THE IMPROVISATORE.

WE

CHAPTER I.

THE CIRCUMSTANCES OF MY CHILDHOOD.

HOEVER has been in Rome is well acquainted with the Piazza Barberina, in the great square, with the beautiful fountain where the Tritons empty the spouting conch-shell, from which the water springs upwards many feet. Whoever has not been there, knows it, at all events, from copper-plate engravings; only it is a pity that in these the house at the corner of the Via Felice is not given, that tall corner-house, where the water pours through three pipes out of the wall down into a stone basin. That house has a peculiar interest for me; it was there that I was born. If I look back to my tender youth, such a crowd of bright remembrances meet me, that I scarcely know where to begin; when I contemplate the whole drama of my life, still less do I know what I should bring forward, what I should pass over as unessential, and what points may suffice to represent the whole picture. That which appears attractive to me may not be so to a stranger. I will relate truly and naturally the great story, but then vanity must come into play, — the wicked vanity, the desire to please. Already, in my childhood, it sprung up like a plant, and, like the mustard-seed of the gospel, shot forth its branches towards heaven, and became a mighty tree, in which my passions builded themselves nests.

One of my earliest recollections points thereto. I was turned six years old, and was playing in the neighborhood of the church of the Capuchins, with some other children, who were all younger than myself. There was fastened on the churchdoor a little cross of metal; it was fastened about the middle

of the door, and I could just reach it with my hand. Always when our mothers had passed by with us they had lifted us up that we might kiss the holy sign. One day, when we children were playing, one of the youngest of them inquired "Why the child Jesus did not come down and play with us?" I assumed an air of wisdom, and replied that he was really bound upon the cross. We went to the church-door, and, although we found no one, we wished, as our mothers had taught us, to kiss him, but we could not reach up to it; one, therefore, lifted up the other, but just as the lips were pointed for the kiss that one who lifted the other lost his strength, and the kissing one fell down just when his lips were about to touch the invisible child Jesus. At that moment my mother came by, and, when she saw our child's play, she folded her hands, and said, "You are actually some of God's angels ! And thou art mine own angel!" added she, and kissed me.

I heard her repeat to a neighbor what an innocent angel I was, and it pleased me greatly, but it lessened my innocence

the mustard-seed of vanity drank in therefrom the first sunbeams. Nature had given to me a gentle, pious character, but my good mother made me aware of it; she showed me my real and my imaginary endowments, and never thought that it is with the innocence of the child as with the basilisk, which dies when it sees itself.

He

The Capuchin monk, Fra Martino, was my mother's confessor, and she related to him what a pious child I was. I also knew several prayers very nicely by heart, although I did not understand one of them. He made very much of me, and gave me a picture of the Virgin weeping great tears, which fell, like rain-drops, down into the burning flames of hell, where the damned caught this draught of refreshment. took me over with him into the convent, where the open colonnade, which inclosed within a square the little potato-garden, with the two cypress and orange-trees, made a very deep impression upon me. Side by side, in the open passages, hung old portraits of deceased monks, and on the door of each cell were pasted pictures from the history of the martyrs, which I contemplated with the same holy reverence as afterwards the masterpieces of Raphael and Andrew del Sarto.

"Thou art really a bright youth," said he; "thou shalt now see the dead.”

Upon this, he opened a little door of a gallery which lay a few steps below the colonnade. We descended, and now I saw round about me skulls upon skulls, so placed one upon another that they formed walls, and therewith several chapels. In these were regular niches, in which were seated perfect skeletons of the most distinguished of the monks, enveloped in their brown cowls, and with a breviary or a withered bunch of flowers in their hands. Altars, chandeliers, and ornaments were made of shoulder-bones and vertebræ, with bass-reliefs of human joints, horrible and tasteless as the whole idea.

I clung fast to the monk, who whispered a prayer, and then said to me,

"Here also I shall some time sleep; wilt thou thus visit me?"

I answered not a word, but looked horrified at him, and then round about me upon the strange, grisly assembly. It was foolish to take me, a child, into this place. I was singularly impressed by the whole thing, and did not feel myself again easy until I came into his little cell, where the beautiful yellow oranges almost hung in at the window, and I saw the brightly colored picture of the Madonna, who was borne upwards by angels into the clear sunshine, while a thousand flowers filled the grave in which she had rested.

