his undershorts anywhere.
A few steps back, a man in pajamas stands stock-still; no one sees him nor does he see anyone else, focused as he is on the woman in white.
38
Unable to resign herself to the idea that Berck has rejected her, she had this insane idea to go provoke him, to parade before him in all her white beauty (wouldn’t an immaculate’s beauty be white?), but her passage through the corridors and lobbies of the chateau went badly: Berck was gone, and the cameraman followed her not silently, like a humble mutt, but talking at her in a loud, unpleasant voice. She succeeded in drawing attention, but a nasty, sneering attention, so she quickened her pace; thus, in flight, she reached the edge of the pool, where she ran into a couple copulating and emitted her cry.
That cry has roused her: now she suddenly sees with utter clarity the snare closing around her: her pursuer behind, the water ahead. She understands clearly that this encirclement affords no
124
125
way out; that the only way out available to her is a crazy way out; that the only reasonable action left for her is an insane action; so with the full power of her will she chooses madness: she takes two steps forward and leaps into the water.
The way she has leapt is rather curious: unlike Julie, she knows very well how to dive; and yet she has gone into the water feetfirst, her arms stuck out gracelessly.
Because beyond their practical function, all gestures have a meaning that exceeds the intention of those who make them; when people in bathing suits fling themselves into the water, it is joy itself that shows in the gesture, notwithstanding any sadness the divers may actually feel. When someone jumps into the water fully clothed, it is another thing entirely: the only person who jumps into the water fully clothed is a person trying to drown; and a person trying to drown does not dive headfirst; he lets himself fall: thus speaks the immemorial language of gestures. That is why, though an excellent swimmer, Immaculata in her beautiful dress could only jump into the water in a hideous way. For no reasonable reason she now finds herself
in the water; she is there under the rule of her gesture, whose meaning is little by little filling her soul; she senses that she is living out her suicide, her drowning, and anything she does from now on will only be a ballet, a pantomime through which her tragic gesture will extend its unspoken statement:
After her fall into the water, she stands upright. The pool is not very deep at that spot, the water reaches to her waist; she stays thus for a few moments, her head high, her torso arched. Then she lets herself fall again. A scarf from her dress works free and floats behind her the way memories float behind the dead. Again she stands up, her head tipped back slightly, her arms spread; as if to run, she moves forward a few steps, where the pool floor slants down, then she goes under again. Thus she proceeds, like some aquatic animal, a mythological duck letting its head vanish beneath the surface and then raising it, tipping it upward. These movements sing the yearning to live in the heights or else perish in the watery deep.
The man in pajamas drops suddenly to his knees and sobs: “Come back, come back, I’m a criminal, I’m a criminal, come back!”
126
127
39
and she keeps coming upright again. He is witnessing a suicide such as he could never have imagined. The woman is sick or wounded or hunted down, again and again she stands upright and vanishes beneath the surface, she must surely not know how to swim; as she proceeds along the pool’s incline she ducks deeper each time, so that soon the water will cover her completely and she will die beneath the passive gaze of a man in pajamas kneeling at the edge of the pool, who is watching her and weeping.
The Czech scientist can hesitate no longer: he rises, bends forward over the water, legs flexed, arms stretched behind him.
The man in pajamas no longer
A few steps back, a man in pajamas stands stock-still; no one sees him nor does he see anyone else, focused as he is on the woman in white.
38
Unable to resign herself to the idea that Berck has rejected her, she had this insane idea to go provoke him, to parade before him in all her white beauty (wouldn’t an immaculate’s beauty be white?), but her passage through the corridors and lobbies of the chateau went badly: Berck was gone, and the cameraman followed her not silently, like a humble mutt, but talking at her in a loud, unpleasant voice. She succeeded in drawing attention, but a nasty, sneering attention, so she quickened her pace; thus, in flight, she reached the edge of the pool, where she ran into a couple copulating and emitted her cry.
That cry has roused her: now she suddenly sees with utter clarity the snare closing around her: her pursuer behind, the water ahead. She understands clearly that this encirclement affords no
124
125
way out; that the only way out available to her is a crazy way out; that the only reasonable action left for her is an insane action; so with the full power of her will she chooses madness: she takes two steps forward and leaps into the water.
The way she has leapt is rather curious: unlike Julie, she knows very well how to dive; and yet she has gone into the water feetfirst, her arms stuck out gracelessly.
Because beyond their practical function, all gestures have a meaning that exceeds the intention of those who make them; when people in bathing suits fling themselves into the water, it is joy itself that shows in the gesture, notwithstanding any sadness the divers may actually feel. When someone jumps into the water fully clothed, it is another thing entirely: the only person who jumps into the water fully clothed is a person trying to drown; and a person trying to drown does not dive headfirst; he lets himself fall: thus speaks the immemorial language of gestures. That is why, though an excellent swimmer, Immaculata in her beautiful dress could only jump into the water in a hideous way. For no reasonable reason she now finds herself
in the water; she is there under the rule of her gesture, whose meaning is little by little filling her soul; she senses that she is living out her suicide, her drowning, and anything she does from now on will only be a ballet, a pantomime through which her tragic gesture will extend its unspoken statement:
After her fall into the water, she stands upright. The pool is not very deep at that spot, the water reaches to her waist; she stays thus for a few moments, her head high, her torso arched. Then she lets herself fall again. A scarf from her dress works free and floats behind her the way memories float behind the dead. Again she stands up, her head tipped back slightly, her arms spread; as if to run, she moves forward a few steps, where the pool floor slants down, then she goes under again. Thus she proceeds, like some aquatic animal, a mythological duck letting its head vanish beneath the surface and then raising it, tipping it upward. These movements sing the yearning to live in the heights or else perish in the watery deep.
The man in pajamas drops suddenly to his knees and sobs: “Come back, come back, I’m a criminal, I’m a criminal, come back!”
126
127
39
and she keeps coming upright again. He is witnessing a suicide such as he could never have imagined. The woman is sick or wounded or hunted down, again and again she stands upright and vanishes beneath the surface, she must surely not know how to swim; as she proceeds along the pool’s incline she ducks deeper each time, so that soon the water will cover her completely and she will die beneath the passive gaze of a man in pajamas kneeling at the edge of the pool, who is watching her and weeping.
The Czech scientist can hesitate no longer: he rises, bends forward over the water, legs flexed, arms stretched behind him.
The man in pajamas no longer
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