His hands, warm and damp, trembled on touching the wood of the shelves. He took a book, turned over the leaves, felt the paper, examined the gilding, the cover, the letters, the ink, the folds, and the arrangement of drawings for the word Finis. Then he changed its place, put it on a higher shelf, and remained for entire hours looking at its title and form.... it was not learning that he loved; it was its expression. He loved a book because it was a book; he loved its odour, its form, its title.

The facsimile of Flaubert's ms which appears on the endpapers is taken from the original in the collection of the late Stefan Zweig, and is reproduced by permission of his heirs.