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Raffaelle was very pensive for a while; then he raised his head, and said: "I have thought of something, Luca. But I do not know whether you will let me try it." "You angel child! What would your old Luca deny to you? But as for helping me, my dear, put that thought out of your little mind forever, for no one can help me, 'Faello, not the saints themselves, since I was born a dolt!"
"Poor Pacifica!" he thought; "if only my 'Faello were but some decade older!" He, who could not foresee the future, the splendid, wondrous, unequaled future that awaited his young son, wished nothing better for him than a peaceful painter's life here in old Urbino, under the friendly shadow of the Montefeltro's palace walls. Meanwhile, where think you was Raffaelle?
If I hurt you, take it not ill; I mean kindness, and were I a stalwart youth like you I would go try my fortunes in the Free Companies in France or Spain, or down in Rome, for you are made for a soldier. That was the best even your father could say for me, 'Faello." "But Pacifica," said the child, "Pacifica would not wish you to join the Free Companies." "God knows," said Luca, hopelessly.
Now, one day, as Raffaelle was standing and looking thus at his favorite window in the potter's house, his friend, the handsome, black-browed Luca, who was also standing there, did sigh so deeply and so deplorably that the child was startled from his dreams. "Good Luca, what ails you?" he murmured, winding his arms about the young man's knees. "Oh, 'Faello!" mourned the apprentice, woefully.
Now you see, 'Faello mine, why I am so bitterly sad of heart, for I am a good craftsman enough at the wheel and the furnace, and I like not ill the handling and the moulding of the clay, but at the painting of the clay I am but a tyro, and Berengario or even the little Zenone will beat me; of that I am sure."
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