"Scarcely so much."
"Is he tall or short?"
"Of the middle height — about the same stature as his
excellency," returned the host, pointing to Albert.
"Thanks for the comparison," said Albert, with a bow.
"Go on, Signor Pastrini," continued Franz, smiling at his
friend's susceptibility. "To what class of society does he
belong?"
"He was a shepherd-boy attached to the farm of the Count of
San-Felice, situated between Palestrina and the lake of Gabri; he
was born at Pampinara, and entered the count's service when he was
five years old; his father was also a shepherd, who owned a small
flock, and lived by the wool and the milk, which he sold at Rome.
When quite a child, the little Vampa displayed a most extraordinary
precocity. One day, when he was seven years old, he came to the
curate of Palestrina, and asked to be taught to read; it was
somewhat difficult, for he could not quit his flock; but the good
curate went every day to say mass at a little hamlet too poor to
pay a priest and which, having no other name, was called Borgo; he
told Luigi that he might meet him on his return, and that then he
would give him a lesson, warning him that it would be short, and
that he must profit as much as possible by it. The child accepted
joyfully. Every day Luigi led his flock to graze on the road that
leads from Palestrina to Borgo; every day, at nine o'clock in the
morning, the priest and the boy sat down on a bank by the wayside,
and the little shepherd took his lesson out of the priest's
breviary. At the end of three months he had learned to read. This
was not enough — he must now learn to write. The priest had a
writing teacher at Rome make three alphabets — one large, one
middling, and one small; and pointed out to him that by the help of
a sharp instrument he could trace the letters on a slate, and thus
learn to write. The same evening, when the flock was safe at the
farm, the little Luigi hastened to the smith at Palestrina, took a
large nail, heated and sharpened it, and formed a sort of stylus.large nail, heated and sharpened it, and formed a sort of stylus.
The next morning he gathered an armful of pieces of slate and
began. At the end of three months he had learned to write. The
curate, astonished at his quickness and intelligence, made him a
present of pens, paper, and a penknife. This demanded new effort,
but nothing compared to the first; at the end of a week he wrote as
well with this pen as with the stylus. The curate related the
incident to the Count of San-Felice, who sent for the little
shepherd, made him read and write before him, ordered his attendant
to let him eat with the domestics, and to give him two piastres a
month. With this, Luigi purchased books and pencils. He applied his
imitative powers to everything, and, like Giotto, when young, he
drew on his slate sheep, houses, and trees. Then, with his knife,
he began to carve all sorts of objects in wood; it was thus that
Pinelli, the famous sculptor, had commenced.
"A girl of six or seven — that is, a little younger than Vampa —
tended sheep on a farm near Palestrina; she was an orphan, born at
Valmontone and was named Teresa. The two children met, sat down
near each other, let their flocks mingle together, played, laughed,
and conversed together; in the evening they separated the Count of
San-Felice's flock from those of Baron Cervetri, and the children
returned to their respective farms, promising to meet the next
morning. The next day they kept their word, and thus they grew up
together. Vampa was twelve, and Teresa eleven. And yet their
natural disposition revealed itself. Beside his taste for the fine
arts, which Luigi had carried as far as he could in his solitude,
he was given to alternating fits of sadness and enthusiasm, was
often angry and capricious, and always sarcastic. None of the lads
of Pampinara, Palestrina, or Valmontone had been able to gain any
influence over him or even to become his companion. His disposition
(always inclined to exact concessions rather than to make them)(always inclined to exact concessions rather than to make them)
kept him aloof from all friendships. Teresa alone ruled by a look,
a word, a gesture, this impetuous character, which yielded beneath
the hand of a woman, and which beneath the hand of a man might have
broken, but could never have been bended. Teresa was lively and
gay, but coquettish to excess. The two piastres that Luigi received
every month from the Count of San-Felice's steward, and the price
of all the little carvings in wood he sold at Rome, were expended
in ear-rings, necklaces, and gold hairpins. So that, thanks to her
friend's generosity, Teresa was the most beautiful and the
best-attired peasant near Rome. The two children grew up together,
passing all their time with each other, and giving themselves up to
the wild ideas of their different characters. Thus, in all their
dreams, their wishes, and their conversations, Vampa saw himself
the captain of a vessel, general of an army, or governor of a
province. Teresa saw herself rich, superbly attired, and attended
by a train of liveried domestics. Then, when they had thus passed
the day in building castles in the air, they separated their
flocks, and descended from the elevation of their dreams to the
reality of their humble position.
"One day the young shepherd told the count's steward that he had
seen a wolf come out of the Sabine mountains, and prowl around his
flock. The steward gave him a gun; this was what Vampa longed for.
This gun had an excellent barrel, made at Breschia, and carrying a
ball with the precision of an English rifle; but one day the count
broke the stock, and had then cast the gun aside. This, however,
was nothing to a sculptor like Vampa; he examined the broken stock,
calculated what change it would require to adapt the gun to his
shoulder, and made a fresh stock, so beautifully carved that it
would have fetched fifteen or twenty piastres, had he chosen to
sell it. But nothing could be farther from his thoughts. For a long