Absorbed by these reflections, I walked along the gallery, glancing proudly at that haughty race whose succession was disdained by a child of the people, a boatman from Chioggia. I felt very happy; I thought of my old father, and as I remembered the old house, long forgotten and neglected, my eyes filled with tears. I found myself at the end of the gallery, face to face with Messer Torquato, and for the first time I scrutinized him boldly from head to foot. He was the very incarnation of hereditary nobility. His glance seemed to drive one back like the point of a sword, and his hand looked as if it had never opened except to impose a command on his inferiors. I took pleasure in flouting him. "Well!" I said to him mentally, "whatever you might have done, I would never have been your servant. Your domineering air would not have frightened me, and I would have looked you in the face as I look at this canvas. You would never have obtained any hold on me, because my heart is prouder than yours ever was, because I despise this gold before which you bowed, because I am a greater man than you in the eyes of the woman you possessed. In spite of all your pride of birth, you bent the knee to her to obtain her wealth; and when you were rich through her, you crushed and humbled her. That is the conduct of a dastard, and mine is worthy of a genuine noble, for I want none of Bianca's wealth except her heart, of which you were not worthy. And I refuse what you implored, so that I may possess that which is precious above all things in my eyes, Bianca's esteem. And I shall obtain it, for she will understand the vast superiority of my heart to a debt-ridden patrician's. I have no patrimony to redeem, you see! There is no mortgage on my father's fishing-boat; and the clothes I wear are my own, because I earned them by my toil. Very good! I shall be the benefactor, not the debtor, because I shall restore happiness and life to that heart which you broke, because I, servant and lover, shall succeed in winning blessings and honor, while you, nobleman and husband, were cursed and despised." A slight sound caused me to turn my head. I saw little Alezia behind me; she was crossing the gallery, dragging a doll larger than herself. I loved the child, despite her haughty nature, because of her love for her mother. I tried to kiss her; but, as if she felt in the atmosphere the disgrace which had been weighing upon me in that house for two days past, she drew back with an offended air, and crouched against her father's portrait, as if she had some reason to fear me. I was instantly struck by the resemblance which her pretty little dark face bore to Torquato's haughty features, and I stopped to examine her more closely, with a feeling of profound sadness. She seemed to me to be scrutinizing me attentively at the same time. Suddenly she broke the silence to say to me in a tone of great bitterness, and with an indignant expression beyond her years: