’I became old enough — I used to steal from the market-place. Later I went to work — imprinted the stamp on clay bottles, before they were baked. It was an earthenware-bottle factory. There I began making models. One day, I had had enough. I lay in the sun and did not go to work. Then I walked to Munich — then I walked to Italy — begging, begging everything.’

‘The Italians were very good to me — they were good and honourable to me. From Bozen to Rome, almost every night I had a meal and a bed, perhaps of straw, with some peasant. I love the Italian people, with all my heart.

‘Dunque, adesso — maintenant — I earn a thousand pounds in a year, or I earn two thousand — ’

He looked