Ricardo Lugo

Él ponía el teléfono en el café para que la gente lo contactara.

Compraba y vendía, conseguía libros para estudiantes, hacían cargos, pero el dinero en realidad...

He almost didn't count for him.

He always wore the same clothes, ate little, didn't smoke, didn't play.

He didn't live, right?

He only felt alive when his eyes could see a book.

And for the same reason, he became famous in the city.

Not famous from the point of view of celebrity, but someone very well known in the small brotherhood of bibliophiles, experts, obsessives, literary.

And Mendel begins to be peregrinated as if he were an oracle from the literary point of view.

The narrator, Stefan Zweig, compares him to a believer in prayer.

I think for the same reason he irritates Mendel so much that they offer him money for different transactions.

It was almost like prostituting said ritual.

He was always rejecting great collectors.

I don't know if happy is the word, but he was happy working, reading from this coffee.

And he's been there for 33 years.

As I said, he's an old man.

Había llegado del oriente europeo para estudiar como rabino, pero abandonó al Dios único por, y cito, el politeísmo brillante y multiforme de los libros.

Cambió una fe por otra.

Este café es su iglesia y la iglesia lo protege.

Tiene teléfono gratis, correo, pequeños recados, le dan comida, ropa cepillada, botones cosidos.