Giuseppe Verdi - Page 2

lad acknowledged the indictment, and stammeringly tried to explain that it was only music he was trying to steal; and that it really made no difference because even if one did fill himself full of the music, there was just as much left for other people, since music was different from most things.

The thought was not very well expressed, although the idea was all right, but the coachman failed to grasp it. So he tingled the boy's bare legs with the whip he carried, by way of answer, duly cautioning him never to let it occur again, and released the prisoner on parole.

But the boy forgot and came back the next night. He sat on the ground below the wall, intending to keep out of sight; but when the music began he stood up, and now, with face pressed between the pickets, he listened.

The wind sighed softly through the orange-trees; the air was heavy with the perfume of flowers; the low of cattle came from across the valley, and on the evening breeze from an open casement rose the strong, vibrant, yet tender, strains of Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata." The lad listened.

"Do you like music?" came a voice from behind. The boy awoke with a start, and tried to butt his head through the pickets to escape in that direction. He thought it was the coachman. He turned and saw the kindly face of Signore Barezzi himself.

"Do I like music? Me! No, I mean yes, when it is like that!" he exclaimed, beginning his reply with a tremolo and finishing bravura.

"That is my daughter playing; come inside with me." The hand of the great man reached out, and the urchin clutched at it as if it were something he had been longing for.

They walked through the big gates where a stone lion kept guard on each side. The lions never moved. They walked up the steps, and entering the parlor saw a young woman seated at the piano.

"Grazia, dear, here is the little boy we saw the other day--you remember? I thought I would bring him in." The young woman came forward and touched the lad on his tawny head with one of her beautiful hands--the beautiful hands that had just been playing the "Sonata."

"That's right, little boy, we have seen you outside there before, and if I had known you were there tonight, I would have gone out and brought you in; but Papa has done the service for me. Now, you must sit down right over there where I can see you, and I will play for you. But won't you tell us your name?"

"Me?" replied the little boy, "why--why my name is Giuseppe Verdi--I am ten years old now--going on 'leven--you see, I like to hear you play because I play myself, a little bit!"

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For over a hundred years three-fourths of Italy's population had been on reduced rations. Starvation even yet crouches just around the corner.

In his childhood young Verdi used to