Translation Comparison

He loved to read, as if at the command of a deeper instinct, he was attracted to the letter and the spirit, he felt it as a weapon. But he never completely surrendered himself to a book, he never forgot in it, as happens when that one book is the only and most important to a person, like a separate little world, beyond which the gaze does not go, he closes himself in and sinks into it, that even the draw nourishment from its last letter. Books and magazines poured onto his table, he could buy all of them, they were piled up around him, and while he was reading, he was disturbed by the mass of those still to be read. But he bound the books. In pressed leather, bearing the handsome name of Siegmund Aarenhold, the books lined up there magnificently and smugly, weighing on his life like a weight: a pregnant treasure that could not be conquered.