Читать книгу The Dark Library - Cyrille Martinez - Страница 6

I had decided to treat myself to a visit to the largest and oldest library in the country. I was leaving it all to chance, having reserved no books nor made a list. To be honest, I hadn’t even looked at the catalogue. I was going to the Great Library with my mind open, hands in my pockets, convincing myself that, somewhere on the premises, there was bound to be a book made for me.

This book: I didn’t know its title, I didn’t know what it was about, I didn’t know what it could possibly look like. All I could say about it was that I had never read it. It, on the other hand, had some idea who I was. It had taken note of my reader profile. To it, my tastes and expectations were not unfamiliar.

A book was waiting for me at the Great Library and I couldn’t help but believe it had been written especially for me.

Before arriving, I had undertaken a sort of inventory of my personal library, pulling volumes off the shelves one by one, caressing their smooth, woven, shiny, matte, dusty, filthy covers (with a little cleaning done along the way). I had not commenced this operation for pleasure, to look back on my readings, to appreciate the breadth of my collection, or take some sort of stock (and even less for the sake of cleaning). No, in examining my library, I was hoping to get my hands on a book I had not yet read.

It had happened to me before, pulling out a book I didn’t think I owned, or that I’d simply forgotten about. I’d opened it and, from the first lines, it was a done deal: it was exactly the book I’d needed. Having experienced this many times, I have come to doubt this type of happenstance is mere coincidence. The phenomenon has occurred too often to talk about strokes of luck. Rather, I believe these books had known to stay discreet, bide their time, watch for the moment I’d be free before they’d fall into my hands. I’ve come to believe it isn’t always the readers who choose their books: in certain circumstances, it’s the books who choose their readers.

This time, after three days of searching, nothing came from my library. This meant I had nothing left to read, not the slightest text, not even a pamphlet, magazine, or article. It was awful. I had to find something, and fast: my life as a reader depended on it.

With its fourteen million printed documents, the Great Library would certainly have a solution to offer me. One chance out of fourteen million, it wasn’t necessarily a forgone conclusion.