17.06.02 – Monday
The greatest pleasure I find in life is reading. In the past few weeks I have found much longed-for enrichment in such a quantity of books as I had thought myself unable to consume. Yet it is true that one hungry will, if possible, eat and the thirsty will, given the chance, drink – so I must slake that desire, that need, which for me is greater than all others. I am most content when reading, for then I am least and yet most myself.
‘What does that have to do with the urge of the senses?’ Ubertino asked. ‘It was a mystical experience, and the body was our Lord’s.’
‘Perhaps I am accustomed to Oxford,’ William said, ‘where even mystical experience was of another sort…’
‘All in the head.’ Ubertino smiled.
And yet again it rains, the water beading on the wooden decks, the birds taking cover in the trees.