Repetition
Page 1
Praise for Repetition:
“[Robbe-Grillet’s] newest, elegantly translated by Howard, transforms a tale of espionage set in 1949 Berlin into a psychological quest into one man’s precarious sense of self.”
—Booklist
“What is thrilling here is Robbe-Grillet’s extraordinary command of language and his skill at creating atmosphere.”
—Library Journal
“Robbe-Grillet figures the unreliability of the narrator … by obsessively returning to the story of Oedipus, recalling not only Sophocles and Kierkegaard but [his own] celebrated first novel The Erasers… The self-seriousness of Robbe-Grillet’s early experimental fiction has devolved into a grave playfulness.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“One of the greatest books of the past few decades … [Repetition] gives to the coming century a foundational text.”
—Francois Busnel, L’Express (France)
“An astonishing book … One of the biggest books of the past few years. [To read the novels of Robbe-Grillet] is to count on the subtly of the construction, the ‘retake’ sleekly transforming its elements, the half-coincidences, the characters, painstakingly deliberated.”
—J-JB, Magazine Litteraire (France)
“[Repetition] orchestrates all its material masterfully, and invents for the ‘nouveau roman’ an afterlife, which no one could have known was coming.”
—Jean-Claude LeBrun, L’Humanité (France)
“[Repetition] is a labyrinth where one loves to lose oneself for the sake of the nuggets of youth which are strewn in naughty parcels throughout it.”
—Jean-Baptiste Harang, Libération (France)
Praise for Alain Robbe-Grillet:
“Robbe-Grillet’s theories constitute the most ambitious aesthetic program since Surrealism.”
—John Updike
“I was inspired by Robbe-Grillet’s daring and rigorous example.… His early novels … are not amusing costume jewelry but big, glittering diamonds. After all, that least trendy or persuadable of critics, Vladimir Nabokov, put Jealousy on his extremely short list of twentieth-century masterpieces.”
—Edmund White, Los Angeles Times
“Alain Robbe-Grillet is the forerunner of a revolution more radical than Romanticism and Naturalism were in their time.”
—Claude Mauriac
“The master of the new novel and … the most radical writer of fiction now working in France, or perhaps anywhere.”
—Book Week
Repetition
Also by Alain Robbe-Grillet:
The Erasers
The Voyeur
Jealousy
In the Labyrinth
Last Year at Marienbad
La Maison de Rendez-Vous
Snapshots
Project for a Revolution in NewYork
Topology of a Phantom City
Ghosts in the Mirror
Djinn
Recollections of the Golden Triangle
For a New Novel
Repetition
ALAIN ROBBE-GRILLET
Translated from the French by Richard Howard
Copyright © 2001 by Editions de Minuit
Translation copyright © 2003 by Richard Howard
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review. Any members of educational institutions wishing to photocopy part or all of the work for classroom use, or publishers who would like to obtain permission to include the work in an anthology, should send their inquiries to Grove/Atlantic, Inc., 841 Broadway, New York, NY 10003.
Originally published in the French language by Editions de Minuit, Paris, France.
Published simultaneously in Canada
Printed in the United States of America
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Robbe-Grillet, Alain, 1922-
[Reprise. English]
Repetition : a novel / by Alain Robbe-Grillet ; translated from
the French by Richard Howard.
p. cm.
eBook ISBN-13: 978-0-8021-9935-5
I. Howard, Richard, 1929– II. Title.
PQ2635.O117R4813 2003
843’.914—dc21 2002035448
Grove Press
841 Broadway
New York, NY 10003
Repetition and recollection are the same movement, only in opposite directions, for what is recollected has been: it is repeated backward, whereas repetition properly so-called is recollected forward.
SØREN KIERKEGAARD, Repetition
And I don’t want to be bothered with eternal complaints about inexact or contradictory details. This report is concerned with objective reality, not with some so-called historical truth.
