Original fic post: Love Song
Title: Love Song
Word Count: 3,855
Summary: He felt the secret of the thing was not to realize the situation.
Notes: I'm seeking a less obvious name for my narrator, if anyone has suggestions.
The Picture of Dorian Gray, Wilde; Limited Editions Club, NY, 1957. Lthr, slight chipping & cracking on spine, some pgs. discolrd
Called in sick to work and took the 22 to the Newberry this morning. It always looks particularly fine in October, and I arrived early enough that the fog had not yet cleared-rosy brown stone against burnt orange leaves, gray mist before and gray sky behind. I was glad to have brought my overcoat, though the seam on the right shoulder has torn again.
I spent a productive hour with Ames’ Typographical Antiquities and browsed Pepys’ catalogue for some time after that. I am preparing another article that I think will do well in the society monthly, if they will have it, this one on seventeenth-century collections if I don’t allow Pepys’ incunabula to run away with me. All this month I have been easily distracted, which I have until now put down to sleeping badly, but it may turn out to be symptom rather than cause.
It was not quite so cold by the afternoon, so I took my lunch in the park across the street. When my phone rang at one-thirty, I dropped the second half of my sandwich trying to answer it. Hayes was calling to ask about the NCLI account, though he began it by inquiring after my health. The sandwich was tuna on rye, of which I am growing increasingly weary, so it was no great loss.
“Nothing serious,” I said. “I often develop head colds around this time of year.”
“Of course, sir,” he said. “I hope it’s better by tomorrow.” After a moment: “Do you suppose you’ll be in tomorrow, sir?”
There was mayonnaise smeared on the toe of my right shoe. “If I had advance notice of my head colds, Hayes, I would try to schedule them for my off days; as it is I can’t say.”
“Naturally, sir. I beg your pardon.” I felt a stirring of guilt. Hayes is anxious to please. He went on: “But I finished the NCLI report and sent it upstairs yesterday, as you asked, and tenth floor is having some trouble with it.”
“Did they say what the trouble is?”
“No, sir. But it’s a complicated report, sir. I confess I didn’t understand it all when I typed it up.”
“Try to answer their questions, Hayes.” I stared across the street. The library was still there, stolid and unmoving. “I’ll be in tomorrow morning.”
“Yes, sir. Thank you.”
I went back up to the reading room afterward, hoping to accomplish something substantial in the few hours that remained before it closed. The Victorian specialist was on duty today. I believe she knows me now; at least her nod seems a trifle more genuine, and I like to think I can detect a hint of recognition behind the remote gravity of her gaze. The call had spoiled me for work, and I continually found my eyes wandering from my work to her desk, watching the downy brown wool of her cardigan stretch against her arms as she took readers’ cards and turned the pages of her book.
It was near dusk when I left, having achieved nothing worth remarking on during the whole second half of the day. The morning’s mist had turned to drizzle, but I decided to walk, and
I went west past the University towards the lake on streets that were half-deserted because of the weather. I stopped in at Powell’s with no intention of buying anything but happened upon a decent ‘57 of Dorian Gray that I couldn’t bring myself to abandon once I had seen it, although it was overpriced and far from pristine. I picked it up and looked across the room to where the Gibbon still rested in its display case, then turned my attention back to the immediately attainable. I brought it home no worse for the journey, as the clerk had wrapped it quite carefully against the rain, and I have just set it loose. It is resting on my kitchen table now next to the reheated casserole from last night.
I have had to turn the dehumidifier on again. I do hope it will be a dry winter.
Poems 1926-1930, Rbt. Graves; Heinemann 1931, 1st ed., cloth bnd; no jckt, light fading, light foxing
We have, I pray, seen the last of the NCLI account, as least until next quarter. It took me the better part of an hour, but I wrestled it into a form that ought to be acceptable to the tenth floor. The rest of that hour I spent correcting Hayes’ work from yesterday.
I read my new Wilde last night and, unable to let it out of my sight for reasons I cannot understand, as it is such a ratty old thing, I brought it in to work today, slipping it into my briefcase out of some secretive impulse and out again at lunch after I had thoroughly washed my hands. I believe I was not reading so much as exploring; the weight of the pages is pleasant and the mere look of the words on the page has a certain aesthetic appeal. He felt the secret of the thing was not to realize the situation. Hayes came up to me as I was just about to close the book and asked what I was reading. I changed the subject.
