I AM so far fortunate, I often said, that they have given me a dungeon on
the ground floor, near the court, where that dear boy comes within a few
steps of me, to converse in our own mute language. We made immense
progress in it; we expressed a thousand various feelings I had no idea we
could do, by the natural expressions of the eye, the gesture, and the
whole countenance. Wonderful human intelligence! How graceful were his
motions! how beautiful his smile! how quickly he corrected whatever
expression I saw of his that seemed to displease me! How well he
understands I love him, when he plays with any of his companions!
Standing only at my window to observe him, it seemed as if I possessed a
kind of influence over his mind, favourable to his education. By dint of
repeating the mutual exercise of signs, we should be enabled to perfect
the communication of our ideas. The more instruction he gets, the more
gentle and kind he becomes, the more he will be attached to me. To him I
shall be the genius of reason and of good; he will learn to confide his
sorrows to me, his pleasures, all he feels and wishes; I will console,
elevate, and direct him in his whole conduct. It may be that this my lot
may be protracted from month to month, even till I grow grey in my
captivity. Perhaps this little child may continue to grow under my eye,
and become one in the service of this large family of pain, and grief,
and calamity. With such a disposition as he has already shown, what
would become of him? Alas; he would at most be made only a good
under-keeper, or fill some similar place. Yet I shall surely have
conferred on him some benefit if I can succeed in giving him a desire to
do kind offices to the good and to himself, and to nourish sentiments of
habitual benevolence. This soliloquy was very natural in my situation; I
was always fond of children, and the office of an instructor appeared to
me a sublime duty. For a few years I had acted in that capacity with
Giacomo and Giulio Porro, two young men of noble promise, whom I loved,
and shall continue to love as if they were my own sons. Often while in
prison were my thoughts busied with them; and how it grieved me not to be
enabled to complete their education. I sincerely prayed that they might
meet with a new master, who would be as much attached to them as I had
been.
At times I could not help exclaiming to myself, What a strange burlesque
is all this! instead of two noble youths, rich in all that nature and
fortune can endow them with, here I have a pupil, poor little fellow!
deaf, dumb, a castaway; the son of a robber, who at most can aspire only
to the rank of an under-jailer, and which, in a little less softened
phraseology, would mean to say a _sbirro_. {2} This reflection confused
and disquieted me; yet hardly did I hear the _strillo_ {3} of my little
dummy than I felt my heart grow warm again, just as a father when he
hears the voice of a son. I lost all anxiety about his mean estate. It
is no fault of his if he be lopped of Nature’s fairest proportions, and
was born the son of a robber. A humane, generous heart, in an age of
innocence, is always respectable. I looked on him, therefore, from day
to day with increased affection, and was more than ever desirous of
cultivating his good qualities, and his growing intelligence. Nay,
perhaps we might both live to get out of prison, when I would establish
him in the college for the deaf and dumb, and thus open for him a path
more fortunate and pleasing than to play the part of a _shirro_. Whilst
thus pleasingly engaged in meditating his future welfare, two of the
under-jailers one day walked into my cell.
“You must change your quarters, sir!”
“What mean you by that?”
“We have orders to remove you into another chamber.”
“Why so?”
“Some other great bird has been caged, and this being the better
apartment—you understand.”
“Oh, yes! it is the first resting-place for the newly arrived.”
They conveyed me to the opposite side of the court, where I could no
longer converse with my little deaf and dumb friend, and was far removed
from the ground floor. In walking across, I beheld the poor boy sitting
on the ground, overcome with grief and astonishment, for he knew he had
lost me. Ere I quite disappeared, he ran towards me; my conductors tried
to drive him away, but he reached me, and I caught him in my arms, and
returned his caresses with expressions of tenderness I sought not to
conceal. I tore myself from him, and entered my new abode.