Presentation

Alain Robbe-Grillet – Le mannequin

The coffee pot is on the table.

It is a round table with four legs, covered with an oilcloth checkered red and gray on a neutral background—a yellowish-white that was once ivory, perhaps, or just white. In the middle of the table is a porcelain tile instead of the usual table mat: the design on the tile is completely covered, or at least made unrecognizable, by the coffee pot that is standing on it.

The coffee pot is made of brown earthenware. It is in the form of a sphere surmounted by a cylindrical percolator and a mushroom-shaped lid. The spout is an S with flattened sides, slightly more rounded at the base. The handle has more or less the shape of an ear, or rather of the outer rim of an ear. Even so, it would be a deformed ear—too round and without enough lobe: more or less an ear shaped like a pot handle. The spout, the handle, and the mushroom-shaped lid are cream color. The rest of the pot is a bright, shiny, even shade of brown.

There is nothing else on the table except the oilcloth, the tile and the coffee pot.

To the right, in front of the window, stands the dressmaker's dummy.

Behind the table, on the mantlepiece, is a large rectangular mirror in which can be seen half the french window (the right half), and, to the left (that is, to the left of the window), the reflection of the mirrored wardrobe. In the mirror of the wardrobe the window can be seen again, all of it this time, and the right way around (that is, the right half on the right, the left half on the left).

Thus, above the mantlepiece there are actually three halves of the window that can be
successively distinguished without a break in continuity—they are, respectively (from left to right), the left half seen the right way around, the right half, 105 106 Evergreen Review also seen the right way around, and the right half seen in reverse. Since the wardrobe is standing exactly in the corner of the room, extending as far as the edge of the window, the two right halves of the window appear to be separated only by a narrow upright of the wardrobe, which could also be part of the window frame (the right upright of the left half exactly overlaps the left upright of the right half). The three halves make it possible to see, on the other side of the window screen, the leafless trees of the garden.

In this way, the window occupies the entire surface of the mirror except for the upper portion, in which can be seen a strip of the ceiling and the top of the mirrored wardrobe.

Also in the mirror on the mantlepiece can be seen two other dummies, one in front of the first, narrowest section of the window, all the way to the left; and the other in front of the third half (the one farthest to the right). The dummies are neither facing toward nor away from one another; the one on the right is turned so that its right side is facing toward the one on the left, which is slightly smaller and standing with its left side turned to face the one on the right. But this is hard to discern at first glance, for the two reflections are actually facing the same way and both therefore seem to be showing the same side—probably the left one.

The three dummies are standing in a row. The one in the middle, placed on the right side of the mirror, and about as much larger than the one on its right as it is smaller than the other one on its left, is facing in exactly the same direction on the table.

On the spherical part of the coffee pot there is a distorted reflection of the window, a more or less quadrilateral figure with its sides composed of circular arcs. The line formed by the wooden uprights between the two halves of the window suddenly spreads out at the bottom of this reflection into a rather shapeless blotch. This is certainly the shadow of the dummy.

The room is very bright, for the window is exceptionally large, although it has only two sections.

A good smell of hot coffee is coming out of the coffee pot on the table.

The dummy is not where it belongs: usually it is kept in the angle of the window, on the side opposite the mirrored wardrobe. The wardrobe has been put where it is to make fittings more convenient.

The design on the tile is an owl with two huge, almost frightening eyes. But, for the moment, nothing can be seen because of the coffee pot.