The Museum of Literary Souls

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Mr. Berger did not act instantly. He had never considered himself a duplicitous individual, and he tried to tell himself that his actions in gaining Mr. Gedeon’s confidence were as much to do with his enjoyment of that gentleman’s company and his fascination with the Caxton’s contents as with any desire he might have harbored to save Anna Karenina from further fatal encounters with locomotives.

There was more than a grain of truth to this. Mr. Berger did enjoy spending time with Mr. Gedeon, for the librarian was a vast repository of information about the library and the history of his predecessors in the role. Similarly, no bibliophile could fail to be entranced by the library’s inventory, and each day among its stacks brought new treasures to light, some of which had been acquired purely for their rarity value rather than because of any particular character link: annotated manuscripts dating back to the birth of the printed word, including poetical works by Donne, Marvell, and Spenser; not one but two copies of the First Folio of Shakespeare’s works, one of them belonging to Edward Knight himself — the book-holder of the King’s Men and the presumed proofreader of the manuscript sources for the Folio — containing his handwritten corrections to the errors that had crept into his particular edition, for the Folio was still being proofread during the printing of the book, and there were variances between individual copies; and what Mr. Berger suspected might well be notes in Dickens’s own hand for the later, uncompleted chapters of The Mystery of Edwin Drood.

This latter artifact was discovered by Mr. Berger in an uncataloged file that also contained an abandoned version of the final chapters of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, in which Gatsby, not Daisy, is behind the wheel when Myrtle is killed. Mr. Berger had glimpsed Gatsby briefly on his way to visit Anna Karenina. By one of the miracles of the library, Gatsby’s quarters appeared to consist of a pool house and a swimming pool, although the pool was made marginally less welcoming by the presence in it of a deflated, bloodstained mattress.

The sight of Gatsby, who was pleasant but haunted, and the discovery of an alternate ending to the book to which Gatsby, like Anna, had given his name, caused Mr. Berger to wonder what might have happened had Fitzgerald published the version held by the Caxton instead of the book that eventually appeared, in which Daisy is driving the car on that fateful night. Would it have altered Gatsby’s eventual fate? Probably not, he decided: there would still have been a bloodstained mattress in the swimming pool, but Gatsby’s end would have been rendered less tragic, and less noble.

But the fact that he could even think in this way about endings that might have been confirmed in him the belief that Anna’s fate might be altered, and so it was that he began to spend more and more time in the section devoted to Tolstoy’s works, familiarizing himself with the history of Anna Karenina. His researches revealed that even this novel, described as “flawless” by both Dostoevsky and Nabokov, presented problems when it came to its earliest appearance. While it was originally published in installments in the Russian Messenger periodical from 1873 onward, an editorial dispute over the final part of the story meant that it did not appear in its complete form until the first publication of the work as a book in 1878. The library held both the periodical version and the Russian first edition, but Mr. Berger’s knowledge of Russian was limited, to put it mildly, and he didn’t think that it would be a good idea to go messing around with it in its original language. He decided that the library’s first English-language edition, published by Thomas Y. Crowell Co. of New York in 1886, would probably be sufficient for his needs.

The weeks and months went by, but still he did not act. Not only was he afraid to put in place a plan that involved tinkering with one of the greatest works of literature in any language, but Mr. Gedeon was a perpetual presence in the library. He had not yet entrusted Mr. Berger with his own key, and he still kept a careful eye on his visitor. Meanwhile, Mr. Berger noticed that Anna was becoming increasingly agitated, and in the middle of their discussions of books and music or their occasional games of whist or poker, she would grow suddenly distant and whisper the names of her children or her lover. She was also, he thought, taking an unhealthy interest in certain railway timetables.

Finally, fate presented him with the opportunity he had been seeking. Mr. Gedeon’s brother in Bootle was taken seriously ill, and his departure from this earth was said to be imminent. Mr. Gedeon was forced to leave in a hurry if he was to see his brother again before he passed away, and, with only the faintest of hesitations, he entrusted the care of Caxton Private Lending Library & Book Depository to Mr. Berger. He left Mr. Berger with the keys and the number of Mr. Gedeon’s sister-in-law in Bootle in case of emergencies, then rushed off to catch the last evening train north.

Alone for the first time in the library, Mr. Berger opened the suitcase that he had packed upon receiving the summons from Mr. Berger. He removed from it a bottle of brandy and his favorite fountain pen. He poured himself a large snifter of brandy — larger than was probably advisable, he would later accept — and retrieved the Crowell edition of Anna Karenina from its shelf. He laid it on Mr. Gedeon’s desk and turned to the relevant section. He took a sip of brandy, then another, and another. He was, after all, about to alter one of the great works of literature, so a stiff drink seemed like a very good idea.

He looked at the glass. It was now almost empty. He refilled it, took another strengthening swig, and uncapped his pen. He offered a silent prayer of apology to the God of Letters, and with three swift dashes of his pen removed a single paragraph.

It was done.

He took another drink. It had been easier than expected. He let the ink dry on the Crowell edition and restored it to its shelf. He was by now more than a little tipsy. Another title caught his eye as he returned to the desk: Tess of the d’Urbervilles, by Thomas Hardy, in the first edition by Osgood, McIlvaine and Co., London, 1891. Mr. Berger had always hated the ending of Tess of the d’Urbervilles.

Oh well, he thought: in for a penny, in for a pound.

He took the book from the shelf, stuck it under his arm, and was soon happily at work on Chapters LVIII and LIX. He worked all through the night, and by the time he fell asleep the bottle of brandy was empty, and he was surrounded by books.

In truth, Mr. Berger had gotten a little carried away.