I have been home with Stardi, who lives opposite the schoolhouse; and I
really experienced a feeling of envy at the sight of his library. He is
not at all rich, and he cannot buy many books; but he preserves his
schoolbooks with great care, as well as those which his relatives give
him; and he lays aside every soldo that is given to him, and spends it
at the bookseller's. In this way he has collected a little library; and
when his father perceived that he had this passion, he bought him a
handsome bookcase of walnut wood, with a green curtain, and he has had
most of his volumes bound for him in the colors that he likes. Thus when
he draws a little cord, the green curtain runs aside, and three rows of
books of every color become visible, all ranged in order, and shining,
with gilt titles on their backs,--books of tales, of travels, and of
poetry; and some illustrated ones. And he understands how to combine
colors well: he places the white volumes next to the red ones, the
yellow next the black, the blue beside the white, so that, viewed from a
distance, they make a very fine appearance; and he amuses himself by
varying the combinations. He has made himself a catalogue. He is like a
librarian. He is always standing near his books, dusting them, turning
over the leaves, examining the bindings: it is something to see the care
with which he opens them, with his big, stubby hands, and blows between
the pages: then they seem perfectly new again. I have worn out all of
mine. It is a festival for him to polish off every new book that he
buys, to put it in its place, and to pick it up again to take another
look at it from all sides, and to brood over it as a treasure. He showed
me nothing else for a whole hour. His eyes were troubling him, because
he had read too much. At a certain time his father, who is large and
thickset like himself, with a big head like his, entered the room, and
gave him two or three taps on the nape of the neck, saying with that
huge voice of his:--
"What do you think of him, eh? of this head of bronze? It is a stout
head, that will succeed in anything, I assure you!"
And Stardi half closed his eyes, under these rough caresses, like a big
hunting-dog. I do not know, I did not dare to jest with him; it did not
seem true to me, that he was only a year older than myself; and when he
said to me, "Farewell until we meet again," at the door, with that face
of his that always seems wrathful, I came very near replying to him, "I
salute you, sir," as to a man. I told my father afterwards, at home: "I
don't understand it; Stardi has no natural talent, he has not fine
manners, and his face is almost ridiculous; yet he suggests ideas to
me." And my father answered, "It is because he has character." And I
added, "During the hour that I spent with him he did not utter fifty
words, he did not show me a single plaything, he did not laugh once; yet
I liked to go there."