The Steps of Widener

There are 30 steps leading to Widener Library, and they are too broad and spacious for commonplace things. A good company could do Greek tragedy on those steps, but a small man trudging up them alone is a melancholy sight.

Sensing their inadequacy, such men often approach the steps with the exaggerated skulk of a silent movie Indian. Shoulders forced close together, head dropped but eyes in all directions, they scuttle up the steps close to one of the stone blocks on either side. This saves half the face from sleazy scrutiny. Once behind the protecting curtain of columns they turn and walk 25 paces to the doorway.

On sunny days when quick winds tumble through the Yard the prettiest girls use the place as an open-air run-way and half-skip, half-slide down the steps, patterns of light and shadow changing on moving legs. Often several girls sit to one side, running fingers languorously over the cut-stones and listening to the bells of Mem Church roll in unhealthy sound.

Old women like to rest at the very base of the steps. They lean against a side block or let their bodies sag forward until only the support of a forearm wedged between chin and knee prevents them from closing completely around themselves. A vinyl handbag lies near-by and its bright color is a surprise against the grey stone and gray old age.

The old women make the most careful watchers. They know that the locust will be the last to lose its leaves, that its red will last nearly to Christmas. The women will not see the tree stripped, nor will they see the children who sled down the steps when snow fills some of the spaces; but the library caretakers and guards will take note and tell the women in the spring. All this pleases them. They are saddened only when the rain drives them from the steps or tourists pushing baby carriages ask that they move so this or that view will be suitable for a picture.

To the tourists the steps are only a prop, and they send their children to pose and play on them. They never pause to think of the massy stones as the lips of a Medieval hell-mouth or as the appropriate entrance to a Temple of Learning.

The small drop from one step to the next makes descending difficult. Distinguished professors whose names appear in even the obscurest libraries manage it best. Wearing rounded hats which have been out of shape as long as out of style, they move their legs carefully and slowly. As foot touches step, however, they seem to lose control and a slight jerk moves up the whole body. Teiresias must have moved like this. Inside Widener these men have favorite chairs from which to watch favorite books. When they walk out the latticed door they are not so much leaving the Library as closing their eyes to it for a while.

Students sometimes achieve the professors' measured gait. Their motion is not produced by serene detachment but rather by sheer terror. Generally it takes about two hour exams and a paper before a young student forgets himself enough to descend that way.