The bay windows rise all the way to the mahogany ceiling, their light veiled by pearl-grey net curtains, and on the white walls, near the bottom, nothing but electric sockets, countless sockets in a line twenty centimetres from the floor. Ranged along the dark parquet, the work tables form rows, each one about thirty metres long. Four hundred and twenty work spaces, each identical, a small rectangle of wood with a movable screen in its centre that comes to life at a user’s touch, although for now all the screens are dead, and an anxious silence dominates the room. At the entrance the official warned me this could last a few more minutes or several hours, adding that this type of incident was fortunately very rare, everything had been working well this morning, until about an hour ago, then nothing. A few people have given up, he said, so you’ll easily find a place, two hundred and forty-six, for example, ideal for you as you like to be on the side, you’ll be fine. I did not ask for more, and went to sit down, happy not to be right in the middle of a row and the focus of too much attention. Not that I have anything to hide, but I don’t like to be looked at. I don’t like to be talked to, either. Libraries are for reading, nothing more.

Whispered discussions are taking place here and there, and in the north-west corner, a small group of people has formed, their faces starting to show signs of impatience, a little confusion too: should one go, and leave everything, or stay and risk wasting the whole day? The young woman sitting to one side of me has progressively rotated her chair and is now facing me; her eyes glance across the room from one side to the other, she frowns, seems to be thinking, and then says to me, inoffensively, with some tenderness even, or a kindly astonishment, At your age, do you still have access to the professionals’ floor? In the half-light I cannot make out if she’s smiling; I would like to ignore her but it would be rude, so I answer simply that I have the right to certain privileges, acquired long ago, which no-one has thought to revoke, not even since the new facilities were installed. It was a huge alteration; a library without books seems peculiar to me. To her it does not seem so peculiar. It is me she finds strange. Especially when I tell her I have thousands of books at home. At the current cost of real estate? she cries. Clearly she has no conception of what possible use they could be. To make things worse for myself, but unable to resist mocking her, I mention all the boxes that have to be filled when moving house, all the numbering and labelling, the transportation, the unpacking of them all again.