The Library Of Mabel Mogaburu

As a sufferer of a sort of classificatory mania, from adolescence I took great care in cataloguing the books in my library.
     By the fifth year of secondary school, I already possessed, for my age, a very reasonable number of books: almost six hundred volumes.
     I had a rubber stamp with the following legend:

LIBRARY OF FERNANDO SORRENTINO
VOLUME Nº ______
REGISTERED ON: ______

     As soon as a new book arrived, I stamped it, always in black ink, on its first page. I gave it its corresponding number, always in blue ink, and wrote its date of acquisition. Then, imitating the old National Library's catalogue, I entered its details on an index card which I filed in alphabetical order.
     My sources of literary information were the editorial catalogues and the Pequeño Larousse Ilustrado. An example at random: in many collections from the various editors was Atala, René and The Adventures of the Last Abencerage. Motivated by such ubiquity and because the Larousse seemed to give Chateaubriand such great importance, I acquired the book in the Colección Austral edition from Espasa-Calpe. In spite of these precautions, those three stories turned out to be as unreadable as they were unmemorable.
     In contrast to these failures, there were also complete successes. In the Robin Hood collection, I was captivated by David Copperfield and, in the Biblioteca Mundial Sopena, by Crime and Punishment.
     Along the even-numbered side of Santa Fe Avenue, a short distance from Emilio Ravignani Street, was the half-hidden Muñoz bookshop. It was dark, deep, humid and mouldy, with creaking wooden planks. Its owner was a Spanish man about sixty years old, very serious, and somewhat haggard.
     The only sales assistant was the person who used to serve me. He was young, bold and error-prone and had neither knowledge of the books he was asked about nor any idea of where they were located. His name was Horacio.
     When I entered the premises that afternoon, Horacio was rummaging around some shelves looking for heaven-knows-what title. I managed to learn that a tall, thin girl had enquired about it. She was, in the meantime, browsing the wide table where the second hand books were on display.

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     From the depths of the shop, the owner's voice was heard:
     'What are you looking for now, Horacio?'
     The adverb now indicated a bad mood.
     'I can't find Don Segundo Sombra, don Antonio. It is not on the Emecé shelves'.
     'It is a Losada book, not Emecé; look on the shelves of the Contemporánea'.
     Horacio changed the location of his search and, after a great deal of hunting, turned toward the girl and said:
     'No, I am sorry; we have no Don Segundo left'.
     The girl expressed disappointment, said she needed it for school and asked where she could find it.
     Horacio, embarrassed in the face of such an insoluble problem, stared at her wide-eyed and raised his eyebrows.
     Luckily, don Antonio had overheard:
     'Around here', he answered, 'it is very hard. There are no good bookshops. You will have to go to the centre of town, to El Ateneo, or somewhere in Florida o Corrientes. Or perhaps near Cabildo and Juramento.'
     The girl's face fell.
     'Forgive me for barging in', I said to her. 'But if you promise to take care of it and return it to me, I can lend you Don Segundo Sombra.'
     I felt as if I was blushing, as if I had been inconceivably audacious. At the same time, I felt annoyed with myself for having given in to an impulse that was contrary to how I really felt. I love my books and hate lending them.
     I don't know what exactly the girl answered, but after some squeamishness she ended up accepting my offer.
     'I have to read it immediately for school', she explained, as if to justify herself.

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     I learnt that she was in the third year in the women's college at Carranza Street. I suggested that she accompany me home and I would hand over the book. I gave her my full name, and she gave me hers. Her name was Mabel Mogaburu.
     Before starting our journey, I accomplished what had taken me to the Muñoz bookshop. I bought The Murders in the Rue Morgue. I already had the Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque and, with much delight, decided to dive once again into the fiction of Edgar Allan Poe.
     'I don't like him at all', Mabel said. 'He is gruesome and gimmicky, always with those stories of murders, of dead people, of coffins. Cadavers don't appeal to me.'
     While we walked along Carranza toward Costa Rica Street, Mabel spoke enthusiastically and honestly about her interest in or, rather, passion for literature. Because of that, there was a deep affinity between us though, of course, she mentioned authors that differed from as well as matched my own literary loves. Although I was two years older than her, it seemed to me that Mabel had read considerably more books than me.
     She was a brunette, taller and thinner than I had thought in the bookshop. She had a certain diffused elegance about her. The olive shade of her face seemed to hide some deeper paleness. The dark eyes were fixed straight on mine, and I found it hard to withstand the intensity of that steady stare.
     We arrived at my door in Costa Rica Street.
     'Wait for me on the pavement; I'll bring you the book right away.'
     And I did find the book instantly as, for the sake of consistency, I had (and still have) my books grouped by collection. Thus, Don Segundo Sombra (Biblioteca Contemporánea, Editorial Losada) was placed between Kafka's The Metamorphosis and Chesterton's The Innocence of Father Brown.
     Back in the street, I noticed, although I know nothing about clothes, that Mabel was dressed in a somewhat, shall we say, old-fashioned style, with a greyish blouse and black skirt.