t by-and-by my
father saw the brass-plate. He fell into one of his dreadful passions.
We had to buy him another wig. His passions were so expensive: my mother
used to say, 'There goes our poor dinner out of the window!' But, well!
he went to get employment now. He can, always, when he pleases; for
such a touch on the violin as my father has, you never heard. You feel
yourself from top to toe, when my father plays. I feel as if I breathed
music like air. One day came news from Italy, all in the newspaper,
of my father's friends and old companions shot and murdered by the
Austrians. He read it in the evening, after we had a quiet day. I
thought he did not mind it much, for he read it out to us quite quietly;
and then he made me sit on his knee and read it out. I cried with rage,
and he called to me, 'Sandra! Peace!' and began walking up and down
the room, while my mother got the bread and cheese and spread it on the
table, for we were beginning to be richer. I saw my father take out his
violin. He put it on the cloth and looked at it. Then he took it up,
and laid his chin on it like a man full of love, and drew the bow across
just once. He whirled away the bow, and knocked down our candle, and in
the darkness I heard something snap and break with a hollow sound. When
I could see, he had broken it, the neck from the body--the dear old
violin! I could cry still. I--I was too late to save it. I saw it
broken, and the empty belly, and the loose strings! It was murdering a
spirit--that was! My father sat in a corner one whole week, moping like
such an old man! I was nearly dead with my mother's voice. By-and-by we
were all silent, for there was nothing to eat. So I said to my mother,
'I will earn money.' My mother cried. I proposed to take a lodging for
myself, all by myself; go there in the morning and return at night, and
give lessons, and get money for them. My landlady's good son gave me the
brass-plate again. Emilia Alessandra Belloni! I was glad to see my name.
I got two pupils very quickly one, an old lady, and one, a young one.
The old lady--I mean, she was not grey--wanted a gentleman to marry her,
and the landlady told me--I mean my pupil--it makes me laugh--asked him
what he thought of her voice: for I had been singing. I earned a great
deal of money: two pounds ten shillings a week. I could afford to
pay for lessons myself, I thought. What an expense! I had to pay ten
shillings for one lesson! Some have to pay twenty