United States or Kenya ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Patrasche had lain quiet countless hours watching its gradual creation after the labor of each day was done, and he knew that Nello had a hope vain and wild perhaps, but strongly cherished of sending this great drawing to compete for a prize of two hundred francs a year which it was announced in Antwerp would be open to every lad of talent, scholar or peasant, under eighteen, who would attempt to win it with some unaided work of chalk or pencil.
But the family passions lived on in him under altered conditions: this descendant of the Bardi was not a man swift in street warfare, or one who loved to play the signor, fortifying strongholds and asserting the right to hang vassals, or a merchant and usurer of keen daring, who delighted in the generalship of wide commercial schemes: he was a man with a deep-veined hand cramped by much copying of manuscripts, who ate sparing dinners, and wore threadbare clothes, at first from choice and at last from necessity; who sat among his books and his marble fragments of the past, and saw them only by the light of those far-off younger days which still shone in his memory: he was a moneyless, blind old scholar the Bardo de' Bardi to whom Nello, the barber, had promised to introduce the young Greek, Tito Melema.
Patrasche had lain quiet countless hours watching its gradual creation after the labor of each day was done, and he knew that Nello had a hope vain and wild perhaps, but strongly cherished of sending this great drawing to compete for a prize of two hundred francs a year which it was announced in Antwerp would be open to every lad of talent, scholar or peasant, under eighteen, who would attempt to win it with some unaided work of chalk or pencil.
"It is true; for, though I have obtained employment, as a corrector with the Cennini, my payment leaves little margin beyond the provision of necessaries, and would leave less but that my good friend Nello insists on my hiring a lodging from him, and saying nothing about the rent till better days."
"The Frate neither rails nor prophesies against any man," said a middle-aged personage seated at the other corner of the window; "he only prophesies against vice. If you think that an attack on your poems, Francesco, it is not the Frate's fault." "Ah, he's gone into the Duomo now," said Tito, who had watched the figure eagerly. "No, I was not under that mistake, Nello.
"Ebbene," said Bratti, raising his voice to speak across the cart; "I leave you with Nello, young man, for there's no pushing my bag and basket any farther, and I have business at home. But you'll remember our bargain, because if you found Tessa without me, it was not my fault. Nello will show you my shop in the Ferravecchi, and I'll not turn my back on you."
"If the Florentine Graces demand it, I am willing to give up this small matter of my beard, but " "Yes, yes," interrupted Nello. "I know what you would say. It is the bella zazzera the hyacinthine locks, you do not choose to part with; and there is no need. Just a little pruning ecco! and you will look not unlike the illustrious prince Pico di Mirandola in his prime.
But I pray you be seated: Nello, my friend, be seated." Bardo paused until his fine ear had assured him that the visitors were seating themselves, and that Romola was taking her usual chair at his right-hand. Then he said "From what part of Greece do you come, Messere?
"Thou art too sick to leave," murmured the lad, bending his handsome head over the bed. "Tut! tut! Mother Nulette would have come and sat with me, as she does scores of times. What is the cause, Nello?" the old man persisted. "Thou surely hast not had ill words with the little one?" "Nay, grandfather, never," said the boy quickly, with a hot colour in his bent face.
"But if this father of the beautiful Romola makes collections, why should he not like to buy some of my gems himself?" Nello shrugged his shoulders. "For two good reasons want of sight to look at the gems, and want of money to pay for them.
Word Of The Day