What will he write about next?, W. muses. What'll be his next project? He's casting about, he admits it. Wasn't he supposed to learn Greek this summer? Protestant guilt keeps driving him into the office, he says. In he goes on the bus, thinking he ought to be doing something, but not quite sure what. He sits in the office among the parcels of review copies of books he keeps receiving. There are dozens of them, piled up all over the place. They depress him enormously. He can't bear to look at them.
For my part, W. notes, I still have a stupid excitement about books. It's because you're illiterate, W. says, because they're slightly above the level you can understand. Whenever I visit, I insist on opening the parcels and filling up W.'s shelves, reading him the funniest of the blurbs. It must be the bright covers that attract me, W. muses, whereas they depress him horribly. All these books!, he says, with weary horror. Look at them!
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