That night he did what he had never done before, he read in bed.

He was doing as he well knew what was absolutely forbidden, and the novelty of the event, the excitement of his disobedience, the strange wobbly light that the candle flung as it shifted when his movements were very impetuous, in its insecure china saucer, the way the lines of the printed page ran tumultuously together, all these things helped his sense of the romantic.

He had found every line a difficulty in the other edition, now the sense of indulging the forbidden carried him across the first page or two, and then he was fairly inside it! The little book was very difficult to read; not only was it vilely printed, but also the words ran in a kind of cascade down into the very binding of the book, and you had to pull the thing apart as wide as it would go and then peer into the very depths of darkness and obscurity. Nevertheless it was his book, bought with his own money, and he read and read on and on.... And in the morning he read again, and in the evening ... and on the fourth day, late in the night, the candle very low in its china socket, the room lit with sudden flashes of bizarre brilliance, the book was finished.