Just as he'd remembered.
He carried the bundle to a small table nearby, switched on the specially filtered reading lamp, and set it down.
Pulling back the leather wrapping as carefully as possible, he could now see that, while the book had a hard cover of black leather on the back, there was no matching front cover. Examining the spine, he could just make out evidence of a very clean cut. Someone had neatly removed the front cover and first page.
They'd been willing to multilate such a treasure, but not destroy it? Strange priorities, Benjamin thought.
He lifted the book and examined the top edge. He could see that many of the pages were practically melted together with age. To open it at the wrong place would be to tear these pages, or perhaps rip them out of the binding. He would have to be very careful, indeed.
Very slowly, he lifted the first page of the book.
Benjamin's hands were trembling.
He lifted them, watched until the trembling stopped. Then he rose, went back to the podium in the front of the room, and reopened the cabinet. Inside was a large yellow legal pad and several pens. He took the pad and one of the pens and returned to the table.
He sat down and, checking the edge of the page, made sure it was one that could be turned without damage. It was. He turned the page and began to read.
Almost immediately he began making notes on the legal pad. When he was done, again he examined the page's edge, but this one was clearly sealed to the next one. He simply couldn't risk trying to separate them, and he discovered he had to turn to several pages farther on.
Working this way, reading a page or two, then forced to skip several that were inseparable, he continued to make notes. He filled one of the legal pad pages, then another.
And another.