This, my first visit to the convent, occupied my imagination for a long time, and stands yet with extraordinary vividness before me. This monk seemed to me quite a different being to any other person whom I knew; his abode in the neighborhood of the dead, who, in their brown cloaks, looked almost like himself, the many histories which he knew and could relate of holy men and wonderful miracles, together with my mother's great reverence for his sanctity, caused me to begin thinking whether I too could not be such a man.

My mother was a widow, and had no other means of subsistence than what she obtained by sewing and by the rent of a large room which we ourselves had formerly inhabited. We lived now in a little chamber in the roof, and a young painter, Federigo, had the saloon, as we called it. He was a life-enjoy

ing, brisk, young man, who came from a far, far country, where they knew nothing about the Madonna and the child Jesus, my mother said. He was from Denmark. I had at that time no idea that there existed more languages than one, and I believed, therefore, that he was deaf, when he did not understand me, and, for that reason, I spoke to him as loud as I could; he laughed at me, often brought me fruit, and drew for me soldiers, horses, and houses. We soon became acquainted I loved him much, and my mother said many a time that he was a very upright person.

:

In the mean time I heard a conversation one evening between my mother and the monk Fra Martino, which excited in me a sorrowful emotion for the young artist. My mother inquired if this foreigner would actually be eternally condemned to hell.

"He and many other foreigners also," she said, "are, indeed, very honest people, who never do anything wicked. They are good to the poor, pay exactly, and at the fixed time; nay, it actually often seems to me that they are not such great sinners as many of us."

"Yes," replied Fra Martino, " that is very true, they are often very good people; but do you know how that happens? You see, the Devil, who goes about the world, knows that the heretics will sometime belong to him, and so he never tempts them; and, therefore, they can easily be honest, easily give up sin; on the contrary, a good Catholic Christian is a child of God, and, therefore, the Devil sets his temptations in array against him, and we weak creatures are subjected. But a heretic, as one may say, is tempted neither of the flesh nor the Devil!"

To this my mother could make no reply, and sighed deeply over the poor young man ; I began to cry, for it seemed to me that it was a cruel sin that he should be burned eternally —he who was so good, and who drew me such beautiful pictures.

A third person who played a great part in my childhood's life, was Uncle Peppo, commonly called "Wicked Peppo," or "the King of the Spanish Steps," where he had his daily

1 These lead from the Spanish Place up to Monte Pincio, a broad flight

residence. Born with two withered legs, which lay crossed under him, he had had from his earliest childhood an extraordinary facility in moving himself forwards with his hands. These he stuck under a frame which was fastened at both ends to a board, and, by the help of this, he could move himself forward almost as easily as any other person with healthy and strong feet. He sat daily, as has been said, upon the Spanish Steps, never indeed begging, but exclaiming, with a crafty smile, to every passer-by, " bon giorno !" and that even after the sun was gone down.

My mother did not like him much, nay, indeed, she was ashamed of the relationship, but for my sake, as she often told me, she kept up a friendship with him. He had that in his chest which we others must look after, and if I kept good friends with him I should be his only heir, if he did not give it to the Church. He had, also, after his own way, a sort of liking for me, yet I never felt myself quite happy in his neighborhood. Once I was the witness of a scene which awoke in me fear of him, and also exhibited his own disposition. Upon one of the lowest flights of stairs sat an old blind beggar, and rattled with his little leaden box that people might drop a bajocco therein. Many people passed by my uncle without noticing his crafty smile and the wavings of his hat; the blind man gained more by his silence—they gave to him. Three had gone by, and now came the fourth, and threw him a small coin. Peppo could no longer contain himself; I saw how he crept down like a snake, and struck the blind man in his face, so that he lost both money and stick.

"Thou thief!" cried my uncle, "wilt thou steal money from me - thou who art not even a regular cripple? Cannot see! — that is all his infirmity!—and so he will take my bread from my mouth!"

I neither heard nor saw more, but hastened home with the flask of wine which I had been sent to purchase. On the great festival days I was always obliged to go with my mother

to visit him at his own house; we took with us one kind of

of stone steps. These, which consist of four flights, are an especial resort of the beggars of Rome, and from their locality, bear the name of the Spanish Steps.-Author's Note.