I return to the event of the exhibition. My name was on the lips of all; some praised me to the skies, some despised me as the most vulgar of impostors. Bartolini, Pampaloni, and Santarelli openly assumed my defence. The Grand Duke asked Giuseppe Sabatelli about it, and he assured him that the statue was really modelled, and not cast from life, and that he had been an eyewitness of my work, staying in my studio every morning, and had seen me working at it. I was exposed to a tempest of words and looks diametrically opposed to each other. The meaning of the two parties might be rendered by precisely these words, "great artist," "miserable impostor." My poor wife consoled me by saying—

"Do not be troubled, do not listen to them. They are irritated because you have done better than they. They will talk and talk, and at last they will hold their peace."

"Yes, my dear Marina, they will hold their peace; but in the meantime, what an injury they have done me! A certain person perhaps would have given me an order for the statue, as I know; but after all this absurd and evil-minded chattering, he mistrusts me, and will now do nothing, and I am crushed and overcome by the very thing which ought to have given me reputation and cleared my path for me. In the same way that I have made this statue, I know that I can make another. The will to do it is not wanting, but how can I bear the expense. My earnings, as I well see, are not sufficient to support the family, and to pay the model, the rent of the studio and the casting, and to buy what is necessary for the studio. Besides, I tell you, dearest, that I cannot allow you to fatigue yourself with so much work. You labour all day and all the evening, you have a baby to nurse, you get little repose at night, and do you think that I can allow you thus to wear your strength out? I hoped to enable you to get some rest, and to lead an easier life, and I thought that I saw before us, after I had breathed the last breath of life into Abel, the beginning of our intellectual and loving life; and now I find that these are and were only vain hopes."

"Do not be troubled, Nanni," said that blessed woman, and she said nothing more, only her eyes were swimming with tears.

In the meantime, without knowing it, I had a friend, in truth a real friend and benefactor, in Count F. del Benino. Count Benino was an old man of noble and ancient family, and a bachelor, who lived in his own palace in the Borgognissanti, and in precisely that on the Lung'Arno which was designed by the able architect and engineer Professor Commendatore Giuseppe Poggi. Count Benino had taken a liking to me when I was a little boy in Sani's shop. He was a great and very intelligent lover of the Fine Arts, and everything relating to them, and was extremely interested that his house should be a model of good taste, from the modest furniture of the entrance-hall up to his own private cabinet, which was a wonder to behold. The walls were surrounded by bookcases of solid mahogany, his study desk was also of mahogany; the chairs were covered with polished leather, and the floors were of inlaid wood and polished with wax. The books on the shelves were bound simply in leather in the English style. Upon his desk, among his books and papers, were various objects of great value—as, for instance, an antique bronze inkstand ornamented with figures and arabesques, ivory paper-cutters with richly carved handles, portraits in miniature of persons dear to him, and little busts in bronze and figures in ivory set on the cases of the desk, which were divided into compartments to hold his papers. In person he was tall and erect, thin, and with full colour, blue eyes, and perfectly white hair. He spoke with invariable urbanity and facility, not infrequently with pungency, but always with proper restraint. He dressed very carefully, and he liked the conversation and sought the friendship of artists. From the time when I was a youth in Sani's shop and worked for him as a wood-carver, and afterwards while I was working by myself in the Borghese stable, up to the time when I was making the Abel, when he was one of the subscribers to my petition for assistance, and indeed the largest of them, he never lost sight of me, but often came to pay me a visit while I was modelling Abel, and showed himself delighted with it, and sure of my future; and now, perceiving this scandalous plot to put me down, he was indignant. He came to seek me out just at the moment when I was thoroughly discouraged and knew not to what saint to recommend myself, and after saluting me with his customary "Sor Giovanni, che fa?" ("How are you, Mr Giovanni?"), seated himself on the only seat I possessed, and seeing that I was oppressed with thought, though I endeavoured to put a gay face on it, said to me—

