Explore "Beatrice" by Paul Heyse on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Night was far advanced and yet we three sat together in the cool summer-house, conversing over some bottles of wine from Asti, which we had discovered by a lucky chance, and were now emptying to the health of our friend who had just returned from Italy. He was, by several years, our senior, and had reached man's estate, when we first met him twelve years ago, on our southern journey. His manly appearance, the nobility of his demeanour, and a certain pensive charm in his smile had attracted us from the first. His conversation, his universal knowledge, and the unassuming way in which he displayed it, confirmed us in our first impressions, and at the end of the three weeks, which we passed together in Rome, we were united in as firm a friendship as ever existed between men of such different ages. Then he suddenly left us; he was summoned back to Geneva, where he was at the head of a large commercial establishment.
During the succeeding years we never missed an opportunity of meeting again, so he had not hesitated this time to take the longer route through our town for the sake of spending twenty-four hours in our company.