candlelight the shelves of emperors and gondoliers, butchers and
barbers, fortunetellers and chimney sweeps. I’ve entered castles and caravans,
hovels and houseboats, searching for books. And there are books, believe me.
There is no shortage of books, beautiful books, costly books, on this planet.
But occasionally, in my life of crime, I’ve come across a volume that
annihilates me. You know the sensation. You lift the cover, naive, and suddenly
tumble over the precipice. You look up and have no idea where you are, who you
are. It’s long past dawn, on a new planet. This has happened perhaps a dozen
times in my life. Sometimes years have gone by without another encounter, and
I’ll think I’ve lost my touch. But then I’ll be browsing through a shelf,
business as usual, and I’ll tip out a volume, and suddenly, the plummet, my
heart in my throat, I’m drowning. Generally, if I discover a lovely book I pass
it on. But these books, the books that combine in perfect quantity design and
story and song, I keep. The book you read was one of those, a book from my
immaculate bookshelf. As you found out.”
“Do you let others read them?”
“You were the second.”
“Who was the first?”
“She was a mistake.”
“Who was she?”
“That’s a secret.”
“So why me?”
“You like to read. Also, I read the books you chose for me.”
“Oh yes.” She clasped her hands. “Did you love them?”
I told her how they had changed the city above our heads. “My
friends thought I’d taken drugs. And of course I had. The most potent, deadly
drugs.”
“I read them over and over. The others can’t understand. They laugh
at me, they say I’m surrounded by a billion books, that I should read each book
once and move on. They think I must be slow-witted, that I don’t understand
what I read unless I reread. They think I’m sick. They can’t understand that
I’m not reading the book, I’m trying to wear it. I’m trying to eat it.”
“We have the same disease. First readings are like first kisses—you
can’t remember the taste, the shape of the other’s lips, you have only a heady
sensation of stained glass shattering.”
“I’ve never been kissed.”
“No. No, of course not.”
Beat of silence.
“You can’t be real,” she said. “There’s no way into the library. We
patrol the gates night and day.”
“I came in the back door.”
“There is no back door.”
“Then I must be a demon.”
“Demon or not, you’re the first man I’ve spoken to.”
“I beg your pardon. What about your father? How old were you when
you came here?”
“I’m special. The rest of the librarians grew up in ordinary houses
outside the library. In the world. They came here to escape forced marriages or
fathers who beat them, or because they were orphaned, or just because they
wanted more time to read. But eighteen years ago, in a room of books about the
third element, which is always a little warmer than most, one of the librarians
heard a little cry. There I was, on an upper shelf, vernixed with paper dust,
my cord a blue bookmark, tethering me to a book about the nature of fire. She
cut my cord with her paperknife, swaddled me in pages, and carried me into the
reading room. All the librarians suckled me. Yes, strange, isn’t it? But this
is a strange story. This is what they told me: hearing me cry, holding me, they
felt the ache in their breasts and the milk leaked onto their robes. I was
their communal child.
“As soon as I could sit I began to talk. And as soon as I could talk
I could read, a gift of my miraculous birth. The librarians crowded round to
hear me read, no faltering, the words floating out in my small voice. Some
wanted to keep me caged, to confine me to a single room or to the librarians’
chambers, to chaperone my reading. Certain librarians even argued that I should
be put to death. Too dangerous, they said, to have a book at liberty,
unshelved, uncataloged. But they were silenced.
barbers, fortunetellers and chimney sweeps. I’ve entered castles and caravans,
hovels and houseboats, searching for books. And there are books, believe me.
There is no shortage of books, beautiful books, costly books, on this planet.
But occasionally, in my life of crime, I’ve come across a volume that
annihilates me. You know the sensation. You lift the cover, naive, and suddenly
tumble over the precipice. You look up and have no idea where you are, who you
are. It’s long past dawn, on a new planet. This has happened perhaps a dozen
times in my life. Sometimes years have gone by without another encounter, and
I’ll think I’ve lost my touch. But then I’ll be browsing through a shelf,
business as usual, and I’ll tip out a volume, and suddenly, the plummet, my
heart in my throat, I’m drowning. Generally, if I discover a lovely book I pass
it on. But these books, the books that combine in perfect quantity design and
story and song, I keep. The book you read was one of those, a book from my
immaculate bookshelf. As you found out.”
“Do you let others read them?”
“You were the second.”
“Who was the first?”
“She was a mistake.”
“Who was she?”
“That’s a secret.”
“So why me?”
“You like to read. Also, I read the books you chose for me.”
“Oh yes.” She clasped her hands. “Did you love them?”
I told her how they had changed the city above our heads. “My
friends thought I’d taken drugs. And of course I had. The most potent, deadly
drugs.”
“I read them over and over. The others can’t understand. They laugh
at me, they say I’m surrounded by a billion books, that I should read each book
once and move on. They think I must be slow-witted, that I don’t understand
what I read unless I reread. They think I’m sick. They can’t understand that
I’m not reading the book, I’m trying to wear it. I’m trying to eat it.”
“We have the same disease. First readings are like first kisses—you
can’t remember the taste, the shape of the other’s lips, you have only a heady
sensation of stained glass shattering.”
“I’ve never been kissed.”
“No. No, of course not.”
Beat of silence.
“You can’t be real,” she said. “There’s no way into the library. We
patrol the gates night and day.”
“I came in the back door.”
“There is no back door.”
“Then I must be a demon.”
“Demon or not, you’re the first man I’ve spoken to.”
“I beg your pardon. What about your father? How old were you when
you came here?”
“I’m special. The rest of the librarians grew up in ordinary houses
outside the library. In the world. They came here to escape forced marriages or
fathers who beat them, or because they were orphaned, or just because they
wanted more time to read. But eighteen years ago, in a room of books about the
third element, which is always a little warmer than most, one of the librarians
heard a little cry. There I was, on an upper shelf, vernixed with paper dust,
my cord a blue bookmark, tethering me to a book about the nature of fire. She
cut my cord with her paperknife, swaddled me in pages, and carried me into the
reading room. All the librarians suckled me. Yes, strange, isn’t it? But this
is a strange story. This is what they told me: hearing me cry, holding me, they
felt the ache in their breasts and the milk leaked onto their robes. I was
their communal child.
“As soon as I could sit I began to talk. And as soon as I could talk
I could read, a gift of my miraculous birth. The librarians crowded round to
hear me read, no faltering, the words floating out in my small voice. Some
wanted to keep me caged, to confine me to a single room or to the librarians’
chambers, to chaperone my reading. Certain librarians even argued that I should
be put to death. Too dangerous, they said, to have a book at liberty,
unshelved, uncataloged. But they were silenced.
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