Still, the library is kept warmer than my own room, to ward off mould from the books; and I find I prefer to write, than to sew. He gives me a pencil with a soft lead that moves silently upon paper, and a green-shaded reading-lamp, to save my eyes.
The lamp smells, as it heats, of smouldering dust: a curious smell—I shall grow to hate it!—the smell of the parching of my own youth.
My work itself is of the most tedious kind, and consists chiefly of copying pages of text, from antique volumes, into a leather-bound book. The book is a slim one, and when it is filled my job is to render it blank again with a piece of india-rubber. I remember this task, more than I remember the pieces of matter I am made to copy: for the pages, from endless friction, grow smudged and fragile and liable to tear; and the sight of a smudge on a leaf o