And so this trip ends with a languid day in the Baroque National Library of Vienna. It is one of the great libraries of Europe, and one has the dizzy experience of reading beneath frescoes on the theme of war and peace, replete with gym-ready warriors, bare-breasted women, and chubby cheribs with their private parts covered with floating gossimer. More down to earth are the muscular, marble statues and the wooden inlaid book shelves that contain the world's encyclopedias and the time-worn leather classics. You tiptoe along creaking herringbone floors, and squint at your pages under dim lights. I nearly ruined my eyes this way decades ago at Oxford. I was in my element.

I have always felt that when you are privileged enough to read in places like this that you have an obligation to do good work. I've been able to work in the Vatican Library in Rome and the Archive of the Indies in Seville, and most of all, under the dome at the Library of Congress in Washington. And so diligence was my command today, but I'm not sure I met my obligation. My mind was pointing toward home.

When the doors closed I went looking for the remnants of the siege of Vienna by the Turks in 1529. There are only three spots in this city of music and later kings. The most prominent is an tiny church called St. Reprecht which was built into the old walls that are now gone.

I was glad to see that the old church has a website.