A. R.-G.
Repetition
Prologue
Here, then, I repeat, and I sum up. During the endless train journey which took me from Eisenach to Berlin across a Thuringia and Saxony in ruins, I noticed, for the first time in I don’t know how long, that man whom I call my double, to simplify matters, or else my twin, or again and less theatrically, the traveler.
The train was moving at an uncertain and discontinuous rhythm, making frequent stops, sometimes in the middle of the countryside, obviously because of the state of the tracks, which were still partially unusable or too hastily repaired, but also because of the mysterious and repeated inspections made by the Soviet military government. At one excessively long stop in a sizeable station which must have been Halle-Hauptbahnhof (though I saw no signboard to that effect), I stepped onto the platform to stretch my legs. Most of the station buildings seemed to have been destroyed, as was the entire neighborhood below, sloping to the left.
In the bluish winter daylight, patches of wall several stories high thrust their fragile lacework and their nightmarish silence into the uniformly gray sky. Inexplicably, unless by the persistent effects of an icy morning fog, which must have lasted longer here than elsewhere, the receding planes of these delicate silhouettes shone with the flashy brilliance of something artificial. Like some surrealistic vista (a sort of hole in ordinary space), the entire scene exerts an incomprehensible power of fascination on the mind.
Judging by views down cross-streets, and also in certain limited areas where the buildings are virtually razed to their foundations, it is evident that the main highway has been totally cleared and swept clean, the piles of minor debris doubtless removed by trucks instead of accumulating on the shoulders, just as I remembered seeing them cleared away in Brest, where I was born. Only here and there, breaking the alignment of the ruins, some giant block of masonry is left, like the shaft of a Greek column lying in some archeological dig. All the streets are empty, without a single vehicle or pedestrian. I had no idea the city of Halle had suffered so much from the Anglo-American bombardments, so that now, four years after the armistice, one still sees such huge zones without a sign of reconstruction. Perhaps this isn’t Halle after all, but some other big town? I’m not at all familiar with these parts, having previously reached Berlin (when, actually, and how many times?) only by the usual Paris-Warsaw axis—in other words, much farther to the north. I don’t have a map with me, and I can only guess that the hazards of the rail system have forced us to make a detour today, after Erfurt and Weimar, as far east as Leipzig and on another line.
At this moment in my dreamy speculations, the train has finally started up, without warning, but so slowly, luckily, that I have had no difficulty returning to my car and climbing back on. I was then astonished to discover the exceptional length of the entire train. Had more cars be
en added? And where would that have occurred? Like the lifeless city, the platforms were now completely deserted, as if the last inhabitants had just managed to embark in order to escape.
In startling contrast, a much denser crowd than at our arrival in the station now filled the corridor, and I had some difficulty threading my way between all these human beings who seemed as overstuffed as their bulging suitcases and their apparently improvised luggage, shapeless boxes clumsily roped together and blocking the floor of the train. The stern faces of the men and women, their features drawn with fatigue, followed me with vaguely reproachful and perhaps even hostile glances as I struggled past, certainly without amenity despite my smiles…. Unless these wretched people, apparently in some distress, were merely startled by my incongruous presence among them, my comfortable clothes, and the excuses I stammered in schoolboy German as I passed through emphasizing my foreign status.
Distracted by the additional discomfort I was involuntarily inflicting on them, I passed my compartment without recognizing it, and finding myself at the end of the corridor, I had to turn back toward the front of the train. This time their hitherto mute discontent was expressed by exasperated grumbles and exclamations in a Saxon dialect whose words for the most part escaped me, if not their probable meaning. Having finally caught sight of my thick black dispatch case in the baggage net next to the open compartment door, I managed to identify my seat—my former seat—which was now occupied, as indeed were both banquettes, by several additional children squeezed between their parents or sitting on their laps. And standing against the window was even one more adult, who, when I stepped into the compartment, turned around to give me a close look.
