I promised to tell you of two episodes only, not the whole story of my life. So I will not detail all the sufferings through which I passed before attaining the age of fifteen years and a very moderate degree of skill as a gondolier, having subsisted meanwhile on rice and water and blows of the oar across my shoulders. The only pleasure I had was in listening to the serenaders; and, when I had a moment's leisure, I would run after the musicians and follow them all over the city. That pleasure was so intense that, even if it did not prevent my sighing for my father's house, it would have prevented me from returning to it. However, my passion for music had reached the point of sympathetic enjoyment only, not of a personal inclination; for my voice was just changing and seemed to me so unpleasant when I ventured timidly to try it, that I looked forward to no other future than that of beating the water of the lagoons all my life, at the service of the first comer. My master and I often occupied the _traghetto_, or gondola stand, on the Grand Canal in front of the Aldini Palace, near the image of _Saint Zandegola_--a patois contraction of San Giovanni Decollato. While we were waiting for customers, my master always slept, and it was my duty to watch and offer to passers-by the service of our oars. Those hours, which were often most uncomfortable in the scorching days of summer, were delightful to me under the walls of the Aldini palace, because of a superb female voice, accompanied by a harp, which I could hear distinctly. The window through which those divine sounds came forth was directly over my head, and the protruding balcony served me as a protection against the heat of the sun. That little nook was my Eden, and I never pass the place without a thrill at my heart as I remember those modest joys of my boyhood. A silk curtain shaded the square balcony of white marble, darkened by centuries and covered with convolvulus and climbing plants, carefully tended by the fair hostess of that palatial abode. For she was fair; I had caught a glimpse of her sometimes on the balcony, and I had heard other gondoliers say that she was the most amiable and most courted woman in Venice. I was then hardly sensible of her beauty, although in Venice men of the lower classes have eyes for women of the highest rank, and _vice versa_, so I am told. For my own part, I was all ears; and when she appeared my heart beat fast with joy, because her presence led me to hope that I might soon hear her sing.