Be it out of compassion or boredom, the gentleman with the owlish look informed her that she’d just set foot in one of the greatest libraries in the world, that over twenty-five million volumes awaited her inside. But if she’d come with the idea of using the bathrooms or reading fashion magazines, she had better turn around and catch pneumonia in the outdoor world.

“May I ask Your Lordship who you are?” asked Alicia.

“I haven’t seen any lordships for years, but if you’re referring to this humble person, let it be known that I’m the director of this house, and that one of my favorite pastimes is chucking out bumpkins and intruders.”

“I understand, but I wish to become a member.”

“And I wish I’d written David Copperfield, yet here I am, getting old and with no decent body of work to show for it. What’s your name, dear?”

“Alicia Gris, at your service, and Spain’s, sir.”

“Not having given birth to any contemporary classic doesn’t stop me from appreciating irony or impertinence. I can’t answer for Spain, there being too many voices pretending to speak for her out there already, but I can’t see how you could serve me, except to remind me that the years are advancing. However, I don’t consider myself an ogre, and if your wish to become a member is sincere, I won’t be the one to keep you in total illiteracy. My name is Bermeo Pumares.”

“It’s an honor, sir. I place myself in your expert hands to receive the guidance that will rescue me from ignorance and allow me, under your command, to cross the threshold of this Arcadia.”

Bermeo Pumares raised his eyebrows and reconsidered his opponent.

“I’m beginning to get the vague impression that you can rescue yourself very well on your own, and that your ignorance is less sizable than your boldness, Señorita Gris. I’m also well aware that encyclopedic gluttony has ended up warping my speech, making it veer toward the baroque, but there’s no need to make fun of an old teacher, either.”

“It would never occur to me to do such a thing.”

“I see. By their words ye shall know them. I like you, Alicia, even though I may not give that impression. Come inside and go over to the counter. Tell Puri that Pumares said to issue a card for you.”

“How can I thank you?”

“By dropping by and reading good books, whichever you feel like reading, not what I or anyone else says you’ve got to read. I may be a touch dogmatic, but I’m not a pedant.”

“You can be quite sure I will.”

That afternoon Alicia got her reader’s card and passed the first of many afternoons in the main reading room, getting acquainted with some of the treasures that centuries of human ingenuity had managed to conjure up. More than once she looked up from her page and found the owlish gaze of Don Bermeo Pumares, who liked ambling around the room to see what everyone was reading. He would gruffly eject those who had nodded off or were whispering, because, as he said, for slumbering minds and inane conversations the big outdoor world offered plenty of opportunity.