The Club Dumas

“That’s how I feel now,” he said. “I get up because I can’t sleep. I stand here, resolved to commit another desecration.” He moved so close to Corso as he spoke that Corso wanted to take a step back. “To sin against myself and against them ... I touch one book, then change my mind, choose another one but end up putting it back in its place.... I must sacrifice one so that the others can live, snap off a branch so that the tree...” He held up his right hand. “I would rather cut off one of my fingers.”

As he made the gesture, his hand trembled. Corso nodded. He knew how to listen. It was part of the job. He could even understand. But he wasn’t prepared to join in. This didn’t con­cern him. As Varo Borja would have said, he was a mercenary, and he was paying a visit. What Fargas needed was a confessor, or a psychiatrist.

“Nobody would pay a penny for an old book collector’s finger,” Corso said lightly.

The joke was lost in the immense void that filled Fargas’s eyes. He was looking through Corso. In his dilated pupils and absent gaze there were only books.

“So which should I choose?” Fargas went on. Corso took a cigarette from his coat pocket and offered it to the old man, but Fargas didn’t notice. Absorbed, obsessed, he was listening only to himself, was aware of nothing but his tortured mind. “After much thought I have chosen two candidates.” He took two books from the floor and put them on the table. “Tell me what you think.”

Corso bent over the books. He opened one of them at a page with an engraving, a woodcut of three men and a woman work­ing in a mine. It was a second edition of De re metallica by Georgius Agricola, in Latin, printed by Froben and Episcopius in Basle only five years after its first edition in 1556. He gave a grunt of approval as he lit his cigarette.

“As you can see, making a choice isn’t easy.” Fargas was following Corso’s movements intently. Anxiously he watched him turn the pages, barely brushing them with his fingertips. “I sell one book each time. And not just any one. The sacrifice has to ensure that the rest are safe for another six months. It’s my tribute to the Minotaur.” He tapped his temple. “We all have one at the center of the labyrinth.... Our reason creates him, and he imposes his own horror.”

“Why don’t you sell several less valuable books at one time? Then you’d raise the money you need and still keep the rarer ones. Or your favorites.”

“Place some over others?” Fargas shuddered. “I simply couldn’t do it. They all have the same immortal soul. To me they all have the same rights. I have my favorites, of course. How could I not? But I never make distinctions by a gesture, a word that might raise them above their less favored compan­ions. Rather the opposite. Remember that God chose his own son to be sacrificed. For the redemption of mankind. And Abraham...” He seemed to be referring to the painting on the ceiling, because he looked up and smiled sadly at the empty space, leaving the sentence unfinished.

Corso opened the secpnd book, a folio with an Italian parch­ment binding from the 1700s. Inside was a magnificent Virgil. Giunta’s Venetian edition, printed in 1544. This revived Fargas. “Beautiful, isn’t it?” He stepped in front of Corso and snatched it from him impatiently. “Look at the title page, at the architectural border. One hundred and thirteen woodcuts, all perfect except for page 345, which has a small, ancient res­toration, almost imperceptible, in one of the bottom corners. As it happens, this is my favorite. Look: Aeneas in hell, next to the Sibyl. Have you ever seen anything like it? Look at these flames behind the triple wall, the cauldron of the damned, the bird devouring their entrails....” The old book collector’s pulse was almost visible, throbbing in his wrists and temples. His voice became deeper as he held the book up to his eyes so he could read more clearly. His expression was radiant. “Moenia amnlata videt, triplici circundata muro, quae rapidus flamnis am­bit torrentibus amnis.” He paused, ecstatic. “The engraver had a beautiful, violent, medieval view of Virgil’s Hades.”

“A magnificent book,” confirmed Corso, dragging on his cigarette.

“It’s more than that. Feel the paper. ‘Esemplare buono e genuine con le figure assai ben impresse,’ assure the old cata­logues.” After this feverish outburst, Fargas once more stared into empty space, absorbed, engrossed in the dark corners of his nightmare. “I think I’ll sell this one.”

Corso exhaled impatiently. “I don’t understand. This is ob­viously one of your favorites. So is the Agricola. Your hands tremble as you touch them.”