“Cómo no!” he cried, as if the question were an insult to the “culture and progress” for which Ayacucho fancies itself famed.
Following his directions, I hurried over to the Municipalidad, cheerful with the prospect of spending a few quiet hours unstared-at among its books. For some time I wandered through several refuse-strewn patios and deep-shaded corredors of the rambling, one-story building, peering into many a room with uneven earth floor, without finding anything even mildly resembling a library. At length I stumbled upon a chamber marked “Secretaría,” in which six men of varying shades of color were discussing the coming bull-fight, rolling cigarettes, sleeping, and otherwise earning their salaries. A long search brought to light a ten-inch key, and a procession of the full municipal force of Ayacucho escorted me through several more empty, earth-floored rooms to a door at the rear of the building.
“You see,” explained the official with the most nearly white collar and the longest right to keep his hat on, “we have only just begun to form the library, so the catalogue is not yet available nor any of the books arranged. However....”
As the time-eaten sign over the door announced that this evidence of culture and progress had only been founded in 1877, it was natural that it should not yet be set in order. One cannot expect things to be done in a minute in Latin America. The walls of the stoop-shouldered mud room were almost hidden by books, however, nearly all of them bound in ancient parchment or imitations of the same. I ran my eyes along them, the six municipal employees grouped in a staring semicircle about me. Row after row stretched books in Latin, Italian, Spanish, and French, with such titles as, “The Infallibility of the Church,” by Padre So-and-So, “The Life of Saint Quién Sabe,” by “A Brother of the Order”; but nowhere was there one with a suggestion of modern utility.
“This looks much like a priest’s library,” I remarked, when I had read most of the titles.
“Cabalmente, señor,” said the front-rank official. “Exactly; it was given by the holy bishop who died a few years ago. Where are those friars who were arranging the books?” he demanded querulously, glaring at his inferiors grouped about us.
“I think they have not come back from lunch yet,” tremulously suggested one of the five.
As the dust lay at least an eighth of an inch thick on every book in sight, the good friars must have been called to a sumptuous repast indeed.
“Isn’t there some book in the collection that will give me something of interest about Ayacucho?” I asked.
“Ah—er—well, as to that—ah—cómo no, señor—yes, indeed! Here you have the five volumes of Bossuet, and—and here is the ‘Imitación de Cristo’—very excellent—old parchment, as you see—and....”