made the acquaintance of a Venetian nobleman who liked my ideas, who
encouraged me in my investigations, and who got me employment at the
Venice theatre.

"Living was cheap, lodging inexpensive. I had a room in that Capello
palace from which the famous Bianca came forth one evening to become a
Grand Duchess of Tuscany. And I would dream that my unrecognized fame
would also emerge from thence one day to be crowned.

"I spent my evenings at the theatre and my days in work. Then came
disaster. The performance of an opera in which I had experimented,
trying my music, was a failure. No one understood my score for the
_Martiri_. Set Beethoven before the Italians and they are out of their
depth. No one had patience enough to wait for the effect to be
produced by the different motives given out by each instrument, which
were all at last to combine in a grand _ensemble_.

"I had built some hopes on the success of the _Martiri_, for we
votaries of the blue divinity Hope always discount results. When a man
believes himself destined to do great things, it is hard not to fancy
them achieved; the bushel always has some cracks through which the
light shines.

"My wife's family lodged in the same house, and the hope of winning
Marianna, who often smiled at me from her window, had done much to
encourage my efforts. I now fell into the deepest melancholy as I
sounded the depths of a life of poverty, a perpetual struggle in which
love must die. Marianna acted as genius does; she jumped across every
obstacle, both feet at once. I will not speak of the little happiness
which shed its gilding on the beginning of my misfortunes. Dismayed at