Tied up with a love for books

I.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

The monotonous sound of the code scanner kissing the greasy bindings of the books lent to the public library readers was becoming tiresome. It echoed at least twenty times per minute, and as the hours passed and his body slowly began to writhe with fatigue, he could no longer perceive the repetitive play from any distance.

He usually came to work with an upbeat attitude, convinced that his time in the library was worthwhile. The beeping of the small machine was more motivating in the morning – he could hear the sound of a job well done, which meant that the books were not lost and could be browsed through by other people, who would appear again and again in the doorway to get the information they wanted. However, this idea was no longer satisfying at the end of the day. It was drowned out by the pain of an oncoming backache, blurred vision, and thoughts of a good dinner. There was an hour left in the shift. Then he was free to go home.

As if real life was happening everywhere but within these walls.

Then the entrance door opened. A strange couple entered the library. A girl of exotic appearance – but what does exotic really mean, thought the young librarian – and a man whose wrinkled face revealed the years he might have already experienced while his girlfriend was still unborn.

She was fresh, full of life, announcing her arrival with a ringing laugh that naturally outraged the whole library. Shh! Echoed in one accord from behind the shelves and from the armchairs reserved for the quiet reading of dusty volumes by authors no longer alive.

He, too, was full of life, driven by the girl at his side, with body movements that showed he didn't care much for the opinions of others.

While he watched these two in silence, he continued to receive the books heading back to the shelves. People returned last-minute borrowed copies – retirees using the books to help them get their lives back on track, students looking for guidance on life, or mothers trying to find ways to take care of their child's health and not ruin the life that had just started – all of them trying to steal his attention. But he kept an eye on that two.

"Don't fight it so much! Pick a book, open it to a random page, and read me what it says," the man encouraged the young girl. Still laughing, she stepped in front of one of the shelves in the novel section, reached behind her and pulled out a slim book, and began to read.

II.

"I have been walking for more than a month. Soon I got calluses on my feet, but I didn't care. I was happy to leave my daily routine and embark on a new adventure," she began to read aloud.

She looked at her boyfriend. He was watching her with interest. But his eyes were focused on her lips, and her breasts moving with each breath she took. She whirled around and scanned the library space as if she suddenly realized the casualness of their entrance into the building and the noise that accompanied their arrival. She noticed a young librarian a few feet away from them, boringly scanning the books being returned by the crowd. Then she turned her gaze back.

"When I reached the border between Austria and Italy, my shoes were so worn out that I had to throw them in the trash. I continued on for several kilometers barefoot, but the rocky path was crushing my skin, so I rang the doorbell of the nearest house and asked the locals if they knew anyone who could give me new shoes."

As she kept reading, she wondered if her theater had convinced her boyfriend. She knew the library well and stopped deliberately in front of the travel journals. She knew that if she stretched her arm straight enough, she would pull out one of the books she had already read. She managed to pick out an author who had walked from Prague to Venice and who, between the lines, told of a place that no longer existed today because Venice had become a ghost town. It was exactly what she dreamed of when she walked every day to the tram stop that took her to work.

"Finally, I've reached my destination," she finished reading a quote from a favorite writer and looked at her boyfriend.

He was smiling.

"And now me," he said without commenting on what he had heard. He took the girl's hand and pulled her towards the poetry department.

III.

I'm so happy, he told himself as he passed the young man behind the desk, who examined him suspiciously. He didn't like that look, so he frowned at him. He clasped Eve's palm and headed towards the shelves filled with poetry.

"I like Novalis," he said while breaking the rule of random book selection he had introduced a moment ago. The girl sat down in one of the musty chairs, waiting for him to start reading.

"Before I start," he said. "Did you know that Novalis wanted to die by thought?"

"What?" his beautiful girlfriend responded in confusion. She licked her lips nervously and looked around again.

"Really! He died awfully early, he didn't even live to be thirty. When he was twenty-two, he got engaged to a girl named Sophie. She was thirteen," he explained as he flipped through his favorite poems. He hadn't noticed how his girlfriend's mood had changed. She looked around again while doubts began to appear on her face.

Full of enthusiasm, he continued:

"Well, this Sophie died when she was fifteen. Shortly before they were supposed to get married. Novalis, of course, was deeply moved and decided to end his life as well. But he believed that the heart, the soul, and the body were so interconnected that there was no need to commit suicide by hanging or cutting oneself. He believed it was possible to end life without violence and blood, so he concentrated hard on dying. He regularly visited the grave of his beloved and waited for the consistent solitude to bring the death of his body."

"No way," said Eve, who was being devoured by the chair, weakly.

"Oh, really. Of course, he failed. Not only did he survive, but he fell in love again. But then he died of tuberculosis." He licked his lips and began to read:

"I'm sailing there now,

where the tribulation

turns to pleasure.

Soon the soul

will fly away

and rest in love

in its embrace."

IV.

And a dizzying life

ripples through me.

Now I'm just looking down from above

I look up to you.

By the cairn

thy glow has faded

and the cool wreath

has overshadowed thy face.

The librarian had just turned off his computer and was ready to leave when he heard the familiar verses. He turned his head to the couple who had moved to the other side of the room and watched the man recite poems about the loss of love without pause.

Meanwhile, the girl sitting in the chair had ceased her efforts to escape the sudden inner stirring which led her to the dangerous thought. Was she not herself the girl who might die before her partner? Aren't these verses a proof that no love can be strong enough when even a writer so famous who made history with poems about his deceased fiancée was able to love again after all? The thought tormented her, stripping her of the haze of love with which she had entered the library.

Suddenly she wished for nothing but to slip away quietly. I'd rather walk to Venice alone now, she thought.

But the man sitting across from her continued to read the agonizing verses. At last, he could share with the girl of his dreams the words that had guided him through his adolescence and based on which he had created his own fantasy of love. 

The librarian took the card off his neck and went to the cloakroom to get his coat. As he made his way out of the library door, he noticed the exotic girl standing a few feet away from him, holding her cell phone tightly in her hand. While he was considering approaching her, she raised her head and looked at him with eyes full of hope.

She smiled, but he remained standing. And then he turned his back on her and went to the nearest subway station.

We are all bound by our love of books, he thought. But life is elsewhere.