"Oh, don't give up! Courage! Don't you hear how these donkeys bray? What they want is a good cudgel and a hearty beating. Don't think about it. I know what I am talking about. I frequent the studios, and I see and feel what a disloyal and foolish war they are waging. But do not give them time. You must ward off the blow and give them two back. In one studio I heard a fellow, whom I will not stop to name (but names are of little importance)—I heard a fellow, who, with a contemptuous laugh, said, 'The Abel he could cast, because the figure is lying down, but a standing figure he cannot cast. He will not make one this year, nor any other year.' And all the others laughed. This happened only a few moments ago, and I have come now to tell you that it is your duty to silence these snarling curs. So, dear Sor Giovanni, you must make another statue, and this time a standing figure; and ... now be silent a moment. I imagine very well what you will say. I understand it all, and I say to you, Quit this studio, which is not fit to make a standing figure in, and go and look for another at once. Order the stands which you require, think out your statue, and I will pay whatever sum is necessary. You know where I live; come there, and you will find a register on which you must write down the sum that you need, and put your signature to it; and when you have orders and work to do, which will not fail to come, and have a surplus of money, you may pay me back the money that I advance. Say nothing. I do not wish to be thanked,—first of all, because I am not making you a present, and then because I have my own satisfaction out of the proposition I make to you. What I want is to laugh in the face of these rascals who are now deriding you, and me too, because I assert that I have seen you at your work. So you see that I, too, am an interested party. Without spending a penny, we have an advantage, which, with all my money, I could not otherwise get. And now, dear Sor Giovanni, a rivederla. I shall expect you, to give you the money you need. Lose no time, keep up your spirits, and think of me as your very sincere friend.

CHAPTER VII.

I looked about to find a studio, and took one in the Niccolini buildings in Via Tedesca, now Via Nazionale. I ordered two large modelling-stands—one for the living model, the other for the statue in clay. "A standing statue he will not make," they said; but I will make it, and in movement too. The idea of Cain came at once into my head. Cain, the first homicide, fratricide! A fierce and tremendous subject, and one of great difficulty. I made the sketch, and it seemed to me that I had divined the movement and expression. Among the artists, it was soon known that I had taken a new studio to make another statue. Those who had laughed at first, laughed no longer. My friends encouraged me, and added fuel to the fire. I had also some offers for the Abel—insufficient if you will, but enough to encourage me. Among the others I accepted that of Signor Lorenzo Mariotti, an agent of the Russian Government, who lived in his own house in the Piazza Pitti. He came to see me, and said that he should like to order the statue of Abel, whenever I would make it, for what it cost me, and when it was done he would help me to sell it. The expenses were calculated at 800 scudi; and he offered me this price, with the understanding that whatever sum it was sold for above the 800 scudi, should be divided between us.

The marble was procured, and I was already modelling with ardour the statue of Cain. Fortunately the Grand Duchess Maria of Russia, daughter of the Emperor Nicholas, was passing through Florence. She had already heard the discussion, pro and con, which this statue had raised. She wished to see it, and was so well pleased by it that she did not conceal her delight. She was in company with her husband, the Prince of Leuchtenberg. They went into my private studio and saw the Cain, only just begun. She exchanged some words with the Prince, and he was much pleased, and embraced me. Then the Grand Duchess, pressing my hand, said, "The Abel and the Cain are mine." Then they departed. When I went home and told the good news to my wife, it seemed as if she had a little more faith in what I was so convinced of—viz., my future career as an artist.

For the rest of the time that the august Prince and Princess were in Florence, he never omitted to pass some half-hours of the morning in my studio, because he liked so much to see me at work. He spoke Italian extremely well, and it amused him to talk with my model Antonio Petrai on various subjects; and as he was such a strong and well-made fellow, one day he asked him if he would like to measure his strength at fisticuffs with any one; and Petrai—who knew well enough who it was who asked the question, and was embarrassed about making a proper reply—after much hesitation could only say "Aho!" upon which the Prince laughed heartily and gave him something.

Who would have thought that such a handsome youth, so tall, squarely built, and so spirited, would have died only a few years later of an insidious disease? He was the son of Prince Beauharnais, Viceroy of Italy in the troublous times of Napoleon I. One day he came and carried me away from the studio, because he wished to see with me the statues which ornament our Piazza della Signoria and the Loggia of Orsanmichele; but first he would go to Doney's to breakfast. As soon as we were seated, he ordered caviale. "Caviale!" answered the waiter, "we have none." "Bring caviale," said the Prince, sharply; but before the servant could reply he made a sign to the master, who was at the desk, and he knocked loudly on the marble to call the waiter back. After a little while a magnificent plate of caviale was served. I wish to note this anecdote, as it depicts the courteousness, affability, and popularity of this Prince, who, though he had married the daughter of the Emperor of Russia, had not forgotten that he was born and educated in Italy.

