It was midwinter and the nights were long; we reached Chioggia an hour before dawn. I ran to our cabin. My father was already at sea; only my youngest brother was left behind to look after the house. It took a long while for him to wake up and recognize me. It was easy to see that he was accustomed to sleep amid the roar of the waves and the storm; for I nearly broke the door down trying to make him hear me. At last he came out, leaped on my neck, put on his cape and rowed me half a league out to sea, to the spot where my father's boat lay at anchor. The excellent man, awaiting the best time to set his nets, was asleep, according to the custom of old fishermen, stretched out on his back, his body and face sheltered by a coarse blanket, while the stinging north wind whistled through the rigging. The white-capped waves beat against the vessel and covered him with spray; no human voice could be heard in the vast solitude of the Adriatic. I softly put aside the blanket and looked at him. He was the image of strength in repose. His gray beard, as tangled as the seaweed when the tide is rising, his earth-colored jacket and his dull green woollen cap made him resemble an old Triton asleep in his shell. He displayed no more surprise when he woke than if he had been expecting me. "Oho!" he said, "I was dreaming of the poor woman, and she said to me: 'Get up, old man, here's our son Daniel back again.'" [Footnote 3: The red devil, or will'o-the-wisp of the lagoons.] [Footnote 4: The peninsula of Chioggia was originally inhabited by five or six families which never married except among themselves.] [Footnote 5: Chioggia!] SECOND PART I do not propose, my friends, to describe all the vicissitudes which marked my passage from the beach at Chioggia to the stage of the leading theatres in Italy, and from the trade of fisherman to the rôle of _primo tenore_; that was the work of several years, and my reputation increased rapidly as soon as I had taken the first step in my career. If circumstances were often unfavorable, my easy-going disposition was always able to make the best of them, and I can fairly say that my great successes did not cost me very dear. Ten years after leaving Venice, I was at Naples, playing Romeo at the San Carlo theatre. King Murat and his brilliant staff, and all the vain and venal beauties of Italy, were there. I did not pride myself on being a particularly ardent patriot, but I did not share the infatuation of that period for foreign domination. I did not turn my face backward toward a still more degrading past; I fed upon the first elements of Carbonarism, which were then fermenting, without definite shape or name, from Prussia to Sicily.