Category: Art

“The Wrong Direction”

by

Alain Robbe-Grillet

Translated by Richard Howard

from “Three Reflected Visions,” in The Evergreen Review, Vol. 1, No. 3

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Rain water has accumulated in the bottom of a shallow depression, forming among the trees a great pool roughly circular in shape and about thirty feet across. The soil is black around the edges of the pool, without showing the slightest trace of vegetation between the straight, tall trunks. In this part of the forest there are no thickets, no underbrush of any kind. The ground is covered instead by an even layer of felt, composed of twigs and leaves crumbled to veiny skeletons upon which, here and there, a few patches of half-rotten moss are barely discernible. High above the boles the bare branches

stand out sharply against the sky.

The water is quite tranparent, although brownish in color. Tiny fragments that have fallen from the trees—twigs, empty pods, strips of bark—accumulate at the bottom and steep there all winter long. But nothing is floating on the water, nothing breaks the uniformly polished surface. There is not the slightest breath of wind to disturb its perfection.

The weather has cleared. The day is drawing to its close. The sun is low on the left, behind the tree trunks. Its weakly slanting rays describe a few narrow, luminous stripes across the surface of the pool, alternating with wider bands of shadow.

Parallel to these stripes, a row of huge trees stands at the edge of the water on the opposite bank; perfectly cylindrical, without any low branches, they extend themselves downward to meet their reflections which are far more vivid than the trunks themselves; by contrast the trees seem almost indistinct, perhaps even blurred. In the black water the symmetrical boles gleam as if they were varnished, and on the sides facing the setting sun a last touch of light confirms their contours.

However, this admirable landscape is not only upside down, but discontinuous as well. The rays of the sun that crosshatch the mirror-like surface interrupt the reflection at regular intervals perpendicular to the trunks; one’s vision is obscured by the very intensity of the light which reveals innumerable particles suspended in the upper layer of the water. It is only in the zones of shadow, where these tiny particles are invisible, that the brilliance of the reflection can now be remarked. Thus each trunk is interrupted at apparently equal intervals by a series of uncertain rings (something like the rings on the trees themselves), so that this whole forest “in depth” has the appearance of a checkerboard.

Within reach of one’s hand, near the southern bank, the branches of the reflection overlap some old, sunken leaves, rust-colored but still whole, whose perfect outlines contrast sharply with the background of mud—they are oak leaves.

 

Someone walking noiselessly on this carpet of humus has appeared at the right, heading for the water. He walks to the edge and stops. The sun is in his eyes and he has to step to
one side to be able to make out anything at all.

Then he sees the striped surface of the pool. But from where he is standing the reflection of the trunks coincides with their shadows—partially at least, for the trees in front of him are not perfectly straight. The light in his eyes keeps him from seeing anything clearly, and there are certainly no oak leaves at his feet.

This was the place toward which he was walking. Or has he just discovered that he came the wrong way? Afer a few uncertain glances around him, he turns back toward the east, walking through the woods as silently as before along the path by which he had come.

 

The place is deserted again. The sun is still at the same height on the left; the light has not changed. Across the pool, the sleek, straight boles are reflected in the unrippled water, perpendicular to the rays of the setting sun.

At the bottom of the bands of darkness gleam the truncated reflections of the columns upside down and black, miraculously washed.