The Leopard, for SeenReading

From page 58, of The Leopard, by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa (translated by Archibald Colquhoun), here transcribed for Julie Wilson, of Seen Reading, who was caught In flagrante delicto in the process of blatantly, shamelessly, and dangerously attempting to promote, in a public place and for public consumption, a curiosity about literature and a love of reading among the general public:

When the Prince when upstairs again, he found Paolo, his heir, the Duke of Querceta, waiting for him in his study on the red sofa where he proposed to take his siesta. The youth had screwed up all his courage to talk to him. Short, olive-skinned, he seemed older than the Prince himself. “I wanted to ask you, Pap, how we’re to behave with Tancredi when we next meet him.”