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The Mysterious Flame Of Queen Loana :: Эко Умберто
Страница: 35 из 286And while you… while you weren’t well, I managed to sell it to a client, a new one. He didn’t seem like a real bibliophile to me, more like someone who buys as an investment because he’s heard that antiquarian books appreciate quickly."
"Too bad, a wasted copy. And… how much?"
She seemed afraid to say the amount; she got a form and showed it to me. "In the catalogue we put ‘price on request,’ and you were prepared to deal. I immediately named the highest price, and he didn’t even try to bargain, just signed a check and was off. ‘On the nail,’ as they say in Milan."
"We’ve reached these levels now…" I didn’t have a sense of current prices. "Well done, Sibilla. How much did it cost us?"
"Basically nothing. That is, with the rest of the books from the Gambi library we’ll easily make back, little by little, the lump sum we paid for the whole lot. I took care of depositing the check in the bank. And since there was no price listed in the catalogue, I think that with Mr. Laivelli’s help we’ll come out quite well on the financial side."
"So I’m one of those who don’t pay their taxes?"
"No, Monsieur Bodoni, you just do what your fellow dealers do. For the most part, you have to pay the full amount, but with certain fortunate deals you might, how do you say, round down. But you’re ninety-five percent honest as a taxpayer."
"After this deal it’ll be fifty percent. I read somewhere that citizens should pay every penny of their taxes." She looked humiliated. "Don’t worry about it, though," I said paternally. "I’ll talk it over with Gianni." Paternally? Then I said, almost brusquely, "Now let me take a look at some of the other books." She turned around and went to sit at her computer, silent.
I looked at the books, flipped through their pages: Bernardino Benali’s 1491 Commedia , a 1477 edition of Scot’s Liber Phisionomiae , a 1484 edition of Ptolemy’s Quadripartite , a 1482 Calendarium by Regiomontanus. Nor was I exactly lacking when it came to later centuries: there was a fine first edition of Zonca’s Novo teatro , and a marvelous Ramelli… I was familiar with each of these works, like every antiquarian who knows the great catalogues by heart. But I did not know I owned copies of them.
Paternally? I was pulling out books and putting them back, but in fact I was thinking about Sibilla.
"Too bad, a wasted copy. And… how much?"
She seemed afraid to say the amount; she got a form and showed it to me. "In the catalogue we put ‘price on request,’ and you were prepared to deal. I immediately named the highest price, and he didn’t even try to bargain, just signed a check and was off. ‘On the nail,’ as they say in Milan."
"We’ve reached these levels now…" I didn’t have a sense of current prices. "Well done, Sibilla. How much did it cost us?"
"Basically nothing. That is, with the rest of the books from the Gambi library we’ll easily make back, little by little, the lump sum we paid for the whole lot. I took care of depositing the check in the bank. And since there was no price listed in the catalogue, I think that with Mr. Laivelli’s help we’ll come out quite well on the financial side."
"So I’m one of those who don’t pay their taxes?"
"No, Monsieur Bodoni, you just do what your fellow dealers do. For the most part, you have to pay the full amount, but with certain fortunate deals you might, how do you say, round down. But you’re ninety-five percent honest as a taxpayer."
"After this deal it’ll be fifty percent. I read somewhere that citizens should pay every penny of their taxes." She looked humiliated. "Don’t worry about it, though," I said paternally. "I’ll talk it over with Gianni." Paternally? Then I said, almost brusquely, "Now let me take a look at some of the other books." She turned around and went to sit at her computer, silent.
I looked at the books, flipped through their pages: Bernardino Benali’s 1491 Commedia , a 1477 edition of Scot’s Liber Phisionomiae , a 1484 edition of Ptolemy’s Quadripartite , a 1482 Calendarium by Regiomontanus. Nor was I exactly lacking when it came to later centuries: there was a fine first edition of Zonca’s Novo teatro , and a marvelous Ramelli… I was familiar with each of these works, like every antiquarian who knows the great catalogues by heart. But I did not know I owned copies of them.
Paternally? I was pulling out books and putting them back, but in fact I was thinking about Sibilla.