The Voyeur

by Alain Robbe-Grillet

  Soon the flat rocks on which the beginning of the big pier is constructed are at his feet—sloping reaches of gray stone that extend to the water without the least bit of beach, even at low tide. Here the customs path joins a more important road to the interior, turning away from the shore at an old, half-razed wall, apparently the remains of the ancient royal city.

  Mathias climbs down the rocks without difficulty, owing to their convenient arrangement. In front of him rises the outer wall of the pier, extending vertically and rectilinearly toward the beacon light.

  He climbs down the last slope, then up the few steps leading to the quay by the opening cut into the massive parapet. He finds himself once again on the rough pavement, new-washed by the morning's rain. The harbor is as smooth as a frozen pond: not the slightest undulation, not the slightest ripple at the edge, not the slightest tremor on the surface. At the end of the pier, moored against the landing slip, a small trawler is loading crates. Three men—two on the pier, one on the deck—laboriously pass them from hand to hand.

  The strip of mud exposed below the quay no longer looks the same as on the preceding days. Mathias nevertheless has to think several seconds before he realizes the nature of the change, for nothing strikes the eye as extraordinary in this grayish-black expanse: it is merely “clean"—all the debris which previously covered it has been removed at one stroke. Mathias actually recalls having noticed, the day before, a group of men raking here at low tide. The proprietor had remarked that certain habits of cleanliness had been maintained on the island ever since the naval occupation. The salesman had pretended, of course, to remember something of the kind from his earliest childhood; but in reality he had completely forgotten this detail, along with all the rest, and such images awakened no response.

  Remains of shellfish, pieces of iron or crockery, half-rotten seaweed—everything has disappeared. The sea has smoothed out the layer of mud, and as it retreats, leaves behind a shining, immaculate beach from which emerge here and there only a few solitary rounded stones.

  As soon as he enters the café, the proprietor calls out to Mathias; there is a chance for him to return to the city without waiting for the boat tomorrow night. A trawler—the one at the landing slip—will be leaving in a little while for the mainland; in spite of the strict regulations, the captain has agreed to take him as a passenger. Mathias looks through the glass door at the little blue boat still being loaded in the same laborious fashion.

  “The captain is a friend of mine,” the proprietor says. “He'll do it for you as a favor.”

  “Thank you very much. But I have my return ticket. It's still good—I don't want to waste it.”

  “They won't ask much, don't worry about that. Maybe the steamship line will refund your money anyway.” Mathias shrugs his shoulders. His eyes are following the silhouette of a man walking down the pier, coming from the landing slip.

  “I don't think so,” he says. “And I'd have to get on board right away, probably, wouldn't I?”

  “You've still got a good quarter of an hour: plenty of time to get your things together.”

  “But not time to have lunch too.”

  “I can give you a quick cup of coffee.”

  The proprietor bends over the open cupboard to take out a cup, but Mathias stops him with a gesture of his hand and makes a face: “If I can't take my time over a good cup of café au lait with two or three rolls and butter, I'm not good for anything.”

  The proprietor lifts his arms and smiles, a sign that in that case he can do nothing more. Mathias turns his head toward the glass door. The fisherman in red clothes walking along the pier seems to have stayed in the same place while he was not looking; yet his regular pace must have brought him noticeably closer during these last remarks. It is easy to check his progress by means of the baskets and fishing tackle along the route. As Mathias watches him, the man quickly leaves these reference points behind, one after the other.

  Mathias smiles back at the proprietor and adds: “Besides, I have to go and pay for my room. My landlady probably won't be home now.”

  A glance through the glass door affords him the same surprise: the fisherman is at exactly the same place he appeared to occupy a moment before, when Mathias’ eyes had left him, still walking with the same even, rapid pace between the nets and traps. As soon as the observer stops watching him he stands still, continuing his movement at the very moment Mathias’ eyes return to him—as if no interruption had occurred, for it is impossible to see him either start or stop.

