The virtues of senescence are seen in the case of Verdi, who did some of his greatest work at the age when most musicians are ready for the old ladies' home. His first love affair has been the subject of an opera, like Stradella's. In fact it has much of the garish misery of the Punchinello story. Verdi was very poor as a child, and was educated by a charitable institution. He was greatly befriended by his teacher, Barezzi, in whose house he lived, and like Robert Schumann, he showed his gratitude by falling in love with the daughter; Margarita was her name. But Barezzi interpreted the rôle of father-in-law in a manner unlike that of Wieck, and to the youth to whom he had given not only instruction, but funds for his study and board and lodging while in Milan, he gave also his daughter, when the time came in 1836, Verdi being then twenty-three years old. Two years later, the composer left his home town of Busseto with one wife, two children, and three or four MSS. He settled in Milan. He was a long time getting his first opera produced, and it was not until 1839 that it made its little success, and he was engaged to write three more. He chose a comic libretto for the first, and then troubles began not to rain but to pour upon him. But let Verdi tell his own story: "I lived at that time in a small and modest apartment in the neighbourhood of the Porta Ticinese, and I had my little family with me, that is to say my young wife and our two little children. I had hardly begun my work when I fell seriously ill of a throat complaint, which compelled me to keep my bed for a long time. I was beginning to be convalescent, when I remembered that the rent, for which I wanted fifty ecus, would become due in a few days. At that time if such a sum was of importance to me, it was no very serious matter; but my painful illness had not allowed me to provide it in time, and the state of communications with Busseto (in those days the post only went twice a week) did not leave me the opportunity of writing to my excellent father-in-law Barezzi to enable him to send the necessary funds. I wished, whatever trouble it might give to me, to pay my lodging on the day fixed, and although much annoyed at being obliged to have recourse to a third person, I nevertheless decided to beg the engineer Pasetti to ask Merelli on my behalf for the fifty ecus which I wanted, either in the form of an advance under the conditions of my contract, or by way of loan for eight or ten days, that is to say the time necessary for writing to Busseto and receiving the said sum.