at singer; and he is, though he is scarcely
of age yet. I wish it had been something else than a singer, but since
he is the first already, it was worth while. He would have been great
in anything, though, for he has such a square jaw, and he looks so
fierce when anything needs to be overcome. Our forefathers must have
looked like that, with their broad eagle noses and iron mouths. They
began at the beginning, too, and they went to the very end. I wish
Nino had been a general, or a statesman, or a cardinal, or all three
like Richelieu.

But you want to hear of Nino, and you can pass on your ways, all of
you, without hearing my reflections and small-talk about goodness,
and success, and the like. Moreover, since I respect myself now, I
must not find so much fault with my own doings, or you will say that
I am in my dotage. And, truly, Nino Cardegna is a better man, for all
his peasant blood, than I ever was; a better lover, and perhaps a
better hater. There is his guitar, that he always leaves here, and it
reminds me of him and his ways. Fourteen years he lived here with me,
from child to boy and from boy to man, and now he is gone, never to
live here any more. The end of it will be that I shall go and live
with him, and Mariuccia will take her cat and her knitting, and her
_Lives of the Saints_ back to Serveti, to end her life in peace,
where there are no professors and no singers. For Mariuccia is older
than I am, and she will die before me. At all events, she will take
her tongue with her, and ruin herself at her convenience without
ruining me. I wonder what life would be without Mariuccia? Would
anybody darn my stockings, or save the peel of the mandarins to make
cordial? I certainly would not have the mandarins if she were
gone--it is a luxury. No, I would not have them. But then, there
would be no cordial, and I should have to buy new stockings every
year or two. No, the mandarins cost less than the stockings--and--well,
I suppose I am fond of Mariuccia.

CHAPTER II

It was really not so long ago--only one year. The sirocco was blowing
up and down the streets, and about the corners, with its sickening
blast, making us all feel like dead people, and hiding away the sun
from us. It is no use trying to do anything when it blows sirocco, at
least for us who are born here. But I had been persuaded to go with
Nino to the house of Sor Ercole to hear my boy sing the opera he had
last studied, and so I put my clo