If on a winter's night a traveler by Italo Calvino Page A

harmony with the others, with myself, and with the world, as I had not felt for a long time. (I would not like to use the wrong word; I will say, rather: I felt in harmony with the disharmony of others, myself, and the world.) I was already at the end of the bridge, where a flight of steps led to the shore and the river of people slowing down and jamming, forcing some to shove backward to avoid being pushed against those who were going down the steps more slowly—legless veterans who rested first on one crutch then on the other, horses led by the bit in a diagonal line so the iron of their hoofs would not slip on the edges of the iron steps, motorcycles with sidecars that had to be lifted and carried (they would have done better to take the Wagon Bridge, as the pedestrians did not fail to shout at them, inveighing, but this would have meant adding a good mile to the trip)—when I became aware of the girl who was coming down beside me.
    She wore a cloak with fur at hem and cuffs, a broad-brimmed hat with a veil and a rose: not only young and attractive but also elegant, as I noticed immediately afterward. While I was looking at her obliquely, I saw her open her eyes wide, raise her gloved hand to her mouth which was gaping in a cry of terror, and then sink backward. She would surely have fallen and been trampled by
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    that crowd advancing like a herd of elephants if I had not been quick to grab her by the arm.
    "Are you ill?" I said to her. "Lean on me. It's nothing, don't worry."
    She was rigid, unable to take another step.
    "The void, the void down below," she was saying. "Help ... vertigo ..."
    There was nothing visible that could explain any vertigo, but the girl was truly panic-stricken.
    "Don't look down, and hold on to my arm. Follow the others; we're already at the end of the bridge," I say to her, hoping that these are the right notions to reassure her.
    And then she says, "I feel all these footsteps come loose from the stairs and move forward in the void, then plunge ... a crowd falling..." And she digs in her heels.
    I look through the spaces between the iron steps at the colorless flow of the river down below, transporting chunks of ice like white clouds. In a distress that lasts an instant, I seem to be feeling what she feels: that every void continues in the void, every gap, even a short one, opens onto another gap, every chasm empties into the infinite abyss. I put my arm around her shoulders; I try to resist the shoves of those who want to proceed down, who curse at us: "Hey, let us past! Go do your hugging somewhere else! Shameless!" But the only way to elude the human landslide that is striking us would be to walk faster into the air, to fly.... There: I, too, feel suspended as if over a precipice....
    Perhaps it is this story that is a bridge over the void, and as it advances it flings forward news and sensations and emotions to create a ground of upsets both collective and individual in the midst of which a path can be opened while we remain in the dark about many circumstances both historical and geographical. I clear my path through the wealth of details that cover the void I do not want to
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    notice and I advance impetuously, while instead the female character freezes on the edge of a step amid the shoving crowd, until I manage to carry her down, almost a dead weight, step by step, to set her feet on the cobbles of the street along the river.
    She collects herself; she raises before her a haughty gaze; she resumes walking and does not stop; her stride does not hesitate; she sets off toward Mill Street; I can hardly keep up with her.
    The story must also work hard to keep up with us, to report a dialogue constructed on the void, speech by speech. For the story, the bridge is not finished: beneath every word there is nothingness.
    "Feeling better?" I ask her.
    "It's nothing. I have dizzy spells when I least expect them, even if there is no danger in sight.... Altitude or depth makes no