"What do you mean to do?"
"You will see." Taking a long piece of beaten iron wire, I bent it into the form of a mark of interrogation, and fastening the straight end of it firmly to a bit of wood, when I heard the noise again I thrust it to the opposite side of the hole, and again and again tried if I could catch hold of anything within. At last, when I thought I had grappled hold of something, I pulled it up, and found it to be a rope. As soon as the rope was caught, we heard several voices scolding, calling, and disputing— amongst others, a woman's voice shouting, "No, I tell you there are no other lodgers; pull away, the bucket must have got into some hole." Then the poor woman pulled, and every time she pulled I gave a loud groan. At last, apparently the woman's strength failed, the mistress herself or some one else pulled at it, for I could feel she had no more strength to pull, and then cried out with an impertinent voice, worthy of greater success, "Who is there?" "The souls of purgatory," I shouted out lugubriously, and instantly felt the rope fall down.
To say the truth, I was then a little alarmed through fear of being discovered, so I pushed forward the iron hook, and the rope fell, bucket and all, into the well. My companions laughed at the scene, but I did not; and thinking the joke might be found out, I hastened to close up again the hole with a brick, set the little bottle of oil into it, restore the niche as it was, smudge it over well that it might appear old and as if it had never been touched, sweep away all traces of the plaster that had been used, straighten out the instrument I had used, and apply myself to my work in serious rather than hilarious mood.
MY FATHER GOES TO ROME.
About this time my father, failing to get work, came to Florence, hoping to find something to do; but his hopes proved vain. He stayed there a little while, but at last determined to go away, and this time for a more distant place. My mother and all of us tried to dissuade him, telling him to have patience, that some way would be found, that we would do all we could to help, and although we were very poor, still we should all be together. But it seemed to him that we could not get on in this way, and accordingly he left for Rome. So long as he was at Siena and wrote to us, and sometimes sent us a few sous, it was not so bad, and we were accustomed to it; but now, who could say how we should get on? So far away, without any one to help him, without acquaintances, and with so imperious a character, what would become of him? Fortunately, however, he found employment, and he wrote that he was well, and hoped in a short time to be able to send us something. God knows there was need of it.
Meanwhile I had become tolerably skilful. I was no longer a boy; I earned about three pauls a-day, and nearly all this I gave to my mother, reserving for myself only a few sous to buy paper, pencils, and books. Beyond these things I wanted nothing, for my mother took care to keep me cleanly and decently dressed.
DISCONTENT.
As my face, my way of speaking, and my manners were not vulgar, many of the customers who came to our shop took me for the son of the principal instead of an apprentice. They readily addressed themselves to me; I took their messages, and sometimes their orders for the work, and the older and more skilful workmen showed no ill-feeling about it. Amongst other customers who had a liking for me, I remember Signor Emilio de Fabris, who at that time was the head workman in Baccani's studio. He used to come to direct and urge on the work. He used to talk with me, and to make his observations on the work; and as he even then had an easy and graceful way of talking, I listened to him with attention. He was a thin, tall, refined young man, admirably educated, and courteous in his manners. To-day he is one of the most famous masters of architecture, President of our Academy of Fine Arts, and my good friend.
But although I had many reasons for being contented,—for at home, thanks to the small wages of my brother Lorenzo, the few sous that came from Rome, and the earnings, meagre though they were, of my mother, we were able, by putting all together, to live tolerably though poorly, and in the shop I was liked and esteemed by my master, by the men, by all,—still I was not contented. I felt there was a void, a feeling of uneasiness, and a melancholy that I could neither explain to myself, nor could others explain to me except by jestingly calling me "the poet."
And this was the truth, for the poet is eminently a dreamer whose dreams are more joyous and smiling than any reality, and I dreamed—yes, but not of a smiling future when I should be rich and famous, but of any sort of way by which I could find vent for that inward longing to distinguish myself above others, and to distinguish myself especially in figure-work, though it should be only in wood; but it was not possible for me to satisfy this longing in the shop. Here I was obliged to work at all sorts of things—chandeliers, frames, mask-heads, everything; and I not only felt unhappy, but was unhappy, and my health began to fail. I was advised to take sea-baths; but in Leghorn the cholera was raging, and it would have been imprudent to go there, and so another year passed in the midst of desires and hopes and fears and ill-health. But at last I went to the baths. I had scarcely arrived there, however, when that terrible disease reappeared and raged furiously: the inhabitants and strangers hastened to fly from it; all business was suspended; movement and gaiety almost entirely disappeared; the shops were shut; and in a short time Leghorn became deserted, sad, and oppressed with fear.