t he could make
tunes, and pick out the ones that were always ringing in his head.
After that he could hardly be dragged away from it, so that I sent him
to school to have some quiet in the house.

He was a clever boy, and I taught him Latin and gave him our poets to
read; and as he grew up I would have made a scholar of him, but he
would not. At least, he was willing to learn and to read; but he was
always singing too. Once I caught him declaiming "Arma virumque cano"
to an air from Trovatore, and I knew he could never be a scholar then,
though he might know a great deal. Besides, he always preferred Dante
to Virgil, and Leopardi to Horace.

One day, when he was sixteen or thereabouts, he was making a noise, as
usual, shouting some motive or other to Mariuccia and the cat, while I
was labouring to collect my senses over a lecture I had to prepare.
Suddenly his voice cracked horribly and his singing ended in a sort of
groan. It happened again once or twice, the next day, and then the
house was quiet. I found him at night asleep over the old piano, his
eyes all wet with tears.

"What is the matter, Nino?" I asked. "It is time for youngsters like
you to be in bed."

"Ah, Messer Cornelio," he said, when he was awake, "I had better go to
bed, as you say. I shall never sing again, for my voice is all broken
to pieces"; and he sobbed bitterly.

"The saints be praised," thought I; "I shall make a philosopher of you
yet!"

But he would not be comforted, and for several months he went about as
if he were trying to find the moon, as we say; and though he read his
books and made progress, he was always sad and wretched, and grew
much thinner, so that Mariuccia said he was consuming himself, and I
thought he must be in love. But the house was very quiet.

I thought as he did, that he would never sing again, but I never
talked to him about it, lest he should try, now that he was as quiet
as a nightingale with its tongue cut out. But nature meant
differently, I suppose. One day De Pretis came to see me; it must have
been near the new year, for he never came often at that time. It was
only a friendly recollection of the days when I had a castello and a
church of my own at Serveti, and used to have him come from Rome to
sing at the festa, and he came every year to see me; and his head grew
bald as mine grew grey, so that at last he wears a black skull-cap
everywhere, like a priest, and only takes it off when he sings the
Glor