In the meantime, Mariotti, by order of the Grand Duchess, made the contract for the two statues, Cain and Abel, and the price fixed for the Abel was 1500 scudi, and for the Cain 2000 scudi. The contract which I had made with Mariotti was torn up, and I gave him out of my first receipts the sum he had given me; but as to the remainder, the 700 scudi, which was to be divided between us, he would not receive it, saying that the Grand Duchess had already paid him enough. And this, for Mariotti, whom they call mangia-russi, was a good action.

In the meantime the good Count del Benino lent me a considerable sum of money to pay the rent of my studio, for the modelling stands and tools, and for the models, as also the daily sum I carried home for household expenses. This was all registered in a book, with the sums, the dates, and my name signed in receipt. And all this together came to the amount of about 100 scudi.

Now that I had two good commissions, and the relative advances on them, I went to Palazzo del Benino, this time to pay rather than receive, and therefore with lighter and freer spirit. I was anxious to cancel this debt, which weighed upon my mind like an incubus, which I had felt was increased and renewed every time I was forced by necessity to ask for more money; and poor Del Benino, who perceived my reluctance, encouraged me, and made me feel that it was indifferent to him whether he gave more or less, trying to distract me while he counted out the money. But this time, as I have said, I was gay and light-hearted, and caused my name to be announced by the servant in a loud voice: in short, I was in bearing and in words slightly proud.

The Count was seated writing in his usual place. He put down his pen, and staring at me with his blue eyes, said, "Sor Giovanni, welcome! I am delighted to see you. What charming thing have you to tell me? Yes, what can you tell me that I do not already know? To begin, then, I congratulate you truly—truly. You see, this is for me a new satisfaction: you cannot imagine the pleasure I feel in now seeing certain faces cloudy and sad which a few months ago were bursting with laughter. And I divert myself very much playing the ignoramus with them, saying, 'Then it appears that this youth is going straight ahead, per Bacco!' The Abel! that stands for what it is—I mean to say, that if the artist has cast it from life, as you say, the Grand Duchess Maria has caught a fine crab; but the Cain! that is scarcely begun, and they tell me that she has seen it only in the clay, and liked it, and given the order for it, and other like things; for the desire to torment them does not fail me, and they were much teased and molested by my bitter words, which I pretended not to mean and ran on. So I have diverted myself, and so I will divert myself. Now, then, again I congratulate you. And now tell me if I can do anything for you. I am at your service."

"Signor Conte, I have come to repay the money which you have lent me, with so much generosity and kindness, to enable me to make my new model of Cain, which, God be thanked, has so much pleased the Grand Duchess. If I had not already begun this, she could not have seen it; and who knows if she would have taken the risk to order even the Abel? I feel, but cannot express all the importance of your valuable aid. This aid, so timely, has been for me a second life, without which, who knows what would have become of me, discouraged, despised, and probably deserted by those who now cry out, 'Beautiful, beautiful!' Here am I, then, to thank you cordially, and to return the money I have borrowed." While I was speaking the Count gradually lost that gay and lively expression which was habitual to him, and at my last words looked at me with an expression of seriousness and regret that I knew not how to interpret. Then he said—

"There is time enough for this; don't be in such a hurry. This is only the beginning; a thousand things may occur, and it will do you no harm to have a little money in the house. On the contrary, it may be convenient. Now think of study and your reputation; and to pay your debt to me there is time enough."

"Listen, Signor Conte: I have come here on purpose, and have brought the money. I do not need it for the present. Let me pay this material debt; that other great moral substantial debt, the infinite good you have done me, I can never repay, and never should wish to." The Count grew even more earnest and serious. He held the paper of our accounts mechanically in his hand, and tried to prove to me that there was time enough, and that I should keep the money; but seeing that I insisted, and held out my hand for the papers to see the sum due, drew it back with vivacity, and with flashing eyes said to me—

"Oh, leave me, dear Sor Giovanni, this satisfaction."

