If on a Winter's Night a Traveler

The Reader doesn’t finish On the carpet of leaves illuminated by the moon before his plane lands. When he passes through airport security in Ataguitania, the book is confiscated because it’s banned. In the airport, the Reader meets Corinna. She closely “resembles Lotaria” and has a copy of the banned book that she’s willing to lend to the Reader. The Reader examines the book, but its title is Around an empty grave, and the author is Calixto Bandera. Corinna says it has a fake dust jacket to evade confiscation. The Reader thinks about the “fake dust jacket,” wondering whether all novels are fake. Corinna admits that false novels are common. Many things are fake in Ataguitania, she says. As the Reader and Corinna wait for a cab, the police arrest them. Corinna remains calm. She says that her real name is Gertrude and asks the police to take her in to headquarters. The Reader is astonished when she says that the police officers are also fake.

The Reader and Corinna are taken to a police station. There, Corinna says her name is Ingrid. The pair is separated and, when the Reader sees Corinna again, she’s wearing a police uniform. Now, she’s named Alfonsina. Corinna outlines the complex network of revolutionaries and counterrevolutionaries operating in the country. She admits that the Reader may be sent to prison but says the prison is fake too. She insists that she’s a revolutionary. She’s going undercover among fake revolutionaries. The Reader is concerned about prison, but Corinna assures him that at the very least it will have a library. Prisons are one of the few places to read “banned books.” Given that Corinna’s aim to find the counterfeiter is seemingly on hold, the Reader wonders whether she’s really Lotaria in disguise. Alternatively, she may just be someone with the same function in the story.

The Reader goes to prison. There, he issues a complaint regarding Around an empty grave. The library officer asks to test the novel using the computer, comparing it to the version they have on file. A programmer named Sheila conducts the test. When she enters the room, the Reader recognizes her as Corinna-Gertrude-Alfonsina. She completes the test, but the Reader interrupts by grabbing her wrist, demanding to know if she’s actually Lotaria. The Reader outlines a theory in which the entire revolutionary movement is just repeating the same old power structures from before the revolution. Each time Corinna removes her uniform, the Reader points out, she has another uniform beneath. When Corinna rebukes the Reader, he rips off her outfit and finds the outfits belonging to her other identities underneath. Eventually, he reaches her naked skin. She insists that her naked body is actually “a uniform” itself and in turn removes the Reader’s clothing. The narrator intrudes, asking the Reader (and the audience) whether Ludmilla wasn’t enough. A person snaps a photo. The photographer then says that Corinna—whom he addresses as Captain Alexandra—is once again attempting to have sex with a prisoner. The two stand up and begin the test again. As the Reader begins to sense Corinna’s anxiety, he realizes that the version of the novel on the computer is completely scrambled.

In this story, the narrator is identified as Nacho. Vultures circle above him. He takes this as a sign that “the night is about to end” (221). Don Anastasio Zamora, Nacho’s father, before his death, instructed Nacho to visit Oquedal, where his mother lives. However, Anastasio died before he could reveal the name of Nacho’s mother. Nacho travels to Oquedal, where he announces that he’s Don Anastasio Zamora’s son. An “old Indian” man directs him to the nicest home in town. There, Nacho meets an Indigenous woman named Anacleta Higueras, who may be his mother. She won’t say explicitly that she is but invites him to eat a meal. Anacleta’s daughter is Amaranta. She had a brother named Faustino but he died. Nacho compares his appearance to Amaranta’s. While doing so, he takes hold of her tightly. She slips away from him, leveling an insult at him. This prompts Anacleta to declare that Nacho is just like his father, Don Anastasio. Nacho defends himself, trying to prompt Anacleta to admit that she’s his mother, so any relationship between Nacho and Amaranta would be incestuous. Anacleta dodges the question but recommends that Nacho visit a woman named Dona Jazmina. Then, she tells him that his full name is actually Nacho Zamora y Alvarado.

Nacho goes to the Alvarado home. There, he finds Dona Jazmina, who is also Indigenous. She speaks about Don Anastasio, claiming that he was a famous gambler and womanizer. While she talks, Nacho notices a young woman in the house. She’s Jazmina’s daughter, Jacinta, and bears a striking resemblance to Amaranta. Nacho and Jacinta are left alone for a short time. They’re attracted to one another and try to have sex, but Dona Jazmina bursts into the room. She warns Nacho that such an act would be wrong. Nacho again tries to force her to explain why, but Jazmina says that Nacho’s mother is actually Anacleta. She asks him to leave, so Nacho returns to Anacleta. She tells him that Don Anastasio and a man named Faustino Higueras competed for her affection. Faustino was killed in the knife fight over an open grave. In the aftermath of the “bitter victory,” Anacleta says, Nacho’s father—who was also known as Nacho—was forced to leave the town. Faustino was buried, but when people returned to his grave, they found it empty. People spread rumors that Faustino somehow survived. Nacho visits Faustino’s empty grave. During his journey, he meets a man wearing a poncho. The man carries a knife and introduces himself as Faustino Higueras. He says he doesn’t appreciate Nacho’s sexual advances toward his sister, Jacinta. Nacho seizes Faustino’s knife and prepares to fight.

