The Erasers by Alain Robbe-Grillet Read Free Book Online Page B

if it opens before the others; besides, to get there from here … ”
    She examines him more attentively now, as if she were calculating his chances of reaching his goal before eight; then she glances down at the end of her broom again. One of the bristles, half undone, lets a few sprays of quitch grass stick out on one side. Finally she expresses the result of her scrutiny:
    “ You ’ re not from around here, Monsieur? ”
    “ No, ” Wallas admits reluctantly; “ I ’ ve been here only a little while. If you ’ ll show me how to get to the center of town, I ’ ll find my way. ”
    The center? The woman tries to locate it in her own mind; she stares at her broom, then at th e pail full of water. She turns toward the Rue Janeck and points in the direction Wallas came from.
    “ Just take that street. After the canal you turn left on the Rue de Berlin and you ’ ll come to the Place de la Préfecture . Then you just follow the avenues; it ’ s straight ahead. ”
    The prefecture: that ’ s what he should have asked for.
    “ Thank you, Madame. ”
    “ It ’ s a long walk, you know. You ’ d be better off taking the streetcar over there, you see…. ”
    “ No, no, I ’ ll walk fast; it ’ ll warm me up! Thank you, Madame. ”
    “ At your service, Monsieur. ”
    She puts her broom in the pail and begins scrubbing the sidewalk. Wallas starts walking in the opposite direction.
    His reassuring course has been re-established. Now the office workers are coming out of their houses, holding the imitation leather briefcases that contain the three traditional sandwiches for the noon meal. They glance up toward the sky as they come out of their doorways and walk off, winding brown knitted mufflers around their necks.
    Wallas feels the cold on his face; though the season of cutting frost that freezes the face into a painful mask has not yet begun, something like a shrinking can already be felt in the tissues: the forehead contracts, the hairline draws closer to the eyebrows, the temples try to meet, the brain tends to shrink to a tiny benign mass on the surface of the skin, between the eyes, a little above the nose. Yet the senses are far from being benumbed: Wallas remains the attentive witness of a spectacle which has lost none of its qualities of order and permanence; perhaps, on the contrary, the course is growing stricter, gradually abandoning its ornaments and its slackness. But perhaps, too, this draftsman ’ s precision is only illusory, merely the result of an empty stomach.
    The sound of a Diesel engine approaches behind Wallas … the vibration finally fills his head completely, and soon passes him, trailing its cloud of asphyxiating smoke—a heavy long - distance transport vehicle.
     
    A bicyclist who has just got off his vehicle is waiting in front of the white barrier, at the end of the drawbridge that is just being lowered again. Wallas stops beside him and both men stare at the under side of the platform which is just disappearing. When they again see the top of the roadway, the man with the bicycle opens the gate and sets his front wheel on it. He turns toward Wallas:
    “ Not so warm this morning, ” he says.
    “ Yes, ” Wallas says, “ winter ’ s coming. ”
    “ It looks as though it were going to snow. ”
    “ It ’ s still early for that. ”
    “ I wouldn ’ t be surprised anyway, ” the bicyclist says.
    Both of them watch the iron edge of the platform, which gradually reaches the level of the street. At the moment it does, the noise suddenly stops; in the silence they hear the electric bell that authorizes them to cross. As he passes through the gate, the bicyclist repeats:
    “ I wouldn ’ t be surprised. ”
    “ Maybe you ’ re right, ” Wallas says. “ Good luck! ”
    “ Good-bye, Monsieur, ” the bicyclist says.
    He jumps onto the seat and rides off. Is it really going to snow? It ’ s still not cold enough, probably; it ’ s only the sudden change in the weather that is