“Are you acquainted with his works, Sor Cosimo?”
“Oh! most certainly! She read it to us last Sunday at dessert, and made us all cry like babies.”
“No, Cosimo, you do not understand. The gentleman means this book that I have here.”
“Ah! what! Well, well!... I was speaking of the sonnet. But you shall hear it afterwards.... And you must repeat that one too that you wrote when Calamai’s son was made a priest. Oh! that! And then.... But don’t imagine, sir, that she has only one. She has a whole drawer full, and you may say that, if one is fine, others are not so bad.... Well, you shall hear.”
I was eager to hear her opinion of Leopardi, and asked—
“What do you think of this book, Signorina?”
“I will tell you,” she replied. “To say the truth, I have scarcely got at the bottom of it as yet, ... but, if I must speak sincerely, it seems to me there is not much interest in it.”
“Ah!”
“Don’t you think so too?”
“Well—yes—in a manner of speaking, yes!”