When

it

was

proclaimed

that

the

Library

contained

all

books,

the

first

impression

was

one

of

extravagant

happiness.

All

men

felt

themselves

intact

and

secret

treasure.

There

was

no

personal

or

world

problem

whose

eloquent

solution

did

not

exist

in

some

hexagon.

The

universe

was

justified,

the

universe

suddenly

usurped

the

unlimited

dimensions

of

hope.

At

that

time

a

great

deal

was

said

about

the

Vindications:

books

of

apology

and

prophecy

which

vindicated

for

all

time

the

acts

of

every

man

in

the

universe

and

retained

prodigious

arcana

for

his

future.

Thousands

of

the

greedy

abandoned

their

sweet

native

hexagons

and

rushed

up

the

stairways,

urged

on

by

the

vain

intention

of

finding

their

Vindication.

These

pilgrims

disputed

in

the

narrow

corridors,

proferred

dark

curses,

strangled

each

other

on

the

divine

stairways,

flung

the

deceptive

books

into

the

air

shafts,

met

their

death

cast

down

in

a

similar

fashion

by

the

inhabitants

of

remote

regions.

Others

went

mad...

The

Vindications

exist

(I

have

seen

two

which

refer

to

persons

of

the

future,

to

persons

who

are

perhaps

not

imaginary)

but

the

searchers

did

not

remember

that

the

possibility

of

a

man's

finding

his

Vindication,

or

some

treacherous

variation

thereof,

can

be

computed

as

zero

At

that

time

it

was

also

hoped

that

a

clarification

of

humanity's

basic

mysteries

- the

origin

of

the

Library

and

of

time -

might

be

found.

It

is

verisimilar

that

these

grave

mysteries

could

be

explained

in

words:

if

the

language

of

philosophers

is

not

sufficient,

the

multiform

Library

will

have

produced

the

unprecedented

language

required,

with

its

vocabularies

and

grammars.

For

four

centuries

now

men

have

exhausted

the

hexagons...

There

are

official

searchers,

inquisitors.

I

have

seen

them

in

the

performance

of

their

function:

they

always

arrive

extremely

tired

from

their

journeys;

they

speak

of

a

broken

stairway

which

almost

killed

them;

they

talk

with

the

librarian

of

galleries

and

stairs;

sometimes

they

pick

up

the

nearest

volume

and

leaf

through

it,

looking

for

infamous

words.

Obviously,

no

one

expects

to

discover

anything.