“Very good, sir,” he said to me when I asked him to rewrite a report for the third time. That smooth, clean face of his wears obeisance as though it has never known or wanted anything else, but I know that he will not watch his features slowly age, his hair slowly thin in the eternal reflection of the seventh floor windows. He will not watch the better part of his life pass here in mornings, afternoons, and evenings of tedious base level work for an inadequate base level salary. I can imagine that in five years or perhaps a little more he will have moved, smoothly and cleanly, from the seventh floor to the tenth, preserving that remarkable willingness to please but shedding, as he ought, that constant air of deference. I know that is his eventual goal, though he never seems discontented with his current position. He accepts criticism without comment, is always respectful, submissive-how that boy must despise me.
I stopped in at that little corner place on my way home; they had a very first nice edition of some of Graves’ early poetry with only minor foxing on a few pages. It fits perfectly into that gap on the fourth shelf that has been worrying me so.
Another tedious argument with the landlord. I really must have something done about the draft in my upstairs rooms, and I fear there is a leak developing in one corner of my ceiling. Either could be disastrous, but he cannot be brought to understand how urgent my need is. I brought him downstairs and offered him tea and marmalade on toast, hoping an appeal to his stomach might be more persuasive than my other efforts. He sat at my folding table and looked around my little kitchen, which I admit I have not made the most welcoming of rooms, and fixed me with eyes that could not fathom why a grown man should choose to live the way I do. The marmalade, which I bought in a fit of extravagance last week, was wasted on his disapproving palate.
He has promised to call a repairman by Monday, but I know him too well to believe he will remember without constant prompting. I can’t allow him to forget.
And I myself must remember to sew that seam on my overcoat.
Remains of the Day, Kazuo Ishiguro; 1989, Faber; 1st ed., hdcvr, faded jckt
I went to see the Gibbon again after work. The clerk has become accustomed to the shabby balding man who stops by with such regularity, and this time he smiled with mild indulgence when he saw me and actually spoke. His voice crackled like a new, unbroken spine carelessly handled, as though he hadn’t used it in years.
“Would you like me to take it out for you?”
I looked through the glass at those twelve upright columns and sighed. Just a small sigh-it had been a long and difficult day-but he noticed and took it for agreement. He fumbled for a moment with the jangling ring that hung at his side before extracting a single brass key from the rest, and I stood by while he turned it in the lock and pulled the door open on well-oiled hinges. Then he retrieved a stand and a pair of white gloves from his desk, arranging the former on a nearby bookcase and pulling the latter onto his hands with two easy practiced motions. He took the first volume out, opened it, and set it on the stand, guiding my attention to its finer points, the integrity of the binding and the clarity of the print, and allowing me to inspect the foxing on the first few pages, which fortunately was only the slightest of blemishes. Then, with precise and confident hands, he unfolded the map until it lay flat and exposed, smoothed by long fingers, so I could see the Roman Empire stretched from Britannia to Arabia.
He saw how intently I was watching him and smiled again, reaching behind the desk for a second pair of gloves. “You may handle it, very carefully, if you like.”
I considered it, wondering if it was worth touching it, turning the pages, if I would only have to hand it back a moment later, and I shook my head. “There’ll be another time for that,” I said. “I’ll come back once I can pay for it.”
He didn’t believe me, of course, though he didn’t seem to mind. To placate him I allowed him to show me a first edition of The Remains of the Day, a fine copy with its dust jacket intact, and bought it, as I haven’t read the book in years.
Michael Robartes and the Dancer, Yeats; Churchdown, Dundrum, Cuala Press; hdcvr, v. clean text; Northwestern Lib. and not my own collection, alas
It is Saturday at last. I went to Evanston first thing this morning, arriving at the University library just after it opened to the general public at 8:30. The Newberry’s charms are undeniable and its collections are certainly the best to which I have access, but it is refreshing to surround myself with students bent over their work rather than grey-haired genealogists peering through their bifocals. I am likely growing old.
I intended to continue my research for the article, but they have a 1920 Yeats that is as lovely a book as I have ever held in my hands. I abandoned my continuation of Wednesday’s notes to examine it at some length; it was slim, demure, and unassuming, the dear small thing, but its pages fell open ever so sweetly at my touch, with hardly any persuasion, and I fancied it must have been waiting for me, and I read. “I had thought that all my days were cast /Amid most lovely places”-that woke nothing but recognition, and I could not feel for her. But a “blank and pitiless gaze”, “the slow motion of thighs”-those were comforting to think on, as they have ever been.
