At that moment, I saw the chief librarian marching up with his black mortarboard on his head; from a distance it looked like one of those exercise books with a ribbon hanging from it. His walk was stiff and dignified. Behind him came the fellows who had pricked Natale’s cheek, like two hotheads on holiday who snoop and sniff around in every little corner. They were his retinue.
As Natale had been gradually lowering his head since the start of his long oration and had eventually articulated its later stages with his cheek lying on the book, the head librarian took off his mortarboard and slapped in on the table, which produced a loud and sharp crack, like a grenade going off. Natale instinctively raised his arms and covered his head, as though one of the beams or even the whole of the library’s ceiling was coming down. Many of those close by, who had been either reclining or completely stretched out, jumped to their feet and looked at each with eyes wide open and alert and a hand on their beating hearts. One of them had the flushed face of an apoplectic, and constantly repeated: “But what was that? What could have fallen?” The attendants, who were carefully inspecting a reader’s downy and almost bald head heavily bent forward, were somewhat shaken themselves, and immediately ran over looking quizzical, as they felt it was something to do with them. One of them set about purposefully examining the point on the table where Accetto had inflicted the blow with his mortarboard. Indeed, there were several squashed ants and a dazed wasp that continued to buzz noisily. He waved a colleague over, as though to indicate an incident of some considerable moment, and, following some carefully planned manoeuvres, they managed to deposit the wasp in a small box, which they closed warily. They then got back to the business of snooping around and inspecting the books and readers, while handing out advice and assistance. I saw them whispering in someone’s ear and that someone was saying no – but I don’t know to what – and putting his fingers to his ears. Another reader had inadvertently slipped down from his chair, and they were helping him to get back up and seat himself once more in a decorous manner, but it appeared that the man did not want this and tried to wriggle free. His pyjama, which was a single garment made of some elastic material, was slipped over his head and hid his face. He continued to struggle like a weasel in a sack that the hunter has closed off with rope.
Accetto leant down towards me: “Is this the book you ordered, sir?”
Overcome with contentment, I thanked him, and he placed it in front of me. I attempted to open it, but its pages were still uncut, even though it was dusty and in bad condition. The pages were like an accordion.
“You’ll have to treat the books more carefully,” he said, “don’t breath on them, don’t fold them over, don’t be rough with them.”
“All right,” I said, as I looked for the title, but there was no cover – just a discoloured handwritten label. “This is not the book I requested,” I added quietly. “It has another title.” He was standing to attention with his mortarboard held on his head by an elastic, but he was refusing to answer. Looking for some encouragement, I glanced at my neighbour who was listening with both eyes open, although they were tired and the midges were giving them bother. He nodded at me discreetly as he sat hunched at the table.
“This is not the one,” I repeated to Accetto, and showed him the label on the spine, The Natural History of the Twentieth Century.
“Yes, it may not be exactly the one you requested.”
“You’ll excuse me: it is not a matter of ‘may be’ or ‘may not be’. This is not the book I asked for; it is completely different. You have made a mistake.” I held it out to him, but he did not seem very keen to take it back.
“The label,” he said, “can occasionally be misleading. I may well have made a mistake, but I can assure you that it is an authoritative work, and if you start to examine its contents, you will probably have to admit that I haven’t got it that wrong.”
“Listen, I do not have a lot of time, and I asked for a specific book, as stated in my reading list. Would you please get me what I need?”
He just stood there and had no intention of giving in:
“You know, finding a book is not an easy matter. This is only the first time you have come here, and you may not be aware that this library is very old and its collections have not been properly sorted out. It is difficult to get hold of the exact book that has been ordered. Sometimes the book is missing, because it has been moved elsewhere, perhaps not very far, and we would have to look for it. Do you understand?” He waved his hand towards the people crouching on chairs with their faces resting on the armrests and their eyes closed by the uncomfortable sleep of those who are resigned to their fate. “Do you understand?
All those people are waiting. If you’re in such a hurry, wouldn’t it be better to make do with something that approximates to what you wanted? Why would you want to sit there with nothing to do but stare at the ceiling? But let’s be very clear about this: if you want that book of yours – if you are absolutely determined,” he looked at me doubtfully, as if he were giving me time to admit to my own doubts and adapt to the circumstances, “if, for you, it has to be that very book, then you can make a reservation. You are quite at liberty to do so. In the meantime, I would however suggest that you do not give up the one you have in your possession. What is it exactly that has disappointed you? Is it the missing cover? Or is the fact that it is covered in dust?
“It is not the cover,” answered dryly, “nor is it the dust.”
“Then what have you got to complain about?”
“It is not the book I wanted.” I was looking at Natale as I said this, but he was leaning over as though to hear better, but I could not see his eyes.
