“Then you are really interested in the books themselves!” exclaimed the librarian, his pleasure increasing with the prospect of securing a new convert. “This is delightful!”
“Of course.” The contessa raised her eyebrows with well-feigned surprise. She was entirely satisfied with her progress thus far. “But I don’t need to tell you that my interest is not a very intelligent one. I tried to get Morelli to tell me something about them once, but he doesn’t know a book of hours from a missal, so I promised myself the pleasure of learning from you, if you were willing to teach me. Are you?”
The contessa was fond of punctuating her conversation with sharp interrogations, but in the present instance the expression upon Cerini’s face made any question unnecessary.
“This is the happiest year I have known since I first made my home among these books, my daughter,” he replied, with much feeling. “For a long time I felt as a miser must feel surrounded by his gold, far more in quantity than he can ever count, yet separated by its overwhelming value from the world outside. My loneliness came, of course, from another cause—I craved the opportunity to share my treasures, yet this opportunity came but rarely. Patiently have I waited, marvelling that so few should even know that these treasures exist, and a lesser number should care to partake of what is offered to them freely in as large quantities as they are able to carry away. Year by year I have watched the number increase, I have seen the signs of a veritable renaissance; and as one after another comes to me, as you have this afternoon, my heart fills with an unspeakable joy.”
The sincerity of the old man penetrated through even the contessa’s worldly armor, but the problem she had set herself to solve was too fascinating to be laid aside. The librarian need never know how much less interest she felt in books than in her present undertaking.
“So this year has crowned your labors,” she replied, sympathetically. “I do not wonder that you feel gratified! You have had a greater number of converts, you say, most of whom, I presume, come from the libraries and universities near by.”
“Not at all!” contradicted Cerini, eagerly. “They come from England, from France, from Germany—and even from your own far-off country, contessa.”
“Indeed!” Amélie smiled at the air of triumph with which the librarian uttered the last words. “From America? Have my countrymen really discovered what rich mines of learning are here in Florence?”
Cerini nodded his head and drew his chair closer to hers. “At this very moment there are two Americans working here in the library who have so assimilated the learning of the past that they have become a part of it themselves. I have had many students here during all these years, but never any one who was able so completely to carry out my ideas of modern intellectual expression. What they have done and are doing has given me courage to believe that I am not so much of a visionary as my colleagues think. If by my influence I can produce two such modern humanists my labors will not have been in vain.”
“Are these two wonderful men from some library or university in America?” the contessa asked, with apparent innocence.