Free A Dream of Horses & Other Stories by Aashish Kaul Page B

It felt like a piece of luck, and seeing that I was interested he handed me a few more details. Thus I came to know that the library had some very rare books and first editions, and that it was more or less neglected by the authorities and would have fallen into disuse had it not been for the librarian, a foreigner, old and solitary, half blind, who continued to petition for and receive a yearly grant to run it. He informed me that the old man (they had never learnt how to pronounce his name, and now nobody remembered it) had no family and no one could tell exactly why and how he had come here of all places. He rarely left the library these days, but twice a week gave lessons to a few children from nearby villages. Aside from these children, he said to me, people up here have forgotten the old man and the library.
    By then my mind was made up. A library hidden in the mountains seemed a little misplaced. It appeared as if, upset with the world, it had chosen its exile and with a half-blind old man for a guardian created for itself a peaceful oblivion.
    At about noon I walked to the library. Amid the pines it was fairly cold, but the climb warmed me up a little. Here and there light broke through the green cover and birds chirped in chorus. The path went rising and falling and curving into the mountain. Then all at once the vista opened and I saw the abandoned church that in the silence appeared majestic; icicles that hung from its eaves were slowly melting away. To my left was the library which, together with the old church stood at the edge of a precipice that gave away into a deep narrow valley from where came the faint gurgling sound of a stream.
    One of the large heavy doors was partly open and I slipped in. I came into some sort of a hallway. Here it was bright and warm, but the air had a whiff of that distinct smell which is produced by the slow decaying of paper. Beneath a large circular dome there were wide glass ventilators through which the outside light cameinto the building. From the centre-space beneath the dome tall open cabinets stretched out in every direction. Even-sized metal plates affixed at the top of each cabinet indicated the different categories: ‘PURE SCIENCES’, ‘LITERATURE’, ‘PHILOSOPHY’, so on and so forth. To my left was a large librarian’s desk that nearly concealed a wide cabinet made of pigeonholes. It was entirely free of cards. The whole place seemed to have turned inwards.
    At first I saw no one, for the man who was quietly working in a corner under a feeble lamp was so small that it was not difficult to miss him in the vast surroundings. Merrily enjoying his work, he had not seen me. I felt a little apologetic to disturb him, but I called at last. My words had no effect on him. I called again. This time he raised his head and looked at me. I saw that his face was in proportion to his body, small and thin with a reddish complexion, a beak of a nose, and tiny eyes as if made of glass like a sparrow’s. His head nearly free of hair was kept warm by a woollen balaclava rolled up to just about his ears. His eyes had in them a somewhat searching look and at the same time a certain inner quiet.
    About him were two stacks of paper. One blank and another covered with minute well-formed letters in purple ink, written in a delicate hand. A red hardbound book lay next to the stack of blank pages. Its spine told me it was a Carlyle –
Sartor Resartus
. I wanted to say something – anything – when, recovering from his thoughts, he asked in his faint and very slightly accented voice what I thought of his library.
    At last I managed to say something. He seemed to weigh my words in his mind. Then his eyes appeared confident and he offered me a chair. I sat down and for a moment watched how the sun’s rays fell on some of those books, accentuating the slow process of their decay.
    We spoke of libraries. The power they possess, the lure to lose oneself in them. Now his eyes were glowing –