An indulgent train of thought, but it was an indulgent sort of day. They purge the public from the library at noon, so I left and walked out to the lake. The clouds of the last few days had given way to brilliant sunlight that reflected off the waves in laughing snatches of gold, and the damp leaves made no sound as I crushed them underfoot.
Afterward I gave in to the siren song of the Newberry, genealogists or no genealogists, and went there instead of home. The Victorian specialist was there again. (I wonder when she began working Saturdays?) In my good humor I smiled at her for the first time, and in my good humor I scarcely felt surprise at her smiling back. She has perfect white teeth.
Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald-OUP, NY, '82; Hdcvr. w/ lthr spine; gilt edges
I bought this fine collector’s edition on North Lincoln after lingering in a store’s back rooms until they began to close up for the afternoon. The streets seem broader and less crowded on a Sunday. I sat down when I returned home and got out my needle and thread. All the while I half expected to hear the phone ring, Hayes calling to say he was putting in weekend hours and needed my help, the tenth floor demanding that I explain my accounts or, God forbid, clarify the NCLI report once again. Yet all the while the apartment was silent but for the low hum of the dehumidifier upstairs. My coat patched up nicely.
I cannot bear the thought of tuna on rye or leftover casserole for dinner. I think I will spend wildly and order out tonight.
The Metamorphosis, Kafka-1946, Vanguard Pr., NY. 1st American ed., cloth bnd; no jckt, minor wear.
I should clarify. I did not buy this one but left it sitting on the shelf, although it pained me to do so.
I arrived at work this morning to find there is still more trouble over the NCLI account. Hayes brought it down from the tenth floor and ever so apologetically, fluttering in his distress, asked if I could explain it again. “The bottom line, sir,” he said, “they say it’s off our estimates.”
“When is anything ever not off our estimates, Hayes?”
“Quite so, sir. But they seem concerned this time. And these columns-I still can’t make head or tail of them, sir, and that’s a fact. They won’t add up no matter what I do. Do we still have the signed expense reports?”
I looked up at him over the rim of my reading glasses. “Do I seem a bit ridiculous to you, Hayes?”
A frown plucked at his lower lip. “Sir?”
“I ask you if I seem a bit ridiculous to a young man of your age and ambitions. My work, my life, my passions, do you find them absurd?”
“Your...passions, sir?”
“Never mind, Hayes. I’ll bring the report upstairs myself when I’ve finished it.”
It was at lunch that I found the Kafka. I had no appetite and wandered out into the street instead, and my feet led me to the corner shop before I knew what they were about. I stared at it until I knew I would be late getting back to the office and then put it back where I had
found it, telling myself to have patience.
I will be ready to return to Powell’s for the Gibbon tomorrow. I am plagued by the thought that someone else may go in and snatch it up before I do. The old gravel-voiced clerk will be shocked when I hand him the check. I have been preparing weeks for this.
I was in fact late getting back, but no-one said anything, and Hayes did not even look at his watch when he came in but sat and worked quietly beside me, breaking his silence only twice to ask for some guidance. I was particularly patient today while advising him. Something in his face prompted me to feel a curious prick of affection for the boy, though he would be bemused to hear of it, and I would be foolish indeed to think of telling him.
I dreamed of studying in the Newberry last night. The Victorian specialist was there, not sitting at the front desk but reading at the one beside me; she wore the long shawl, fringed with red, that she had on Saturday, and a brown skirt that touched the ground, and her hair was twisted up in a shining Gordian knot.
Spoke to my landlord again; he has not called the repairman.
The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (in 12 vols.), Edward Gibbon; A. Strahan, T. Cadell and W. Travis, London, 1797, Little Brown & Co.; calf lthr, gilt edges; prev. owner’s bookplates & inscription, light foxing on a few pgs, absolutely stunning, and mine.
I have it. A sudden fit of nerves prevented me from going in before work, and I waited the whole day in a state of desperate impatience, snapping at poor Hayes more than once. I left a few minutes early, as I never have done before, and leapt into the first bus I saw. (In my haste, I nearly got on the one heading in the opposite direction.) The clerk’s whole face lit up when I told him my business there, and he presented me with a watertight carrying case to bring it home, his hands trembling with excitement and pleasure as he packed it for me-or were they my hands that trembled? I hailed a cab outside the store, not trusting my dear, dear find to the bus, and cursed the driver under my breath every time he hit a pothole or braked too quickly.
I spent an hour wiping, polishing, and drying the shelf, the shelf I have kept empty and waiting these long weeks since I first found this beautiful set, and then after washing my hands until they were bright pink and no trace of damaging oil could have remained I took the twelve volumes out one by one and set them gently in their places. My hands were oversensitive from the scrubbing, and yet the leather felt smooth and supple to the touch, as though it had just been tanned.
I have abandoned my research entirely for the moment, and it sits there on the table, reproaching me. My head will not bear it tonight.
I will call the repairman myself tomorrow. My Gibbon cannot sit there in this draft for long. I covered it for the night, as I will continue to do until the repairs are made, and made certain the dehumidifier was on.
It is the most perfect thing I have ever owned.
Age of Anxiety, Auden. Faber & Faber, Lndn, 1948; 1st UK ed., some wear to cover, owner's inscription
I woke early to call the repairman this morning. He has promised to come only when I am home. I did not tell him why, but I cannot trust anyone alone in the apartment with that book. I told myself I would take off work tomorrow and wait for him and tell the landlord after the work was done, and I will pay the repairman myself if I must; I cannot leave the Gibbon in a drafty room for long.
They called me up to the tenth floor this afternoon, and the Senior Department Manager asked to speak with me. It was the NCLI account again. He had it fanned out on his desk and looked straight at me over the pages, pinning me like an insect to my chair.
“How long have you worked here, Alfred?”
“Twenty-seven years, sir. Since I left college.”
“That’s a very long time.”
“Yes, sir.”
“You’ve done excellent work for us.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“Everyone who comes through our office speaks highly of you.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“Mr. Alfred, is there anything you need to change in this account?”
“Nothing, sir,” I said.
“There’s nothing at all you need to say to me?”
I could not answer the question. When he saw that, he nodded. “Why don’t you take the rest of the day, Alfred. I’ll see you first thing tomorrow morning.”
“Yes, sir.”
I went down three flights of stairs to the seventh floor, where I gathered my coat and briefcase.
“Leaving so early, sir?” Hayes asked.
I smiled and reached out to touch his shoulder. “Good afternoon, Alan.”
He stared at me. “Good afternoon, Mr. Alfred, Sir.”
I walked until my feet were raw and my fingers were frozen (I was glad I had patched the torn seam in my coat), and then I went back to the corner shop. I found that the Kafka had left me, but several others, this Auden included, all but fell into my hands, and I had no choice but to buy them.
Shadows of Ecstasy, Williams; Pellegrini & Cudahy, NY, 1950; 1st US ed., no jckt, some wear on spine
Called in sick to work today and have been waiting for the repairman to arrive. I have been examining yesterday’s purchases; I brought a chair into the library and have arranged it so I can look over the top of my book at the Gibbon whenever I choose. I half expect the phone to ring at any moment.
Perhaps I will go to the Newberry this afternoon. I will take my notes out and work, but not for long; the Victorian specialist may smile at me again, and this time I will go to the desk and ask her name. I do not know how it will go after that-perhaps we will wait until closing time, perhaps she will leave her desk empty and come with me, but it will end with her following me across the street to the park, and from there we will walk back to my apartment.
I won’t take her downstairs to sit at the folding table in my kitchen. I’ll take her up to my library, her long skirt brushing each stair as she walks; she will be struck speechless by the rows and rows of books that run from floor to ceiling. She will reach out until her fingers are nearly touching the spines and leave them there, hovering and indecisive, and then I will lead her to the farthest corner of the room where I imagine bare shelves stretch out far past the back wall of my apartment, and I will say, “These are yours, to fill as you like.” She will put her hands on my shoulders and settle her head, her head with its shining knot of hair, on my chest. The weight of her will be soft against me, but I imagine that she will wear no perfume, and instead the smell of the books will hang heavy in the air. The steady thrum of the dehumidifier and the pounding in my ears and even the faint sound of her breathing will fade into the silence of the shelves. The books ask no overwhelming questions and make no piercing accusations.
But that is neither the pounding in my ears nor the sound of her breathing, and it is not the scratching of my pen on paper. Someone is knocking at the door, a sharp, rhythmic sound, harsh in the imagined peace of my library on this imagined afternoon. Perhaps it is the repairman at last, perhaps it is someone else. I will linger here for a moment, here where there are no human voices to break in on me, but then I must go downstairs to answer it.
