“Come in, come in! I am so pleased to see you,” he exclaimed, holding out his hand.
A small, rosy lady of uncertain age, was awaiting them in the drawing-room. The walls of the room were lined with books, as had also been those of the passage. She shook hands with Gian-Luca and smiled at him kindly with her head a little on one side. Her eyes were the eyes of a tame city bird—she reminded Gian-Luca of a sparrow.
“My husband has talked so much about you that I feel as though I knew you quite well,” she said.
At which Gian-Luca made a stiff little bow and brushed her hand with his lips. Teresa believed in punctilious good manners, and considered the English very boorish.
“You have very many books!” remarked Gian-Luca, quite unable to hide his curiosity.
“We have,” she agreed, “very, very many books.” And unlike a sparrow, she sighed.
The books had a somewhat rakish appearance, caused by the sagging of the shelves; in one corner of the room a shelf had collapsed, and its contents were stacked on the floor.
“A slight accident, you see,” observed the Librarian, “it happens occasionally here; I made all the shelves in this room myself, and they’re really not so bad considering—”
Tea not being ready, he took the boy’s arm, and proceeded to conduct him over the house. “If you want to see all my books,” he said happily, “I shall have to take you even into the bathroom. We have to be careful not to have our baths too hot, otherwise the steam might spoil the bindings.”
Gian-Luca was astonished; every room they went into was packed and bulging with books; they elbowed the wardrobes, edged up close to the beds, or lay in untidy heaps on the chairs. The queer, bookish smell of them filled the air—it was pleasant to Gian-Luca’s nostrils. Presently they went downstairs to the study, an absurdly small apartment overlooking the yard. Its sole furniture consisted of a roll-top desk, an armchair and a reading-lamp.
“Here,” said the Librarian in a very solemn voice, “are all my old first editions. They deserve a veritable palace to themselves, yet I find them wonderfully uncomplaining—”
He looked round at his treasures with the eyes of a parent who marvels at the sweetness of his offspring. “They are so full of wisdom, it must be that,” he murmured, “the wise are seldom self-assertive.”
“Are they not worth much money?” said Gian-Luca.
“Hundreds!” the Librarian told him; “but no money could buy them,” he hastened to add, in the tone of one on the defensive. He placed a slim volume in Gian-Luca’s hands. “Take this, for instance, it is almost unique; they haven’t got this one at the British Museum, and they won’t have it until I am dead! I should like to take it with me for my library in Heaven, but that I fear wouldn’t be allowed.” His quizzical eyes were watching Gian-Luca, who by now was staring round him in open amazement.
“So many, so valuable, so expensive!” said Gian-Luca; “I have never seen so many owned books before—at home they have none at all.” He went over to a shelf and took out a volume which he opened, beginning to read. The Librarian noticed his gentle hands, and forbore to protest at his action. In a minute or two Gian-Luca looked up:
“I very much love their smell. It is such an old smell and yet it seems alive—do you think that perhaps they may breathe?”
“Who knows?” said the Librarian, smiling at the thought. “They feel very much alive to me.”
Then Gian-Luca’s mind became practical again. “Did you buy them all yourself?” he demanded.
The Librarian laughed: “Do I look as though I had? Do I look as though I could afford them?”
Gian-Luca examined his friend more closely, and observed that his cleanshaven face was much wrinkled, as though from continual smiling. Two funny, deep lines ran down into his chin, and his hair had a tuft like a schoolboy’s. But although he appeared to have amused himself vastly—over what Gian-Luca could not conceive—his clothes would have thoroughly shocked Teresa, so frayed and untidy were they.
“No,” said Gian-Luca, who felt bound to tell the truth, “you look terribly poor to me.”
The Librarian nodded: “You’re right, I am poor—we’re all as poor as rats. But when I was younger a dreadful thing happened—I had a most wicked old uncle. He left me no money but all his books, I’m afraid he must have done it out of spite! It was rather like leaving a cellar to a drunkard, he probably knew that I’d read myself to death, as I have done financially.”
Gian-Luca was silent for a moment, then he said: “Could you not sell your fine books? After all, one must live and one cannot eat books, and at times one feels very hungry.”
“Good Lord!” sighed the Librarian; “now I’m disappointed in you. Do you always think only of your stomach?”
“We think of other people’s at the Casa Boselli—that is what really pays. My grandmother says that your money is your best friend, and as she has much she must know.” Then Gian-Luca’s heart softened quite suddenly, and he smiled at the shabby Librarian. “All the same,” said Gian-Luca, “I would like you for a father—I think you would make a nice father.” And he meant it.
The Librarian surveyed him very kindly. “You’re wrong there,” he said, shaking his head. “I’m a rotten bad father, and in any case, I’ve got far too many children as it is!”
“Which do you like best, books or children?” Gian-Luca inquired, a little puzzled.
“That,” said the Librarian, “is a difficult question—I’ve never been able to decide.” As he spoke, something bumped against
