“Do you really think...?”
“I don’t blame them. So magnificent a creature is not meant to be kept at home. Was she so beautiful when she was at school?”
“Beautiful ... dangerously beautiful, even at school.... I remember ...” passing his hand across his forehead, as if he were talking to himself.
Andrea Lieti opened his big blue eyes in amazement. The Professor remained standing in an awkward attitude, stooping slightly, and ill at ease in his easy attire. His trousers were too long, and bagged at the knees. The collar of his old-fashioned dress-coat was too high. Instead of the regulation shirt, shining like a wall of marble, he wore an embroidered one, with large Roman mosaic studs, a view of the Colosseum, the Column of Trajan, the Piazza di San Pietro. There he stood, with hanging arms, with his hideous, pensive head. The brow appeared to have grown higher and yellower. His eyes had the old oblique look, at once absent and embarrassed.
“These balls must bore you fearfully, Professor,” cried Andrea, as he rose and walked to and fro, conspicuous for his fine proportions and well-bred ease.
“Well ... rather ... I feel somewhat isolated in a crowd like this,” said Galimberti, confusedly.
“And yet you don’t dislike it?”
“A.... Two or three of my pupils are so good as to invite me.... I go out for recreation.... I read too hard.”
Again that weary gesture, as if to ease his brow of its weight of thought, and the wandering glance seeming to seek something that was lost.
“You must come to us, too, Professor,” said Andrea, full of compassion for the wretched little dwarf. “Caterina often speaks of you.”