Neutral rather than abstract, it is a place of echoes, footfalls and discreet surveillance.
Footfalls echoing on packed dirt.
There are pop songs, which you hear over a car radio; there are the sounds of people talking in the market; of what sounds like a wedding; of children at recess; of footfalls echoing inside what might be a mosque.
At times you'll want to stop playing just to observe Yorda's tentative movements or to hear the children's ragged breathing and unsteady footfalls echoing through the castle.
In the chilling air I descended to the village, footfalls echoing off the stone walls, and to Pousada de Marvão, the town's only hotel, for port by a crackling fire and a dinner of ensopado de borrego (lamb hotpot).
But the goose-stepping footfalls, echoing in front of shop windows bearing products from Louis Vuitton and Christian Dior, captured as well the contrasts institutionalized during eight years of rule by Vladimir V. Putin, the former spymaster and president who left office on Wednesday and returned to power as prime minister the following day.
After I buzzed him up, I listened to his footfalls echoing up the staircase and through the hallway, heavy and careful, as if treading a bridge that might give way.
Footfalls echo cavernously and breaths are caught and amplified.
Footfalls echo as you pass the Victor Hugo museum and multiple art galleries.
Still running, I passed under the monumental wooden gate and my footfalls echoed up in the rafters.
Compare that to one of Dr. Tylus's picks, still unseen, from T. S. Eliot's "Four Quartets": Footfalls echo in the memory Down the passage which we did not take Towards the door we never opened Into the rose garden.
