th day of June, on which day,
being a Sunday, he was baptized. The sun shone brightly into the
bed-chamber: it was between the hours of eleven and twelve in the
forenoon; and, according to custom, we were all gathered round the
mother's bed except a young servant, the curtain was drawn away from the
window and fastened to the wall, when suddenly a large wasp flew into the
room, and circled round the infant. We were all greatly afeard for the
child, but the wasp did him no hurt. The next moment it came against the
curtain, making so great a noise that you would have said that a drum was
being beaten, and all ran towards the place, but found no trace of the
wasp. It could not have flown out of the room, because all eyes had been
fixed upon it. Then all of us who were then present felt some foreboding
of what subsequently came to pass, but did not deem that the end would be
so bitter as it proved to be."[58]

The impulse which drives men in desperate straits to seek shelter in the
streets of a city was as strong in Cardan's time as it is to-day. At
Gallarate the last coin was now spent, and there was an extra mouth to
feed. There seemed to be no other course open but another retreat to
Milan. Archinto was rich in literary ambitions, which might perchance
stimulate him to find farther work for the starving scholar: and there was
Chiara also who would scarcely let her grandchild die of want. The
revelation which Cardan makes of himself and of his way of life at this
time is not one to enlist sympathy for him entirely; but it is not wanting
in a note of pathetic sincerity. "For a long time the College at Milan
refused to admit me, and during these days I was assuredly a spendthrift
and heedless. In body I was weakly, and in estate plundered by thieves on
all sides, yet I never grudged money for the buying of books. My residence
at Gallarate brought me no profit, for in the whole nineteen months I
lived there, I did not receive more than twenty-five crowns towards the
rent of the house I hired. I had such ill luck with the dice that I was
forced to pawn all my wife's jewels, and our very bed. If it is a wonder
that I found myself thus bereft of all my substance, it is still more
wonderful that I did not take to begging on account of my poverty, and a
wonder greater still that I harboured in my mind no unworthy thoughts
against my forefathers, or against right living, or against those honours
which I had won--honours which after