r the pencil or the pen in
his hand, he is able to give living form to his feelings, is often the
one least capable of practising similar deeds. Enough! I don't believe
a single word of all those evil reports, by which men sought to brand
the excellent Salvator an abandoned murderer and robber, and I hope
that you, kindly reader, will share my opinion. Otherwise, I see
grounds for fearing that you might perhaps entertain some doubts
respecting what I am about to tell you of this artist; the Salvator I
wish to put before you in this tale--that is, according to my
conception of him--is a man bubbling over with the exuberance of life
and fiery energy, but at the same time a man endowed with the noblest
and most loyal character--a character, which, like that of all men who
think and feel deeply, is able even to control that bitter irony which
arises from a clear view of the significance of life. I need scarcely
add that Salvator was no less renowned as a poet and musician than as a
painter. His genius was revealed in magnificent refractions. I repeat
again, I do not believe that Salvator had any share in Masaniello's
bloody deeds; on the contrary, I think it was the horrors of that
fearful time which drove him from Naples to Rome, where he arrived a
poor poverty-stricken fugitive, just at the time that Masaniello fell.

Not over well dressed, and with a scanty purse containing not more than
a few bright sequins[1.8] in his pocket, he crept through the gate just
after nightfall. Somehow or other, he didn't exactly know how, he
wandered as far as the Piazza Navona. In better times he had once lived
there in a large house near the Pamfili Palace. With an ill-tempered
growl, he gazed up at the large plate-glass windows glistening and
glimmering in the moonlight "Hm!" he exclaimed peevishly, "it'll cost
me dozens of yards of coloured canvas before I can open my studio up
there again." But all at once he felt as if paralysed in every limb,
and at the same moment more weak and feeble than he had ever felt in
his life before. "But shall I," he murmured between his teeth as he
sank down upon the stone steps leading up to the house door, "shall I
really be able to finish canvas enough in the way the fools want it
done? Hm! I have a notion that that will be the end of it!"

A cold cutting night wind blew down the street. Salvator recognised
the necessity of seeking a shelter. Rising with difficulty, he
staggered on into the Corso,[1.