Repetition

by Alain Robbe-Grillet

  In one huge hall, emptier than the rest, which we used as an office for our professional meetings, and occasionally for more intimate pastimes, she immediately began inspecting the four big portraits on the back wall, which I had made in various colored inks (sepia, black, and bistre): Socrates drinking his hemlock, Don Juan wielding a sword and sporting a huge mustache à la Nietzsche, Job on his dung heap, and a Doctor Faust after Delacroix. Our visitor seemed to have completely forgotten that she had come here, in principle, as a terrified captive at the mercy of her ravishers, and not at all as a tourist. It was therefore necessary to remind her that she would have to appear before her judges—the doctor and myself—sprawled in our favorite armchairs, quite comfortable in spite of their daily increasing dilapidation, their once-black leather faded now under the combined action of damp winters, hard wear, and poor treatment, torn as well in several places, even releasing through a triangular hole under my right hand, which was absently tugging at it, a tuft of blond tow and reddish brown horsehair.

  Ten paces in front of us there was also a russet leather divan in somewhat better condition, under a large uncurtained bay, its glass panes suggesting factory windows rather than those of an apartment, crudely daubed with whitewash. Between the vague spirals of this integument appeared the vertical lines of strong prisonlike bars, constituting an outside protective grille. Looking for somewhere to sit down, our inattentive schoolgirl headed toward this divan, but I let her understand with a few harsh words that this was anything but a psychoanalytic session and that she had better, during her interrogation, stand facing us and keep quite still, unless she was given orders to move. She obeyed quite willingly, waiting with a timid smile on her charming lips for our questions, which were some time in coming, not daring to look at us except furtively, glancing from side to side, dancing a little on her impatient feet and not quite knowing what to do with her hands, impressed in spite of everything by our silence, our vague air of menace, and our severe expressions.

  To her right (hence to our left), facing the four emblematic personages so dear to the Danish philosopher, the entire wall was taken up by a ground-glass studio window. Some of the long vertical panes must have been broken during the removal of certain machines or by violence of some kind; sheets of translucent paper now covered the cracked and missing panes. On the other side, the room through which we had come was brightly lit (much more so, in any case, than ours), as though by spotlights, and the figures of our Yugoslav guards were projected on the bright glass screen, paradoxically enlarged whenever they moved away from us toward one of the sources of light, which made them seem on the contrary to be taking giant strides in our direction, becoming titans in a matter of seconds. These fallacious projections kept shifting—disappearing, then looming up again; suddenly intersecting as if the bodies were passing through each other, thereby momentarily acquiring a presence and dimensions as alarming as they were supernatural. The girl, increasingly uncomfortable in the face of our persistent silence and our stares fixed upon her with a coldness all the more disquieting for being so inexpressive, now seemed to me to be ready at last for the anticipated sequence of operations.

  I had first spoken to her in German, but since, in her interrogation and commentaries, it was French which she most frequently employed, I decided to continue from now on in the language of Racine. When I told her, in an abrupt and unanswerable tone of voice, to undress, she suddenly raised her head, mouth open, green eyes growing wider as she stared at the doctor and me in turn, as though slightly incredulous. But her pale smile had disappeared. She seemed to realize that we were not joking, that we were accustomed to being obeyed without argument, and that we possessed, it was to be feared, all the necessary means of coercion. She then did as she was told, doubtless thinking that this sort of inspection would be the least of her worries in the situation of being a tempting victim in which she found herself. After hesitating just long enough for us to measure (a subtle detail with a view to sharpening our pleasure?) the extent of the sacrifice imposed by so exorbitant a demand, she began to take off her clothes very docilely, with charming gestures of feigned modesty, of violated innocence, of martyrdom imposed by the brute strength of her executioners.

  As it was still almost as warm as summer in those early autumn days, even in the evening, the girl was not wearing much in the way of garments. But she removed each item slowly and with the greatest apparent reticence—though doubtless rather proud of what she was revealing to this jury of experts—and in a deliberate progression. When, after this series of obligatory flexions, she finally removed her little white panties, she abandoned herself to our inquiring stares and, determining to conceal her shame rather than her delicate private parts, raised her arms to her face in order to conceal it behind her hands, palms open and fingers spread, between which I could see her eyes glistening. Then we made her slowly turn around several times in order to inspect her body from all sides, and from all sides it was a very pretty sight, a statuette shaped just like a ravishing doll-child bursting into bloom.

