WHA Rome, and into my mother's house. Fra Martino advised that I should go to the Campagna to Mariuccia's parents, who kept flocks, and were honest people, to whom the twenty scudi would be wealth, and who would not hesitate to take me home to them, and to treat me as their own child; but, then, I was in part a member of the Church, and if I went out to the Campagna, I should no longer swing the censer in the Church of the Capuchins. Federigo also thought it better that I should remain in Rome with some decent people ; he should not like, he said, that I should be only a rough, simple peasant. Whilst Fra Martino counseled with himself in the convent, my uncle Peppo came stumping upon his wooden clogs. He had heard of my mother's death, and that twenty scudi had fallen to me, and for this reason he also now came to give his opinion. He declared, that as he was the only relative I had in the world, he should take me to himself; that I was to follow him, and that everything which the house contained was his, as well as the twenty scudi. Mariuccia maintained with great zeal that she and Fra Martino had already arranged everything for the best; and gave him to understand that he, a cripple and a beggar, had enough to do with himself, and could not have any voice in the matter. Federigo left the room, and the two who remained reproached each other mutually with the selfish ground of their regard for me. Uncle Peppo spit forth all his venom, and Mariuccia stood like a Fury before him. She would, she said, have nothing to do with him, nor with the boy; she would have nothing to do with anything. She said he might take me and get me a pair of wooden crutches made, and so like a cripple I could help to fill his bag! He might take me with him, but the money she would keep till Fra Martino came back; not a single stiver of it should his false eyes behold! Peppo threatened to knock a hole in her head, as big as the Piazzo del Popolo, with his wooden hand-clogs. I stood weeping near to them. Mariuccia pushed me from her, and Peppo drew me to him. I must follow him, he said, must attach myself to him; but if he bore the burden he also would have the reward. The Roman senate knew well enough how to do right to an honest man; and then he drew me against my will out of the house door, where a ragged lad held his ass for on great occasions, and when haste was required, he cast aside his board, and held himself fast on the ass with his withered legs; he and it were, so to say, one body. Me he set before him upon the beast; the lad gave it a blow, and so we trotted off, whilst he caressed me in his own way. "Dost thou see, my child?" he said, "is it not an excellent ass? and fly can he, fly like a racer through the Corso! Thou wilt be well off with me, like an angel of heaven, my fine fellow!" And then followed a thousand curses and maledictions against Mariuccia. "Where hast thou stolen that pretty child?" inquired his acquaintance as we rode onward, and so my history was told and told again almost at every corner. The woman who sold citron-peel water reached to us a whole glass for our long story, and gave me a pine-apple to take with me, the inside of which was all gone. Before we got under his roof the sun had gone down. I said not one word, but pressed my hands before my face, and cried. In the little room which adjoined the larger room, he showed me in a corner a bed of maizeleaves, or rather the dried husks of the maize; here I was to sleep. Hungry I could not be, he said, nor thirsty either, for we had drunk the excellent glass of citron-water. He patted me on the cheek with that same hateful smile of which I always felt such horror. He then asked me how many silver pieces there were in the purse, whether Mariuccia had paid the vetturino out of it, and what the strange servant had said when he brought the money. I would give him no explanation, and asked with tears whether I was always to remain here, and whether I could not go home to-morrow. "Yes, surely! yes, surely!" said he; "sleep now, but do not forget thy Ave Maria; when people sleep the devil wakes; make the sign of the cross over thee: it is an iron wall which a raging lion cannot break through! Pray piously; and pray that the Madonna will punish with poison and corruption the false Mariuccia, who would overreach thy innocence, and cheat thee and me of all thy property. Now go to sleep: the little hole above can stand open; the fresh air is half a supper. Don't be afraid of the bats—they fly past, the poor things! Sleep well, my Jesus-child!" And with this he bolted the door. For a long time he busied himself in the other room; then I heard other voices, and the light of a lamp came in through a chink in the wall. I raised myself up, but quite softly, for the dry maize-leaves rustled loudly, and I was afraid that he would hear them and come in again. I now saw through the chink that two wicks were lighted in the lamp, bread and radishes were set on the table, and a flask of wine went round the company. All were beggars, all cripples; I knew them all well, although there was quite another expression on their countenances than I was accustomed to see there. The feversick, half-dead Lorenzo, sat there merry and noisy, and talked without intermission; and by day I had always seen him lying stretched out on the grass on Monte Pincio,1 where he supported his bound-up head against a tree-stem, and moved his lips as if half-dying, whilst his wife pointed out the fever-sick, suffering man, to the passers-by. Francia, with his fingerless hands, drummed with the stumps upon the shoulders of the blind Cathrina, and sang half aloud "Cavalier Torchino." Two or three others sat near the door, but so much in the 1 This is the public promenade which extends from the Spanish Steps to the French Academy, and down to Porta del Popolo, looking over the greatest part of Rome and the sea, with the Villa Borghese. - Author's Note. shadow, that I did not know them. My heart beat violently with fear. I heard that they talked about me. "Can the boy do anything?" asked one. sort of a hurt?" "Has he any "No; the Madonna has not been so kind to him," said Peppo; "he is slender and well formed, like a nobleman's child." "That is a great misfortune," said they all. The blind Cathrina added that I could have some little hurt, which would help me to get my earthly bread until the Madonna gave me the heavenly. 66 'Ay," said Peppo, "if my niece had been wise the lad might have made his fortune! He has a voice, O, like the dear angels of heaven! he was meant for the Pope's chapel! he ought to have been a singer!" They talked of my age, and of what could yet be done, and how my fortune must be made. I did not understand what they would do with me, but thus much, I saw clearly that it was something bad they meant, and I trembled for fear. But how should I get away? This alone filled my whole soul. Whither should I go? No, of that I thought not. I crept along the floor to the open hole; by the help of a block of wood I climbed up to it. I saw not a single person in the street. The doors were all closed. I must take a great leap if I would reach the ground; I had not courage for the leap until I seemed to hear some one at my door; they were coming in to me. A shudder went through me, I let myself slide from the wall. I fell heavily, but only upon earth and green turf. I started up and ran, without knowing whither, through the narrow, crooked streets. A man who sang aloud, and struck with his stick upon the stone pavement, was the only person I met. At length I stood in a great square: the moon shone brightly; I knew the place; it was the Forum Romanum, the cow-market, as we called it. The moon illumined the back of the Capitol, which, like a perpendicular wall of rock, seemed to divide the closely built part of Rome from that which was more open. Upon the high steps of the arch of Septimus Severus lay several beg gars asleep, wrapped in their large cloaks. The tall columns which yet remain of the old temple cast long shadows. I had never been there before after sunset; there was something spectral to me in the whole, and as I went along I stumbled over the marble capitals which lay in the long grass. I rose up and gazed upon the ruins of the city of the Cæsars. The thick ivy made the walls still darker; the black cypresses raised themselves so demonlike and huge in the blue air that I grew more and more fearful. In the grass amid the fallen columns and the marble rubbish, lay some cows, and a mule still grazed there; it was a sort of consolation to me, that here were living creatures which would do me no harm. The clear moonlight made it almost as bright as day; every object showed itself distinctly. I heard some one comingwas it some one in search of me? In my terror I flew into the gigantic Coliseum, which lay before me like a vast mass of rock. I stood in the double-vaulted passage which surrounds one half of the building, and is large and perfect, as if only completed yesterday. Here it was quite dark, and ice-cold. I advanced a few steps from between the pillars, but softly, very softly, for the sound my own footsteps made me more fearful. I saw a fire upon the ground, and could distinguish before it the forms of three human beings; were they peasants who had here sought out a resting-place for the night, that they might not ride over the desolate Campagna during the hours of darkness? or were they, perhaps, soldiers who kept watch in the Coliseum? or they might be robbers. I fancied that I heard the rattling of their weapons, and I therefore withdrew softly back again to where the tall pillars stand without any other roof than that which is formed by bushes and climbing plants. Strange shadows fell in the moonlight upon the lofty wall; square masses of stone shot out from their regular places, and, overgrown with evergreen, looked as if they were about to fall, and were only sustained by the thick climbers. Above, in the middle gallery, people were walking, travellers, certainly, who were visiting these remarkable ruins late in the beautiful moonlight; a lady, dressed in white, was in the company. Now I saw distinctly this singular picture, as |