SOURCE: Gabriel, Barbara. “Gallant Language.” Canadian Forum 72, no. 187 (March 1994): 38-40.

In the following review, Gabriel explores the linguistic dimension of Across the Bridge, highlighting Gallant's preoccupation with language itself.

There is a magical moment at the close of the title story of Mavis Gallant's most recent short story collection [Across the Bridge] in which the young Parisian female protagonist is unexpectedly washed by a wave of happiness. Reconciled for the first time with her abandoned fiancé, she sees him off on the train, following a meeting in which, little by little, she has seen the possibility of love. Instructed to call her father to fetch her after the rendezvous, she instead takes the winding walk home uphill in an autumn drizzle, conscious of “moving along, as Arnaud was moving on the train. I would be accompanying him during at least part of his journey.”

It is a bewildering...