And yet it was not so simple. At times like these distance, and not direction, is my downfall. I find it nearly impossible to walk purposely past telescoping rows of books, leaving them all untouched, unread, unopened. (Glimpses of Portuguese periodicals, Byzantine manuscripts, journals of learned societies and "Iron Maze: Western Intelligence v. the Bolsheviks".)

Walking more quickly in an effort to distract myself produced an almost dizzying effect. On each row, a title or two would snap into relief, barely able to be resolved by the dutiful memory before the next row was at hand. At irregular intervals, the heady stream of words would part to reveal curious eyes turned suddenly upward from the desk, beyond their appointed carrel, deep in thought.

("Metaphoropolis." "Unveiling the Arctic." Something in demotic French.)

Circuitousness aside, the only real signs of construction were occasional wires, missing patches of ceiling, holes in the wall. I hardly noticed this, instead considering familiar platitudes: what is an unfinished wall compared to the deeply unfinished project of knowledge it contains? Though if the wall remained unfinished and the book unbound, who could continue? Likewise, the very effect of construction in Widener and Boston is an eerie sense that the city, far from acknowledging my presence, is in fact dutifully primping for someone who will come later, perhaps much later. If I did get lost in Pusey it was only for a moment--a sudden placelessness. Books successfully in hand I allowed myself to follow a sudden lead: a sign pointing to "Geography." Hoping to find shelves of the world in relief, I followed instead a series of plastic signs to an oversized shelf headed by a large blue book. Setting down my stack I found the book was an encyclopedia of imaginary places: the perfect topology.

A reminder that, when all else has come and gone, the surface of the imaginary remains infinitely accessible.

The homeward hour: I returned thinking of books unread. "Comics und Religion: Eine Interdisziplinare Diskussion" shares this mental shelf with "Illuminated Pages of the Codex Amiatinus." But turning up the road towards Lowell in the early dusk I saw its facade lit up like a storyboard: numberless lighted shelves in which my classmates read, gesture, change clothes, argue and disappear.

Maryanthe E. Malliaris '01 is a mathematics concentrator in Lowell House. Her column appears on alternate Mondays.