“Take a look at it first. How can you be so sure? It may not be the right one, but I can assure you that its pressmark is very, very similar, and even the title isn’t that different. If however there has been an error, I am the first to apologise of course, but it has only been a very slight mistake. You should not be so severe and punctilious with people who are just trying to do their best. I could have brought any old thing: there are, for example, some enormous atlases. Would you be interested?”
“No, no,” I said, “I’m not interested. I’m not at all interested.”
“There are globes, which don’t resemble a book in any fashion, and yet I did not bring them. There are some redleather, folio editions that contain no writing at all – just herbs and flowers. Herbals, they’re called.”
“But I don’t want them, and I never asked for them.”
“Now you understand! I didn’t just pick up the first book that came to hand, the most conspicuous one. I made every effort to please you. If you continue to reject this book, as you are fully entitled to do, I can certainly change it! That is what I am here for.”
“Well then, do me this favour.”
“However, I should point out that if you are not going to be a little more accommodating – if you refuse to meet us halfway and fail to allow for a margin of human error, you had better make a reservation and come back in a few days. Don’t you even want to take a look at this one? It is after all a book. What makes you think it won’t be interesting?”
I was left with very little choice. I was prey to anxiety and uncertainty, particularly as my endeavours were hurried and haphazard; besides I wanted him to go and perhaps I would then have managed to get something done on my own. And so I reluctantly accepted the book as a kind of experiment just to bring the matter to a close. At the same time, the idea of the exam was turning my blood to ice and to fire.
“But I need a paperknife,” I said.
“Now look, you need to put in an application, if you want to cut the pages, because there’s an office that deals specifically with the right tools.”
“You don’t need much, just a paperknife. I assure you that I can do it myself. I am skilled at it.”
“I have no doubt that you have done this in the past and, I do not deny it, done it quite successfully. The problem is, you see, that at the moment you are in a state of impatience, and impatience makes people do things badly. Moreover, I am not authorised to hand you over the responsibility for cutting the pages, and in all honesty, I must confess that I would be doubtful about doing so even if I had the authority, now that I see you in such a hurry and, if you don’t mind me saying, so casual in your approach to the whole matter. In any event, I would want you to do a trial on some paper of lesser value, which would not constitute such a great loss. You know that it just takes one little nervous twitch and the knife is out of control!”
I could feel time flying by, and heard a clock striking the hour far in the distance – in some other part of the city. It was one o’clock.
“What if I put in this application?” I asked in the hope of expediting the business.
“It takes time to make the application, and you would have to come back another day. Nothing is improvised here, and in my opinion, although I might be mistaken, the entire procedure is neither easy nor undemanding. I can tell you that in certain circumstances, it could prove impossible.”
“But what do you mean?” I said spreading my arms in dismay. “Have you seen the state of that book?”
“You said it. And do you want to degrade its condition even further? Do you know what dangers it is exposed to every day of the week? – what damage it has already suffered because of insects, which, as you can see defecate continually? – and because of mould and light? – and because of unforeseen events, such as earthquakes, frosts, floods, tidal waves, hooliganism and insurrections?” Here he stopped pensively, as though he had been talking to himself, and he adjusted his mortarboard to a horizontal position, as the elastic and the increasing vehemence of his words had shifted it to the back of his head. He appeared to be thinking of terrifying disasters that were imminent, even of meteorites, because he had lifted his eyes slightly upwards. I also looked up and there was a small window with an iron grate. I thought I could see moths and fireflies flying together.
“I have an exam tomorrow – tomorrow morning at eight o’clock, so I can’t. If I were to submit this application, I would have to wait and all to no purpose.” But why this book? Now my hands were tied; how had I let this happen to me? I thought to myself. Perhaps I should have sent it back and then continued to peep across and read my neighbour’s book, given that he was now leaning over on his side with head hanging down, almost touching me.
“Having considered your inadequate state,” Accetto started to speechify, “and your pressing requirements…” he lent down, “you show me the page you are looking for, and we’ll do what we can, meet you halfway, so that you don’t take up a seat for no useful purpose.”
“Just the one page?” I asked.
“We have to keep the damage to the absolute minimum; if however that is not to your taste, we will consider the possibility of cutting another one.”
Who would have thought it – such a complication! In order to reach some kind of decision, I started to peer into pages I could separate by a few centimetres. As I did so, all manner of things slipped out: yellowish sawdust, dried insect cocoons, spider skins and a black sand, which must have been the aforementioned’s droppings famously produced by invertebrates. Then, to speed up the process, I pointed to a spot in the middle of the book, where I could make out the title of a section. He then proferred this huge and quite monstrous nail on his little finger, slipped it between the pages and cut them with just two strokes, which, I have to say, were both bold and masterly. And so the book opened up in front of me. I lightly but sceptically blew a way all the animal remains, while the toothache started once more to make its presence felt.