The Voyeur

by Alain Robbe-Grillet

  He wondered if they used handcuffs on the island, and how long the chain linking the two rings would be. On the right side of the memorandum book were listed amounts received, as well as descriptions of articles sold. This part, at least, had needed no retouching, and showed no flaws, since Mathias had recovered possession of the wrist watch given away the day before. He decided to finish the account of this unjustified day: at the top of Wednesday's page he wrote two words, pressing hard on the pencil: “slept well.”

  On Thursday's page—still blank—he wrote in advance the same remark. Then he closed the black book.

  He set the oil lamp on the pedestal table at the head of his bed, undressed, piling his clothes on the chair, put on the nightshirt his landlady had lent him, wound his watch and laid it near the lamp base, lowered the wick a little, and blew into the top of the chimney.

  While he was groping for the open side of the bedsheets, he remembered the electric light. When the latter had suddenly gone out he had flicked the switch back and forth several times, supposing that the circuit was in bad working order. But the light had not come back on despite all his manipulations, and soon the landlady was knocking at his door (with her foot?), holding a lighted oil lamp in each hand. The “local breakdowns,” she said, were very frequent and sometimes lasted a long time; the islanders had therefore retained their old oil lamps, which they kept ready for use as in the past.

  “It wasn't worth making all that fuss about progress,” the woman had concluded, carrying away only one of her two lamps.

  Mathias did not know in which position he had left the switch. If it was “off,” then the current might have been re-established for some time now without his knowing it; and on the other hand, the light might suddenly go on in the middle of the night. He reached the door in the darkness, his hands recognizing as he passed them the chair with his clothes on it and the marble top of the big commode.

  He flicked the switch near the door. There was still no current. Mathias tried to remember which position was “off,” but could not, and pressed the little metallic ball for a last time, just in case.

  Groping his way back to bed, he slipped between the sheets which seemed cold and damp. He stretched out on his back at full length, legs together, arms crossed over his chest. His left hand bumped into the wall. The outlines of the window on his right began to emerge from the darkness—a vague, dark blue gleam.

  It was only then that the salesman realized how tired he was—overcome by an immense fatigue. The last mile or so, taken at a fast pace in the dark from Black Rocks to town had exhausted his strength. At dinner he had scarcely touched the food the proprietor had served him; fortunately the latter did not speak to him once. Mathias had hurried through the meal in order to return to his room—the back room with the high, dark furniture—looking out onto the moor.

  Thus he was alone again in this room where he had spent his whole childhood—with the exception, of course, of his first years following his mother's death, which had occurred shortly after his birth. His father had remarried soon after, and had immediately taken Mathias back from his aunt, who had intended to bring him up as her own son. The child, adopted quite naturally by the new bride, had spent a long time wondering which of the two women was his mother; it had taken him still longer to understand that he had no mother at all. He had often heard the story before.

  He wondered if the big corner cupboard, between the door and the window, was still locked. That was where he had kept his string collection. It was all over now. He did not even know where the house was anymore.

  At the foot of the bed, on the chair with its back against the wall (where a horizontal streak had been worn into the wallpaper), sat Violet, a timorous expression on her face. The childish chin was pressed against the rail of the wooden bed, around which her little hands were clasped. Behind her was another cupboard, a third one on the right, then the dressing table, two other chairs different in design from each other, and finally the window. He was alone again in this room where he had spent his whole life, looking through the curtainless panes of the small, square window set deep in the wall. It looked out over the moor, with no courtyard or even the least bit of a garden intervening. Twenty yards from the house stood a big wooden fence post—the remains of something, no doubt; on its rounded extremity was perched a sea gull.

  The sky was gray and the wind came in strong gusts. Yet the gull remained completely motionless on its perch. It could have been there a long time; Mathias had not seen it come.

  Its head was facing toward the right, in profile. It was a big whitish bird with no dark patch on its head; its wings were of a darker color, though they looked dusty: it was a common species.

  It is a big gray and white bird; its head has no dark patch. Only the wings and tail have any color. It is the type of sea gull most common in the vicinity.

  Mathias has not seen it come. It must have been there a long time, motionless on its perch.

  Its head is facing toward the right, in profile. The points of the long, folded wings cross over the tail, which is rather short. The beak is horizontal, thick, yellow, slightly curved, but strongly hooked at the tip. Darker feathers border the lower edge of the wing as well as its sharp tip.

  The right leg (the only one visible, the left being directly behind it) is a thin vertical stem covered with yellow scales. It begins, under the belly, with a joint attached at an angle of one hundred twenty degrees, connecting at one end with the fleshy, feathered part just the beginning of which can be distinguished. At the other end of the leg can be seen the webbing between the toes and the pointed claws spread out on the rounded extremity of the fence post.

  From this post is hung the wicket-gate connecting the moor with the garden, which is surrounded by a barbed-wire fence attached to wooden posts. The garden, carefully laid out in parallel beds separated by well-kept lanes, is a profusion of many-colored blossoms sparkling in the sunshine.

