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I feel compassion for my proud father when I think of how he collected
art treasures and bought paintings by distinguished artists of the
time, which he would contemplate for hours through a monocle, and which
formed the subject of long intricate critical speculations with his
friends - paintings which after all were really only trifling daubs of
no value whatever at the present time.
It was a dream of wholly successful social glory dreamed by my Italian
parents as confidently as that other dream, dreamed by the Dutch
merchants of this little seaport town. And this Italian dream I dreamed
with them in perfect soberness. I can still become wholly absorbed in
the illusion. I see the purple velvet with the white plume and the
large diamond on my mother's hat, - a small, round bonnet, on the
thick, blonde hair gathered into a net. I stand by her side in the
carriage and feel myself the little prince, the little son of the
Contessa - and see the people bowing with profound respect. I breathe
the faint, fine perfume of frankincense and lavender exhaling from my
mother's clothes.


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