"" " Headlines." "" " Scripture." "" " Eden." "" " Architecture." "Composition." "" " Make-up." "" " Catherine Jourdan." "" " Performance." "" " Objects sharp." "" " Games." "" " Viscous substances." "" " Director." "" " Blood flowing." "Catherine Jourdan, Richard Leduc." "" " Pierre Zimmer." "" " Sexual Violence." "Juraj Kukura." "" " In the labyrinth." "" " Sylvain Corthay." "" " Murder." "" " Lorraine Rainer." "" " Sex." "" " Jarmila Kolenicova." "" " Playing cards." "" " Distance" "" " Chess games." "" " Ludwik Kroner." "Theatricality" "" " Phantasm " " Francois Gervai." "Laboratory." "Catherine Robbe-Grillet" "Eden and After" "Eden and After" "" " Eden and After " " Objective" "" " Eden." "" " Subjective" "Injective" "Surjective" "Bijective" "Images and lights." "Editing" "Score sound." "Objects." "Pictures." "To Imagine." "Imagination." "Ghost." "Phantom" "Haunted house" "Mirror." "Rotary mirror" "Parallel mirror." "Distorting mirror." "Cinema." "Reality." "My life." "The two girls to hold her arms." "Hurt her if she moves too much." "Spread her legs." "Make her stay like that." "Lambda power N on factorial N multiplied by sum from V equals zero up to the infinite of less than 1 power V" "factorial N plus 2 V on factorial 3 V plus 2" "T power 3 V plus 2." "The image of an application F is a part of the arrival of F formed by the images of first F elements." "A relation of equivalence in an entirety E... ..is a reflexible, transitive and symmetrical relation." "Number of liberty degrees is synonymous with size." "If V is size N" "N vector of V constitutes a basis only..." "Looking for a geometric spot if you have 3 unlined up dots don't think the result is a circle for nothing looks more a circle than 2 circles and nothing looks like 2 circles more than a lemniscate to a Pascal's snail." "The image of a sum is t the sum of the images." "Here you are." "6 shots." "Just one bullet." "A 1 in 6 chance of being killed." "Five." "Four shots in the air, the fifth a success." "There remains one chance in five." "One in four." "One in three, one chance in two of dying." "Come on, shoot!" "Of course, this is stupid." "Not more stupid than anything else." "He's dead." "How was it?" "Average." "It'd be better with real bullets." "There is always the risk of a splinter in one eye." "Let's go to bed." "" " I'm breaking!" "" " Fucking. always fucking." "" " Sell that thing." "" " What thing?" "That's daub." "worth a fortune." "" " What would we do with the money?" "" " A voyage." "" " Where to?" "" " Anywhere." "Somewhere else." "What does it mean?" "It's called "Composition No. 234"." "Your uncle has some imagination!" "We'll go on a trip to a warm and dry country a naked and gleaming country" " - with vigor - - hard." "tough, transparent, rigid ect." "The desert." "in order to get money sell to an U. S. museum the blue square No 234." "bequeathed to eternal culture by the deceased uncle of Violette." "And to take hold of the picture we'll treacherously murder his niece!" "Now comes the scene of the poison." "DRINK BLOOD" "BLOOD = LIFE" "If this story bores you, then you're heartless." "Me, I have heart." "so big I'm fed up." "Death-march for our friend Boris." "Just across the University there's a big cafe all glass and steal called "Eden"" "We go there after our class or before, or instead of." "In there, we invent our stories." "we act our parts." "In there, we pretend to be happy or sad to be in love, to break off, to have adventure since in our studious and useless life nothing ever actually happens" "The waiter who brings the lemonades mixed with quinquina or cocaine is called "Franz"" "That Franz pretends to be bizarre and ominous" "He's said to deal in mythological, drugs, white trafficking for the Middle-West armored cars tanks camouflaged as baskets of flowers ingots of gold, mirages." "His name isn't likely Franz." "rather "Francois Gervai"," ""Daniel Dupont", "Jean Robin", or anything else" "Newspapers say our youth has lost faith." "the notion of values that we take refuge in false paradises that our favorite games are homosexual prostitution and group raping." "After reading all that we've tried everything just to see." "We've played seriously, with steadiness." "it's amused us.." "moderately." "Marie-Eve is jealous." "She pretends to pretend to be jealous" "But she fools no one." "She says she'll commit suicide.." "..who knows why" "My room is empty too." "Just a large bed and the blue and white picture" "My uncle's last souvenir." "I liked it in the past." "I liked my uncle too, in the photos." "I've never known my father either." "He died in Indo-China." "I'm lying, of course." "That running boy is Marc Antoine." "He plays the hunted man looking for an outlet knowing too well he'll be caught." "It's then that we saw the stranger watching us through the window" "Red wine." "I can show you something of the same kind" "Give me two empty bottles." "Take them." "You stand beside her." "Drop one." "Now the other." "Pick up the pieces." "Give me your hand." "I learned that trick in Africa" "I