  The doctor complimented her on her appearance, listing aloud—with the obvious intention of increasing the perturbation of so obedient a subject—the remarkable quality of the charms thus exposed, insisting on the elegant slen-derness of her waist, the curve of her hips, the two dimples in the hollow of her arched loins, the exquisite roundness of her little buttocks, the already-marked development of her young breasts, their aureoles discreet but the nipples already delightfully erect, the delicacy of her navel, and finally the pubis, fleshy and gracefully outlined beneath a golden fleece, still downy though abundant. It should be remarked that Juan Ramirez, a man of about sixty, had once been a specialist in prepubertal disorders. In 1920 he had collaborated with Karl Abraham in founding the Berlin Psychoanalytic Institute. Like Melanie Klein, he was pursuing a teaching analysis with Abraham himself when the latter suddenly and prematurely died. Perhaps under the influence of his already-prestigious colleague, he too had studied precocious infantile aggression, soon specializing in cases of pre-adolescent girls.

  This one, in a hesitant tone of voice, then asks if we are going to rape her. I immediately reassure her: Doctor Juan is merely pursuing certain academic studies of the nude according to objective criteria, but she herself is distinctly too mature for his personal tastes, which do not exceed the stipulations of the strictest pedophilia. As for myself, whose sexual fixations and deepest anatomical fetishes she satis-fies—it must be conceded, to the last degree, actually constituting to my dazzled eyes a sort of feminine ideal—I am, in matters of Eros, a champion of gentleness and harmless persuasion. Even when it is a matter of obtaining certain humiliating submissions or of articulating certain amorous practices of an evidently cruel nature, I require the consent of my partner—which is to say, very often, my victim. I hope not to disappoint her too much by such an avowal of altruism. In the exercise of my profession, of course, it is quite a different thing, as she risks discovering very soon, if she does not show enough enthusiasm in her answers to our questions. That will be, she should know, for the sole requirements of our investigation.

  “And now,” I say, “we shall proceed to the preliminary interrogation. You will raise your hands over your head, for we need to see your eyes when you speak, to determine whether what you say is the sincere truth or outright lies or even half-truths. In order that you have no difficulty preserving this posture, we can make things easier for you.” The doctor, who has taken out a pad and pen in order to write down certain points of the testimony, then presses a buzzer which is within reach of his left hand, and three young women immediately appear, dressed in the strict black uniforms probably belonging to a Valkyrian auxiliary corps of the former German army. Wordlessly and with the rapidity of professionals accustomed to working as a team, they seize the little captive with a firmness quite without any unnecessary violence and attach her wrists by leather manacles to two heavy chains that have as if by miracle descended from the ceiling, whil
e her ankles are attached by the same method to two large iron rings suddenly appearing in the floor, about a foot apart.

  In this fashion her legs are slightly open, facing us in a rather indecent attitude, but this separation of the feet—which has nothing excessive about it—will make a prolonged standing position more comfortable. Moreover these shackles are not too tight, nor are the chains holding her hands high on either side of the golden head of hair, so that both body and legs can still move, though within rather narrow limits, it goes without saying. Our three female assistants have worked with such natural ease, such precision in their gestures, such good coordination of movements and respective speeds that our young captive has not had time to realize what is happening to her, letting herself be manipulated without offering the slightest resistance. Her tender countenance reveals no more than a mixture of surprise, vague apprehension, and a kind of psychomotor collapse.

  Not wanting to afford her the leisure to reflect further on her situation, I immediately begin the interrogation, to which the answers are immediately produced, in an almost mechanical fashion:

  “Given name?”

  “Geneviève.”

  “Usual diminutive?”

  “Ginette … or Gigi.”

  “Mother’s name?”

  “Kastanjevica, K-A-S … [She spells the word.]; now given as ‘Kast’ on her present passport.”

