This great fear of the public may, with good-will, be taken for modesty; but I hold that at bottom it is downright vanity.  Of course I am speaking of people endowed with a sufficient dose of talent and common-sense; with fools, on the contrary, vanity takes the shape of impudent self-confidence.  Hence all the daily published amount of nonsense; which would convey a strange idea of us to Europe, if it were not our good fortune that Italian is not much understood abroad.  As regards our internal affairs, the two excesses are almost equally noxious.  In Parliament, for instance, the first, those of the timidly vain genus, might give their opinion a little oftener with general advantage; while if the others, the impudently vain, were not always brawling, discussions would be more brief and rational, and public business better and more quickly dispatched.  The same reflection applies to other branches—­to journalism, literature, society, etc.; for vanity is the bad weed which chokes up our political field; and as it is a plant of hardy growth, blooming among us all the year round, it is just as well to be on our guard.

Timid vanity was terribly at work within me the day ‘Fieramosca’ was published.  For the first twenty-four hours it was impossible to learn anything; for even the most zealous require at least a day to form some idea of a book.  Next morning, on first going out, I encountered a friend of mine, a young fellow then and now a man of mature age, who has never had a suspicion of the cruel blow he unconsciously dealt me.  I met him in Piazza San Fedele, where I lived; and after a few words, he said, “By the by, I hear you have published a novel.  Well done!” and then talked away about something quite different with the utmost heedlessness.  Not a drop of blood was left in my veins, and I said to myself, “Mercy on me!  I am done for:  not even a word is said about my poor ‘Fieramosca!’” It seemed incredible that he, who belonged to a very numerous family, connected with the best society of the town, should have heard nothing, if the slightest notice had been taken of it.  As he was besides an excellent fellow and a friend, it seemed equally incredible that if a word had been said and heard, he should not have repeated it to me.  Therefore, it was a failure; the worst of failures, that of silence.  With a bitter feeling at heart, I hardly knew where I went; but this feeling soon changed, and the bitterness was superseded by quite an opposite sensation.

‘Fieramosca’ succeeded, and succeeded so well that I felt abasourdi, as the French express it; indeed, I could say “Je n’aurais jamais cru etre si fort savant.”  My success went on in an increasing ratio:  it passed from the papers and from the masculine half to the feminine half of society; it found its way to the studios and the stage.  I became the vade-mecum of every prima-donna and tenor, the hidden treat of school-girls; I penetrated between the pillow and the mattress of college, boys, of the military academy cadet; and my apotheosis reached such a height that some newspapers asserted it to be Manzoni’s work.  It is superfluous to add that only the ignorant could entertain such an idea; those who were better informed would never have made such a blunder.