...of old paper

When was it exactly that I stopped jumping for joy at the mere thought that I might discover a masterpiece and come back into the office on a Monday morning a new man? Twenty years ago? Could it be thirty? I don't like doing sums of that sort, they have a whiff of mortality about them. When I close my eyes the steady glow of the Perzel lamp passes through my eyelids and summons up black whorls and floating ruins like a drawing by Victor Hugo. My breathing slows down as does my cardiac rhythm somewhat. I could easily drop off. I could die. Yes! Like Moliere, I could die in the saddle. They'd say, "He died as he lived, among books, whilst reading!" and to be honest I would have passed on while dreaming of nothing. I haven't really read properly for a long time. Do I still know how to read - I mean, to read in the full sense of the word? Am I still up to it? If I let my head loll to the side, my heart beats louder and sends a shiver through the oak...
The whole house is bathed in the silence of old paper. Books, like snow, gobble up sound. My profession has its own smell and mufflers. I can smell it better in this quiet. Going back into the noise of the world is always a challenge.

[Dear Reader, Fournel, P.]