It was as if the marble clothing moved, as if the big figures lifted their heads and gazed in the night, amid singing and music, towards the colorful, gleaming altar where white-clad boys swung golden censers. The strong scent streamed from the church onto the open plaza.
The boy stretched his hand out towards the radiance of light, and at the same instant the bronze pig took off again. The boy had to hang on tightly. The wind whistled around his ears, and he heard the church doors creak on their hinges as they closed, but then he lost consciousness. He felt an icy chill—and opened his eyes.
It was morning. He had slid part way off the bronze pig which was standing where it always stood in Porta Rossa street.4
Fear and dread filled the boy as he thought of the person he called mother. She had sent him out yesterday and told him to get money. He didn’t have any, and he was hungry and thirsty. Once again he grabbed the bronze pig by the neck, kissed its snout, nodded to it, and wandered away to one of the narrowest streets, only wide enough for a pack donkey. He came to a big, iron-clad door that stood ajar. He went in and up a stone stairway between dirty walls that had an oily rope as a banister and came to an open balcony where rags were hanging. A staircase led from here to the courtyard where there was a well. From there big iron wires led to all stories of the building, and one water pail swayed next to another while the pulley squeaked. The pails danced in the air so that water splashed down in the courtyard. He went further up yet another dilapidated stone staircase. Two sailors, Russians, came lurching down cheerfully and almost knocked the poor boy down. They were coming from their nightly merriment. A strongly built woman, not young, with thick, dark hair came behind them. “What have you brought?” she asked the boy.
“Don’t be angry,” he begged. “I got nothing, nothing at all!” And he grabbed his mother’s dress as if he wanted to kiss it. They went into their room. I won’t describe it, only to say that there was ajar with handles with charcoal burning in there—it’s called a
The child cried. She kicked at him with her foot, and he moaned aloud. “Shut up, or I’ll smash your bawling head to pieces!” she yelled and swung the firepot that she had in her hand. The boy ducked down to the floor with a shriek. Then the neighbor came through the door. She had her
“The child is mine,” said Felicita. “I can murder him if I want to, and you too Gianina!” and she swung the firepot. The other lifted hers in the air in defense, and both pots crashed into each other so that shards, fire, and ashes flew around the room. The boy was out the door in the same instant, across the courtyard, and out of the house. The poor child ran until he finally couldn’t breathe at all. He stopped by the Church of Santa Croce, the church that had opened its wide doors to him the night before. He went inside where radiance shone from everything, and knelt by the first tomb to the right. It was Michelangelo’s, and soon he was sobbing aloud. People came and went. Mass was said, but no one paid any attention to the boy. Only an elderly man stopped, looked at him, and then went away like the others.
The little one was suffering from hunger and thirst. He felt quite faint and sick and crawled into the corner between the wall and the marble monument and fell asleep. It was almost evening when he awoke from someone shaking him. He sprung up startled, and the same old man stood in front of him.
“Are you sick? Where do you live? Have you been here all day?” were some of the many questions the old man asked him. After the boy answered them, the old man took him along to a little house close by in one of the side streets. They walked into a glove-making workshop and found the old man’s wife sewing busily when they entered. A little white Bolognese dog, clipped so closely that the pink skin showed, was hopping on the table, and jumped to the little boy.
“Innocent souls recognize each other,” said the signora and petted both dog and boy. These good people gave him food and drink, and they said he could spend the night there. The next day old Giuseppe would talk to his mother. He was given a small, simple bed, but for him it was princely since he often slept on the hard stone floor. He slept very well and dreamed about the precious paintings and about the bronze pig.
The next morning old Giuseppe set out, and the poor child wasn’t happy about it because he knew that the old man was going to arrange to take him back to his mother. He cried and kissed the lively little dog, and the woman nodded to them both.
And what news did old Giuseppe bring back? He talked a long time to his wife, and she nodded and petted the boy. “He’s a lovely child,” she said. “He will be a good glove-maker, like you were! And he has the fingers for it, so fine and flexible. Madonna has determined him to be a glove-maker.”
And the boy stayed there, and the signora herself taught him to sew. He ate well. He slept well. He grew cheerful, and he started to tease Bellissima. That was the little dog’s name. The woman shook her fingers at him, scolded, and was angry, and the little boy took it to heart. He sat thoughtfully in his little chamber that faced the street. Hides were being dried in there, and there were thick iron bars on the windows. He couldn’t sleep, and the bronze pig was in his thoughts. Suddenly he heard “clop, clop.” Oh, it must be him! He ran to the window, but there was nothing to see. It had already gone by.
“Help the gentleman to carry his paint box!” said the signora to the boy in the morning, as the young neighbor, who was a painter, came lugging his box and a big, rolled-up canvas. The child took the box and followed the artist, and they took the road to the gallery. They went up the same steps that he remembered well from the night he rode on the bronze pig. He recognized statues and paintings, the beautiful marble Venus, and the living colorful portraits. He once again saw the Mother of God, Jesus, and John.
Now they stood silently in front of the painting by Bronzino, where Christ descends into hell, and the children around him smile in sweet anticipation of heaven. The poor boy smiled too because he was in his heaven here.
“Well, go home now,” the artist told him after he had stood there so long that the painter had raised his easel.
“Can I watch you paint?” asked the boy. “Can I see how you get the picture over to this white sheet?”
“I’m not going to paint now,” the man answered and took out his black chalk. Quickly his hand moved, and his eye measured the big painting. Even if it was only a thin line, there stood Christ outlined as on the colorful painting.
“Go away now,” said the artist, and the boy wandered quietly home, sat up at the table, and learned to sew gloves.
But the entire day his thoughts were in the gallery, and because of that he stuck himself in the fingers and was clumsy, but he didn’t tease Bellissima either. When evening came, and the street door stood ajar, he slipped outside. It was cold, but there was lovely, clear starlight. He wandered through the quiet streets, and soon he was standing in front of the bronze pig. He leaned over it, kissed its shiny snout, and sat on its back. “You dear animal,” he said, “how I have longed for you. We must take a ride tonight!”
