A text exists in what Borges calls an infinite dialogue with its recipients, and its endless recontextualization guarantees that even without a mark of difference every book, page, and even letter can differ from themselves. Our libraries do not fall short of universality because of a character we’ve left out, but because totality itself is essentially incomplete.

I said her name once more, just for the record, and then I stood and turned from them and walked to the bluff. I rounded the bluff and the beach stretched before me, vast, smooth, empty, and remote.