spent 30 years of my life there." "Ghosts of horsemen against the sun sets." "Africa is another ancient continent." "Matter becomes magic." "The black spirit, the obscure conscience of our reason." "Dead matter that is no longer rigid." "Dead matter becomes magic." "The blue water, the white sand." "And the hidden barrier that reveals itself to you." "Eyes full of reflections of the desert." "The young prisoners are now locked in cells where no light gets in." "The wizards prepare powders of poisonous plants capable of changing people suddenly." "While priestess continue to do their sacred dances." "Meanwhile women have to suffer a long series of initiation trials." "The mage dances around large fires, until collapsing." "If one of you wishes to try the experiment" "I have here some of the "powder of fear"" "Suddenly, everything was normal again:" "Faces, objects, gestures." "At least, in semblance" "As if Eden and its patrons tried to appear reassuring" "From then on, all is a bit blurred." "Or rather, it's more confused in my memory." "During the rest of the evening we played improvised scenes directed by that stranger." "He said our games were too abstract." "He told us:" "Before I came in I watched you through the window" "The gestures were stiff as though you were ill at ease in new clothes." "Or afraid to get dirty or to leave prints." "Break it." "You juggle with ideas but you won't get involved with living matter as if you weren't born yet." "You smile, you're sheltered." "Outside, there are rain, snow and sun." "And the night." "Here everything is air-conditioned" "It's never cold nor warm." "Whoever draws the shortest straw will have to break his own shell." "in front of everyone." "Bend her on the table." "I can teach you another game." "Give me a key." "It's better be one belonging to her." "Her." "" " Tonight." "" " Yes." "Where?" "You choose." "The channel in front of the factory." "What's your name?" ""Violette" and yours?" "They call me "Duchemin"." "" " I have to go." "I have an appointment." "" " Is it important?" "I'll know soon." "" " You come with me?" "" " No, I've to work." "" " You'll come?" "" " I will." "My uncle's last souvenir." "I liked it, in the past." "My uncle also, perhaps, on the photos." "That picture is empty and dull." "I used to look at it for hours." "Now, I know it's worth a lot of money and I like it less." "I've never known my father." "He died in Indo-China." "We've often played at war." "Resistance, heroism, treason" "Interrogations with torture" "" " Please, on which side is the water?" "" " The water?" "" " The channel with the barges." "" " That way or this." "It's the same." "You're in the middle of an 8." "Two immense cylinders side by side." "Let me explain or else you'd get lost and could never get out." "Not to be." "Or else, play." "That's the dilemma." "No feelings." "None of my feelings exists except those I'm playing to try." "Come in my arms, my Ophelia or else I drown instead of you." "Shit!" "that's Macbeth now!" "After the last door" "I'm surprised to see it's becoming light." "How could such a long time have elapsed since those cries chased me away from my date's place and forced me to hide in the factory?" "I feel I awake out of a confused sleep with the fear of being late for school." "Anyway, I go back to the channel." "Now it's broad day-light and I easily find the bridge" "No one there, of course." "The stranger must've grown weary of waiting." "Marc Antoine!" "Marie-Eve!" "Boris!" "Jean Pierre!" "Jean Pierre!" "" " Come here.." "Hurry!" "" " What's up?" "" " I think he's dead." "" " Who is dead?" "" " Duchemin." "" " Who is Duchemin?" "Last night" "You all went into that new factory near the channel." "No, we've stayed here." "He was there." "" " Who was?" "" " The stranger." "The crabs ate him!" "Haven't you smoked a bit?" "And my bag?" "My bag." "" " You left your bag here?" "" " No." "" " Where was it?" "" " I do not know." "Lost." "Elementary, my dear Watson." "The bag came here and ate the corpse." "" " My key." "" " Must be at the cafe." "What will I do without my key?" "Come and sleep at my place." "Nobody believed my story of a corpse." "After all, there was no trace of it." "You don't believe me either." "" " Are you sure he was dead." "" " Yes." "" " Sure it was him?" "" " Yes, here's the proof." "I found it in his jacket when I pulled him out." "IN DJERBA, AS AGREED." "CLAUDE" "He was called "Eric"." "" " He only gave his last name." "" " Dutchman." "Yes, something like that." "I thought it was "Duchemin"." "Djerba is the country he spoke about." "It really looks like blood." "Was he wounded?" "I don't remember." "" " Isn't Franz here?" "" " Who is Franz?" "" " The waiter here." "" " So the former waiter was named Franz?" "" " Why "the former"?" "" " Because he stopped working here last night" "So, suddenly?" "Surely not." "My arrival was decided some while ago." "Really?" "When you arrived here, did you find a key?" "There's one on the piano." "I feel at once something's changed." "The blue and white picture has