My duty was now ended. I gave a last look at the beautiful Schiller Platz, where my hotel was, saluted the Academy of Fine Arts, then building, and with open heart, filling my lungs with a great breath of country air, I flew in thought to beautiful Florence, to my family, and to the studies I loved. I plunged into the most comfortable railway carriage that I could find, and never again turned to the right or to the left. I think that I was the first of the Italian jury that returned to our beautiful country.
At this time I was making the monument to Duke Silvestro Camerini that had been ordered from me by his illustrious and most noble nephew, Count Luigi. Senatore Achilli Mauri had first spoken to me of it on his behalf, and had shown me a design by Signor Gradenigo of Padua, in which there were to be two statues that the Count wished me to make. The design did not please me, and I answered that I would make the monument, but that I wished to compose it after my own fashion. The Count was content. I made a design; he saw it, it pleased him, and all was settled in a friendly way by a few frank words, without all those precautions of contract, seal register, witnesses, and caution that are invented by distrust to protect one from rascals. It is thus that honest men deal with honest men; and of such is Count Luigi, and of such by God's mercy am I, and I can proclaim it loudly in the broad light of the sun. I am certain that, of the many persons who have given me commissions, not one has had any question with me, nor even the slightest feeling of unpleasantness! The thought of this, and the certainty of being able to proclaim it coram populo, is to me a consolation so complete and grateful, that it forms, so to speak, my happiness.
COUNT LUIGI CAMERINI.
Amongst those who have given me commissions, Count Luigi Camerini has been one of the most courteous—a true friend. Every time that I went to Padua or Piazzola on account of the work I was engaged on, besides the glad welcome that he and his amiable wife gave me, he managed to arrange some excursions for our pastime and pleasure—now to Venice, now to Passagno, now to Vicenza, and sometimes even farther; and he pushed courtesy and friendship to the extent of taking us all as far as Turin, on the occasion of the inauguration of Cavour's monument. As I said, to do this, besides being amiable and kind, one must also be rich, and he is rich indeed. I remember that one day, during one of these excursions, we found ourselves in a first-class railway carriage with the Princess Troubetzkoi and her husband, Duke Talleyrand. We all talked together more or less about everything—all except the Duke, who gathered himself up in his corner, with his travelling-cap pulled down on his forehead, intent on reading a French newspaper. He had never lifted his eyes on us, so absorbed did he seem in his reading.
I do not know how it was that the conversation fell on the heaviness of the taxes. I am greatly afraid that it was I who started the subject, because on this key I am wonderfully eloquent; I storm about the laws, agents, cashiers, everybody, and everything.
"Let them lay a heavy hand," I was saying, "on play, on luxury, on vices, on property, but leave in peace the labour, industry, and talent that are the bonds of civilisation and health, because the public conscience rebels against this."
DESCRIPTION OF THE MONUMENT.
The good Duke did not even move; for him it was as if I was neither in the wrong nor the right. My friend Camerini, perhaps to allay my indignation, quietly smiled and said—
"You are right; certainly these taxes are very heavy. But what can one do about it? One must pay, and that is all——"
"Certainly," I continued, repeating his favourite word, "one must pay—and I pay; but it is too much—these taxes are too high."