A Passion for Books Read online

  “At how much do you value it?”

  Giacomo stopped a long time and replied with a proud air:

  “Two hundred pistoles, my lord.”

  He looked at the young man with a triumphant air, as if he were saying to him: “You are going to leave; it’s too high, and yet I will not give it for less.”

  He was mistaken, for the other man, showing his purse, said:

  “There are three hundred.”

  Giacomo turned pale and almost fainted.

  “Three hundred pistoles?” he repeated. “But I am a fool, my lord, I will not sell it for four hundred.”

  The student began to laugh, fumbling in his pocket, from which he drew out two other purses.

  “Well, then, Giacomo, here are five hundred. Oh, no, you do not want to sell it, Giacomo, but I will have it. I will have it to-day, this instant. I need it. If I had to sell this ring given with a kiss, if I had to sell my sword studded with diamonds, my houses, and my palaces, if I had to sell my soul, I must have this book. Yes, I must have it at all costs, at any price. In a week I am defending a thesis at Salamanca. I need this book to become a doctor. I must be a doctor to be an archbishop. I need the purple gown before I can have the tiara on my forehead.”

  Giacomo approached him with admiration and respect as the only man whom he had understood.

  “Listen, Giacomo,” interrupted the nobleman. “I am going to tell you a secret which is going to make your fortune and your happiness. There is a man here who lives at the Arabs’ Gate. He has a book: it is The Mystery of Saint Michael.”

  “The Mystery of Saint Michael ?” said Giacomo, raising a cry of joy. “Oh, thanks! You have saved my life!”

  “Quick! Give me the Chronicle of Turkey.”

  Giacomo ran to a shelf. There he suddenly stopped, turned pale, and said with an astonished air:

  “But, my lord, I do not have it.”

  “Oh, Giacomo, that is a very clumsy trick, and your looks belie your words.”

  “Oh, my lord, I swear to you, I do not have it.”

  “Why, you are an old fool, Giacomo. Look, here are six hundred pistoles.”

  Giacomo took the manuscript and gave it to the young man.

  “Take care of it,” said he when the other man went off laughing and said to his valets as he mounted his mule:

  “You know that your master is a fool, but he has just deceived an imbecile. The idiot of a churlish monk!” he repeated, laughing. “He believes that I am going to be Pope!”

  And the poor Giacomo remained sad and disconsolate, leaning his burning forehead on the windowpanes of his shop, weeping with rage and regarding with bitterness and grief his manuscript, the object of his care and of his affection, which the gross footmen of the nobleman were carrying away.

  “Oh, accursed man of hell! Accursed, a hundred times accursed are you who have robbed me of all that I love on earth! Oh, I cannot live now! I know that he has deceived me, the infamous one, he has deceived me! If this be so, I shall avenge myself. Let us go quickly to the Arabs’ Gate. If this man were to ask me a sum larger than I have, what to do then? Oh, it is enough to kill one!”

  He took the money which the student had left on the desk and went out running.

  While he was going through the streets he saw nothing of all that surrounded him. Everything passed before him like a nightmare, of which he did not understand the enigma. He heard neither the feet of the passersby nor the noise of the wheels on the paving. He did not think, he did not dream, he did not see anything but books. He was thinking of The Mystery of Saint Michael. He fashioned it to himself, in his imagination, large and thin, with parchment ornamented with gold letters. He tried to guess the number of pages which it must contain. His heart beat with violence like that of a man who awaits his death sentence.

  At last he arrived. The student had not deceived him. On an old Persian carpet, full of holes, were laid out on the ground some ten books. Giacomo, without speaking to the man who, stretched out like his books, was sleeping at one side and snoring in the sun, fell on his knees and began to cast an uneasy and anxious eye over the backs of the books. Then he arose, pale and crestfallen, and wakened the bouquiniste with a shout and asked him:

  “Ah, friend, you do not have here The Mystery of Saint Michael? ”

  “What?” said the merchant, opening his eyes. “You do not mean to speak about a book which I have? Look around for yourself !”