  “It's your business,” the proprietor says. “If you want to stay with us so badly. . . . I'll bring you something right away.”

  “Thank you. I'm hungry this morning.”

  “I'm not surprised! You didn't eat anything last night.”

  “I'm usually hungry in the morning.”

  “In any case, nobody can say you don't like the country around here! You'd think you were afraid of missing a day of it.”

  “Oh, I know the country quite well—I've known it for a long time. Didn't I tell you I was born here?”

  “You had plenty of time to drink a cup of coffee and get your things. As for the money, you'll spend more staying here.”

  “Well, that's too bad. I don't like making decisions at the last minute.”

  “It's your business. I'll bring you something right away. . . . Hey! Here's little Louis now.”

  The door opens to admit a sailor in a faded red uniform—the one who was walking on the pier just now. Besides, his face was not unfamiliar to Mathias.

  “Don't bother,” the proprietor says to him. “He doesn't want anything to do with your old tub.”

  The salesman smiles amiably at the young man: “I'm not in such a hurry as all that, you know,” he says.

  “I thought you wanted to leave the island right away,” the proprietor says.

  Mathias glances at him stealthily. The man seems to have meant nothing in particular by his remark. The young sailor, his hand still on the doorknob, looks at each of them in turn. His face is thin and severe. His eyes seem to see nothing.

  “No,” Mathias repeats, “I'm not in such a hurry.”

  No one answers. The proprietor, leaning in the doorway behind the bar, is facing the sailor wearing the red canvas jumper and trousers. The young man's eyes are turned toward the back wall, to the comer of the room occupied by the pin-ball machine. It looks as if he were waiting for someone.

  He finally mutters three or four words—and goes out. The proprietor exits too—by the other door, into the room behind the bar—but returns almost at once. He walks around the bar to the glass door to look outside.

  “This drizzle,” he says, “will last all day.”

  He continues his commentary on the weather—the island's climate in general and the meteorological conditions during the last weeks. Although Mathias had feared another discussion of his poor reasons for not leaving, the man, on the contrary, seems to approve heartily of his decision: today is scarcely a good day, actually, to risk going out in a fishing boat. Not that there is much danger of seasickness in a calm like this, but on so modest a trawler there is nowhere to keep out of the spray; the salesman would be soaked to the skin before reaching port.

  The proprietor also mentions the filthiness of such boats: no matter how much time is spent washing them down, there is always some fish refuse around, as if it grew there as fast as it could be cleaned away. And it is impossible to touch an inch of rope without covering your hands with grease.

  Mathias glances at the man stealthily. Evidently he spoke without any special meaning—with no meaning at all—he was merely talking for the sake of conversation, without attaching the slightest importance to what he was saying, without insistence or conviction; he might just as well be saying nothing.

  The young barmaid appears from the room behind the bar, walking with tiny steps and carrying on a tray the silverware for breakfast. She sets it down on Mathias’ table. She knows where everything belongs n
ow and no longer makes the errors or the hesitations of the first day. An almost imperceptible deliberation still betrays her attention to her work. When she has finished arranging the silverware, she lifts her large, dark eyes to the traveler's face to see if he is satisfied—but without waiting longer than a second, a flicker of her eyelashes. It seems to him that she has smiled faintly at him this time.

  After a final, roundabout inspection of the table service, she stretches out her arm as if to move something—the coffeepot, for instance—but everything is in order. Her hand is small, the wrist almost too delicate. The cord had cut into both wrists, making deep red lines. Yet she was not bound very tightly. The cord must have sunk into the flesh because of her futile efforts to get free. He had been forced to tie her ankles too—not together, which would have been easy—but separately, each one attached to the ground, about a yard apart.

