LITERATURE: If on a winter’s night… – The Fourth Wall?

I know what the term means in the reality/fiction barrier between narrative and reader, and when it is breached to bring the reader into the story.  This Calvino does to a degree, not by inviting the reader completely into the environment, but by reaching out in what might be considered an "aside" in stage terms (I believe) to form a connection that passes information between narrator and reader in a much more intimate manner than a mere recollection of events.

The breaking of the barrier is done by the character within the story–but he usually does not go beyond the storyworld in invitation.  Calvino has his character disengage himself from the storyworld at least to have one foot in, one foot out and firmly planted by the reader’s side as he is turning pages.  The character appears to read along with the reader. 

In this portion, the narrator admits that all he knows is in effect what we know: he is in a strange train station at night, is carrying baggage that he expects to exchange with someone who is supposed to meet him and utter a code sentence.  This is the stuff of intrigue and yet it is examined in a way that the reader normally needs to do all by himself.  The conflict then is there and building as we follow him in his worries of having missed his accomplice.  Calvino then neatly introduces the background flavor at the station bar, including a couple of the characters and the narrator’s interaction, and voila! it all comes back to plot and story and he is met and hurried out of there aboard the next train out.

It was exciting in a way that overexplanation should have tainted it but didn’t.  For all I knew, as reader, and confidante of the narrator, the person he was anxious to be meeting may well have been me!