He tore up the paper and threw it in the basket. I was mortified, and had half a mind to be offended, but the kind expressions of this excellent man prevailed. He took my hand and pressed it between his, saying—

"Don't take it amiss, but leave me the consolation that I have been able to assist, even in the least degree, in the sale of your work—as you say, opened for you a future which I hope may prove full of honours. And moreover, you must know that it has always been my firm intention to assist you until the road was open and easy before you. I did not at once open my mind to you, because then, perhaps, you would not have accepted the offer; therefore I said, you will sign the contract,—and in good time you will pay. Now you have really paid me, because that small sum of money has secured your future and given me a great satisfaction."

It is necessary now for me to touch upon a question vital to art, and which was being agitated just at the time I was modelling the Abel. This work served to inflame it, and to encourage as much one side as the other—that is, either the idealists or the academicians in opposition to Bartolini, who, while he was not naturalistic in the strict sense of the word, proposed to introduce this principle into his teaching by bold innovations. It is necessary for me to speak of this, inasmuch as this dispute and my statue served as the target for the shots of one as well as the other parties, and had the effect of estranging Bartolini from me—although, as we shall see later, it was another and less justifiable cause that made the great sculptor indignant with me.

When Stefano Ricci, Master of Sculpture in the Royal Academy, died, it was wisely decided to call Lorenzo Bartolini to his place (this was a little before I modelled the Abel), and Bartolini took possession of the school with the air of a conqueror. Various were the causes for his extremely overbearing conduct. First, the opposition his demands encountered on the part of the President and others of the Academy; then his before-mentioned principles of reform, diametrically opposed to those now taught in the school; also, finally, the heated political and religious opinions, which were discussed with little charity on either side. He altered everything, theories and systems. The position of his assistant, Professor Costoli, was unpleasant; but he was obliged to remain. He prohibited all study from statues, and restricted the whole system of teaching to an imitation only of nature; and he pushed this principle so far, that he introduced a hunchback into the school and made the young students copy him. This daring novelty raised a shout of indignation: they cried out against the profanation of the school, of the sacred principles of the beautiful, &c.; said that he was ignorant of his duties as master, and that he misled the youths, extinguishing in them the love of the beautiful by the study of deformity; and many other accusations of this agreeable sort, in a freer and more pointed style than mine.

Neither was Bartolini the man to allow this deluge to fall upon his head, which, together with much that was true, carried with it a torrent of errors and unreasonable absurdities. As he understood well the clever use of the pen, he launched forth certain articles so stinging and cutting that they were delightful. The Abbé Chiari and the Abbé Vicini were treated by old Baretti with distinction as compared with the treatment Bartolini gave the Anonymous Society of the Via del Cocomero. I recollect one of the foolish arguments raised by his detractors against Bartolini, which was so ingenuous that it showed in its author more emptiness and smallness of mind than cleverness or bad faith. This is what he said: "The expert gardener, by means of his art, transforms a forest which is rough and horrid, as nature made it, into a beautiful grove, by rooting out plants, opening alleys, pruning into a straight line the projecting branches," &c. How much this comparison of the grove to the human figure diverted Bartolini is not to be told. I have not before me his sharp stinging words, and I do not wish to spoil them by repeating them from memory, but to me he appeared to be as pleasant and brilliant a writer as he was admirable as an artist.

This dispute was rekindled, as I have said, on the appearance of my Abel. I do not remember by which side was first pronounced my name and my work, but certain it is that Bartolini said that the most convincing proof of the excellence of his method was "precisely the Abel," which statue was made by a youth who knew nothing of Phidias or Alcamenes, nor of the others—who had not breathed the stifling air of the Academy—that he had trusted himself to beautiful nature, and that he had copied her with fidelity and love. After this there was fresh sarcasm against him and his system of copying nature, even when deformed, &c. Added to this, there were long-winded eulogies on my work, and I could see that these were advanced merely to put this man in bad humour.

He had taken a dislike to me, and wished to tell me so. He sent his father-in-law, Dr Costantino Boni, to summon me. I went, and when I arrived he received me in the great ante-room, and said to me, with his usual striking bluntness, "I have sent for you to tell you that I do not wish to see you again." How astounded I was by these words you can imagine who know the veneration and affection I had always felt for this celebrated master; and I could only reply—"Why?"

"Why! You have no more need of me, nor I of you; stay in your own studio, and don't come any more to mine."

It appeared to me so strange, not to say unreasonable, that he should send for me to tell me not to come to him, that I could not do less than reply that I had come to his studio because he had sent for me, and that I was very sorry to be forbidden to return, as I always wished to learn.

