Enrico Castelnuovo, who was born at Florence in 1839, is one of the earliest of Italian writers of the modern short story, and a link between the group of poets, dramatists, and novelists, beginning with Manzoni (1785-1873), and the group of his own immediate contemporaries, including Carducci, Fogazzaro, Barrili, Farina, Verga, D’Annunzio, De Amicis, Serao, and other disciples of Carducci.
His literary career began with a little romance called “Il quaderno della zia”; it struck not only his first note of popularity, but the rich vein of his talent, which consists in minute observation and keen dramatic insight, softened by a sympathetic, almost sentimental, style—a rare combination traced from his first little romance to his later volumes of short stories, and especially marked in the story given here, “The Lost Letter.”
THE LOST LETTER
A STORY OF WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN
BY ENRICO CASTELNUOVO
Translated by Florence MacIntyre Tyson. Copyright, 1903, by The Current Literature Publishing Company.
Professor Attilio Cernieri, distinguished Egyptologist, Senator of the Kingdom, commander of numerous orders, active member of the Lincei, Corresponding Fellow of an infinite number of Italian and foreign societies and academies, was having his servant, Pomponio, open two cases of books arrived the evening before from Padua.
The books were the residue of a library that he had gathered at Padua when, twenty years before, he had filled the chair of neo-Latin in that university. Afterward he had traveled much for scientific purposes, had been called successively to the institute of higher learning in Florence, to the University of Naples, and finally the Ministry had solicited his presence in Rome, at the Sapienza, creating a chair especially for him, and offering him high emoluments.
For some time, during the Professor’s peregrinations, the library, packed up and left with a colleague, had remained undisturbed at Padua. Then Cernieri had sent for a part of it when he was in Florence; another part later on when in Naples. Now having to come to Rome, with the intention of fixing there his permanent residence, he had determined to send for the two last cases.
To be sure, these books were not absolutely necessary to a man who, besides having recently refurnished his own library, had at his disposition the public and private libraries of the capital.