  “The imbecile!” said Giacomo, kicking him with his foot. “Have you others than these?”

  “Yes, let’s see, here they are.”

  And he showed him a little packet of pamphlets tied with cords. Giacomo broke the cords and read the titles of them in a second.

  “Hell,” said he, “it is not that. Have you not sold it, perhaps? Oh, if you have got it, give it, give it! One hundred pistoles, two hundred, all that you wish!”

  The bouquiniste looked at him, astonished. “Oh! perhaps you mean to speak of a little book which I gave yesterday for eight maravedis to the curé of the Cathedral of Oviedo?”

  “Do you remember the title of this book?”

  “No.”

  “Was it not The Mystery of Saint Michael? ”

  “Yes, that’s it.”

  Giacomo turned away a few steps and fell in the dust like a man worn out by an apparition which possesses him.

  When he came to himself, it was evening and the sun which reddened the horizon was in its decline. He raised himself and went home sick and despairing.

  A week later, Giacomo had not forgotten the sad disappointment, and his wound was still throbbing and bleeding. He had not slept at all for three nights, for this day there was to be sold the first book which had been printed in Spain, a copy unique in the kingdom. It was a long time that he had wanted to have it. So he was happy the day that they told him that the owner was now dead.

  But an uneasiness seized his spirit. Baptisto could buy it; Baptisto, who for some time had taken from him, not the customers—that concerned him very little—but all that which appeared rare and old; Baptisto, whose fame he hated with the hatred of an artist. This man became burdensome to him; it was always he who took away the manuscripts. At public sales he bid and he obtained. Oh! how many times the poor monk, in his dreams of ambition and of pride, how many times he saw come toward him Baptisto’s long hand which passed across the crowd as on the days of a sale, come to rob him of a treasure of which he had dreamed so long, which he had coveted with so much love and egotism! How many times also had he been tempted to end with a crime that which neither money nor patience had been able to accomplish. But he drove back this idea in his heart, tried to divert his thoughts from the hatred which he bore to this man and went to sleep on his books.

  Early in the morning he was in front of the house in which the sale was to take place. He was there before the auctioneer, before the public, and before the sun.

  As soon as the doors opened he precipitated himself in the stairway, went into the room, and asked for this book. They showed it to him. That was already a happiness.

  Oh! never had he seen anything so beautiful or that pleased him more. It was a Latin Bible, with Greek commentaries. He looked at it and admired it more than all the others. He clasped it between his fingers, smiling bitterly, like a man who is starving in sight of gold.

  Never, moreover, had he desired anything so much. Oh! how he coveted it then, even at the price of all that which he had, his books, his manuscripts, his six hundred pistoles, at the price of his blood. Oh! how he would have liked to have this book! To sell all, all to have this book, to have only it, but to have it for himself, to be able to show it to all Spain, with a smile of insult and pity for the King, for the princes, for the savants, for Baptisto, and say: “Mine, this book is mine!” and to hold it in his two hands for his life, to fondle it as he touches it, to take in all its fragrance as he smells it!

  At last the hour arrived. Baptisto was in the centre, with serene face, calm and pe
aceful air. They came to the book. Giacomo offered at first twenty pistoles. Baptisto kept quiet and did not look at the Bible. Already the monk advanced his hand to seize this book, which had cost him no little trouble and anguish, when Baptisto started to say:

  “Forty!”

  Giacomo saw with horror that his antagonist got excited in proportion as the price mounted higher.

  “Fifty!” he cried with all his strength.

  “Sixty!” replied Baptisto.

  “One hundred!”

  “Four hundred!”

