"Then you can imagine if I do."
After this small cameo, I wished to model a little figure in bas-relief, which it was my intention to have executed on a shell cameo, and I gave the order for it; but the workmen employed for this kind of work are so unintelligent that if you take them away from the work they are accustomed to do almost mechanically, they are not able to succeed in doing anything. The little figure represented Medicine. She was seated on a stool, and with a little stick was pushing aside the bushes to look for some medicinal plants; but in doing so a serpent had wound itself around her stick, as it is said to have happened to Æsculapius. Behind the stone on which she is seated flows a little stream of water, to denote the salutary action of water by which I was cured, and to which she turns her back.
NEW SKETCH OF THE BACCHUS.
I also made a new sketch for the Bacchino della Crittogama, which was the one that I afterwards made of life-size on my return from Naples. The one I had left behind me in clay was very different, and I destroyed it. I had this new sketch baked, and I remember one day when I went to get it from the man who sells terre cotte, near Santa Lucia, to whom I had given it to bake, that I found him arguing with a stranger who had taken it absolutely into his head to buy it. It was useless for the man to say that the statuette did not belong to him; that he could not sell it; that it was not finished; and that his little figures of Apollo, the Idolino, Venus, and Flora were far better and more finished than this sketch: he only kept repeating, "I like this, and want to buy it;" and all persuasion was useless. I put an end to the discussion in two words, saying to the man—
"Sell it to him."
"How much must I ask?"
"A thousand lire."
At which the good touriste immediately put down the Bacchino, and went away in peace. Some two months after this I presented this little sketch to a priest from Verona, whose name I do not remember, but who came to preach the Lenten sermons at our cathedral in Florence. I regret to have given it to him, for it is always well that a man's sketches should remain in his family, and also because, for all his eloquence, he has never since reported himself to me. Can he really be dead? Requiem æternam.
VISIT TO CAVALIERE ANGELINI.
In this manner the time passed by, alternating the long walks in the neighbourhood of Naples with a little work and some artistic visits to Mancinelli, to Balzico (then but a young student), to Smargiassi the landscape-painter, and to Gigante, the famous water-colourist. I did not fail to try to find the sculptor Cavaliere Angelini, whom I had already known in Florence; but for some inexplicable reason I could not see him, and this was what happened. I went to his studio, and his men told me that he had gone to the Academy to lecture to the young men. I went to the Academy, and was told that he desired me to wait, because he was giving his lessons. I waited a good long time, and when he came out he said that he was in such a hurry he could not pay any attention to me then, but that I must come to his studio on a certain day at a certain hour. I went there and knocked; no one answered, and the soldier who was mounting guard at the Serraglio dei Poveri close by said that every one had gone away more than two hours before. It seemed to me a little strange, after having named the day and hour; but more or less forgetfulness in an artist means nothing—in fact it is a sort of sauce or dressing to an artist's character, be he young or full-grown, on horseback or on foot. Dear me! such things are easily understood; and if I had not been a little tired, I should not even have thought of it, and would have returned another day. But when, and at what time? Should I have ever found the door open?