"It isn't only
the steel bridges that do it," he said. "Stone arch bridges do it, too.
The crown of the arch rises and falls. The Greeks and Romans and
Egyptians knew that expansion and contraction occurred. They--"
While talking he had gone across the gap, stepping lightly upon a
stringpiece probably a foot wide, and proceeding over the ties. Now,
however, he ceased speaking and looked back, for I was no longer beside
him. At the gap I had stopped. I intended to step across, but I did not
propose to do so without giving the matter the attention it seemed to me
to deserve.
Mr. Case did not laugh at me. He came back and stood on the string-piece
where it crossed the opening, telling me to put my hand on his shoulder.
But I did not want to do that. I wanted to cross alone--when I got
ready. It took me perhaps two minutes to get ready. Then I stepped over.
It was, of course, absurdly easy. I had known it would be. But as we
walked along I kept thinking to myself: "I shall have to cross that
beastly place again when we come back," and I marveled the more at the
amazing steadiness of eye and mind and nerve that enables some men to go
continually prancing about over emptiness infinitely more engulfing than
that which had troubled and was troubling me.
Returning I stepped across without physical hesitation.
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