  “Father’s name?”

  “Father unknown.”

  “Date of birth?”

  “March 12, 1935.”

  “Place of birth?”

  “Berlin-Kreuzberg.”

  “Nationality?”

  “French.”

  “Profession?”

  “Schoolgirl.”

  It is apparent that she must have frequently filled out this same questionnaire. For me, on the other hand, this raises certain problems: we are dealing, then, with Io’s daughter, whom I believed had remained in France. The erotic object of my present lust would therefore be my half-sister, since fathered, like myself, by the detestable Dany von Brücke. In reality, matters are not so clear-cut. If the presumed father has never been willing to acknowledge the child, nor to enter into a legal marriage with the young mother, his official mistress since two months before the moment of conception, it is because he knew the erotic relations which his unworthy and despised son had first had with the lovely Frenchwoman, relations which had been continued during a rather long transition period. A tyrant in the old style, using first of all a vile droit du seigneur, he ended by keeping her for himself alone. Joëlle, without resources, available and on the loose, a little lost in our distant Brandenburg, was under eighteen. She let herself be convinced by the glamorous officer, a handsome man who provided her with material comfort and promised to marry her. Her consent to an apparently advantageous solution was entirely understandable, and I forgave her—her, not him! In any case, considering when this disturbing child was born, she could very likely be my own daughter, her Nordic Aryan coloring inherited from her grandfather—nothing exceptional about that.

  I considered the delicious Gigi with new eyes. More excited than bewildered by the turn which her unexpected ravishment was taking, and perhaps moved by a vague desire for vengeance, I resumed the interrogation: “Have you already begun having your periods?” With a mute nod of the head, the girl acknowledged this maturity as if there were something shameful about it. I continued on this interesting path: “Are you still a virgin?” She assented with the same embarrassed nod. Despite her bravado, which was beginning to weaken, she blushed under the cynical indecorum of the investigation: her forehead and cheeks first, then all her tender naked flesh from breast to belly turned bright pink, and she lowered her eyes.… After quite a long silence, having requested my approval, Juan stood up to perform on the accused a professional vaginal palpation which, even with the most attentive precautions, provoked in the child a sort of tiny convulsion, if not of suffering at least of rebellion. She struggled a little in her bonds, but unable to close her thighs, she could not escape the medical scrutiny. Juan then returned to his seat and calmly declared: “This girl, child though she is, is an impudent liar.”

  Our three police assistants were still present, though a little distance away, waiting for us to have further need of them. On a sign from me, one of these women went over to the guilty creature, holding in her right hand a leather whip, its fine lash, flexible though quite firm, fastened to a rigid tip, making it easy to manipulate. I indicated by three extended fingers the degree of punishment deserved. With the skill of a dominatrix, the policewoman immediately applied, on the slightly parted buttocks, three short, sharp strokes at regular intervals. The child reared back each time the whip bit into her flesh, opening her mouth in a spasm of pain, but resisted crying out or letting a moan be heard.

  Deeply moved by the little spectacle, I wanted to reward her for her courage. I went over to her, a sympathetic expression masking as much as possible a greedy if not perverse appetite, and I saw, from behind, the charming rump so freshly bruised: three very distinct, intersecting red lines, with not the slightest sign of a tear in the fragile skin, whose satin texture I could now appreciate with the faintest of caresses. Soon, with my other hand, I introduced two, then three fingers into her vulva, which was delightfully moist, inciting me to caress the clitoris with delicacy, attentive deliberation, and entirely paternal kindness, not insisting too much despite the immediate swelling of the tiny button of flesh and the shudders running over her entire pelvis.

  Returning to my armchair facing her, I contemplated her lovingly, while her entire body undulated with faint spasms, perhaps in order to modulate the still-painful wounds of the brief punishment. I smiled at her, and she was beginning to return a more uncertain smile when, suddenly, she began crying without making a sound. And that too was altogether charming. I asked her if she knew the famous verse of her great national poet: “J’aimais jusqu’à ses pleurs que je faisais couler.”

  She murmured through her tears: “Forgive me for lying.”