"No matter," replied he; "you understand—each one for himself," and this he said in French. Because you must know, that when he was excited he preferred that language either for speaking or writing.

Notwithstanding this, the next year, as I wished for a reconciliation,—having made the model in clay of the Giotto, which I wanted to try in the niche of the Uffizi, to hear the opinion of my friends about it, and to correct it where it was necessary, before its execution in marble,—I wrote to Bartolini begging him to come to see my statue in its place to give me his authoritative opinion. He replied in a manner specially his own—I might almost say with his own brutal sincerity,—that which distinguished him from his sugared and often hypocritical contemporaries. He could not deceive; he held me in aversion, and he wished me to know it, not by his silence, but by a letter. Here it is: "Dearest, the thing which above all things I like in this world is to see the races in the Cascine; but as I have so much work which prevents me, just imagine if I shall come to see your statue?"

Observe, I do not say that I expected precisely such a reply, and I was a little stung by it; but I understood him, and really liked it better than if he had made an excuse and told a lie. All men should be true to themselves. Bartolini was still angry with me, as I found out afterwards, because, in the discussion about the hunchback, my name being brought forward, I did not enter into its defence. In fact, if a similar discussion were now to arise on this subject, it would seem to me cowardly to draw back and not clear up a point of controversy of the greatest importance; but then, being young and a beginner, how could I presume to offer my support to Bartolini? Would it not appear pretentious in me even to assume to be the defender of so great a master? It seemed to me so then, and it seems so now. Let it not be thought that I did not do this while arguing with my artist friends; it was quite otherwise, and this was the way in which I drew upon myself their ill feeling and dislike. And the defence of the Bartolini system which I then made was in a much more absolute sense than that which I now make; for while I see that Bartolini was right in carrying back art to its first source—that is (and we should thank him for that), to the imitation of nature—he went beyond bounds in proposing a deformed person as a model. It is very true that Bartolini never affirmed, as his enemies assert, that a hunchback was beautiful. He said that it was as difficult to copy a hunchback well as a well-formed person, and that a youth ought to copy as faithfully the one as the other; and when the eye had been educated to discover the most minute differences in the infinite variety of nature, and the hand able to portray them, then, but only then, was the time to speak, and select from nature the most perfect, which others called the bello ideale, and he the bello naturale. But that blessed hunchback still remains, who, in the strict sense of the word, is not the real truth; for in what is deformed there is something deficient, which removes it from the truth, however natural it may be. It is a defect in nature, and therefore not true to nature.

But it happened then as it happens always: the reform of Bartolini and the dogmas of the academicians never came to an end. They might have confined themselves to the indisputable principle that one should imitate life in its infinite scale of variety, avoiding always deformity. But once they had begun with the meagre child, the adipose old man, the lean or flabby youth, they went on through thick and thin. It would not have been so bad had they really appreciated what Bartolini meant to say, and that is, that copying anything was very well as a mere exercise and means of learning one's art—or, to use his expression, of "holding the reins of art"; but the misfortune was, that some took the means for the end, and so went wrong.

But nevertheless, this Bartolinian reform was of great advantage. Let us remember how sculpture was then studied. The teaching of Ricci was only a long and tedious exercise of copying wholesale the antique statues, good and bad; and what was worse, the criterion of Greek art was carried into the study of nude life—the characteristic forms of the antique statues supplanting those of the living model. The outlines were added to and cut away with a calm superiority, which was even comical. The abdominal muscles were widened, the base of the pelvis narrowed, in order to give strength and elegance to the figure. The model was never copied; the head was kept smaller, and the neck fuller, so that, although the general effect was more slender and more robust, the character was falsified, and was always the same, and always conventional. This restriction of nature to a single type led directly to conventionality; and once this direction was taken, and this habit of working from memory, following always a pre-established type, the artist gradually disregarded the beautiful variety of nature, and not only did not notice it, but held it in suspicion, believing that nature is always defective, and that it is absolutely necessary to correct it; and in this, they said, lies the secret of Art. And yet Bartolini cried aloud, and, so to speak, strained his voice to make himself understood, and stood up on a table and beat his drum for the hunchback. But as soon as a sufficient number of people is collected to make a respectable audience, one must lay aside the great drum and begin to speak seriously. And this is just what the maestro did: he gave up the hunchback, inculcated the imitation of beautiful nature in all its varieties of sex, age, and temperament. But, in the ears of the greater number of persons the beat of the great drum still sounded, and the words of Bartolini were not understood. From that time to this there have been no more statues of Apollo, Jove, and Minerva. Chased from this earth, they returned to their place on Olympus—and there they still remain.

