Before And After Marriage

LETSBEGIN.

PRANK

CALLHIM

LOVELET

TERS.

AND WRITE

I did

n’t k

now

thei

r

nam

es. I’d

nev

er

hear

d thei

r voi

c

es. I d

idn’t e

ve

n kn

ow th

em

by si

ght, s

t

rictly

spe

akin

g, f

or th

eir

face

s

wer

e to

o ‘

smal

l to

fil

l in

with

i

den

tifia

b

le fe

atur

es

at t

hat d

istan

ce. Y

et I

cou

ld

hav

e co

nstru

cte

d a ti

me

table

of

thei

r co

m

ings a

n

d g

oing

s,th

ei

r dai

ly h

abit

s

and a

ctiv

iti

es.

They

we

r

e th

e re

a

r-

win

dow

dwel

lers

ar

o

und m

e.

MAKE THEFIRST MOVE.

Sure, I suppose it was a little bit like prying, could even have been mistaken for the fevered concentration of a Peeping Tom. That wasn’t my fault, that wasn’t the idea. The idea was, my movements

my movements were strictly limited just around this ti me. I co uld get from

the bed to the windo w, and that was all. Th e bay window was about th e best featu re my rear bedroom ha d in the war m weather.

of exercise. I’d neve r acquired the habit of reading books towar d off boredom, so I hadn’t that to turn to. Well.

Yet I could have constructed

a timetable of their com

ings

and goings, their daily habits

and activities. They were the

rear-window

dwellers around m

e.

It was unscreened, so I had to sit with the light out or I wo uld have had every inse ct in the v icinity in on me. I couldn’t sleep, b ecause I was use

d to get ti ng plenty

of exercise. I’d neve r acquired the habit of reading books towar d off boredom, so I hadn’t that to turn to. Well.

GET INTO HIS MIND.

The third one down no longer offered any insight, the windows were just slits like in a medieval battlement, due to foreshortening. That brings us around to the one on the end. In that one, frontal vision came back full depth again, since it stood at right angles to the rest, my own included, sealing up the inner hollow all these houses backed on. I could see into it, from the rounded projection of my bay window, as freely as into a doll ho use with its rear wall sliced away. And scal e down to about the same size. It was a flat building. Unlike all the rest it had been constru cted originally as such, not just cut up into furnished roo ms. It topped them by two stor ies and had rear fire escapes, to show for this distinction. But it was old,

GET INTO HIS MIND.

ONCE

HEASKSYOUTOMARRY

HIM,evidently hadn’t shown a profit. It was in the process of being

ONCE

HEASKSYOUTOMARRY

HIM,evidently hadn’t shown a profit. It was in the process of being

BE PREPAREDTO PUT YOUR LIPSTICK ON,

AND EAT MEALS ALONE.

modernized. Instead of clearing

the entire building while the wo

rk was going on, they were doing

a flat at a time,

in order to lose

as little rental in

come as possibl

e. Of the six rearward flats it offe

red to view, the topmost one had

already been completed, but not y

et rented. They were working on t

he fifth-floor one now disturbing

the peace of everyone all up and

down the “inside” of the block wi

th their hammering and sawing. I

felt sorry for the couple in the flat

below. II used to wonder how they

SILENTLY SUCCUMB

TO DOMESTICVIOLENCE,

They were working on the fifth-floor one now, disturbing the peace of everyone all up and down the “inside” of the block with their hammering and sawing. I felt sorry for the couple in the flat below. I used to wonderhow they stood it with that bedlam going on above their heads.

THEN PLAY A SAD SONG ON LOOP.Then play a sad song on loop.

WATCH HIM INTHE ARMS OF

ANOTHERWOMAN.

Not that I sat watch ing all th at time. T he light wa s still burnin g at three i n the mor ning, wh

failed to, a nd hopscot ched back again arou nd dawn, i t was still p eering wan ly out beh ind the t

WATCH HIM INTHE ARMS OF YET

ANOTHERWOMAN.

Not that I sat watch ing all th at time. T he light wa s still burnin g at three i n the mor ning, wh

en I finally transferred from chair to bed to see if I co uld get a lit tle sleep m yself. And when I

an shade. Moments later, with the first brightening of day, it suddenly dimmed around the e

GET HURT. NOT ONCE, BUT TWICE.

GET HURT. NOT ONCE, BUT TWICE.

He was holding a ci garette in his ha nd. I couldn’t see it, but I could tell it was th at by the quick, nervous littl e jerks with which he kept putting his hand to his mouth, and the haze I saw rising around his head. Worried about her, I guess. I didn’t blame him for it that.

PILLS WILL SOLVE THE PROBLEM.

Any husband would only just dropped offlong suffering. &then so, at the most, that

clattering buckets over them again.

of my business, Ihe really ought

there. If I had

have been. She must

to sleep, after night

in another hour or

sawing of wood and

was going to start

Well, it wasn’t any

said to myself, but

to get her out of

an ill wife with me...

THINK POPPING

PILLS WILL SOLVE THE PROBLEM.He was leaning slightly out,maybe an inch past the window frame, carefully scanning the back faces of all the houses abuttingon the hollow square that lay before him.

SCRATCHTHAT SILLY ITCHY

THOUGHTAWAY.

WELCOME OTHER MEN,You can tell, even at a distance, when a person is looking fixedly. There’s somethingabout the way the head is held. And yet his scrutiny wasn’t held fixedly to any one point, it was a slow, sweeping one, moving along houses on the opposite side from me first. When it got to the end of them, I knew it would cross over to my side and come back along there. Before it did, I withdrew several yards inside my room, to let it go safely by. I didn’t

A N D B R E A K H I S H E A R T .

want him to think I was sitting there prying into his affairs. There was still enough blue night-shade in my room to keep my slight withdrawal from catching his eye. When I returned to my original position a moment or two later, he was gone. He had raised two more of the shades. The bedroom one was still down. I wondered vaguely why he had given that peculiar, comprehensive, semicircular stare at all the rear windows around him. There wasn’t anyone at any of them.

THENCALLTHE

POLICEAND GETRID OF HIM.It wasn’t important, of course. It was just a little oddity,it failed to blend in with his being worried or disturbed about hiswife. When you’re w orried or disturbed, that’s an internal preoccupation, you stare vacantly at nothing at all.

nothing at all. When you stare around yo

u in a great s weeping arc at windows, that betrays external pre occupation, o

utward interest. One doesn

’t quite jibe wi th the other. T o call such a d iscrepancy trif ling is to add to its importa

nce. Only som eone like me, s tewing in a va

cuum of total idleness, would have noticed it at all.

THE ENDRear Window by Alfred Hitchcock

Interpretative Fotonovela by Ananya Singh

HOW TO TAME YOUR SPOUSE

Laid up with a broken leg, photojournalist L.B. Jeffries (James Stewart) is confined to his tiny, sweltering courtyard apartment. To pass the time between visits from his nurse (Thelma Ritter) and his fashion model girlfriend Lisa (Grace Kelly), the binocular-wielding Jeffries stares through the rear window of his apartment at the goings-on in the other apartments around his courtyard. As he spies on his neighbours from his apartment window and becomes convinced one of them has committed murder.