vanished." "Stolen without the lock being forced." "I discover I've known it for a long while." "That absurd game with my key last night's accident surely a crime." "and Franz abrupt departure." "Only the red-stained postcard is left to me." "The image, a plain wall of a house reminds me of a short film about Tunisia" "which we saw last week Cinema Eden." "The whitewashed walls of the house with the blue geometry of the doors." "and a few windows." "The balustrade seems a still-life photo." "as the sun flattens out the surfaces and removes every effect of death." "The sand too from the early hours deprived of shadows and perspective abolishes distances, making them impassable." "Would the oasis be only mirages, never reached by any visitor and that no one wants to erase from the maps because they seem close, scintillating and real." "Water, a mirror created by the contact of the air with the burning sun, but deceptive because one could go for hours without penetrating them" "" " A fine house." "" " Yes." "Is it far?" "Not much." "By that road." "The second or third block." "You can walk there." "Thank you." "What shall we do now she's arrived?" "We must kill her at once." "No, not at once." "After she's talked." "" " I decide right now " " And the picture?" "Is it you who'll find it?" "You knows this house?" "This house isn't special." "They're all alike." "Could be this one." "That's the day I met Dutchman;" "for the first time." "He was a sculptor or something like that." "He collected cast out things rather big ones which he painted with vivid colors with naked models." "They were still or frozen in strange and awkward poses among frames and metal structures." "He pronounced only rare words." "Maybe he wasn't talking at all." "His face, his stature his pale eyes and gray temples reminded me of someone violently" "But that impressions vanished at once." "Maybe it was that well known phenomenon called immediate memory or memory of the future." "When I came into that house there was another girl whom I seemed to recognized too." "She sat for Dutchman, but she was probably his mistress too." "He had still the same slow gestures of a ploughman accustomed to clay or of a stone cutter with his motionless eyes, his absent look" "What are you looking for?" "Nothing." "But I've found it." "What?" "The picture?" "What picture?" "No." "I found what I didn't know I was looking for." "You found it?" "" " No, nothing." "" " You went the wrong way." "" " No, it's not here." "" " Franz is making fun of us." "I'll see to it." "Let me go!" "They shut me up in a cellar or a kind of cell, my hands chained behind my back and they blindfolded me." "The first day, I made the bandage slip by rubbing my face against the straw" "But they stroke me so hard that they tore my clothes to rage." "And they blindfolded me again." "I don't know when as I can't tell days from nights." "They want to know where the picture is." "What picture?" "I said I didn't know and didn't care." "But they didn't believe me." "You haven't found that picture yet?" "Why?" "Because I found out where you hid it." "Let me go, please." "You're hurting me." "Wait..." "I'll explain everything." "Don't move so much." "Now you'll remain quite still and tell me where the picture is hidden." "If you won't tell me" "Where's the picture?" "Where's the picture?" "Where's the picture?" "Check." "Nothing doing with Duchemin." "He won't swap the picture for Violette." "So what will we do with that girl?" "I've already said that." "We'll make her talk." "When we know where's the picture, we take it." "You'll never find it." "How do you know?" "Why isn't Sonia here?" "I'm not Sonia's guardian." "Violette, listen to me." "They'll kill you anyway." "Swallow this powder, and it'll be over." "Who are you?" "Nobody." "Stand up." "Take off my chains, it'll be easier." "Want to know if I like you?" "Drink this, you'll know my thoughts." "Marc Antoine?" "The small picture." "I liked it no longer." "I had already forgotten it." "They could do what they wanted with it." "I didn't care." "Boris was dead." "Sonia was dead." "Maybe Marc Antoine and Marie-Eve too." "And I didn't care." "Dutchman was dead." "I didn't care either." "And now, it was Jean Pierre's turn." "What for?" "For that absurd little painting." "A few million francs." "It's impossible." "Or then, for what other reason?" "I walked at random without thinking of anything." "I found the sea again." "Now I'm again alone in my room." "Nothing has happened yet." "Presently, I'll go and meet my friends at Eden." "They'll all look tired as if they'd gone far." "Franz will still look like a villain in a play." "We'll drink lemonade with quinquina or cocaine." "To get our of our boredom we'll have games of hide and seek and such." "At the end of the evening when the game reaches its climax suddenly, there'll be a great silence." "Slowly, one after the other we'll turn our heads towards the windows" "On the other side of the glass we'll see the stranger, just arrived looking at us with his pale eyes and already pushing the door."