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Shameless and sure of herself, she stooped forward, pressed her arm to her side, pricked her two large ears and opened her little eyes greedily. He took the brief-case by both ends and laid it firmly on the carpet. His face looked proud. He stooped down and remained stooping. She was running with sweat and trembling in every limb. Tears came into her eyes, under the carpet then, that's it. She'd always said, under the carpet. What a fool! He straightened himself, cracked his joints and spat. Or did he only say 'There!' He took up the brief-case, extracted a volume and slowly replaced it on the shelves. He did the same with all the others.

Thérèse came over faint. No thank you, indeed! There's nothing more worth looking at. So that's your sensible man, with never a smile or a word! She's sensible herself, and hard-working, but would she demean herself? You could cut her hand off, you don't find her mixed up in such things. He acts stupid in front of his own housekeeper. A creature like that to have money! And so much money, heaps and heaps of money! Ought to be put away. The way he wastes his money! Anyone else in her position now, any of that ragtag and bobtail there is these days, they'd have had the last stitch of clothing off his back long ago. Doesn't even sleep in a decent bed. What does he want with all these books and books? He can't be reading all of them at once. If you ask her, he's nothing but a loony, ought to have his money taken away before he wastes it all, and then let him go his own way. She'll teach him! Enticing a respectable woman into his house, indeed. Thinks he can make a fool of anyone, does he? Nobody can make a fool of her. For eight years perhaps, but not a moment longer!

By the time Kien had made his second selection of books for his morning walk, Therese's first anger had evaporated. She saw that he was ready to go out, glided in her normal, self-possessed manner back to the heap of paper and inserted the dustpan underneath it with dignity. She 'seemed to herself a more interesting and distinguished person than before.

No, she decided, she would not give up her post. But she's found him out now. Well, that's something to know. If she sees anything, she knows how to make use of it. She doesn't see many things. She hasn't ever been outside the town. She's not one for excursions, a waste of good money. You don't catch her going bathing, it's not respectable. She doesn't care for travelling, you never know where you are. If she didn't have to go shopping, she'd prefer to stay in all day. They all try to do you down. Prices going up all the time, things aren't the same any more.

CHAPTER III

CONFUCIUS THE MATCHMAKER

On the following Sunday Kien came back elated from his morning walk. The streets were empty on Sundays at this early hour. Humankind began each holiday by lying late. Then they fell upon their best clothes. They spent their first wakeful hours in devotions before the looking glass. During the remainder they recovered from their own grimaces by looking at other people's. Each thought himself the finest. To prove it he must go among his fellows. On weekdays: sweat and babble to earn a living. On Sundays: sweat and babble for nothing. The day of rest had been first intended as a day of silence. Kien noted with scorn that this institution, like all others, had degenerated into its exact opposite. He himself had no use for a day of rest. Always he worked and always in silence.

Outside the door of his flat he found the housekeeper. She had evidently been waiting for him some time.

'The Metzger child from the second floor was here. You promised him he could come. He would have it, you were in. The maid saw someone tall coming upstairs. He'll be back in half an hour. He won't disturb you, he's coming for the book.'

Kien had not been listening. Only at the word 'book' did he become attentive and understood in retrospect what the matter was. 'He is lying. I promised nothing. I told him I would show him some pictures from India and China if I ever had time. I have no time. Send him away.'

'Some people have a cheek. Excuse me, such ragtag and bobtail. The father was a common working man. Where they get the money from, I'd like to know. But there you are. Everything for the children, these days. Nobody is strict any more. Cheeky they are; you wouldn't credit it. Playing at their lessons and going for walks with teacher. Excuse me, in my time it was very different. If a child didn't want to learn its parents took it away from school and put it to a trade. With a hard master, so it had to learn. Nothing like that these, days. You don't catch people wanting to work now. Don't know their places any more, that's what it is. Look at young people these days, when they go out on Sundays. Every factory girl has to have a new blouse. I ask you, and what do they do with all their fancy stuff. Go off bathing and take it all off again. With boys, too. Whoever heard of such a thing in my time? Let 'em do a job of work, that'd be more like it. I always say, where does the money come from? Prices going up all the time. Potatoes cost double already. It's not surprising, children have a check. Parents don't check them at all. In my days, it was a couple of good smacks, left and right, and the child had to do as it was told. There's nothing good left in the world. When they're little they don't learn, when they grow up they don't do a hand's turn.