Not certain what to do next, I stood facing the usurper, who was reading a Berlin newspaper spread out in front of his face. No one spoke a word, all eyes—even the children’s—converging upon me with unendurable fixity. But no one seemed willing to testify to my right to that seat which I had selected at the start of the trip (Eisenach has become a sort of border station since partition), facing backward, next to the corridor. Moreover I myself didn’t feel ready to distinguish among these disagreeable traveling companions, who had multiplied in my absence. I made a gesture toward the baggage net, as if to take something out of my dispatch case.…
At this moment the traveler slowly lowered his newspaper to stare at me with the assured candor of a man in possession and sure of his rights, and it was without a possible doubt that I recognized, facing me, my own features: an asymmetrical face with a large, convex nose (the famous “vex nose” inherited from my mother), deep-set dark eyes under heavy black brows, the right one with a rebellious tuft pointing toward his temple. His hair—short, disordered curls, some of which had gone gray—was mine as well. The man gave a vague surprised smile as his eyes met mine. His right hand let go of the newspaper to scratch the vertical groove under his nostrils.
That was when I remembered the false mustache I had adopted for this mission, carefully devised and quite credible, just like the one I used to wear. But this face raised to meet mine on the other side of the mirror was entirely clean-shaven. In an automatic reflex, I ran a finger over my upper lip. My fake mustache was obviously still there, just where it should be. The traveler’s smile grew broader, teasing perhaps, or at least ironic, and he made the same gesture on his own naked upper lip.
Seized with a sudden irrational panic, I yanked my heavy dispatch case out of the baggage net just above this head which did not belong to me, though incontestably mine (even, in a sense, more authentically so), and left the compartment. Behind me, several men had suddenly stood up, and I heard some cries of protest, as if I had just committed a theft. Then, in the clamor, a peal of laughter rang out, loud and clear and quite gay, which—I suppose—must have been the traveler’s.
No one, as a matter of fact, came after me, and no one tried to stand in my way as I retreated toward the car’s rear platform, the one nearest the compartment, for the third time jostling the same flabbergasted fatties, with no apologies on this occasion. Despite the luggage in my way, and legs that felt ready to collapse under me, I soon reached, as in a dream, the door giving onto the tracks, which someone had just opened in preparation for getting off. The train, as a matter of fact, was gradually slowing down, after traveling at a good clip for some fifty kilometers, or at least for a considerable period, though to tell the truth I was incapable of figuring out the approximate duration of my recent misadventures. In any case, signs in big gothic letters, black on white, clearly indicated that we were coming into Bitterfeld. Then the preceding station, where my difficulties had begun, might just as well have been Halle as Leipzig—just as well but maybe not.…
Once the train stopped, I jumped out onto the platform with my dispatch case, behind the passenger arriving at his destination, which was of course not my own situation. I ran the length of several cars, from which few people got out, to the one at the front, behind the old steam locomotive and its tender filled with poor-grade coal. On duty near the telephone alarm post, a soldier in the gray-green uniform of the Feldgendarmerie considered my hurried maneuvers, which he may have regarded as suspicious given the length of the stops. I therefore climbed into the car without excessive haste, finding it much less crowded than the one I had just fled, doubtless because of the strong smell of burning lignite which filled the air.
I immediately found an empty seat in a compartment, its sliding door half-open, though my unexpected entrance evidently disturbed the atmosphere. I would not say “the calm,” for a feverish, perhaps even violent discussion was going on, verging on a brawl. Here were six men in stiff overcoats with matching black hats suddenly immobilized by my entrance; one had just stood up, both arms raised in a gesture of imprecation; another, still sitting, was extending his left fist, elbow half-bent; his neighbor was pointing both forefingers at him on either side of his own head, imitating devil’s horns or a bull ready to charge; a fourth was turning away with an expression of infinite sadness, while his neighbor was leaning forward, clutching his face between his hands.