Word Count: 3,855
Summary: He felt the secret of the thing was not to realize the situation.
Notes: I'm seeking a less obvious name for my narrator, if anyone has suggestions.
The Picture of Dorian Gray, Wilde; Limited Editions Club, NY, 1957. Lthr, slight chipping & cracking on spine, some pgs. discolrd
Called in sick to work and took the 22 to the Newberry this morning. It always looks particularly fine in October, and I arrived early enough that the fog had not yet cleared-rosy brown stone against burnt orange leaves, gray mist before and gray sky behind. I was glad to have brought my overcoat, though the seam on the right shoulder has torn again.
I spent a productive hour with Ames’ Typographical Antiquities and browsed Pepys’ catalogue for some time after that. I am preparing another article that I think will do well in the society monthly, if they will have it, this one on seventeenth-century collections if I don’t allow Pepys’ incunabula to run away with me. All this month I have been easily distracted, which I have until now put down to sleeping badly, but it may turn out to be symptom rather than cause.
It was not quite so cold by the afternoon, so I took my lunch in the park across the street. When my phone rang at one-thirty, I dropped the second half of my sandwich trying to answer it. Hayes was calling to ask about the NCLI account, though he began it by inquiring after my health. The sandwich was tuna on rye, of which I am growing increasingly weary, so it was no great loss.
“Nothing serious,” I said. “I often develop head colds around this time of year.”
“Of course, sir,” he said. “I hope it’s better by tomorrow.” After a moment: “Do you suppose you’ll be in tomorrow, sir?”
There was mayonnaise smeared on the toe of my right shoe. “If I had advance notice of my head colds, Hayes, I would try to schedule them for my off days; as it is I can’t say.”
“Naturally, sir. I beg your pardon.” I felt a stirring of guilt. Hayes is anxious to please. He went on: “But I finished the NCLI report and sent it upstairs yesterday, as you asked, and tenth floor is having some trouble with it.”
“Did they say what the trouble is?”
“No, sir. But it’s a complicated report, sir. I confess I didn’t understand it all when I typed it up.”
“Try to answer their questions, Hayes.” I stared across the street. The library was still there, stolid and unmoving. “I’ll be in tomorrow morning.”
“Yes, sir. Thank you.”
I went back up to the reading room afterward, hoping to accomplish something substantial in the few hours that remained before it closed. The Victorian specialist was on duty today. I believe she knows me now; at least her nod seems a trifle more genuine, and I like to think I can detect a hint of recognition behind the remote gravity of her gaze. The call had spoiled me for work, and I continually found my eyes wandering from my work to her desk, watching the downy brown wool of her cardigan stretch against her arms as she took readers’ cards and turned the pages of her book.
It was near dusk when I left, having achieved nothing worth remarking on during the whole second half of the day. The morning’s mist had turned to drizzle, but I decided to walk, and
I went west past the University towards the lake on streets that were half-deserted because of the weather. I stopped in at Powell’s with no intention of buying anything but happened upon a decent ‘57 of Dorian Gray that I couldn’t bring myself to abandon once I had seen it, although it was overpriced and far from pristine. I picked it up and looked across the room to where the Gibbon still rested in its display case, then turned my attention back to the immediately attainable. I brought it home no worse for the journey, as the clerk had wrapped it quite carefully against the rain, and I have just set it loose. It is resting on my kitchen table now next to the reheated casserole from last night.
I have had to turn the dehumidifier on again. I do hope it will be a dry winter.
Poems 1926-1930, Rbt. Graves; Heinemann 1931, 1st ed., cloth bnd; no jckt, light fading, light foxing
We have, I pray, seen the last of the NCLI account, as least until next quarter. It took me the better part of an hour, but I wrestled it into a form that ought to be acceptable to the tenth floor. The rest of that hour I spent correcting Hayes’ work from yesterday.
I read my new Wilde last night and, unable to let it out of my sight for reasons I cannot understand, as it is such a ratty old thing, I brought it in to work today, slipping it into my briefcase out of some secretive impulse and out again at lunch after I had thoroughly washed my hands. I believe I was not reading so much as exploring; the weight of the pages is pleasant and the mere look of the words on the page has a certain aesthetic appeal. He felt the secret of the thing was not to realize the situation. Hayes came up to me as I was just about to close the book and asked what I was reading. I changed the subject.
