"Well, perhaps it is a fairy tale, but it is in the future. I have an idea."
"Oh, is that all? But it is the first time. I understand."
Listen. Have you read Dante?"
"I know the Vita Nuova by heart, and some of the Commedia. But how the diavolo does Dante enter into this question?"
"And Silvio Pellico, and a little literature?" continued Ercole, not heeding the comment.
"Yes, after a fashion. And you? Do you know them?"
"Che c'entro io?" cried Ercole, impatiently; "what do I want to know such things for? But I have heard of them."
"I congratulate you," replied Nino, ironically.
"Have patience. You are no longer an artist. You are a professor of literature."
"I—a professor of literature? What nonsense are you talking?"