The Antiquarian Read Online Free PDF Page B

stream of customers. The Friday clientele usually consisted of couples of all ages, anxious to decorate their homes with any sort of antique. Artur, like any good dealer, enjoyed lavishing attention on them. But the closeness of the books in his study excited his imagination and made him yearn for closing time. After eight, he lowered the metal blind over the entrance and went up to his study, where he once again became entranced in the reading of the books until thewee hours. He left the shop at three in the morning and went home to Vallvidrera to sleep.
    The next morning, Artur woke up late, around ten. He had an unhurried breakfast, skimmed the morning papers on the terrace as he did on any other day, and returned to Barcelona. The sublime, almost summer-like weather made a decisive contribution to Sant Jordi’s Day, marked by a fantastic turnout. The streets were jam-packed; pedestrians so densely thronged the Ramblas that Artur, once he had parked his car in the garage on Hospital Street, could not resist the temptation to take a stroll down to the harbor before returning to his shop and the wondrous promise of the mysteries contained in the Casadevall family books.
    He took the opportunity to have a light lunch in London Bar, though he wasn’t very hungry; he knew that once he started to work, the hours would steal by so quickly that he would forget not only lunch, but quite possibly dinner, too.
    He went into the shop through the Pi Street entrance and left the door open with the blind down to air out the establishment; it was a very old building, and the walls gave off the unmistakable aroma of ancient dankness typical of such big old houses. This way, the wood could breathe and the smell of damp did not permeate the atmosphere.
    He worked on the strange Casadevall manuscript all day Saturday. The book was not exactly a diary, but more an engagement book, though it also contained a second author’s impressions. Artur identified the author of the original text as the assistant to a master builder from the early fifteenth century. He had pinpointed this writer as the master builder Casadevall, who had held the rank of assistant from 1398 to 1424. It was impossible for him to know the name of the person who wrote the notes in the margins, though he knew one thing for sure: the mixture of translations was the most complex he had faced in years, and he had definitely seen countless manuscripts and oldcorrespondence that had offered less resistance than the enigmatic manuscript. As the hours slipped by, his in-depth reading of the handwriting and notes began to reveal unbelievable events. He transcribed onto draft sheets a number of notes that he found confusing and required urgent checking. Yet he found the text so puzzling and cryptic as he advanced that he preferred to keep uncovering the centuries-old secrets than to rush out to confirm the veracity of what he had found in other libraries or archives.
    When Artur looked at his watch, it was already two thirty in the morning. The first translation of the book had taken him thirteen hours of nonstop work. The architect’s dense handwriting had made it exceedingly difficult, even for a classical language expert like him. With tired eyes and a burning desire to urinate, he gave himself permission to end the session. His back hurt. Cool night air filtered through the open door. Outside, the temperature had dropped, and the shop was freezing. He went to the toilet, picked up his jacket, and prepared to return home. He stared intently at the Casadevall manuscript. For the first time in years, he felt a stab of real fear. It was unlike the anxiety he felt after his talk with the Frenchman. What he once felt as fear was barely an inkling of the feeling that now rose up inside him, with its roots in a story that was turning out to be incredible. It was a deep, primal, uncontrollable dread that grew slowly and without remit, despite his age, despite his experience,