Ten Tributes to Calvino by Rhys Hughes Page A

the new corners.”
    The first and second pedestrians reached my side and demonstrated concern at my agitation, which they had noted. But I was happier now, particularly when they both announced how they had managed to find replacements for their earlier positions, selected at random from other pedestrians, and were free to walk to the ends of two of the streets leading from the crossroads, while I took the third. My remaining assistant would stand here and keep in contact not only with us but also with the three replacements, the first of which still occupied the original corner.
    The web of glances was now truly tangled, elegant, deadly. Soon my wife would be spotted for sure. But she is obviously more clever and slippery than I had ever anticipated. Her beauty did not manifest itself.
    My new corner was colder than the others. A breeze dried my gums. How might I kiss her ankles with such oral aridity? Then I perceived that there was less cover from the elements in this location. No fewer than five streets met at this point. The spines, or bones, of a pentagon. Pedestrians rushed down them all, but not my wife. She who is too beautiful to describe did not flow.
    I stopped another pedestrian to take my place. My three earlier assistants came up to help me. Together we were five in number, enough to occupy the new corners which would reveal themselves. We diverged again.
    “Remember to shout out when you see her!”
    The next corner I reached was a focus for six streets. Another willing pedestrian; a further adjustment of assistants. I was collecting disciples, eyes, all infected with my despair, my romanticism. The corner after that fused seven streets. Then eight, nine, ten. The temperature was falling, the wind was rising. Where was she? Sheltering in a doorway? More corners, more converging streets. Eleven, a dozen.
    By late afternoon, I had lost count. I stood in a circus, a hub, with streets radiating like the spokes of a unicycle wheel. Too many. Down none of them stalked my wife. I turned up the collar of my coat. At the far end of one street I noticed a man standing on a corner. He was steady, watching. I walked up to him. Before I could open my mouth, he cried:
    “I am looking! I am looking!”
    Then I understood that the circuit had been closed. This was my original corner, occupied by my last replacement. I turned and saw that all the buildings had vanished. The city was naked. The city walls still stood, bounding an immense square, but the space they contained was empty of artificial structures. People were milling without the guidance of streets. Rather, so many streets met at this point that everything was an absence. My view of the totality was unimpeded. No more corners to hide behind. Still my wife was not apparent.
    It was an illusion, of course. The combined effect of watchers on every corner, relaying their observations with a glance, the whole in harmony, had made me our first omniscient citizen. I saw the utter limits of my disappointment. No nook, no cranny, remained. And if there was still no beauty to be found, it simply did not exist. I lacked uncertainty, hope.
    I tapped him on the shoulder. “Go home!”
    He shrugged and went. The circuit was broken. A few, a very few, buildings shimmered back into reality. The horizons were eroded.
    “Tell the others to go home as well. Spread the word!”
    I closed my eyes and waited. When I opened them, it was evening and I was back on my original corner. It was warm. I pressed through the crowds to my apartment at the top of a narrow, tall house. This city is convoluted, riddled. And I dwell high, but not high enough to behold more than a few strands of the tangle. I climbed the steps, opened my door. The candles had burned to stubs.
    Throwing off my coat, I sat on the edge of the bed. Already I was forgetting about my wife. The loss of beauty that is beyond imagination cannot be regretted too much. Next year I shall try again. Perhaps when I am married,