But you love books, then,” Aunt Queen was saying. I had to listen.“Oh, yes,” Le stat said. “Sometimes they are the only thing that keeps me alive.”“What a strange thing to say at your age,” she laughed.”No, but one can feel desperate at any age, don’t you think? The young are eternally desperate,” he said frankly. “And books, they offer one hope —- that a whole universe might open up from between the covers, and falling into that new universe, one is saved.

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