Kien had been irritated at first because she was holding him up with a long discourse, but soon he found himself yielding to a kind of astonished interest in her words. So this uneducated creature set great value on learning. She must have a sound core. Perhaps the result of her daily contact with his books. Other women in her position might not have taken colour from their surroundings. She was more receptive, perhaps she yearned for education.

'You are quite right,' he said, 'I am happy to find you so sensible. Learning is everything.'

They had entered the flat while they were talking. 'Wait a minute!' he commanded and disappeared into the library. He came back with a small book in his left hand. As he turned over the pages, he thrust his thin, hard lips outwards. 'Listen!' he said and signalled her to stand a little further from him. What he was about to utter called for space. With an abundance of feeling, grotesquely unsuited to the simplicity of the text, he read:

'My master commanded me to learn three thousand characters every day and to write down another thousand each evening. In the short winter days the sun went down early and I had not finished my task. I carried my little tablet on to the veranda which faced the west and finished my writing there. Late in the evening, when I was going through what I had written, I could no longer overcome my weariness. So I placed two buckets of water behind me. When I grew too sleepy, I took off my gown and emptied the first bucket over myself. Naked, I sat down to my work again. Gradually I would grow warmer and sleepy again. Then I would use the second bucket. with the help of two shower baths I was nearly always able to complete my task. In that winter I entered my ninth year.'

Moved and ablaze with admiration, he clapped the book to. 'That was the way they used to learn! A fragment from the childhood recollections of the Japanese scholar Arai Hakuseki.'

During the reading, Thérèse had drawn closer. Her head waggled in time to his sentences. Her large left ear seemed to reach out of itself towards the words, as he translated freely from the Japanese original. Unintentionally, he was holding the book a little crooked; doubtless she could see the foreign characters and was astonished at the fluency of his rendering. He was reading as if he had a German book in his hands. 'Well I never!' she said. He had finished; she took a deep breath. Her amazement amused him. Was it too late, he thought, how old can she be; It is never too late to learn. But she would have to begin with simple novels.

The bell rang violently. Thérèse opened the door. The little Metzger boy pushed his head through the crack. 'I may come in!' he shouted, 'the Professor said I could!' 'No books for you!' screamed Thérèse, and slammed the door. Outside the little boy raged up and down. He yelled threats at the door; he was so angry that they could not understand a word he said. 'Excuse me, he takes a whole fistful in one. They'd be dirty in no time. I've seen him eat his piece of bread and butter on the stairs.'

Kien was on the threshold of the library: the boy had not seen him. He nodded approvingly to his housekeeper. He was happy to find the interests of his books so well defended. She deserved thanks: 'Should you ever wish to read anything, you may always apply to me.'

'I make so bold, I often thought of asking.'

How she jumped on her opportunity, when books were in question! She was not usually like this. Until this moment she had behaved herself very modestly. He had no intention of starting a lending library. To gain time he answered: 'Good. I shall look something out foryou to-morrow.'

Then he sat down to his work. His promise made him feel uneasy. It was true that she dusted the books every day and had not yet injured one of them. But dusting and reading are different. Her fingers were coarse and rough. Delicate paper must be delicately handled. A hard binding can naturally stand rougher handling than sensitive pages. And how did he know that she
could
read? She must be more than fifty, she had not made much use of her time. 'An old man who learnt late', Plato called his opponent, the cynic philosopher Antisthenes. To-day we have old women who learn late. She wanted to quench her thirst at the fountain head. Or was she only ashamed of admitting in my presence that she knew nothing? Charity is all very well, but not at other people's expense. Why should the books have to foot the bill? I pay her high wages. I have a right to, it is my own money. But to hand over books to her would be cowardly. They are defenceless against the uneducated. I cannot sit by her all the time she is reading.

That night he saw a man standing, fast bound, on the terrace of a temple, defending himself with wooden clubs from the savage attacks of two upright jaguars on his left and right. Both animals were decked with strange streamers in all colours. They gnashed their teeth, roared and rolled their eyes so wildly that it made the blood run cold. The sky was black and narrow, and had hidden his stars in his pocket. Tears of glass trickled out of the eyes of the prisoner and splintered into a thousand pieces as they reached the pavement. But as nothing further happened, the savage combat grew boring and made the spectator yawn. Then by chance his eye fell on the feet of the jaguars. They had human feet. Aha, thought the spectator — a lanky, learned man — these are sacrificial priests of ancient Mexico. They are performing a sacred comedy. The victim knows well that he must die in the end. The priests are disguised as jaguars but I see through them at once.

The jaguar on the right seized a heavy stone wedge and drove it into the victim's heart. One edge of it clove sharp through the breast bone. Kien closed his eyes, dazzled. He thought, the blood must spirt up to the very sky; he sternly disapproved of this medieval barbarism. He waited until he thought the blood must have ceased to flow, then opened his eyes. Oh horrible: from the cleft victim's wounded breast a book appeared, another, a third, many. There was no end to it, they fell to the ground, they were clutched at by viscous flames. The blood had set fire to the wood, the books were burning. 'Shut your breast!' shouted Kien to the prisoner, 'Shut your breast!' He gesticulated with his hands; 'you must do it like this, quickly, quickly!' The prisoner understood; with a terrific jerk he freed himself of his bonds and clutched both his hands over his heart; Kien breathed again.

Then suddenly the victim tore his bosom wide open. Books poured forth in torrents. Scores, hundreds, they were beyond counting; the flames licked up towards the paper; each one wailed for help; a fearful shrieking rose on all sides. Kien stretched out his arms to the books, now blazing to heaven. The altar was much further off than he had thought. He took a couple of strides and was no nearer. He must run if he was to save them alive. He ran and fell; this cursed shortness of breath; it came of neglecting his physical health; he could tear himself into pieces with rage. A useless creature, when there was need of him he was no use. Those miserable wretches ! Human sacrifices he had heard of—but books, books! Now at last he was at the altar. The fire singed his hair and eyebrows. The wood pyre was enormous; from the distance he had thought it quite small. They must be in the very centre of the fire. Into it then, you coward, you swaggerer, you miserable sinner!

But why blame himself? He was in the middle of it.
Where are you? Where are you?
The flames dazzled him. And what the devil was this, wherever he reached out, he could get hold of nothing but shrieking human beings. They clutched hold of him with all their strength. He hurled them from him, they came back to him. They crept to him from below and entwined his knees; from above his head burning torches rained down on him. He was not looking up yet he saw them clearly. They seized on his ears, his hair, his shoulders. They enchained him with their bodies. Bedlam broke loose. 'Let me go,' he shouted, 'I don't know you. What do you want with me! How can I rescue die books!'

But one of them had thrown himself against his mouth, and clung fast to his tightly closed lips. He wanted to speak again, but he could not open his mouth. He implored them in his mind:
I can't save them! I can't save them!
He wanted to cry, but where were his tears? His eyes too were fast closed; human beings were pressing against them too. He tried to step free of them, he lifted his right leg high in the air; in vain, it was dragged back again, dragged down by a burden of burning human kind, dragged down by a leaden weight. He abhorred them, these greedy creatures; could they not be satisfied with the life they had had? He loathed them. He would have liked to hurt them, torment them, reproach them; he could do nothing, nothing! Not for one moment did he forget why he was there. They might hold his eyes forcibly shut, but in his spirit he could see mightily. He saw a book growing in every direction at once until it filled the sky and the earth and the whole of space to the very horizon. At its edges a reddish glow, slowly, quietly, devoured it. Proud, silent, uncomplaining, it endured a martyr's death. Men screamed and shrieked, the book burnt without a word. Martyrs do not cry out, saints do not cry out.

Then a voice spoke; in it was all knowledge, for it was the voice of God: 'There are no books here. All is vanity.' And at once Kien knew that the voice spoke truth. Lightly, he threw off the burning mob and jumped out of the fire. He was saved. Did it hurt then?