayed by invisible giant arms. It must be about seven years ago; or not quite so long. Fortunately the old man and I escaped in safety from the house where we were living; it fell almost about our ears. But this terrible event was merely the announcement of the coming of the monster which soon breathed its poison over town and country. It was known that the plague, which had been brought to Sicily from the Levant, had reached Tuscany. Venice was still free from it. One day Father Bluenose was bargaining on the Rialto with an Armenian. They settled their business, and shook hands warmly. Bluenose had sold some goods at a favourable rate to the Armenian, and, as usual, asked for a trifle for the 'figliulo.' The Armenian--a big strong man, with a thick, curly beard (I see him before me at this moment)--looked kindly at me, kissed me, and took out a zecchino or two, which he put into my hand, and which I quickly pocketed. We took a gondola to go over to San Marco. As we were crossing, the old man asked me to give him the money, and I don't know why it was that I came to maintain that I ought to keep it myself, because the Armenian had wished me to do so. The old man was angry; but, as he was arguing with me, I noticed that his face took on a horrible, earthy-yellow colour, and that he mixed up all sorts of wild incoherent things in what he was saying. When we landed at the Piazza he staggered about like a drunken man, till, just in front of the Ducal Palazzo, he fell down dead. I threw myself on his body with loud outcries of grief. The people came running up; but the terrible cry 'The plague! the plague!' broke out, and they all went scattering away in every direction. At the same instant I was seized by a dull stupefaction, and my senses left me. When I awoke from this condition I found myself in a spacious chamber, on a little mattress, covered with a woollen rug. Around me some twenty or thirty pale forms were lying, on similar mattresses. Afterwards I learned that some compassionate monks, who happened to be passing at the time of my seizure, finding some traces of life in me, had taken me to a gondola and over to the Monastery of San Giorgio Maggiore, where the Benedictines had established an hospital. But how can I ever describe to you, old woman, that moment when I came back to consciousness? The fury of the disease had completely taken away from me all memory of the past. As if life had suddenly come to some statue, I possessed only the consciousness of the present moment, knitted on to nothing besides. You may fancy what disconsolateness this condition--only to be called a consciousness floating in vacant space, with nothing to hold on to--brought to me. The monks could only tell me that I had been found beside Father Bluenose, whose son I was supposed to be. My thoughts collected themselves by slow degrees, so that I remembered something of my former life. But what I have told you is all I know of it; nothing but one or two detached pictures, without connection or coherency. Alas! this disconsolate sense of being alone in the world keeps me from all happiness, well as things are going with me now."
"'"Tonino, my dear! content yourself with what the bright present-time affords you," the old woman said.
"'"Be quiet," he answered. "There is something more, which makes my life wretched, continually tortures me, and will, sooner or later, be my destruction. Ever since I awoke to consciousness in the hospital, an unutterable longing, a yearning, which consumes my very heart, for a something which I can neither name nor understand, has continually filled my whole being. When I used to throw myself down at night on my hard bed, poor and wretched, worn and broken by the bitter labour of the day, there came a dream, fanning my fevered brow, and giving back to me, in gentle whisperings, all the bliss of a brief moment of utter happiness, which the Eternal Power permitted me to realize in my fancy--for the consciousness that I did once possess it rests ever in the depths of my heart. I sleep on soft cushions now, and bitter labour no longer consumes my strength. But when I awake from my dream, or when, in the waking state, the consciousness of that moment comes into my soul, I feel that my poor, wretched existence is, to me, now as then, an unbearable burden which I long to shake away from me. All reflection, all researching, are in vain. I can not fathom what, so gorgeously happy, occurred to me in my early life, of which the dim reflected echo--incomprehensible to me, alas!--fills me with such delight. But this delight becomes burning torture when I am compelled to recognize the truth that every hope of finding that Eden again--nay, of even searching for it--is over. Can there be traces of that which has disappeared without a trace?"
"'Antonio ceased speaking, and sighed profoundly from the depths of his heart.
"'During his narration the old woman had borne herself as one who is wholly carried away by the pain of another, and, like a mirror, reflects every movement to which that other is constrained by his suffering.
"'"Tonino! dear Tonino!" she now said, in a tearful voice; "why do you despair because something delightful, of which you have lost the memory, happened to you in early life? Silly boy! Silly boy! Listen! he, he, he."
"'And she commenced her usual disagreeable kickering and laughing, as she danced about on the marble pavement. People came--she crouched down again--they gave her alms.