Greek and Latin grew more entertaining after the first year, after he’d assembled enough building blocks of each language to piece together fragments of meaning for himself. From then on it felt less like groping in the dark whenever he encountered a new text and more like filling in the blanks. Figuring out the precise grammatical formulation of a phrase that had been frustrating him gave him the same sort of satisfaction he derived from reshelving a book where it belonged or finding a missing sock – all the pieces fitted together, and everything was whole and complete.
