The woman looked at Rintaro. Her eyes were beautiful, but there was nothing behind them. They were like glass beads.
“Is that how it should be?”
Emotionless, she observed Rintaro’s confusion. The dark light in her eyes was unreadable. She stood there simply as if she had the right to receive an answer to her question.
“W-Why?” Rintaro finally said, stuttering. “Why are you asking me that?”
“I don’t know. Why am I? I thought you might have some fascinating answer for me, that’s all.”
“Why would I? I’m just some hikikomori. I never really go out into the world.”
“But you’ve been working so hard to save all those books, and you’ve actually succeeded. These days one rarely sees anyone with such a strong connection to books.”
“Strong connection?”
“That’s right. People like you and your grandfather are rare. I used to know many like you, but over the past two thousand years everything has changed.”
Rintaro thought for a moment he had misheard.
“Two thousand years?”
“Well, about one thousand eight hundred to be exact. That’s when I was born. So much time has passed since then.”
Rintaro was flabbergasted. The full weight of the cat’s phrase “books become imbued with a tremendous power” had been far beyond his imagination. There were not many books that had managed to survive for eighteen hundred years. And even for Rintaro, book lover extraordinaire, there were very few examples of books that still retained a great power after all that time.
The woman ignored Rintaro’s amazement and kept on talking.
“In the past it was a matter of course that books had souls. Everybody who read books knew that they did, and they would exchange souls with each other. Back then, there weren’t all that many people who could get their hands on books, but those who did supported me with unwavering minds, and I supported them back. I miss that time. It was truly glorious.”
“But that—”
“I know it must be hard for you to believe.”
The woman’s murmur cut Rintaro off.
“I rarely encounter a book with a soul nowadays. What’s more, nobody even knows that books used to have souls. The word ‘book’ has come to mean no more than a bunch of paper with type on it. This is not just about the masses of books that are being read and then thrown away. Even I, who for many centuries have been read by people all over the world, have rarely met anyone who really takes me seriously. Even now, I’m still touted as ‘the most widely read book in the world,’ but in reality, no one cares about me anymore. I’m locked away, cut into pieces, sold off at a discount. All the things that you have seen on your journeys are happening to me. I’ve managed to surmount the barriers of two thousand years of time; and of two thousand different languages, and it’s even happening to me.”
The woman closed her eyes as if trying to suppress her pain.
“I’ll be honest with you.”
Her thin, almost bloodless lips quivered.
“I’m losing my power. I used to talk about all kinds of important things with all sorts of people, but now I’m starting to forget what I used to talk about. If I forget completely, I’ll become just another bundle of paper, just like all those little books containing nothing but information and entertainment.”
The woman opened her eyes again.
“It’s so very sad. And in my sadness I became curious as to what you were thinking. Why you journeyed through all those labyrinths. You’ve become quite the celebrity here in this world.”