  For this purpose, Mathias still had a good piece of string, for it was longer than he had thought at first. In addition he would need two stakes solidly planted in the ground. . . . It was the sheep grazing nearby that furnished the ideal solution to this problem. Why had he not thought of it before? First he ties her feet together, so that she will lie still while he goes to shift the pickets; the sheep haven't time to move before he has swiftly attached them all to a single peg —instead of their original grouping into two pairs and one solitary animal. He thus recovers two of the metal pegs-pointed stakes with a loop at the top.

  He had the most difficulty in restoring the sheep to their respective tetherings, for they had taken fright in the meantime. They ran in terrified circles at the ends of the taut cords. . . . She, on the other hand, was lying very still now, her hands hidden under her, behind the small of her back—her legs spread and slightly apart, her mouth swollen by the gag.

  Everything becomes even calmer: the chromium-plated bicycle has been left in the hollow of the cliff, lying on the slope, conspicuous against the background of short weeds. Its contours are perfectly clear, with no suspicion of disorder and no blurred areas, despite the complication of its parts. The polished metal does not reflect the sun, doubtless because of the fine layer of dust from the road—almost a vapor—deposited on it. Mathias calmly drinks the rest of the café au lait.

  The proprietor, who has again taken up his observation post behind the glass door, announces the little trawler's departure. The hull gradually slides away from the oblique stone rim; between can be seen the widening streak of black water.

  “You could have been home by four o'clock,” the proprietor says without turning around.

  “Oh well, no one is expecting me,” Mathias answers.

  The other man says nothing, still watching the boat maneuvering—it now turns so that it is headed in a line perpendicular to its original direction, the stem facing the entrance to the harbor. In spite of the distance, the letters painted in white on the hull are still legible.

  Mathias gets up from the table. One last reason—he adds—keeps him on the island until tomorrow: before leaving, he still would like to finish his rounds, which had remained uncompleted the first night. Since he now had more time than he needed, he had done nothing the day before—or virtually nothing—relying on this third day to finish up the last part of his rounds at his usual rate. He explains to the proprietor the general plan of his itinerary: a kind of figure eight, of which the town constitutes not precisely the center, but a point along the side of one of the two loops—the northwest one. At the tip of this loop is Horses Point. It is the ground between Horses Point and the harbor—less than a quarter of his anticipated route—that he has to cover again, but thoroughly this time, without missing a single house or neglecting the least side road. In a hurry last Tuesday, he had actually abandoned most of the little groups of houses that were not on the main road. Finally he had had to go on without stopping at all, not even at doors he passed right before, traveling at the fastest speed the bicycle could manage.

  Today he would not need to rent a bicycle for such a short route: there was plenty of time to do it on foot. Nevertheless, he prefers starting out right away and not coming back to town for lunch. So he wonders if the proprietor would make him two ham sandwiches—he would pick them up here in ten minutes, when he comes back with his suitcase—the one with the wrist watches.

  The landlady catches sight of him from her open kitchen window when he steps into the hallway. She cries out a cheerful “Good morning, sir.” He realizes at once that she has nothing particular to say to him—and nothing general either. Yet she steps over to the door; he himself stops; she asks him if he has slept well—yes; he didn't close his shutters last night—no; when the east wind blows, it's not a good idea to leave them open during the day . . . etc.

  In his room he immediately notices the suitcase is not under the table. But then he remembers having put it elsewhere this morning. He opens the big cupboard—with his fingertips, since it has neither key nor handle—removes his suitcase, closes the cupboard again. This time he leaves the house by the door, and takes the main road to town. The raindrops have become so infrequent and so tiny that it requires particular attention to notice them at all.

  Mathias enters the café “A l'Espérance,” puts the sandwiches, which are wrapped in yellow paper, in the left pocket of his duffle coat, and continues toward the little square, walking on the cobbles washed clean by the rain, revealing all their colors.

  The hardware shopwindow is empty: all the objects have been removed. Inside, a man in a gray jacket is standing on the display case, facing the street. His black felt slippers, his socks, and the bottoms of his trousers, raised by the movement of his arms, are exposed in broad daylight, about a yard above the ground. He is holding a big rag in each hand; the left hand is merely pressing against the glass, while the right is cleaning the surface with short, circular gestures.

