”Behind the little door loomed a foggy space lit by a kind of glass skylight whose near opacity might have been due to the caretakers’ negligence or just to the ineluctable grime that time continuously deposits on things destined to die. But once accustomed to the ghostly light, I observed not neglect but a state of almost exaggerated order reigning in Room Number Three. Against the walls rose the imposing architecture of three full bookcases. Opposite the skylight was a desk of carved wood, furnished with a lectern, an ancient friar’s chair, and a green lamp. The floor was covered by a large carpet, which swallowed the sound of footsteps and seemed to admonish one to use stealth. Neither paintings nor prints distracted one’s eyes; on the contrary, the furniture, books, rug, even the sky-blue damask covering the walls had lost their original colours and faded to a single tone, indefinite, shabby, dead. Such was Room Number Three, the room hidden behind the little door, the laboratory of a risible transformation, of an evil without glory, of the obscure metamorphosis you behold in me now. But what abomination lurked in that room?
”In Room Number Three, the Founder had collected thick, stiff-spined volumes with yellowed pages: books containing all the illuminations of the soul, all the mad flights of the intellect, all the prudent discourses of reason and the blasphemous audacities come up with by mortal man in his attempts to plumb the Absolute. Well then, gentlemen, I was seeking the Absolute, whether on the wings of love or of rancour, I wasn’t too sure; and I threw myself into reading those books with a voracity that grew keener every time I found an image of what I felt or an answer to my old inner questions. And, sure enough, it was a well-laid road to perdition.
”Before telling you what happened in Room Number Three, I must explain something about the insurance broker called Don Ecuménico, still subsisting within me. At first, my incursions into the Mansion of Books took place in the afternoon and evening. In the mornings, I’d take a run through the oyster beds of my clientele, then rush to the office, deposit the fruits of my labour, and make myself scarce until the next morning. Even though my new work habits weren’t exactly orthodox, I was still good enough at my job that the company didn’t get alarmed; I brought in the normal amount of business, and nobody asked what Don Ecuménico was up to when he was off work. But things changed after the revelation of the little door and what lay behind its precious quilting. I would read till nightfall, at which point the Librarian would drive me out. Then I’d eat something at my rooming house; meals took place amid phantom faces, with me chewing away on Doña Consuelo’s stews along with the latest problem I’d brought from Room Number Three. After supper, I went straight to bed, and the problem bedded down with me, getting into my dreams, keeping me awake, gnawing at my grey matter, and finally releasing me at the threshold of the new day. Exhausted in body and soul, I went back to my morning rounds; but an unspeakable force dragged me against my will back to the Mansion of Books, a force I struggled with for a long time before it finally overcame me. At first I gave in once a week, then twice, finally three times. At the Insurance Company, astonishment and consternation reigned. They began by gently admonishing me, then came the bitter tirades, and then a shameful dismissal that left me jobless and without benefits. Fortunately, I had my savings and lived a very frugal life. I decided then to steer clear of all occupations except the one that took me, morning and afternoon, to Room Number Three. For my bliss was now summed up in the following luxuries: to sense, with a shiver of pleasure, the little door closing discreetly behind me; to feel how my soul opened its petals to the unreal luminosity coming from the skylight; to breathe in the odour of bindings, ancient papers, and disinfectants against gnawing insects; to place a book on the lectern and then wrestle with the Divinity, in a struggle of unequal arms but inebriating in that very disparity.
”It was a marvellous road to perdition! It was a mortal leap of pride, in three somersaults which I will now briefly describe:
”First somersault: Immersing myself in the texts of orthodox theologians, I go back to the infantile notion of a Divinity who regards us tenderly. I weep with love over the delectable old pages. I fall into an unctuous piety that makes me laugh at my former self-flagellation and leads me now into subtle ways of temptation. Yesterday, as I passed through the children’s room, I caressed the dear little head of a child cutting out figures; today I looked at the jugs of the woman security guard with the merest hint of indulgence. Careful, Don Ecuménico! Watch out for the big lie!
”Second somersault: I’m now devouring the big series of books in folio format. Strange conceptions about the Divinity. What’s this? God is no longer absolutely impassive, but rather the Being obliged to exteriorize his possibilities of manifestation! And I, Ecuménico, am one of those possibilities! Bravo, Ecuménico! That’s putting it to the old boy Up There! Give’m the old one-two! I go striding around Room Number Three. Then I stand in front of the skylight and let fly with a metaphysical speech that rattles its glass panes. The Librarian from hell unexpectedly comes in, glances around, and goes away. He hasn’t noticed anything, or pretends not to notice!
”Third somersault: a ravenous hunger has me exploring the moth-eaten tomes shelved in the stacks at the back. I laboriously reconstruct lines of prose riddled with holes. And my mind is dazzled, it staggers, it lurches into unfathomable abysses. Great God, what has your vast divinity been reduced to! They used to say you were Being, beyond which nothing existed. And now it turns out there is a Non-Being anterior to you, a Non-Being fabulously rich in metaphysics, a Non-Being of which you are only an affirmation! How brainy those damned Orientals are! Laugh, Ecuménico! And, sitting on the friar’s chair, I laugh my head off, long and loud, till I’m weeping and sniffling with laughter. What a victory, Ecuménico! A lowly insurance broker! And again the Librarian comes in, examines the room, and turns back. He’s heard nothing, or pretends he’s heard nothing.
Here the infernal bug paused, panting. Madness flamed and sparked in his faceted eyes; his spiral-proboscis, completely out of control, alternately slackened and wound itself back up; his thorax was thudding erratically, and a slimy sweat oozed from the fat rings of his abdomen. Then he began to speak in an insufferably shrill, pedantic voice: