drew her, a sisterly sympathy for any author whose work was either unfinished or lost to time. Had the unknown author abandoned the work; published a first volume, hoping for readers who never came? Legitimate thesis topic or not, The Ravages of Umbria had drama built right into every part of it. Dulcie put her feet up and kept on reading. Returning once again to an imaginary Italy and the real peace of Widener – the low whirr of the library breathing – had given her room to think again, to be herself.
Sure, even on a summer evening, the library wasn’t empty. The coveted offices that bookended the long, metal aisles down here were largely locked up, the pebbled-glass windows dark in the wooden doors. Tenured professors did tend to abandon the city in summer, preferring to compose their scholarly articles from the deep, shaded porches of their houses on Nantucket or the Cape. And Dulcie had had her pick of the bare-bones study carrels, even though the molded desk-and-shelf units were usually reserved for scholars far more advanced through their theses or post-doc research. She shuffled a bit in the hard plastic seat and then, from memory, froze. Counting the seconds, she remembered other nights down here, long-ago evenings when she and Jonah would wait to see how long it would be before the motion-sensor lights went dark, their private game leading as often to giggles as to romance. Ten seconds; no, fifteen. Or was it twenty?
But Dulcie wasn’t entirely alone down here this evening. She’d heard the occasional footstep, the squelched sneeze, and these small signs of life made the peace sweeter. It was a respectful peace, a shared quiet. And even the odd shock – when someone peered into her aisle, causing another row of overhead fluorescents to click on – was part of the polite scholarly world.
‘Sorry, sorry,’ an impossibly skinny, balding man had whispered, as he retreated.
‘No problem,’ she’d whispered back. But he’d kept walking, the echo of his sneakers on the metal frame floor fading. At the far end of the hall, a hinged door squealed. He must be one of those special few who could get into the ‘cages’, the locked sections cordoned off by floor-to-ceiling chain-link fence, where rare and particularly fragile texts were kept. She heard the creak of the door closing, a click, and then silence again.
Dulcie had spent an idyllic two hours there, reading and rereading the ‘disputed pages’, as the later fragments of The Ravages were called . These read like an epilogue, telling of one particular ‘jealous spirit, worn lean with longing’. That was the last legible line before ‘spells most potent for their proximity had robbed you of your patrimony. Beware the jealous spirit of —’
Who was that ‘jealous spirit’? Dulcie had mulled that one over until a librarian came around to chase them all out, lighting up each aisle without apology. Did it refer to the ghost of the old retainer, or some other spirit who’d gotten lost in the missing pages? Dulcie underlined the phrase in her notebook and added a question mark. Perhaps— But just then a voice interrupted: ‘The stacks will be closing in fifteen minutes. Please gather up your materials.’
Her train of thought derailed, Dulcie made one last note: ‘Which ghost?’ Gothic novels were full of such spirits, though the authors tended to debunk their own tales, explaining their phantoms away by the story’s end. The author of The Ravages had never gotten that far; had not even had a chance to show whether the spectre was good or evil.
‘Time, people.’
Dulcie waited till the attendant had passed before reshelving the leather-bound volume. Library rules mandated that staff – not students – take charge of this task, preferring the extra labor to the risk of misshelved books. But Dulcie knew this area well enough to make sure the book went back where it was supposed to be, and, standing on tiptoes, patted it even with its
Sure, even on a summer evening, the library wasn’t empty. The coveted offices that bookended the long, metal aisles down here were largely locked up, the pebbled-glass windows dark in the wooden doors. Tenured professors did tend to abandon the city in summer, preferring to compose their scholarly articles from the deep, shaded porches of their houses on Nantucket or the Cape. And Dulcie had had her pick of the bare-bones study carrels, even though the molded desk-and-shelf units were usually reserved for scholars far more advanced through their theses or post-doc research. She shuffled a bit in the hard plastic seat and then, from memory, froze. Counting the seconds, she remembered other nights down here, long-ago evenings when she and Jonah would wait to see how long it would be before the motion-sensor lights went dark, their private game leading as often to giggles as to romance. Ten seconds; no, fifteen. Or was it twenty?
But Dulcie wasn’t entirely alone down here this evening. She’d heard the occasional footstep, the squelched sneeze, and these small signs of life made the peace sweeter. It was a respectful peace, a shared quiet. And even the odd shock – when someone peered into her aisle, causing another row of overhead fluorescents to click on – was part of the polite scholarly world.
‘Sorry, sorry,’ an impossibly skinny, balding man had whispered, as he retreated.
‘No problem,’ she’d whispered back. But he’d kept walking, the echo of his sneakers on the metal frame floor fading. At the far end of the hall, a hinged door squealed. He must be one of those special few who could get into the ‘cages’, the locked sections cordoned off by floor-to-ceiling chain-link fence, where rare and particularly fragile texts were kept. She heard the creak of the door closing, a click, and then silence again.
Dulcie had spent an idyllic two hours there, reading and rereading the ‘disputed pages’, as the later fragments of The Ravages were called . These read like an epilogue, telling of one particular ‘jealous spirit, worn lean with longing’. That was the last legible line before ‘spells most potent for their proximity had robbed you of your patrimony. Beware the jealous spirit of —’
Who was that ‘jealous spirit’? Dulcie had mulled that one over until a librarian came around to chase them all out, lighting up each aisle without apology. Did it refer to the ghost of the old retainer, or some other spirit who’d gotten lost in the missing pages? Dulcie underlined the phrase in her notebook and added a question mark. Perhaps— But just then a voice interrupted: ‘The stacks will be closing in fifteen minutes. Please gather up your materials.’
Her train of thought derailed, Dulcie made one last note: ‘Which ghost?’ Gothic novels were full of such spirits, though the authors tended to debunk their own tales, explaining their phantoms away by the story’s end. The author of The Ravages had never gotten that far; had not even had a chance to show whether the spectre was good or evil.
‘Time, people.’
Dulcie waited till the attendant had passed before reshelving the leather-bound volume. Library rules mandated that staff – not students – take charge of this task, preferring the extra labor to the risk of misshelved books. But Dulcie knew this area well enough to make sure the book went back where it was supposed to be, and, standing on tiptoes, patted it even with its
Similar Books
