The Museum of Literary Souls

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Mr. Berger woke to the most terrible hangover. It took him a while even to recall where he was, never mind what he might have done. His mouth was dry, his head was thumping, and his neck and back were aching from having fallen asleep at Mr. Gedeon’s desk. He made himself some tea and toast, most of which he managed to keep down, and stared in horror at the pile of first editions that he had violated the night before. He had a vague sense that they did not represent the entirety of his efforts, for he dimly recalled returning some to the shelves, singing merrily to himself as he went, although he was damned if he could bring to mind the titles of all the books involved. So ill and appalled was he that he could find no reason to stay awake. Instead, he curled up on the couch in the hope that, when he opened his eyes again, the world of literature might somehow have self-corrected, and the intensity of his headache might have lessened. Only one alteration did he not immediately regret, and that was his work on Anna Karenina. The actions of his pen in that case had truly been a labor of love.

He rose to sluggish consciousness to find Mr. Gedeon standing over him, his face a mixture of anger, disappointment, and not a little pity.

“We need to have words, Mr. Berger,” he said. “Under the circumstances, you might like to freshen up before we begin.”

Mr. Berger took himself to the bathroom and bathed his face and upper body with cold water. He brushed his teeth, combed his hair, and tried to make himself as presentable as possible. He felt a little like a condemned man hoping to make a good impression on the hangman. He returned to the living room and smelled strong coffee brewing. Tea, in this case, was unlikely to be sufficient for the task at hand.

He took a seat across from Mr. Gedeon, who was examining the altered first editions, his fury now entirely undiluted by any other emotions.

“This is vandalism!” he said. “Do you realize what you’ve done? Not only have you corrupted the world of literature and altered the histories of the characters in our care, but you’ve damaged the library’s collection. How could someone who considers himself a lover of books do such a thing?”

Mr. Berger couldn’t meet the librarian’s gaze.

“I did it for Anna,” he said. “I just couldn’t bear to see her suffer in that way.”

“And the others?” said Mr. Gedeon. “What of Jude, and Tess, and Sydney Carton? Good grief, what of Macbeth?”

“I felt sorry for them too,” said Mr. Berger. “And if their creators knew that at some future date they might take on a physical form in this world, replete with the memories and experiences forced upon them, would they not have given some thought to their ultimate fate? To do otherwise would be tantamount to sadism!”

“But that isn’t how literature works,” said Mr. Gedeon. “It isn’t even how the world works. The books are written. It’s not for you or me to start altering them at this stage. These characters have power precisely because of what their creators have put them through. By changing the endings, you’ve put at risk their place in the literary pantheon and, by extension, their presence in the world. I wouldn’t be surprised if we were to go back to the lodgings and find a dozen or more unoccupied rooms, with no trace that their occupants ever existed.”

Mr. Berger hadn’t thought of that. It made him feel worse than ever.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m so very, very sorry. Can anything be done?”

Mr. Gedeon left his desk and opened a large cupboard in the corner of the room. From it he removed his box of restorer’s equipment: his adhesives and threads, his tapes and weights and rolls of buckram cloth, his needles and brushes and awls. He placed the box on his desk, added a number of small glass bottles of liquid, then rolled up his sleeves, turned on the lamps, and summoned Mr. Berger to his side.

“Muriatic acid, citric acid, oxalic acid, and Tartureous acid,” he said, tapping each bottle in turn.

He carefully mixed a solution of the latter three acids in a bowl and instructed Mr. Berger to apply it to his inked changes to Tess of the d’Urbervilles.

“The solution will remove ink stains, but not printer’s ink,” said Mr. Gedeon. “Be careful, and take your time. Apply it, leave it for a few minutes, then wipe it off, and let it dry. Keep repeating until the ink is gone. Now begin, for we have many hours of work ahead of us.”

They worked through the night and into the next morning. Exhaustion forced them to sleep for a few hours, but they both returned to the task in the early afternoon. By late in the evening, the worst of the damage had been undone. Mr. Berger even remembered the titles of the books that he had returned to the shelves while drunk, although one was forgotten. Mr. Berger had set to work on making Hamlet a little shorter but had got no further than Scenes IV and V, from which he had cut a couple of Hamlet’s soliloquies. The consequence was that Scene IV began with Hamlet noting that the hour of twelve had struck, and the appearance of his father’s ghost. However, by halfway through Scene V, and after a couple of fairly swift exchanges, it was already morning. When Mr. Berger’s excisions were discovered many decades later by one of his successors, it was decided to allow them to stand, as she felt that Hamlet was quite long enough as it was.

Together they went to the lodgings and checked on the characters. All were present and correct, although Macbeth appeared in better spirits than before and remained thus ever after.

Only one book remained unrestored: Anna Karenina.

“Must we?” said Mr. Berger. “If you say yes, then I will accept your decision, but it seems to me that she is different from the rest. None of the others are compelled to do what she does. None of them is so despairing as to seek oblivion over and over. What I did does not fundamentally alter the climax of the novel but adds only a little ambiguity, and it may be that a little is all that she requires.”

Mr. Gedeon considered the book. Yes, he was the librarian and the custodian of the contents of Caxton Private Lending Library & Book Depository, but he was also the guardian of its characters. He had a duty to them and to the books. Did one supersede the other? He thought of what Mr. Berger had said: If Tolstoy had known that, by his literary gifts, he would doom his heroine to be defined by her suicide, might he not have found a way to modify his prose even slightly and thus give her some peace?

And was it not also true that Tolstoy’s ending to the novel was flawed in any case? Rather than give us some extended reflection on Anna’s death, he chose instead to concentrate on Levin’s return to religion, Kozynshev’s support for the Serbs, and Vronsky’s commitment to the cause of the Slavs. He even gave the final word on Anna’s death to Vronsky’s rotten mother: “Her death was the death of a bad woman, a woman without religion.” Surely Anna deserved a better memorial than that.

Mr. Berger had crossed out three simple lines from the end of Chapter XXXI:

He read the preceding paragraph:

You know, thought Mr. Gedeon, Chapter XXXI could end just as easily there, and there would be peace for Anna.

He closed the book, allowing Mr. Berger’s change to stand.

“Let’s leave it, shall we?” he said. “Why don’t you put it back on its shelf?”

Mr. Berger took the book reverently and restored it gently, lovingly, to its place in the stacks. He thought about visiting Anna one last time, but it did not seem appropriate to ask Mr. Gedeon’s permission. He had done all that he could for her, and he hoped only that it was enough. He returned to Mr. Gedeon’s living room and placed the key to Caxton Library on the desk.

“Good-bye,” he said. “And thank you.”

Mr. Gedeon nodded but did not answer, and Mr. Berger left the library and did not look back.