From Noon to Noon

Yesterday, at the auction house, a book sold for 432,000 francs! It's a record, according to experts.
This figure will make many people dream. In all our provinces, people are going up to the attic. They will see if, lost in some crate, there might be a book, the wonderful book, the golden book, the book worth 500,000 francs or a million. If, there, next to the apples lying on the hay and the nuts scattering on the floor, they could find a fortune!
Alas! Many hopes will be dashed. Old books will be discovered, but the disdainful second-hand dealer or the smiling connoisseur will declare: "It's worth, well paid, two francs," or: "It's not very interesting!"

The other day, in the dreadful crush of the Métro, on a station platform, where the "up" and "down" passengers swirled like entwined atoms, I watched a little girl. She was holding a book, a tiny book, a book that had probably cost her eight or ten cents... Motionless in the middle of the crush, she was reading. The marvelous life of the characters had torn her from the hell of the underground. She no longer noticed anything. The air of the Métro had become breathable. Life seemed beautiful to her.

Almost all books, to those who know how to read them, are worth a million...

Pierre Audiat.