Quicker than the eye

so lonely.»

«No. I had these. Company.»

«Here's more.»

She put down Ivanhoe, Robin Hood, and Treasure Island.

«Oh,» he said, «and dear and strange Mr. Poe. How I loved his Red Death.»

«You took it so often I told you to keep it on permanent loan unless someone else asked. Someone did, six months later, and when you brought it in I could see it was a terrible blow. A few days later I let you have Poe for another year. I don't recall, did you ever-?»

«It's out in California. Shall I-«

«No, no. Please. Well, here are your books. Let me bring others.»

She came out not carrying many books but one at a time, as if each one were, indeed, special.

She began to make a circle inside the other Stonehenge circle and as she placed the books, in lonely splendor, he said their names and then the names of the authors who had written them and then the names of those who had sat across from him so many years ago and read the books quietly or sometimes whispered the finest parts aloud, so beautifully that no one said Quiet or Silence or even Shh!

She placed the first book and there was a wild field of broom and a wind blowing a young woman across that field as it began to snow and someone, far away, called «Kathy» and as the snows fell he saw a girl he had walked to school in the sixth grade seated across the table, her eyes fixed to the windblown field and the snow and the lost woman in another time of winter.

A second book was set in place and a black and beauteous horse raced across a summer field of green and on that horse was another girl, who hid behind the book and dared to pass him notes when he was twelve.

And then there was the far ghost with a snow-maiden face whose hair was a long golden harp played by the summer airs; she who was always sailing to Byzantium where Emperors were drowsed by golden birds that sang in clockwork cages at sunset and dawn. She who always skirted the outer rim of school and went to swim in the deep lake ten thousand afternoons ago and never came out, so was never found, but suddenly now she made landfall here in the green-shaded light and opened Yeats to at last sail home from Byzantium.

And on her right: John Huff, whose name came clearer than the rest, who claimed to have climbed every tree in town and fallen from none, who had raced through watermelon patches treading melons, never touching earth, to knock down rainfalls of chestnuts with one blow, who yodeled at your sun-up window and wrote the same Mark Twain book report in four different grades before the teachers caught on, at which he said, vanishing, «Just call me Huck.»

And to his right, the pale son of the town hotel owner who looked as if he had gone sleepless forever, who swore every empty house was haunted and took you there to prove it, with a juicy tongue, compressed nose, and throat gargling that sounded the long October demise, the terrible and unutterable fall of the House of Usher.

And next to him was yet another girl.

And next to her …

And just beyond …

Miss Adams placed a final book and he recalled the fair creature, long ago, when such things were left unsaid, glancing up at him one day when he was an unknowing twelve and she was a wise thirteen to quietly say: «I am Beauty. And you, are you the Beast?»

Now, late in time, he wanted to answer that small and wondrous ghost: «No. He hides in the stacks and when the clock strikes three, will prowl forth to drink.»

And it was finished, all the books were placed, the outer ring of his selves and the inner ring of remembered faces, deathless, with summer and autumn names.

He sat for a long moment and then another long moment and then, one by one, reached for and took all of the books that had been his, and still were, and opened them and read and shut them and took another until he reached the end of the outer circle and then went to touch and turn and find the raft on the river, the field of broom where the storms lived, and the pasture with the black and beauteous horse and its lovely rider. Behind him, he heard the lady librarian quietly back away to leave him with words .

A long while later he sat back, rubbed his yes, and looked around at the fortress, the encirclement, the Roman encampment of books, and nodded, his eyes wet.

«Yes.»

He heard her move behind him.

«Yes, what?»

«What you said, Thomas Wolfe, the title of that book of his. Wrong. Everything's here. Nothing's changed.»

«Nothing will as long as I can help it,,, she said.

«Don't ever go away.»

«I won't if you'll come back more often.»

Just then, from below the town, not so very far off, a train whistle blew. She said:

«Is that yours?»

«No, but the one soon after,» he said and got up and moved around the small monuments that stood very tall and one by one, shut the covers, his lips moving to sound the old titles and the old, dear names.

«Do we have to put them back on the shelves?» he said. She looked at him and at the double circle and after a long moment said, «Tomorrow will do. Why?»

«Maybe,» he said, «during the night, because of the color of those lamps, green, the jungle, maybe those creatures you mentioned will come out and turn the pages with their breath. And maybe-«

«What else?»

«Maybe my friends, who've hid in the stacks all these years, will come out, too.',

«They're already here,» she said quietly.

«Yes.» He nodded. «They are.»

And still he could not move.

She backed off across the room without making any sound, and when she reached her desk she called back, the last call of the night.

«Closing time. Closing time, children.»

And turned the lights quickly off and then on and then halfway between; a library twilight.

He moved from the table with the double circle of books and came to her and said, «I Can go now.»

«Yes,» she said. «William Henry Spaulding. You can.» They walked together as she turned out the lights, turned out the lights, one by one. She helped him into his coat and

then, hardly thinking to do so, he took her hand and kissed her fingers.

It was so abrupt, she almost laughed, but then she said, «Remember what Edith Whanon said when Henry James did what you just did?»

«What?»

'The flavor starts at the elbow.'

They broke into laughter together and he turned and went down the marble steps toward the stained-glass entry. At the bottom of the stairs he looked up at her and said:

«Tonight, when you're going to sleep, remember what I called you when I was twelve, and say it out loud.»

«I don't remember,» she said.

«Yes, you do.»

Below the town, a train whistle blew again.

He opened the front door, stepped out, and he was gone. Her hand on the last light switch, looking in at the double circle of books on the far table, she thought: What was it he called me?

«Oh, yes,» she said a moment later.

And switched off the light.