“Very good, sir,” he said to me when I asked him to rewrite a report for the third time. That smooth, clean face of his wears obeisance as though it has never known or wanted anything else, but I know that he will not watch his features slowly age, his hair slowly thin in the eternal reflection of the seventh floor windows. He will not watch the better part of his life pass here in mornings, afternoons, and evenings of tedious base level work for an inadequate base level salary. I can imagine that in five years or perhaps a little more he will have moved, smoothly and cleanly, from the seventh floor to the tenth, preserving that remarkable willingness to please but shedding, as he ought, that constant air of deference. I know that is his eventual goal, though he never seems discontented with his current position. He accepts criticism without comment, is always respectful, submissive-how that boy must despise me.
I stopped in at that little corner place on my way home; they had a very first nice edition of some of Graves’ early poetry with only minor foxing on a few pages. It fits perfectly into that gap on the fourth shelf that has been worrying me so.
Another tedious argument with the landlord. I really must have something done about the draft in my upstairs rooms, and I fear there is a leak developing in one corner of my ceiling. Either could be disastrous, but he cannot be brought to understand how urgent my need is. I brought him downstairs and offered him tea and marmalade on toast, hoping an appeal to his stomach might be more persuasive than my other efforts. He sat at my folding table and looked around my little kitchen, which I admit I have not made the most welcoming of rooms, and fixed me with eyes that could not fathom why a grown man should choose to live the way I do. The marmalade, which I bought in a fit of extravagance last week, was wasted on his disapproving palate.
He has promised to call a repairman by Monday, but I know him too well to believe he will remember without constant prompting. I can’t allow him to forget.
And I myself must remember to sew that seam on my overcoat.
Remains of the Day, Kazuo Ishiguro; 1989, Faber; 1st ed., hdcvr, faded jckt
I went to see the Gibbon again after work. The clerk has become accustomed to the shabby balding man who stops by with such regularity, and this time he smiled with mild indulgence when he saw me and actually spoke. His voice crackled like a new, unbroken spine carelessly handled, as though he hadn’t used it in years.
“Would you like me to take it out for you?”
I looked through the glass at those twelve upright columns and sighed. Just a small sigh-it had been a long and difficult day-but he noticed and took it for agreement. He fumbled for a moment with the jangling ring that hung at his side before extracting a single brass key from the rest, and I stood by while he turned it in the lock and pulled the door open on well-oiled hinges. Then he retrieved a stand and a pair of white gloves from his desk, arranging the former on a nearby bookcase and pulling the latter onto his hands with two easy practiced motions. He took the first volume out, opened it, and set it on the stand, guiding my attention to its finer points, the integrity of the binding and the clarity of the print, and allowing me to inspect the foxing on the first few pages, which fortunately was only the slightest of blemishes. Then, with precise and confident hands, he unfolded the map until it lay flat and exposed, smoothed by long fingers, so I could see the Roman Empire stretched from Britannia to Arabia.
He saw how intently I was watching him and smiled again, reaching behind the desk for a second pair of gloves. “You may handle it, very carefully, if you like.”
I considered it, wondering if it was worth touching it, turning the pages, if I would only have to hand it back a moment later, and I shook my head. “There’ll be another time for that,” I said. “I’ll come back once I can pay for it.”
He didn’t believe me, of course, though he didn’t seem to mind. To placate him I allowed him to show me a first edition of The Remains of the Day, a fine copy with its dust jacket intact, and bought it, as I haven’t read the book in years.
Michael Robartes and the Dancer, Yeats; Churchdown, Dundrum, Cuala Press; hdcvr, v. clean text; Northwestern Lib. and not my own collection, alas
It is Saturday at last. I went to Evanston first thing this morning, arriving at the University library just after it opened to the general public at 8:30. The Newberry’s charms are undeniable and its collections are certainly the best to which I have access, but it is refreshing to surround myself with students bent over their work rather than grey-haired genealogists peering through their bifocals. I am likely growing old.
I intended to continue my research for the article, but they have a 1920 Yeats that is as lovely a book as I have ever held in my hands. I abandoned my continuation of Wednesday’s notes to examine it at some length; it was slim, demure, and unassuming, the dear small thing, but its pages fell open ever so sweetly at my touch, with hardly any persuasion, and I fancied it must have been waiting for me, and I read. “I had thought that all my days were cast /Amid most lovely places”-that woke nothing but recognition, and I could not feel for her. But a “blank and pitiless gaze”, “the slow motion of thighs”-those were comforting to think on, as they have ever been.