  “Five hundred!” added the monk regretfully. And while he stamped his feet with impatience and anger, Baptisto affected an ironical and wicked calmness. Already the sharp and cracked voice of the usher had repeated three times: “Five hundred.” Already Giacomo was consumed with happiness. A sigh which escaped from the lips of a man came near causing him to faint, for the bookseller of the Palace Square, pressing forward in the crowd, said:

  “Six hundred!” The voice of the usher repeated four times: “Six hundred”—and no other voice replied to him. Only there was seen, at one end of the table, a man with pale forehead, with trembling hands, a man who laughed bitterly with that laugh of the damned in Dante. He lowered his head, thrust his hand in his chest, and when he withdrew it, it was warm and moist, for he had flesh and blood at the end of his fingernails.

  They passed the book from hand to hand, so as to bring it within reach of Baptisto. The book passed before Giacomo. He smelled its fragrance; he saw it pass an instant before his eyes, then stop before a man who took it, laughing. Then the monk lowered his head to hide his face, for he was weeping. On returning by the streets, his walk was slow and painful. His face was strange and stupid, his figure grotesque and ridiculous. He had the air of an intoxicated man, for he staggered. His eyes were half-closed; he had red and burning eyelids. The perspiration ran down his forehead, and he stammered between his teeth, like a man who has drunk too much and who has partaken too freely at a banquet. His thought was no longer under control; it wavered like his body, without having either end or intention; it was unsettled, irresolute, heavy, and bizarre. His head weighed like lead, his forehead burned like a brazier.

  Yes, he was drunk with that which he had felt, he was fatigued with his days, and he was surfeited with existence. That day—it was a Sunday—the people promenaded in the streets, talking and singing. The poor monk listened to their chatting and their songs. He gathered in the road some scraps of phrases, some words, some cries, but it seemed to him that it was always the same sound, the same voice. It was a vague, confused hubbub, a music bizarre and noisy, which buzzed in his head and which crushed him.

  “Say,” said one man to his neighbour, “have you heard tell of the story of that poor curé of Oviedo who was found strangled in his bed?” Here, there was a group of women who took the evening air on their doorsteps. Here is what Giacomo heard in passing before them:

  “Say then, Martha, do you know that there was at Salamanca a rich young man, Don Bernardo—you know, the one who, when he came here a few days ago, had a fine black mule, so pretty and so well equipped, and who made it paw the paving stones? Well, then, the poor young man, they told me at church this morning, that he was dead!”

  “Dead?” said a young girl.

  “Yes, little one,” replied the woman. “He is dead, here, at the Hotel de Saint-Pierre. First he felt bad in his head; then he had a fever; and at the end of four days they buried him.”

  Giacomo heard still other things. All these souvenirs made him tremble, and a ferocious smile came to play around his mouth.

  The monk went home, worn out and sick. He stretched out on the bench of his desk and slept. His chest was oppressed; a raucous and hollow sound came from his throat. He awoke with fever. A horrible nightmare had exhausted his strength.

  It was then night, and it had just struck eleven at the neighbouring church. Giacomo heard cries of “Fire! Fire!” He opened his windows, went into the street, and actually saw flames which shot up above the roofs. He went back and was going to take up his lamp to go into his shop when he heard before his windows men running past and saying: “It is in the Palace Square. The fire is at Baptisto’s!”

  The monk gave a start; a loud peal of laughter rose from the depths of his heart, and he proceeded with the crowd toward the bookseller’s house. The house was on fire; the flames rose up, high and terrible, and driven by the winds, they darted toward the fine blue sky of Spain, which looked down on agitated and tumultuous Barcelona like a veil covering up tears. They saw a man half-naked; he was desperate; he was tearing his hair; he rolled on the ground, blaspheming God and raising cries of rage and despair. It was Baptisto.

  The monk contemplated his despair and his cries with calmness and happiness, with that wild laughter of the child laughing at the tortures of the butterfly whose wings he has plucked.

  They saw in an upper story flames which were burning some bundles of paper. Giacomo took a ladder, leaned it against the blackened and tottering wall. The ladder trembled under his steps. He mounted on a run and arrived at that window. Curses! It was nothing but some old books from the bookshop, without value or merit. What to do? He had entered; it was necessary either to advance in the midst of this inflamed atmosphere or to descend again by the ladder of which the wood was beginning to get hot. No! He advanced.

