The Academicians swallowed Salvator's bitter pill; they said they were much overjoyed that Antonio had displayed his talent in such a striking and decided manner, and they elected him a member of the Academy with much ceremony. As soon as it was known in Rome that Antonio was the painter of the wonderful picture, there streamed in upon him from all sides congratulations, and commissions to undertake great and important works. Thus was this young painter--thanks to Salvator's method of setting to work--brought, in a moment, out of obscurity, and raised to high honour, at the very juncture when he had made up his mind to start upon his career as an artist. Floating and hovering, as he was, in an atmosphere of happiness and bliss, it all the more surprised Salvator one day when Antonio came to him, pale and upset, full of anger and despair. "Ah, Salvator," he cried, "what does it avail me that you have set me up on a pinnacle, where I could never have dreamt of being, that I am overwhelmed with praise and honour, that the prospect of the most delightful and glorious artistic career opens before me, when I am inexpressibly unhappy, when the very picture, to which, next to yourself, dear master, I am indebted for my victory, is the express cause of irremediable misfortune to me?" "Silence!" cried Salvator. "Do not commit a sin against your art and your picture. I don't believe a word as to your irremediable misfortune. You are in love, and perhaps things are not going in all respects exactly as you wish; but that is all, no doubt. Lovers are like children, they cry and yell the moment anybody touches their toy. Leave off lamenting, I beg of you; it is a thing which I cannot endure. Sit down there, and tell me quietly how matters stand as regards your beautiful Magdalene and your love-affair altogether, and where the stumbling-blocks are which we must get out of the way, for I promise you, to commence with, that I will help you. The more difficult and arduous and adventurous the things are that we have to set about, the better I shall be pleased, for the blood is running quick in my veins again, and the state of my health calls upon me to set to work and play a wild trick or two; so tell me all about it, Antonio, and, as aforesaid, none of your 'Ohs' and your 'Ahs.'" Antonio sat down in the chair which Salvator had placed for him near the easel where he was at work, and commenced as follows:-- "In Strada Ripetta, in the lofty house whose projecting balcony you see as soon as you go through the Porta del Popolo, lives the greatest ass and most idiotic donkey in all Rome. An old bachelor, with all the faults of his class--vain, trying to be young, in love, and a coxcomb. He is tall, thin as a whip-stalk, dresses in party-coloured Spanish costume, with a blonde periwig, a steeple-crowned hat, gauntlets, and long sword at his side----"