The Manuscript I the Secret Read Online Free PDF Page A

interrupt you.”
    “You can take it with you if you want.... I just came back to...”
    “No, what would I do with a manuscript? I already read it. You keep it. It might come in handy.”
    “For real? I don’t know how to thank you. I’m dying to know what’s inside the chest. I’m right at a really interesting part. The character Dante Contini-Massera has really drawn me in.”
    The old man’s eyebrows knitted together. “I don’t remember reading that name,” he said.
    “He’s the nephew of Claudio Contini-Massera, the one who died and they buried in Rome...” Nicholas trailed off.
    “Young man, are you sure? I recall it being about the Gallic wars, from the very first page. The main character was Gaius Julius Caesar.”
    “That’s impossible.”
    Nicholas opened the manuscript and saw that following the “Untitled” first page came the following chapter:

Meeting in Northern Gaul
    55 BC
     
    General Julius Caesar sat in his tent awaiting the group of Celts who, together with their chief, would lay out their demands. He knew that very difficult days lay ahead of him, but the success of the expedition in Gaul would depend largely upon the help of these savage tribes that looked like blue demons, their bodies painted with woad. They were excellent charioteers, and the general hoped that once they wrapped up the interminable war stories of which they were so fond of boasting they could come to a concrete agreement and...
     
    Nicholas dropped the manuscript onto the bench like a burning ember.
    “That’s not what I was reading earlier!”
    “What were you reading about?”
    “Well, first, there was the part about the chest.... That was the preface. Then chapter 1 was all about Dante Contini-Massera...”
    “Yes, I remember you mentioned him,” the bookseller said. “Mr. Nicholas Blohm, I’m going to shoot straight with you. I have wanted to get rid of this manuscript ever since it came to me. I’m no writer, but I’m a devoted reader, as I already told you. The first time I read the manuscript, it seemed like a great novel. It was a genre I love: a detective story. As you can imagine, I couldn’t finish it all in one sitting, so I put it down and planned to get back to it after work. When I opened it to keep reading, I found a completely different novel. I thought I was going crazy, that I had just imagined it. But then I figured, ‘I read so many books! My head can’t keep track of all the stories.’ So I started reading again and got lost in a passionate romance novel, which, in all honesty, is not my preferred genre, but it was devilishly well written. I stuck a goose-feather bookmark, a gift from a client, at the spot where I stopped reading, intending to pick it back up later...”
    “And I suppose you never learned the end of the story.”
    “Exactly. And that’s what’s kept on happening the entire time I’ve had the manuscript. I don’t want it any more. Can I be honest? The thing terrifies me. I saw that you come here a lot, and I knew you were a writer, so I thought it might be more useful to you than to me.”
    “The thing is, to get to the end of whatever novel is written here,” Nicholas thumped the manuscript with his index finger, “you have to read it all at once. I see it, but I don’t believe it. No, I just can’t believe it.”
    “Well, the manuscript is yours. Take care of it. I’m sure at least it’ll give you some inspiration.”
    Nicholas picked it back up cautiously. For an unsuperstitious person, he was afraid. Ambivalent emotions overwhelmed him. On the one hand, he wanted it; on the other, it was spooky. Yet it was a precious treasure, perhaps diabolic, but valuable: a source of eternal inspiration. Even so, he feared that he would open it again only to find that “Meeting in Northern Gaul” had become a vampire novel or something worse. He closed his eyes, held the manuscript to his chest, and mentally willed the first novel he had read to return. He