Still the seed of deformity had been sown, and struck strong roots. There are some men who grub in filth and dirt with pure delight, and have for the ugly and evil a special predilection, because, as they say, these are as true representatives of nature as what is beautiful and good, and are in fact a particular phase of that truth which, as a whole, constitutes the truly beautiful. And reasoning thus, this school, or rather this coterie, has given us, and still gives us, the most strange and repulsive productions, improper and lascivious in subject, and in form a servile copy of such offensively ugly models as Mother Nature produces when she is not well. What would you say, dear reader, if you were ever to see a hideous little baby, crying with his ugly mouth wide open, because his bowl of pap has fallen out of his hand? or an infamous and bestial man, with the gesticulations expressive of the lowest and most vicious desires? or a woman vomiting under a cherry-tree because she has eaten too much? or other similar filthinesses of subject and imitation, which are disgusting even to describe? For myself, I am not a fanatic for ancient Art: on the contrary, I detest the academic and conventional; but I confess that, rather than these horrors, I should prefer to welcome Cupid, and Venus, and Minerva, and the Graces, and in a word all Olympus. But, good heavens! is there no possibility of confining one's self within limits? And if we abandon Olympus and its deities, is it necessary to root and grub in the filth of the Mercato Vecchio and in the brothel?

Now we will return to our story. At the time I was modelling the Cain, and as it were for the purpose of repose, I made a little figure of Beatrice Portinari, which I afterwards repeated in marble, I know not how many times. For this statue I had used as a model a tolerably pretty young girl who was named likewise Portinari. I tell this little story for the instruction of young artists. There will even be two of these stories, for I omitted one in speaking of the Cariatidi of the Rossini Theatre; and these little matters show how one should treat the model. One morning, when I had the Portinari for a model, the curate Cecchi of the Santissima Annunziata knocked at my door and told me that he wished to come in to have a few words with me. I replied that for the moment I could not attend to him, as I had a model, but that if he would have the goodness to come back a little later, we should then be alone, and he could speak to me at his ease. After dinner he returned, and said, "Have you a certain Portinari for a model?"

"Yes," I said.

"Then you must know that this girl is engaged to my nephew; and as I have learned that she comes to you as a model, and as I absolutely will not allow my nephew to marry a model, I have already so told the girl, and she denies that she comes to you. Now I beg that you will do me the favour to let me come in when she is here. I will then surprise her, and blow into the air this marriage arranged with my nephew."

"Listen," I said. "This sort of thing I do not like. I cannot lend myself to do an injury of this kind to this poor girl, who comes here to be my model. She has confided to me that she is in want of money, having larger demands than her daily earnings will supply. She has said nothing about her being engaged, in which case I would not have employed her unless her mother or other near relation came with her. But, since it seems to me reasonable that you should not wish your future relation to go out as a model, I will promise you not to so employ her any more; and the first time she comes, I will tell her that I do not want her again, and I will warn her not to go to others. Are you content?"

He seemed to be tolerably well satisfied, and I did as I had promised.

Here is the other little story of the model of the Cariatidi. Every morning there came to me as a model a girl who lived in the Prato, and was a weaver. The first morning, she came to the studio with a subbio.[5] I took no notice of it; but the second and the third, as well as the fourth time, she had always under her arm this clumsy and heavy thing, so I asked her—

"Why do you carry about that subbio?"

She answered: "I have a lover. If I meet him in the street, I tell him that I am going to my employers."

"What occupation has your lover?"

"He is a butcher."]

Ah! thought I. "Look here, you must do me the favour to bring your mother with you when you come again."

"The mother cannot leave her work."

"Then bring some one else; one of your relations, or a lodger—at all events some one. I will not have you here alone."

I had scarcely spoken these words when I heard a knock at the door. "Hark! it is your lover who knocks," I said, as a joke.

I went and opened the door, and found there a sturdy youth as red as a lobster.

"Who do you want?" I asked.

"Are you the painter?"

"No, I am not a painter."

"Nonsense! let me come in. You have got Anina in there to paint. I want to have one word with her, and will go away at once."

"And I tell you that you don't know what you are talking about."

