It was a consultation between my father and the monk, about
the means of getting me back quietly to the convent. My resolution was
taken. I had no longer a home nor a father. That very night I left the
paternal roof. I got on board a vessel about making sail from the
harbor, and abandoned myself to the wide world. No matter to what port
she steered; any part of so beautiful a world was better than my
convent. No matter where I was cast by fortune; any place would be more
a home to me than the home I had left behind. The vessel was bound to
Genoa. We arrived there after a voyage of a few days.
As I entered the harbor, between the moles which embrace it, and beheld
the amphitheatre of palaces and churches and splendid gardens, rising
one above another, I felt at once its title to the appellation of Genoa
the Superb. I landed on the mole an utter stranger, without knowing
what to do, or whither to direct my steps. No matter; I was released
from the thraldom of the convent and the humiliations of home! When I
traversed the Strada Balbi and the Strada Nuova, those streets of
palaces, and gazed at the wonders of architecture around me; when I
wandered at close of day, amid a gay throng of the brilliant and the
beautiful, through the green alleys of the Aqua Verdi, or among the
colonnades and terraces of the magnificent Doria Gardens, I thought it
impossible to be ever otherwise than happy in Genoa.
A few days sufficed to show me my mistake. My scanty purse was
exhausted, and for the first time in my life I experienced the sordid
distress of penury. I had never known the want of money, and had never
adverted to the possibility of such an evil. I was ignorant of the
world and all its ways; and when first the idea of destitution came
over my mind its effect was withering. I was wandering pensively
through the streets which no longer delighted my eyes, when chance led
my stops into the magnificent church of the Annunciata.
A celebrated painter of the day was at that moment superintending the
placing of one of his pictures over an altar. The proficiency which I
had acquired in his art during my residence in the convent had made me
an enthusiastic amateur. I was struck, at the first glance, with the
painting. It was the face of a Madonna. So innocent, so lovely, such a
divine expression of maternal tenderness! I lost for the moment all
recollection of myself in the enthusiasm of my art. I clasped my hands
together, and uttered an ejaculation of delight. The painter perceived
my emotion. He was flattered and gratified by it. My air and manner
pleased him, and he accosted me.
