my Nino, who never so much as looked at the beauties of the generone,
as they came with their fathers and brothers and mothers to eat
ice-cream in the Piazza Colonna, and listen to the music of a summer's
evening,--Nino, who stared absently at the great ladies as they rolled
over the Pincio, in their carriages, and was whistling airs to himself
for practice when he strolled along the Corso, instead of looking out
for pretty faces,--Nino, the cold in all things save in music, why he
fulfilled Mariuccia's prophecy, little by little, and became perfectly
crazy about blue eyes and fair hair. That is what I am going to tell
you, if you have the leisure to listen. And you ought to know it,
because evil tongues are more plentiful than good voices in Rome,
as elsewhere, and people are saying many spiteful things about
him--though they clap loudly enough at the theatre when he sings.

He is like a son to me, and perhaps I am reconciled, after all, to his
not having become a philosopher. He would never have been so famous
as he is now, and _he_ really knows so much more than Maestro De
Pretis--in other ways than music--that he is very presentable indeed.
What is blood, nowadays? What difference does it make to society
whether Nino Cardegna, the tenor was the son of a vine-dresser? Or
what does the University care for the fact that I, Cornelio Grandi, am
the last of a race as old as the Colonnas, and quite as honourable?
What does Mariuccia care? What does anybody care? Corpo di Bacco! if
we begin talking of race we shall waste as much time as would make us
all great celebrities! I am not a celebrity--I never shall be now,
for a man must begin at that trade young. It is a profession--being
celebrated--and it has its signal advantages. Nino will tell you so,
and he has tried it. But one must begin young, very young! I cannot
begin again.