"If you take it so," he said, "let me come in;" and he pushed the door with all his force.

I, who had been warned, was ready with all my strength, and shut the door in his face. I went back into the studio, and found the girl, who, only as yet half dressed, was trembling like a leaf. I crossed the court of Palazzo Borghese, and opened carefully the door which gave upon the Via Pandolfini, and made signs to the girl to follow me. I looked out on the street to make sure that the youth was not there, and said to the girl hastily, "Go away, and don't come back to me, even if you are accompanied by some one."

The young man stayed in the Via del Palagio, and walked up and down for some hours before my door; but I saw no more of him, and know nothing more. The conclusion: girls as models—never alone.

I return to where I left off—to the Cain. There was in Florence at that time a certain English lady, Mrs Letitia Macartney, who had been living for some time in Siena. She wished so much to see the Abel reproduced in marble, that on her return to Siena she issued a paper which invited the Sienese to make a subscription for this purpose. I have before me that paper, dated 12th December 1842, a few days before the Grand Duchess of Russia had given me her commission. This invitation to my townsmen had a great success, for in a few days sheets were covered with signatures, among which all classes figured—beginning with the Governor Serristori, the Archbishop, the clergy, the university, the gentry, and the people, and finally the religious corporations. Certainly, that excellent lady could not have had a better result from her touching appeal, which ran as follows: "I beg the Sienese not to reject my humble petition, and that the poor as well as the rich, whoever reads these words, will put his signature, and will contribute a half paul to assist his townsman, who has so well proved that he deserves encouragement. Those who wish to give more than the small proposed sum can privately satisfy their generous impulses in the way they think best,—on this paper they are begged not to exceed the sum named." And by half pauls only, the not small sum of 100 scudi was collected; and if this good lady had added that the half paul was to be paid every month for a year or fourteen months, I am sure that my townsmen would not have refused it, and that the Abel would be to-day at Siena.

The sum of money and the list of subscribers were sent to me, and I preserve the latter jealously; and after these many years I read over the names with heartache, thinking how all these have disappeared, together with the good Signora Letizia. And now I am speaking of her, I will mention something which will cause her to be appreciated and loved, even as I loved and admired her.

A short time after she had issued the appeal for my Abel, she came with a nephew and her two sisters to establish herself in Florence. She was about fifty years of age, enthusiastic for the beautiful wherever she found it. She had a small gallery of ancient pictures which she had collected with careful study in her wanderings through Italy. She had taken an apartment in the Piazza di Santa Maria Novella, and I often went there with my wife to pass the evening; and on her part the Signora Letizia often came to look me up in my studio. She liked to discuss with me artistic things, and when I could not attend to her, she said good-bye and went away.

Then it was, either from too hard work or on account of the dampness of the room in which I worked, or both together, I took so tiresome and obstinate a cough, that it gave me no peace night or day. I tried many things to get rid of it, and all in vain—decoctions, ass's milk, care, all were useless. La Signora Letizia having urged me a thousand times to take care of myself and to get rid of that cough, said to me so seriously that it made me laugh—

"It is absolutely necessary for you to get well."

"Bravo!" I said; "that is what I have been thinking of for the past month, and I have done everything for that purpose—the advice and prescriptions of the physicians have not been neglected; but now seriously I must get well—Go away, cough!"

"No, don't joke; you must get well, and I mean to cure you. Listen," she said, "what you ought to do: you should buy a quantity of pine-wood, and with this line all the walls of your studio from top to bottom, leaving space between the wood and the wall; and you must do the same for the floor. Have the window open some hour of the day when you are not in the studio, that the current of air may not do you harm."

It seemed an odd thing to me. I could not understand what all this wood had to do with my cough; but to content her, I said that I would do as she advised. In the meantime I continued to cough in spite of the pot of lichen which I kept hot in my studio; and every day when this poor lady came to see me and saw that her advice was not followed, she appeared serious and disappointed, and finally said—

"Do you think, Signor Duprè, that my advice could do you harm?"

"Certainly not," I said.

"Then why don't you follow it?"

"I must wait a few days; just at present I cannot. But I will do it—of this you may be sure; and I am very grateful to you: it seems to me that it will be more comfortable and warmer."