An indulgent train of thought, but it was an indulgent sort of day. They purge the public from the library at noon, so I left and walked out to the lake. The clouds of the last few days had given way to brilliant sunlight that reflected off the waves in laughing snatches of gold, and the damp leaves made no sound as I crushed them underfoot.
Afterward I gave in to the siren song of the Newberry, genealogists or no genealogists, and went there instead of home. The Victorian specialist was there again. (I wonder when she began working Saturdays?) In my good humor I smiled at her for the first time, and in my good humor I scarcely felt surprise at her smiling back. She has perfect white teeth.
Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald-OUP, NY, '82; Hdcvr. w/ lthr spine; gilt edges
I bought this fine collector’s edition on North Lincoln after lingering in a store’s back rooms until they began to close up for the afternoon. The streets seem broader and less crowded on a Sunday. I sat down when I returned home and got out my needle and thread. All the while I half expected to hear the phone ring, Hayes calling to say he was putting in weekend hours and needed my help, the tenth floor demanding that I explain my accounts or, God forbid, clarify the NCLI report once again. Yet all the while the apartment was silent but for the low hum of the dehumidifier upstairs. My coat patched up nicely.
I cannot bear the thought of tuna on rye or leftover casserole for dinner. I think I will spend wildly and order out tonight.
The Metamorphosis, Kafka-1946, Vanguard Pr., NY. 1st American ed., cloth bnd; no jckt, minor wear.
I should clarify. I did not buy this one but left it sitting on the shelf, although it pained me to do so.
I arrived at work this morning to find there is still more trouble over the NCLI account. Hayes brought it down from the tenth floor and ever so apologetically, fluttering in his distress, asked if I could explain it again. “The bottom line, sir,” he said, “they say it’s off our estimates.”
“When is anything ever not off our estimates, Hayes?”
“Quite so, sir. But they seem concerned this time. And these columns-I still can’t make head or tail of them, sir, and that’s a fact. They won’t add up no matter what I do. Do we still have the signed expense reports?”
I looked up at him over the rim of my reading glasses. “Do I seem a bit ridiculous to you, Hayes?”
A frown plucked at his lower lip. “Sir?”
“I ask you if I seem a bit ridiculous to a young man of your age and ambitions. My work, my life, my passions, do you find them absurd?”
“Your...passions, sir?”
“Never mind, Hayes. I’ll bring the report upstairs myself when I’ve finished it.”
It was at lunch that I found the Kafka. I had no appetite and wandered out into the street instead, and my feet led me to the corner shop before I knew what they were about. I stared at it until I knew I would be late getting back to the office and then put it back where I had
found it, telling myself to have patience.
I will be ready to return to Powell’s for the Gibbon tomorrow. I am plagued by the thought that someone else may go in and snatch it up before I do. The old gravel-voiced clerk will be shocked when I hand him the check. I have been preparing weeks for this.
I was in fact late getting back, but no-one said anything, and Hayes did not even look at his watch when he came in but sat and worked quietly beside me, breaking his silence only twice to ask for some guidance. I was particularly patient today while advising him. Something in his face prompted me to feel a curious prick of affection for the boy, though he would be bemused to hear of it, and I would be foolish indeed to think of telling him.
I dreamed of studying in the Newberry last night. The Victorian specialist was there, not sitting at the front desk but reading at the one beside me; she wore the long shawl, fringed with red, that she had on Saturday, and a brown skirt that touched the ground, and her hair was twisted up in a shining Gordian knot.
Spoke to my landlord again; he has not called the repairman.
The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (in 12 vols.), Edward Gibbon; A. Strahan, T. Cadell and W. Travis, London, 1797, Little Brown & Co.; calf lthr, gilt edges; prev. owner’s bookplates & inscription, light foxing on a few pgs, absolutely stunning, and mine.
I have it. A sudden fit of nerves prevented me from going in before work, and I waited the whole day in a state of desperate impatience, snapping at poor Hayes more than once. I left a few minutes early, as I never have done before, and leapt into the first bus I saw. (In my haste, I nearly got on the one heading in the opposite direction.) The clerk’s whole face lit up when I told him my business there, and he presented me with a watertight carrying case to bring it home, his hands trembling with excitement and pleasure as he packed it for me-or were they my hands that trembled? I hailed a cab outside the store, not trusting my dear, dear find to the bus, and cursed the driver under my breath every time he hit a pothole or braked too quickly.