The Ataguitanian police tell the Reader that he’ll be allowed to leave on the condition that he agree to undertake a secret mission in a foreign country. The Reader accepts, so he’s sent to a country called Ircania. There, he has tea with Director of the State Police Archives Arkadian Porphyrich. Porphyrich explains that all police departments around the world are working together toward the same goal, so police officers collaborate even with officers from rival nations. According to Porphyrich, authoritarian states’ tendency to ban books means that they place even more importance on the written word. Banned books, he says, become powerful symbols, so much so that a “secret treaty” exists among countries to export banned books.

Porphyrich believes in the Spirit. People who believe in the Spirit work for the police and the State and are active censors. This somewhat disturbs the Reader, but he feels reassured when Porphyrich talks about his love of reading as a pastime. When the Reader mentions “the apocrypha conspiracy” (238), or the scheme involving fake books and Ermes Marana, Porphyrich confesses that he heard about this but had no success finding the woman at the center of the conspiracy. (This woman is likely Ludmilla.) The Reader offers to give his copy of Around an empty grave to Porphyrich. In the current moment, Porphyrich says, the police are prioritizing a different book: What story down there awaits its end? by Anatoly Anatolin. The Reader resolves to contact Anatolin so that he can read the book before it’s confiscated. At night, the Reader dreams about encountering Ludmilla on a train. Upon waking the next day, he visits the park where he has arranged to meet Anatolin. The young author joins him on a bench and quietly notes that they’re potentially being watched. He subtly slips the Reader “a little bundle of pages” (243) but is interrupted and arrested by two police officers before he can hand over the remaining pages.

The narrator walks through a city district named the Prospect. He focuses only on things that interest him. In the back of his mind, his thoughts drift to a friend named Franziska. He enjoys his time with her and hopes to run into her while he’s on his walk. As much as he likes her, he doesn’t want a real relationship with her. The pressure would be unbearable. As he walks, the narrator reveals that he has an almost divine dominion over the “complicated, tangled, and overloaded” (244) world. He can remove anything he doesn’t like with a thought. He erases buildings, civil servants, and police stations. His deletions accidently destroy the fire and postal services, he realizes, so he decides to eliminate fire and the need for mail. Gradually, he removes the city’s government institutions. Next, he removes “economic structures.” He then decides to remove all of nature, leaving him on a desert where the Prospect once stood.

As the narrator walks, he spots Franziska and walks toward her; however, many men dressed in black overcoats block his path. He’s surprised, since he presumed that his deletions removed such men. They hail him as one of their own: They have the same deletion powers. The narrator has a sudden urge to undo his deletions but can’t. A fissure opens in the ground, separating him from Franziska. The men in hats and coats—seemingly, the narrator notes, “men from Section D” (248)—praise and congratulate him for his efforts. He tries to get free from them and nearer to Franziska, but the fissure widens into a chasm. Franziska smiles at him, just like she does when they meet on the street. She asks him to invite her to a nearby café where “there’s an orchestra that plays waltzes” (252).

The narrator assures the Reader that the journey is nearly at an end. At last, the Reader has some free time and goes to the library to request a copy of every unfinished book. The library workers can’t find the books, however, so the Reader becomes overwhelmed with jealousy toward people who can finish the books they read. One of these people addresses the Reader, voicing a theory about the “way of reading” (254). The theory prompts a discussion about reading methods, each person proposing a different academic understanding of reading. The Reader realizes that “the moment has come […] to speak” (256) and describes his reading theory: He enjoys reading a book from start to finish and has no real academic theory. Recently, however, he has been unable to finish any book.

During the discussion, someone refers to 1001 Arabian Nights, adding that the Reader’s situation is reminiscent of this book. He asks to discuss something that may or may not be a dream he recently had. The story involves Caliph Harun-al-Rashid, a ruler who disguised himself as a merchant and snuck out of his house at night. He suffered from insomnia. During his excursion, he lost a wager against a woman: In a game with eight pearls, he drew the black pearl rather than the seven white pearls. His punishment was to kill Caliph Harun-al-Rashid. Dressed in his merchant disguise, Harun-al-Rashid decides to take his own life but, before he does so, he asks the woman why she wants to kill the Caliph. The story is then interrupted. Since the speaker doesn’t have a title for the story, the Reader chooses a title. He names it He asks anxious to hear the story, selecting the last words before the interruption, in which Harun-al-Rashid desperately asked the woman for her motivations.

Another person in the library asks the Reader to list the books he couldn’t finish. The Reader gives the titles, which create a story of their own:

If on a winter’s night a traveler, outside the town of Malbork, leaning from the steep slope without fear of wind or vertigo, looks down in the gathering shadow in a network of lines that enlace, in a network of lines that intersect, on the carpet of leaves illuminated by the moon around an empty grave—What story down there awaits its end? he asks, anxious to hear the story (258).

The person claims to know a novel that begins this way. As the Reader tries to explain that the prose is simply a list, another reader questions the fundamental nature of the beginning and the ending of stories, contravening the Reader’s expectations. In ancient times, the Reader says, stories either ended with the hero and heroine uniting or with both being killed. While saying these words, the Reader suddenly decides that he “want[s] to marry Ludmilla” (259).

The narrator explains how you, the Reader, are now married to Ludmilla. The Reader and Ludmilla lay together in bed, which represents their “parallel readings.” As she reaches to turn off the light, the Reader asks her to wait because he—meaning the audience—is about to finish a book titled If on a winter’s night a traveler by Italo Calvino.