“True love wants the good of the beloved.” “Can it be that Benno wants the good of his books (and now they are also his) and thinks their good lies in their being kept far from grasping hands?” I asked. “The good of a book lies in its being read. A book is made up of signs that speak of other signs, which in their turn speak of things. Without an eye to read them, a book contains signs that produce no concepts; therefore it is dumb. This library was perhaps born to save the books it houses, but now it lives to bury them. This is why it has become a sink of iniquity.