Then, very gradually, almost imperceptibly, these postures were dissolved, one after the other. But the vehement man, who had not yet entirely dropped his arms, was still standing with his back to the window when my Feldgen-darme appeared in the doorway. This impressive peacekeeper immediately made for me (I had just sat down) and demanded my papers with a laconic and imperative “Ausweis vorzeigen!” As if by magic, the candidates for fisticuffs decorously resumed their respective seats, stiff hats and but-toned-up overcoats in impeccable order. All eyes, however, remained once more fixed upon me. Their indiscreet attention seemed all the more demonstrative since I was not in a corner seat, but occupied the middle of a banquette.
With all the composure I could muster, I removed from an inside pocket my French passport, made out in the name of one Robin, given names Henri, Paul, Jean; profession: engineer; born in Brest, etc. The photograph showed a heavy mustache. The officer examined this document at great length, glancing from time to time at my living face for comparison. Then, with the same attention, he inspected the official visa of the Allied forces, which unambiguously authorized me to proceed to the German Democratic Republic, this detail being reproduced in four languages: French, English, German, and Russian, with the respective stamps and seals attached.
Finally the suspicious officer in his long cape and dress cap returned to the photograph and in a rather unpleasant tone of voice made some observation—a criticism, a formal question, a simple comment—which I failed to understand. Resorting to my stupidest Parisian pronunciation, I merely answered, “Nix fershtenn,” preferring not to venture into perilous explanations in the language of Goethe. The officer did not insist. After writing a series of words and numbers in his notebook, he handed back my passport and left the compartment. Afterward it was with some relief that I saw through the filthy corridor window that he had left the train and was standing on the platform. But unfortunately the scene h
ad intensified the suspicions of my neighbors, whose silent reprobation was becoming obvious. To put the best possible face on it and to parade my clear conscience, I extracted from my overcoat pocket the skimpy national daily bought that very morning from a news vendor in the Gotha station and began carefully unfolding the pages. I realized, alas too late, that I was committing another mistake: hadn’t I just emphatically declared I didn’t understand German?
However, my latent anxiety soon found a different source: this newspaper was the very one which my double had been reading in the other compartment. The childhood memory then returned in all its intensity. I must have been seven or eight—sandals, shorts, faded blue shirt, a baggy sweater shapeless with wear. I am walking nowhere in particular at high tide or close to it, along the series of deserted sandy coves separated by rocky points still easy to cross without having to climb back up into the dunes, somewhere near Kerlouan, in Nord-Finistère. It was early winter, night was falling fast and the sea mist, at twilight, was spreading a bluish glow which blurred every outline.
The fringe of foam to my left glistened with a periodically brighter luster, ephemeral and hissing, before running into the sand at my feet. Someone had passed by in the same direction only a little while ago. His footprints, when the man had proceeded a little ways to the right, had not yet been erased by the dying wavelets. So I can see he’s wearing sandals like mine, their rubber soles with exactly the same pattern. Their size too, moreover. In front of me, as a matter of fact, about thirty or forty yards away, another boy the same age—the same height, in any case—is taking the same route at the water’s edge. His silhouette could be my own, no doubt, if it weren’t for the movements of his arms and legs, which seem to me of an abnormal amplitude, impetuous to no purpose, jerky, and somewhat incoherent.
Who can he be? I know all the boys around here, and this one brings none of them to mind, except that he resembles me. So he must be a stranger in the region, a “duchentil” as people say in Brittany (probable origin—tud-gentil: outside people). But in this season the children of any likely tourists or travelers have long since returned to their schools in town.… Each time he vanished behind the granite blocks marking a tongue of land, and each time I myself, following him, took the shorter path, sliding over the flat stones embellished with brown seaweed, I find him again in the next cove, dancing over the sand and still maintaining a constant interval between us, even if I slow down or hurry on, only a little fainter since daylight is fading. There is almost nothing to be seen now when I pass the so-called customs hut, which is no longer used and from which no one watches for wreckers any longer. This time I try to no avail to call him by name, loud enough to reach the place where he would reappear. The gesticulating djinn has vanished for good into the mist.