Alessandro was bent over half a dozen volumes spread out on a long table. He often read six books at once, not because he enjoyed it, but to check one against the other and to compare arguments and accounts. The truth was often great enough to cover in its self-contradictory expanse at least six points of view, and where one was weak or incomplete the others continued the narrative. Alessandro examined the books as if they were witnesses, and despite having to turn pages back and forth almost continuously to bring various incidents into alignment, he employed this technique to considerable
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