VIII + 

That evening Gian-Luca went up to his room and found his pencil and paper. A vague spirit of discontent was upon him, a vague longing to find self-expression. + 

“The Librarian lives in the shadows,” he wrote, “But Gian-Luca must live in the daylight.” + 

Only rhymes could appease the ache that was in him, he disdained the idea of prose. But the rhymes would not come; there was no rhyme for shadows and nothing that seemed to go very well with daylight. So Gian-Luca lost his temper and tore up his paper, and hurled his pencil to the floor. He sat glaring into space: + 

“It is all wrong!” he muttered. “Something is all wrong with me. I wish to write poems, I wish to be a waiter; yet a waiter cannot write, and a poet cannot wait⁠—I am greedy like the Librarian. Also, I am sometimes greedy over food, I should very much dislike to go hungry.” + 

“Piccino!” came Fabio’s voice up the stairs; “come quick! We have minestrone for supper!” + 

The would-be poet got up with some haste, he was feeling very hungry at that moment. A most enticing odor was pervading the whole house. + 

“I come now at once!” replied Gian-Luca. + 