  Mathias opens his eyes. He is in his bed, lying on his back. In the half-consciousness of waking, the bright (but vague) image of the window, now on his left, begins to move around the room with an irresistible although uniform movement, as steady and deliberate as the current of a river, appearing successively at the places which should be occupied by the chair at the foot of the bed, the cupboard, the second cupboard, the dressing table, the two chairs side by side. Then the window stops at Mathias’ right—at the place it occupied yesterday—four identical panes divided by a dark cross.

  It is broad daylight. Mathias has slept well, not waking once, not moving an inch. He feels rested, calm. He turns his head toward the window.

  It is raining outside. The sun was shining in his dream. He suddenly remembers it for a second, after which it immediately disappears.

  It is raining outside. The four panes are spattered with tiny brilliant drops forming oblique—although parallel—lines less than half an inch long, cross-hatching the window's whole surface in the direction of one of its diagonals. The almost imperceptible sound of the raindrops against the glass is audible.

  The lines occur closer and closer together. Soon the fusion of the drops with one another disturbs the well-ordered pattern. The shower was just beginning when Mathias turned his eyes toward the window. Now big drops are forming everywhere, streaming along the glass from top to bottom.

  Threads of water cover the whole image, their direction generally vertical, a series of winding lines occurring at regular intervals of about three-eighths of an inch.

  These vertical threads disappear in their turn, giving way to a punctuation with neither direction nor movement—thick, frozen drops evenly covering the whole surface. Each of these, observed attentively, reveals a different, although uncertain, form in which only a single constant characteristic is preserved: the swollen, rounded base shading into black and touched at the center with a speck of light.

  At this moment Mathias notices that the electric light hanging from the ceiling (in the middle of the room
between the window and the bed) is on, shining with a yellow radiance at the end of its wire beneath a lamp shade of ground glass that has a rippled edge.

  He stands up and goes to the door. There he flicks the chromium switch fastened to the door frame. The light goes out. For the light to be off the little polished metal ball must be in the “down” position—how logical. Mathias should have thought of that last night. He looks at the floor, then at the oil lamp on the pedestal table.

  The tiles feel cold under his bare feet. About to get back into bed, he turns around, walks to the window, and leans over the table wedged into the recess. The liquid granulations covering the panes on the outside are impossible to see through. Although wearing only his nightshirt, Mathias opens the window.

  It is not cold. It is still raining, but only a little; and there is no wind. The sky is uniformly gray.

  Nothing remains of the sudden squall that drove the rain against the panes a few moments before. The weather is very calm now. A continuous light rain is falling; if it blurs the horizon it does not obstruct the view for shorter distances. On the contrary, it is as if in this new-washed air the objects near at hand profit from an additional luster—especially when they are light-colored to begin with—like that gull, for instance, arriving from the southeast (where the cliff falls away to the sea). Its already deliberate flight seems to become even slower as it loses altitude.

  After turning around almost in the same place, in front of the window, the gull slowly rises again. But then it lets itself drop to the ground without once beating its wings, in a short, sure, widening spiral.

  Instead of landing, the gull rises again, effortlessly, merely by changing the inclination of its wings. Then it turns once again, as if it were looking for its prey, or a perch—twenty yards from the house. It gains altitude with a few great strokes of its wings, describes a last loop, and continues its flight toward the harbor.

  Mathias returns to his bed and begins to dress. After a summary toilet he puts on the rest of his clothes: the jacket and the duffle coat as well, since it is raining. He automatically thrusts his hands into the pockets. But he pulls out the right hand at once.

  He heads toward the big cupboard in the corner, next to the window, between the chairs and the desk. The two doors are closed tight. The key is not in the keyhole. He opens one door with his fingertips—it opens easily. The cupboard was not locked. He opens it wide. It is absolutely empty. On the entire surface of its great, regularly-spaced shelves there is not even the smallest piece of cord.

  The desk at the left of the cupboard is not locked either. Mathias drops the leaf in front, opens the many drawers one after another, inspects the pigeonholes. Here too everything is empty.

  The five big drawers of the commode on the other side of the door can be opened just as easily, although they have no handles, merely wide openings of old—missing—locks into which Mathias thrusts the tip of his little finger in order to draw them toward him, getting a purchase on the wood as well as he can. But from top to bottom of the commode he finds nothing: not one piece of paper, not one old box top, not one piece of string.

  He picks up his watch from the pedestal table next to him and fastens it around his left wrist. It is nine o'clock.

  He crosses the room to where the memorandum book is lying on the square table in the window recess. He opens it to Thursday, picks up his pencil, and under the indication “slept well” adds in his most painstaking handwriting: “up at nine"—although he is unaccustomed to recording such details as this.

  Then he stoops, seizes the little suitcase under the table, and puts the black memorandum book in it. After a moment's reflection he puts the suitcase on the lowest shelf of the big empty cupboard in the right corner.

