On the ownership of books

Your ambition in life should be to have libraries and libraries of Voss.

[My brother David]

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Sabby — Sam & Abby — are the most agreeable couple I have met. Some weeks ago I hosted them in my apartment for beans and rice, and then obliged them to carry away half a dozen Agatha Christies.

A week later, they told me how much they’d been enjoying those books.

I gloated about this to David. “They accepted my Agatha Christies and have been reading and enjoying them!”

“Of course they have been,” said David. “Sabby are agreeable. There is nothing they don’t enjoy.”

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Last night we again discussed that couple.

“What books of mine are in your apartment?” said David.

“A considerable number of Agatha Christies,” I told him. “You were saying how eager you were to repossess them.”

“I was saying how eager I was to burn them,” David said. “I suffer from the cold: I need kindling for the fire.”

“You were desiring to read them,” I said. “Your interest in them is keen. Recall also that Sabby have been enjoying those books.”

“What Sabby enjoy is Phantastes,” said David, changing the subject. “I’ve read much of that, on Sabby’s recommendation.”

“I own Phantastes — the Dover edition. Do you have the Dover edition?”

“No,” said David, “I don’t own that book. The copy which I read was Sabby’s. But yes, Dover was the publisher.”

There was a pause, pregnant with fellow-feeling. And then I said:

“Isn’t it a solace to find a friend with whom to discuss the variegated editions of books?”