My Father’s Books

Libraries

46 Li­ brar­ ies After Mr. K. and my ­ father had ex­ hausted the major po­ lit­ i­ cal ques­ tions they had ­ learned about from lis­ ten­ ing to both West­ ern and East­ ern radio sta­ tions, they would usu­ ally end up talk­ ing about the pains, along with the pleas­ ures, that they de­ rived from their books. Mr. K. was con­ sumed by the idea of hav­ ing as many books as pos­ sible; he ­ wanted to own every book in the world. My ­ father ­ wanted to have those gen­ u­ ine books, those books that gave his life di­ rec­ tion, and that he could read and re­ read as long as he lived. Mr. K. ­ wanted a ver­ i­ ta­ ble jun­ gle of books into which he could enter and lose him­ self, in which he could spend his whole life. My ­ father, how­ ever, ­ wanted a for­ est, a gar­ den in which each ­ flower would smile at him when he ­ wished to pick it. Mr. K. fre­ quently ­ brought over books that would be of great inter­ est to my ­ father but of sec­ on­ dary inter­ est to him­ self. My ­ father read them and then con­ scien­ tiously re­ turned them to Mr. K.; my ­ father, en­ thused by the con­ tents of the book, would set off on a quest for new books. Mr. K. fre­ quently ­ brought my ­ father books ­ worthy of trans­ la­ tion, hop­ ing to find an oc­ cu­ pa­ tion for the two of them dur­ ing those years of pov­ erty. Mr. K. had con­ verted ­ nearly half of his house into a li­ brary. An en­ tire room was ­ filled with rows of book­ cases, like in a pub­ lic li­ brary, just as he had seen in his ­ travels in Paris. One had to admit that in our city there was not yet, nor would there be for a long time, a li­ brary as big, as rich, and as beau­ ti­ ful as his. Mr. K. often told my ­ father that he ­ dreamed of con­ vert­ ing the en­ tire house into a li­ brary. ...