  “Did you say anything else that was untrue?”

  “Yes … I’m not in school anymore. I’m a cabaret hostess, in Schönberg.”

  “What is the name of the place?”

  “Die Sphinx.”

  I was beginning to suspect as much. Her angelic face kept putting me in mind, every few seconds, of a fugitive nocturnal memory. I occasionally frequented the Sphinx (or rather La Sphinge, since the word is feminine in German), and when I penetrated that adolescent sex, a moment ago, with my first and middle fingers, the moist slit of her little madeleine, gowned in its newborn silky fur, spontaneously released the whole process of reminiscence: I had already caressed her beneath her schoolgirl’s skirt in that very intimate bar with its favoring shadows, where all the waitresses are compliant, more or less pubescent gamines.

  Wouldn’t it be necessary, all the same, to make this one submit to the remainder of her ordeal, if only in the guise of a moral alibi justifying her presence in our clutches? I lit a cigar and, after a few puffs of reflection, I said: “And now you will tell us about the hiding place of your supposed though illegitimate sire, Oberführer von Brücke.” The captive, suddenly overcome with anguish, made a few desperate movements of denial, tossing her curls right and left: “I don’t know, monsieur, really I don’t. I never saw my so-called father again, once Maman took me back to France, and that was ten years ago.”

  “Listen carefully: you lied first when you said you were still attending classes; you lied a second time about your pretended virginity, not counting a very incomplete answer when you mentioned a ‘father unknown.’ So you might well be lying a third time. Therefore we’re obliged to torture you a little, or even a good deal, until you tell us everything you know. The burns of a lit cigar are terribly painful, especially when applied to those sensitive and vulnerable regions which you can imagine without much difficulty.… The aroma of the blond tobacco will be only the more savory afterward,
a little muskier.…”

  This time my little Baltic mermaid (whose legs were now wide apart) bursts into convulsive and despairing sobs, stammers incoherent supplications, swears she knows nothing about what we’re asking her, begs us to have pity on her for the sake of her genteel livelihood. Since I continue puffing away on my Havana (one of the best I’ve ever smoked) as I watch her struggle and moan, she manages to come up with some information likely—she hopes—to convince us of a goodwill that is, in fact, entirely obvious: “The last time I saw him, I was barely six years old.… It was in a very simple apartment in the center city, overlooking the Gendarmen-markt, a place that doesn’t even exist anymore.…”

  “You see now,” I say, “that you know something after all, and that you’ve lied once more by telling us the contrary.”

  I leave my armchair with a resolute expression, advancing toward her as she opens her eyes and her mouth very wide, suddenly paralyzed by a fascinating terror. With my forefinger I brush off the cylinder of gray ash from the end of the cigar, which I then puff several times in order to produce the maximum incandescent tip, which I then bring closer to one of the pink aureoles of her stiffened nipples. The imminence of the torture obtains from the child a long wail of fear.

  This was the expected outcome. I let the rest of my Havana fall to the floor. Then, with great delicacy and a really infinite tenderness, I embrace my chained victim, murmuring sentimental and quite irrational words of love, but spiced, to avoid too much saccharine, by a few shocking details belonging more to the vocabulary of lust, even to a rather crude pornography. Gigi rubs her belly and her breasts against me like a child who has just escaped some terrible danger and takes refuge between protecting arms. Unable to do anything but ask, because of the chains that bind her, she holds out her moist fleshy lips for me to kiss, and indeed returns my kisses with a quite credible passion, though doubtless purposely exaggerated. When my right hand, the one which has almost tortured her breasts, descends down her pelvis to the wide opening between her thighs, I perceive that my young conquest is micturating in tiny spurts which she no longer manages to contain. To encourage her and to reap the fruits of my enterprise, I place my fingers at the very origin of the warm spring, which then gushes forth in long spasmodic jets, my vanquished prey now abandoning herself to her too-long-repressed need, while there rises in a cascade, mingled with tears not yet quite dry, the high clear laughter of a little girl who has just discovered a new and somewhat nasty game. “Now there,” the doctor observes, “is persuasion carried to its proper conclusion!”