The basement is where I've settled in amid the maps of places I've been in my mind, and tightly rolled scrolls, and the statues of small-headed people with no nose and blank empty eyes, and the old card files that no one flips through anymore. It holds all the first and second floors and mezzanine do not want.

And books--oh my, so many, many books--of all size and shape and color of the rainbow, though I think, I haven't counted, but I think the great majority of the books are dusty black.