Un des grands malheurs de ma vie inconsciente est d'être monté jusqu’à la lanterne de la flèche de Strasbourg. J’avais vingt ans. Jusque-là, je ne connaissais que les modestes clochers de la campagne champenoise. [...]Mais, à Strasbourg, l’ascension est brusquement inhumaine. En suivant le guide dans l’escalier de pierre, le visiteur est d’abord gardé à main droite par les fines colonnettes, mais subitement, très près du sommet, ce réseau ajouré des colonnes s’arrête. À droite, c’est alors le vide, le grand vide au-dessus des toits. L’escalier tourne si vite que le visiteur est bien seul, loin du guide. Alors la vie dépend de la main sur la rampe. Monter et descendre, deux fois quelques minutes d’un vertige absolu, et voilà un psychisme marqué pour la vie... (Bachelard, Volonté, 301-302)

To me, it was the Tower of Sienna that did it. The story is the same as Bachelard's, basically. A staircase of stone, spiraling in between deep walls; it is narrow, it is endless. You lose track of height and time. You don't even know that you are going up to the sky. You could be under the earth. But, suddenly, you are out on a small terrace. You feel the wind. After being in the dark, the light and this sudden rush of air is confusing. There is another staircase going up again. It is a metal staircase: just a ramp and a few flights of steps. It looks fragile. It sounds fragile when your feet hit the steps. When you look down, you see through the steps: down to the ground, people on the pavement, black figures as small as toys, and the pavement is undulating. Yes, this is a famous feature of the piazza of Sienna: it is not flat, it rises slowly and subsides again, like slow waves.

The worst was when I had to acknowledge that I would not make it to the top. Going up, I could force my gaze onto the steps in front of me. But when I turned around, there was no escape: I was facing the emptiness, and I had to look down to find my steps.

I had a similar experience in the tunnel of the Fréjus, driving to Italy. Similar in that it was the same experience of fear but of course it was different in its circumstances. I was under the earth, or inside the earth, engulfed by the rock; there was no air, no fear of falling this time.

The tunnel is 13 km long. The speed is limited to 60 km/h. In fact, all cars are required to go at 60 km/h, no more, no less. So I knew (I was quick to calculate) that the drive was going to last 13 minutes, 13 minutes 30 seconds at most, taking into account the time to speed up when I entered the tunnel, and to slow down at the exit, when I would see the disk of the light, bright sunshine, at the end of the road.

There had been a bad accident some years ago: people trapped inside their cars, a lorry on fire, the electric lights shut off, panic, several dozens of casualties. That is why the regulations are strict. All drivers are required to listen to the radio of the tunnel, which plays soft music, like airport music, and at intervals repeats basic regulations.

The drive is easy, the road is mostly straight, the car in front is far ahead, the speedometer is set at 60. In fact, with the body being engaged with the car, hands on the wheel, feet on the pedals, the mind has an unusually liberty: the liberty to wander and consider the mass of rocks above and all around. 13 km is not long in a car but if I had to walk, it would be several hours before seeing the light. When I had entered the tunnel, I could see the mountain going up, straight up like a cliff. It seemed hundreds of meters high. In the middle the tunnel, it was far higher. There were a few kilometer of rock engulfing me in all directions. And nothing I could do. It was impossible to turn around. Impossible to stop. I could not even move; my arms and legs were glued to the car...

I could feel the sweat on my hands, my forehead and my back. Minutes started to stretch. It seemed there was no limit to the process. Since I must have spent a few minutes to take in the situation, I had nine, or ten, virtually indefinite minutes ahead of me.

I was not afraid of an accident. Obviously, this was the safest portion of the road, safer than the narrow motorways around Genova, hanging on cliffs above the sea, and where trucks race sportcars, both of them honking like crazy. No, the tunnel was safe. In a sense. There were none of the dangers with which humans usually threaten each other.

Neither was I afraid that the tunnel would collapse above me. This was not exactly that. I was afraid of the rock itself. As I had been of the air – the emptiness – on the tower of Sienna. The only difference was that, on the tower of Sienna, I could translate the threat of the air into a particular fear, a human fear, that of falling. But it was contingent, unimportant. It hid the true elemental fear, which concerned the air around me. As in the tunnel, there was something threatening in the rock itself. I believe that each element bears a threat. In fact, elements may bear various threats. The threat of the slimy water in the pond in front of the House of Usher is not the threat of the open sea. But it is water in both cases. 

We usually do not sense this threat, for the elements around us are in a sort a equilibrum. It is when this equilibrum is tipped, when one element takes preeminence, that we feel the dread. Because we are not used to living in such an atmosphere. We must learn, in imagination.