“With a sense of fulfillment stronger even than the sating of his hunger that morning, for he’d been starved of books much longer than of food, Pico joined the browsers. Inhaling the odor of mildewed hide as if he’d entered a confectionery, fondling the bindings of stippled leather or buckled cloth, running his fingers across the raised letters of the titles as though blind, for a moment he wished he’d saved the coin to buy a book, then giggled at his folly.”
