His imagination caressed in
passing the yellowish vellum backs, the worn tooling of Aldine folios,
the heavy silver clasps of ancient chronicles and psalters; but his
first object was to find Gamba and renew the conversation of the
previous day. In this he was disappointed. The only occupant of the
library was the hunchback's friend and protector, the abate Crescenti, a
tall white-haired priest with the roseate gravity and benevolent air of
a donator in some Flemish triptych. The abate, courteously welcoming
Odo, explained that he had despatched his assistant to the Benedictine
monastery to copy certain ancient records of transactions between that
order and the Lords of Valsecca, and added that Gamba, on his return,
should at once be apprised of the cavaliere's wish to see him.
The abate himself had been engaged, when his visitor entered, in
collating manuscripts, but on Odo's begging him to return to his work,
he said with a smile: "I do not suffer from an excess of interruptions,
for the library is the least visited portion of the palace, and I am
glad to welcome any who are disposed to inspect its treasures. I know
not, cavaliere," he added, "if the report of my humble labours has ever
reached you;" and on Odo's affirmative gesture he went on, with the
eagerness of a shy man who gathers assurance from the intelligence of
his listener: "Such researches into the rude and uncivilised past seem
to me as essential to the comprehension of the present as the mastering
of the major premiss to the understanding of a syllogism; and to those
who reproach me for wasting my life over the chronicles of barbarian
invasions and the records of monkish litigations, instead of
contemplating the illustrious deeds of Greek sages and Roman heroes, I
confidently reply that it is more useful to a man to know his own
father's character than that of a remote ancestor.
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