She soon went away, and I seriously considered that I ought to try and content her, not that I thought the remedy effective. I said to myself—"My trouble is either a cold or something else; it is in the stomach, or the throat, or the bronchial tubes, and surely is not owing to the walls of my studio. But what shall I do? I must satisfy her. Certainly it will cost something to line all the studio with wood from top to bottom, and the floor; but what a strange idea has come into this lady's head, and with what seriousness and impressiveness she urges me to use pine-wood!"

Shortly after, I heard a knock at the door and saw three or four loads of boards in the street. The head carter said to me—

"Is this wood to come here?"

I had ordered no wood, I replied. Then he showed me a card on which was written my name and the number of my studio, and added—

"This wood has been ordered and paid for, including the carriage, and—is it to come here?"

"Certainly," I said, "it is to come here." It was unloaded, and I gave the men a little money, for although they had been paid, it would do them no harm. I sent immediately to call Petrai, who, besides being a model, was also a carpenter, and told him that I wished, in the quickest possible manner, to use this wood to line the studio walls and plank the floor; that he was to employ as many men as were necessary, and that they could not go to bed until this work was done.

The blacksmith was immediately set to work on the irons which were to support the boards, the mason to fasten them to the walls, and men to saw and nail. All the day and all the evening it appeared to be the devil's own house, and I was in the midst directing and overseeing the work.

The next morning, when I entered my studio, I felt revived by the odour of the pine and the air so sensibly dry, and I said, "If this work does no good to the cough, no matter; but it is certain that I find myself much better. Besides, I like the colour of the wood, which is gay. I like the smell of the pine. The floor is better to walk upon, and it is drier than any carpet. The air circulates everywhere. Viva Mrs Letitia! And now, how to repay her for this wood which she has bought for me? Ah! this is not so easy. To talk of giving back the money is useless, and it would also be in bad taste, for I know how sensitive this lady is; but as a present I will not receive it." As it happened, I had a small bust of Beatrice in marble, which she had always admired. I sent this to her house, and she was so much pleased that she never ceased to speak of it to me. And the cough? The cough diminished day by day as if by enchantment, and in a week I was perfectly cured.

Whilst I am speaking of favours received and the manner in which I requited them, independent of the sentiment of gratitude which I always preserve for those who have rendered me a service, I must add that Mrs Macartney was pleased with the little bust of Beatrice; so also was Del Benino more than delighted with a bust in marble of the boy Raphael which I had copied from a painting by his father, Sanzio, who had painted the little boy when six years of age. At the bottom of this portrait was written in red, "Raphael Santii d'anni sei, Santii patre dipinse."

I saw this work of mine only a few years ago in the palace belonging to the heirs of Count del Benino.

As I have alluded to that excellent man—of whom, as you see, I retain such an affectionate remembrance—I will mention that I asked permission of his heirs by letter to be permitted at my own expense to make a little memorial of him in marble, and to place it in the chapel of the villa where Del Benino was buried; but I have never received any answer.

It appears that works either for love or money are not wanted. Here is another example of this. It must be now four or five years since the lamented Professor G. B. Donati, the astronomer, came to my studio with the engineer Del Sarto, to tell me that the commune of Florence intended to place a sun-dial on one side of the Ponte alla Carraja, exactly at the beginning or end of the terrace, where there is at present a kiosk; and in order to have an elegant and artistic thing, it came into the head of Donati, or some one of the Municipal Council of Art, to have a figure in bronze holding a disc on which should be marked the meridian, and the hand of this figure should be held gracefully in such a manner that its shadow indicated the hour. The idea pleased me. I made a sketch, and Del Sarto the engineer sent me the exact dimensions of the terrace. He liked the sketch, and asked me what the cost of such a work would be, adding that unless the price was small they would not be able to order it. I replied that nothing could cost less than this, as I intended to present the model, and the Municipality would only have to pay for the casting in bronze. I had an estimate made by Professor Clemente Papi, who asked a very reasonable sum—seven or eight thousand lire, I believe; and he signed a paper to this effect, which, at the same time with a letter I had written repeating the offer of my work gratis, I sent in an envelope to the Municipality: and since then I have heard nothing. Poor Donati is dead; the sketch and the model of the terrace are in my studio. Count Cambray Digny was then syndic. On Ponte alla Carraja, in place of my statue, there is a kiosk where papers, wax-matches, &c., are sold. Even this is not the last of the statues I have offered as a present which have not been accepted, but I will not mention them here.