  Having closed the door—forcing it a little in order to make it stay closed—he automatically thrusts his hands into his duffle coat pockets. The right hand again comes in contact with the gumdrops and the cigarettes. Mathias removes one of the latter from the pack and lights it.

  He takes his wallet from his inside jacket pocket, removes a small newspaper clipping whose edge protrudes slightly beyond the other papers inside. He reads this printed text from beginning to end, chooses a word in it, and after tapping the ash from his cigarette, brings the red tip near the selected spot. The paper immediately turns brown. Mathias gradually presses harder. The brown spot spreads; the cigarette finally bums through the paper, leaving a round hole ringed with black.

  Then, with the same deliberation and care, Mathias pierces a second identical hole at a certain distance from the first. Between them is only a thin blackened isthmus, scarcely a thirty-second of an inch wide at the point of tangency between the two circles.

  New holes succeed these two, first grouped in pairs, then occurring in whatever space is left. The rectangle of newspaper is soon entirely perforated. Mathias then undertakes to make it disappear altogether, gradually burning whatever fragments remain with his cigarette. He begins at one corner and proceeds along the fuller parts of the lacework, taking care that no piece falls off unless it is a completely charred, fragment. When he blows gently at the point of contact he notices that the line of incandescence gains ground a little more quickly. From time to time he inhales on the cigarette to quicken combustion of the tobacco; he knocks the ashes onto the tiles at his feet.

  When nothing is left of the clipping but a tiny triangle which he holds between the points of two fingernails, Mathias sets this fragment on the floor, where he finishes it off. Thus no trace of the news item discernible to the naked eye remains. The cigarette itself has diminished, during the course of the operation, to a half-inch butt which it is only natural to toss out the window.

  Mathias gropes at the bottom of his pocket for the two overlong butts he had recovered in the grass on the cliff top. He lights them one after the other in order to reduce them to a less noticeable size; he smokes them as rapidly as possible, inhaling puff after puff, and throws them in turn out the window.

  His right hand again plunges into the pocket, this time bringing out a gumdrop. The transparent wrapper goes back into the bag while the brownish cube is put into his mouth. It is rather like a caramel.

  Mathias buttons up his duffle coat. Since there is no wind, it will probably not rain in; no need to close the window. Mathias walks over to the door.

  The moment he opens it to step into the hallway and cross the house—since the main entrance is on the other side—he decides that his landlady, if he should meet her, will doubtless want to talk to him. He leaves the door of his room ajar, making no noise. Some indistinct words reach him, probably from the kitchen at the other end of the hallway. Among several voices he recognizes his landlady's. Two men—at least—are talking with her. It sounds as if they were trying not to raise their voices—as if they were even whispering from time to time.

  Mathias closes the door carefully and turns back to the window. It is very easy to get out that way. Having hoisted himself up on the heavy little table, kneeling in order not to scratch the waxed wood, he straddles the sill, crouches on the outer stone ledge, and jumps down into the low grass of the moor. If the two men want to talk to him, they can just as well do it later on.

  Mathias walks straight ahead; the moist air refreshes his forehead and his eyes. The carpetlike vegetation along this part of the coast is so full of water that the soles of his shoes sound like sponges being squeezed. Walking on this elastic, half-liquid soil is easy and spontaneous—whereas last night his feet were constantly bumping into invisible stones along the way. This morning, all the salesman's fatigue has vanished.

  He reaches the edge of the cliff almost immediately; it is quite low in this area. The tide is still ebbing. The sea is perfectly calm. The regular hiss of the waves is scarcely louder than the sound of his shoes in the grass, but slower. To the left can be seen the long, rectilinear pier sticking out at an angle toward the open sea, and at its tip the beacon-light turret indicating the entrance to the harbor.r />
  Continuing in this direction, sometimes on the moor, sometimes on the rocks themselves, Mathias’ progress is hindered by a long crevice running perpendicular to the shoreline. It is no more than a yard wide at the top, narrowing below until it is too restricted for anything larger than the body of a child to slip through. But the crevice must penetrate much deeper into the rock; the various outcroppings along the sides make it impossible to see to the bottom. Instead of widening as it approaches the sea, the crevice narrows still more—at least on the surface—and offers, along the cliffside, no practicable opening in the chaos of granite blocks extending as far as the beach. It is therefore impossible to slip into it at any point.

  Mathias takes the bag of gumdrops out of his pocket, opens it, inserts a pebble for ballast, twists the cellophane neck several times, and drops it where the crevice seems least choked. The object bumps against the stone sides once, then again, but without being damaged or obstructed in its fall. Then it disappears from sight, swallowed by distance and darkness.

  Leaning over the crevice, his ears straining, Mathias hears it ricochet a third time against something hard. A characteristic noise, immediately afterward, indicates that the body has ended its course in a hole full of water. The latter doubtless communicates with the open sea at high tide, but by channels too narrow and complicated for the undertow ever to bring the little bag to light. Mathias straightens up, makes a detour in order to bypass the crevice, and continues his interrupted walk. He wonders if crabs like gumdrops.