On the way Michel remembered that he was a painter on seeing the rising sun illumine the landscape. A feeling of profound sadness suddenly took possession of him. His artistic future seemed to be at an end, and as he passed the gate of Villa Palmarosa--as he glanced at that niche with its madonna, from which he had saluted the steeples of Catania for the first time--his heart was heavy, as if twenty years, instead of half as many days, had elapsed between this dénouement of his life and his adventurous youth, overflowing with poetic aspirations, with fears and hopes. The absolute security of his new position frightened him, and he asked himself in dismay if a painter's genius would not be inadequately accommodated in the brain of a rich man and a prince. What would become of ambition, wrath, terror, the frenzy for work, obstacles to be overcome, triumphs to be defended--those powerful and necessary stimulants? Instead of enemies to spur him on, he would have only flatterers to corrupt his judgment and his taste; instead of poverty to force him to hard work and to sustain him in the fever of composition, he would be surfeited in advance with all the advantages which art pursues at least as eagerly as it pursues renown. He heaved a deep sigh, but soon took courage, saying to himself that he would prove himself worthy to have friends who would tell him the truth, and that, while pursuing that nobler object--renown--he could renounce more completely the material profits of the profession and the vulgar judgment of the multitude. Reflecting thus, he reached the monastery. The bells were ringing in response to those of the city, and that monotonous and depressing dialogue was carried on in the crisp morning air amid the songs of the birds and the murmuring of the breezes. XLVII THE VULTURE Magnani knew all, for Agatha had at least suspected his passion, if she had not actually divined it; and she had told him the story of her life. She had described her blighted, desolate past, and her present, devoted to serious pursuits and absorbed by maternal affections. By thus displaying her confidence in him and her regard for him, she had at all events healed the secret wound inflicted upon his plebeian pride. She had with delicate tact pointed out to him that the obstacle between them was not the difference in rank and in their ideas, but the difference between their ages and the decree of an inflexible destiny. In a word, she had raised him to her own level by treating him as a brother, and if she had not effected a complete cure at the first attempt, she had removed all the bitterness of his suffering. Then she had adroitly brought Mila's name into the conversation, and, when he realized that the princess desired their union, Magnani had deemed it to be his duty to comply with her desire.