  As soon as he has walked around the shop corner, Mathias finds himself face to face with a young girl. He steps back to let her pass. But she stands where she is, staring at him as if she intended to speak to him, shifting her eyes several times from his suitcase to his face.

  “Good morning, sir,” she says at last. “Aren't you the watch salesman?”

  It is Maria Leduc. She was just looking for Mathias; she was on the way to the house where he was staying, for she had heard he was still on the island. She wants to buy herself a watch—something sturdy.

  Mathias decides it is no use to go back with her to her mother's house—the last house as you leave town on the road to the big lighthouse—which would take him out of his way now. He points to the sidewalk surrounding the monumerit: now that the rain has stopped, that would be a good place to look at his merchandise. He sets down the suitcase on the damp stones and opens the clasp.

  While lifting out the first strips of cardboard, which he piles one by one in the cover after having shown them to his customer, he mentions the fact that he missed her at Black Rocks, hoping she will voluntarily make some allusion to the tragic accident that has taken her little sister from her. But the girl shows no intention of discussing the subject, and he will have to lead into it more directly. She cuts Mathias’ polite formulas short, however, and confines herself to telling him the time of the funeral—Friday morning. Her words make it clear that the family prefers the simplest possible ceremony and the presence of only the closest relatives. It was as if they persisted in their bitterness toward the dead girl; she had no time to delay, she said, returning to the subject of the sale. In a few minutes she has made her choice and decided on the best way to conclude the transaction: the salesman is to leave the watch at the café where he takes his meals; for her part, she will leave the money there too. No sooner had Mathias closed his suitcase than Maria Leduc left.

  On the other side of the monument he notices that the bulletin-board is covered with a completely white sheet of paper pasted on the surface of the wood. At this moment the garageman comes out of his tobacco shop carrying a little bottle and a fine brush. M
athias asks him what happened to the sign that was up the day before: it wasn't the right one, the garageman answers, for the film they had sent along with it; the distributor had made an error in the shipment. He would have to announce next Sunday's program by a hand-made ink inscription. Mathias leaves the man already busy with his task, firmly tracing a large letter O.

  After taking the street to the left of the town hall, the salesman passes the end of the old harbor, completely empty at low tide—for the tide-gate there has not held in the water for years. Here too the mud has evidently been raked.

  Next he follows the high wall of the fort. The road beyond returns to the coast, but without sloping down to the shore itself, and continues curving left, toward the point.

  Mathias reaches the fork leading to the village of Saint-Sauveur much sooner than he expected—this was the last point he had systematically canvassed. He sold only one watch here—the last of the day—but since he has visited the principal residences, zealously and not over-hastily, it is futile to try his chances here once again.

  Hence he sets out on the main road itself in the opposite direction, walking rapidly toward town.

  After about fifty yards he comes upon an isolated cottage on his right, built at the edge of the road—which he had not bothered with on Tuesday because of its poverty-stricken aspect. Nevertheless, it is much like the other buildings on the island: a simple ground floor with two small square windows on each side of a low door.

  He knocks on the door panel and waits, holding his suitcase in his left hand. The shiny finish, freshly repainted, imitates with remarkable accuracy the veins and irregularities of wood. At eye level are two round knots drawn side by side, so that they look like a pair of glasses. The salesman knocks again, this time with his ring.

  He hears steps in the hallway. The door opens on a woman's head—with no expression whatever—neither welcoming nor scowling, neither confident nor mistrustful, not even surprised.

  “Good morning, madame,” he says. “Would you like to look at some splendid watches unlike any you've ever seen before, of ideal manufacture, guaranteed unbreakable, shockproof, waterproof, and at prices that will surprise you? Just take a look at them! You'll never regret the time—only a moment; it doesn't commit you to a thing. Just take a look!”