Michel soon realized that the Capuchin had in no wise exaggerated his pupil's varied knowledge and great talents. In the matter of the dead languages and classical subjects, Michel was quite unable to hold his own, for he had had neither the means nor the leisure to go to college before embracing an artistic career. The Piccinino, seeing that he was familiar only with translations of the texts which he quoted with an unfailing accuracy of memory, fell back upon history, modern literature, Italian poetry, novels, and the stage. Although Michel had read very extensively for one of his years, and although he had, as he himself put it, polished and sharpened his mind, hastily, by assimilating everything that came within his reach, he found that the peasant of Nicolosi, in the intervals between his hazardous expeditions, in the solitude of his shady garden, had made even better use of his time than he. It was wonderful to see a man who could not walk in boots, or breathe in a cravat, who had never been down to Catania ten times in his life, who lived in retirement on his mountain, and had never seen the world or come in contact with cultivated minds, but who had acquired by reading, reasoning, or the divination of a keen intellect, full knowledge of the modern world in its most trivial details, as he had acquired in the cloister knowledge of the ancient world. No subject was unfamiliar to him; he had learned all by himself several living languages, and he ostentatiously talked with Michel in pure Tuscan, to show him that no one at Rome could speak or pronounce it more correctly and melodiously. Michel took so much pleasure in listening and replying to him, that he forgot for a moment the distrust which so complicated a mind and a character so difficult to define naturally inspired in him. He made the rest of the journey almost unconsciously, for they were then following a smooth and safe road; and when they arrived at the park of Palmarosa, he started with surprise at the thought of finding himself so soon in Princess Agatha's presence. Thereupon all that had happened to him during and after the ball passed through his memory like a series of strange dreams. A delicious emotion stole over him, and he no longer felt very indignant or very much horrified at the pretensions of his companion, as he reflected upon those which he himself cherished. XXVI AGATHA