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A Roman Singer by F. Marion (Francis Marion) Crawford
page 5 of 337 (01%)
notes are dumb since the great German maestro came home with my boy
one night, and insisted on playing an accompaniment after supper. We
had stewed chickens and a flask of Cesanese, I remember, and I knew
something would happen to the piano. But Nino would never have any
other, for De Pretis had a very good one; and Nino studies without
anything--just a common tuning-fork that he carries in his pocket. But
the old piano was the beginning of his fame. He got into the
sitting-room one day, by himself, and found out that he could make a
noise by striking the keys, and then he discovered that he could make
tunes, and pick out the ones that were always ringing in his head.
After that he could hardly be dragged away from it, so that I sent him
to school to have some quiet in the house.

He was a clever boy, and I taught him Latin and gave him our poets to
read; and as he grew up I would have made a scholar of him, but he
would not. At least, he was willing to learn and to read; but he was
always singing too. Once I caught him declaiming "Arma virumque cano"
to an air from Trovatore, and I knew he could never be a scholar then,
though he might know a great deal. Besides, he always preferred Dante
to Virgil, and Leopardi to Horace.

One day, when he was sixteen or thereabouts, he was making a noise, as
usual, shouting some motive or other to Mariuccia and the cat, while I
was labouring to collect my senses over a lecture I had to prepare.
Suddenly his voice cracked horribly and his singing ended in a sort of
groan. It happened again once or twice, the next day, and then the
house was quiet. I found him at night asleep over the old piano, his
eyes all wet with tears.

"What is the matter, Nino?" I asked. "It is time for youngsters like
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