I spent an hour wiping, polishing, and drying the shelf, the shelf I have kept empty and waiting these long weeks since I first found this beautiful set, and then after washing my hands until they were bright pink and no trace of damaging oil could have remained I took the twelve volumes out one by one and set them gently in their places. My hands were oversensitive from the scrubbing, and yet the leather felt smooth and supple to the touch, as though it had just been tanned.
I have abandoned my research entirely for the moment, and it sits there on the table, reproaching me. My head will not bear it tonight.
I will call the repairman myself tomorrow. My Gibbon cannot sit there in this draft for long. I covered it for the night, as I will continue to do until the repairs are made, and made certain the dehumidifier was on.
It is the most perfect thing I have ever owned.
Age of Anxiety, Auden. Faber & Faber, Lndn, 1948; 1st UK ed., some wear to cover, owner's inscription
I woke early to call the repairman this morning. He has promised to come only when I am home. I did not tell him why, but I cannot trust anyone alone in the apartment with that book. I told myself I would take off work tomorrow and wait for him and tell the landlord after the work was done, and I will pay the repairman myself if I must; I cannot leave the Gibbon in a drafty room for long.
They called me up to the tenth floor this afternoon, and the Senior Department Manager asked to speak with me. It was the NCLI account again. He had it fanned out on his desk and looked straight at me over the pages, pinning me like an insect to my chair.
“How long have you worked here, Alfred?”
“Twenty-seven years, sir. Since I left college.”
“That’s a very long time.”
“Yes, sir.”
“You’ve done excellent work for us.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“Everyone who comes through our office speaks highly of you.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“Mr. Alfred, is there anything you need to change in this account?”
“Nothing, sir,” I said.
“There’s nothing at all you need to say to me?”
I could not answer the question. When he saw that, he nodded. “Why don’t you take the rest of the day, Alfred. I’ll see you first thing tomorrow morning.”
“Yes, sir.”
I went down three flights of stairs to the seventh floor, where I gathered my coat and briefcase.
“Leaving so early, sir?” Hayes asked.
I smiled and reached out to touch his shoulder. “Good afternoon, Alan.”
He stared at me. “Good afternoon, Mr. Alfred, Sir.”
I walked until my feet were raw and my fingers were frozen (I was glad I had patched the torn seam in my coat), and then I went back to the corner shop. I found that the Kafka had left me, but several others, this Auden included, all but fell into my hands, and I had no choice but to buy them.
Shadows of Ecstasy, Williams; Pellegrini & Cudahy, NY, 1950; 1st US ed., no jckt, some wear on spine
Called in sick to work today and have been waiting for the repairman to arrive. I have been examining yesterday’s purchases; I brought a chair into the library and have arranged it so I can look over the top of my book at the Gibbon whenever I choose. I half expect the phone to ring at any moment.
Perhaps I will go to the Newberry this afternoon. I will take my notes out and work, but not for long; the Victorian specialist may smile at me again, and this time I will go to the desk and ask her name. I do not know how it will go after that-perhaps we will wait until closing time, perhaps she will leave her desk empty and come with me, but it will end with her following me across the street to the park, and from there we will walk back to my apartment.
I won’t take her downstairs to sit at the folding table in my kitchen. I’ll take her up to my library, her long skirt brushing each stair as she walks; she will be struck speechless by the rows and rows of books that run from floor to ceiling. She will reach out until her fingers are nearly touching the spines and leave them there, hovering and indecisive, and then I will lead her to the farthest corner of the room where I imagine bare shelves stretch out far past the back wall of my apartment, and I will say, “These are yours, to fill as you like.” She will put her hands on my shoulders and settle her head, her head with its shining knot of hair, on my chest. The weight of her will be soft against me, but I imagine that she will wear no perfume, and instead the smell of the books will hang heavy in the air. The steady thrum of the dehumidifier and the pounding in my ears and even the faint sound of her breathing will fade into the silence of the shelves. The books ask no overwhelming questions and make no piercing accusations.
But that is neither the pounding in my ears nor the sound of her breathing, and it is not the scratching of my pen on paper. Someone is knocking at the door, a sharp, rhythmic sound, harsh in the imagined peace of my library on this imagined afternoon. Perhaps it is the repairman at last, perhaps it is someone else. I will linger here for a moment, here where there are no human voices to break in on me, but then I must go downstairs to answer it.