  He crossed several rooms; the floor trembled under his steps; the doors fell when he approached them; the beams hung down over his head; he ran into the midst of the fire, panting and furious.

  He needed that book! He must have it or death!

  He did not know where to direct his course, but he ran.

  At last he arrived before a partition, which was intact. He broke it with a kick and saw an obscure and narrow apartment. He groped, he felt some books under his fingers. He touched one of them, took it, and carried it away out of this room. It was it! It, The Mystery of Saint Michael ! He retraced his steps, like a man lost and in delirium. He leaped over the holes; he flew into the flame, but he did not find again the ladder which he had placed against the wall. He came to a window and descended outside, clinging with hands and knees to the tough surfaces. His clothing began to get on fire, and when he arrived in the street he rolled himself in the gutter to put out the flames which were burning him.

  Some months passed and one no longer heard talk about the bookseller Giacomo, except as one of those singular and strange men at whom the crowd laughs in the streets because it does not at all understand their passions and their manias.

  Spain was occupied with more grave and more serious interests. An evil genius seemed to be hanging over it. Each day, new murders and new crimes, and all seemed to come from an invisible and hidden hand. It was a dagger suspended over every roof and over every family. There were people who disappeared suddenly without any trace of blood spilled from their wound. A man started out on a journey; he never came back. They did not know to what to attribute this horrible scourge, for it is necessary to attribute misfortune to someone who is a stranger, but happiness to oneself. In fact, there are days so ill omened in life, epochs so baneful to men, that not knowing whom to crush with his maledictions, one cries out to heaven. It is during these unfortunate epochs for the people that one believes in fatality.

  A quick and industrious police had tried, it is true, to discover the author of all these crimes. The hired spy had slipped into all the houses, had listened to all the words, heard all the cries, seen all the looks—and had learned nothing. The prosecutor had opened all the letters, broken all the seals, searched in all the corners, and had found nothing.

  One morning, however, Barcelona had left off its robe of mourning to crowd into the courts of justice, where they were going to condemn to death the man whom they supposed to be the author of all these horrible murders. The people hid their tears under a convulsive laugh, for when one suffers and when one weeps, it is a consolation, self-centred, it is true, to see the sufferings and tears o
f others.

  Poor Giacomo, so calm and so peaceful, was accused of having burned the house of Baptisto, of having stolen his Bible. He was charged also with a thousand other accusations. He was there, seated on the bench for murderers and brigands. He, the honest bibliophile, the poor Giacomo, who thought only of his books, was now compromised in the mysteries of murder and the scaffold.

  The room was glutted with people. At last the prosecutor raised himself and read his report. He was long and diffuse; it was with difficulty that one could distinguish the principal action from parentheses and reflections. The prosecutor said that he had found in the house of Giacomo the Bible which belonged to Baptisto, since this Bible was the only one of its kind in Spain; now it was probable that it was Giacomo who had set fire to the house of Baptisto to possess himself of this rare and precious book. He stopped and seated himself, out of breath.

  As to the monk, he was calm and undisturbed and did not reply even by a look to the multitude which was insulting him.

  His advocate rose, spoke long and well. Then, when he believed he had shaken his audience, he raised his robe and drew out from it a book. He opened it and showed it to the public. It was another copy of this same Bible.

  Giacomo raised a cry and fell back on his bench, tearing his hair. The moment was critical. A word from the accused was awaited, but no sound came from his mouth. At last he seated himself, looked at his judges and at his attorney like a man who is just wakening.

  They asked him if he was guilty of having set fire to the house of Baptisto.

  “No, alas!” he replied.

  “No?”

  “But are you going to condemn me? Oh! Condemn me, I beg of you! Life is a burden to me. My attorney has lied to you. Do not believe him. Oh! Condemn me; I have killed Don Bernardo, I have killed the curé, I have stolen the book, the unique book, for there are not two of them in Spain! My lords, kill me! I am a miserable wretch!”