Occasionally the dialogue is broken by a momentary profusion of characters. A girl comes along, twirling a parasol on her shoulder, and twirling slightly also her rounded hips. A woman in black comes along, showing her full age, her eyes restless beneath her veil, her lips trembling. A tattooed giant comes along; a young man with white hair; a female dwarf; two girls, twins, dressed in coral. Something runs between them, an exchange of glances like lines that connect one figure with another and draw arrows, stars, triangles, until all combinations are used up in a moment, and other characters come on to the scene: a blind man with a cheetah on a leash, a courtesan with an ostrich-plume fan, an ephebe, a Fat Woman.<P>
<B>I inserted the first sentence.<br>
The rest is from Italo Calvino's "Trading Cities 2" (chapter 3, p.51),  a short story taken out of <I> Invisible Cities.</I>
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