LETS
BEGIN.
P N RA K
C E
s
.
I n did he am n’t e a es k n s. I rd . I no by kn di the ’d n w t ri s ow dn ir ev he ak ctl igh th ’t e vo er ir o in y s t, e v ic ir r th g, pe st m e f ce a e f
E RS TTE
RIT
DW
AN
L LE OV
LA L
HIM
sm we r l i all e to n t at l e de w o o ‘ t f nt ith fil ce hat eat ifia i . d u b ld Yet ist res ha I an n v co d stru e c u a ta c o t b tim te ei d m hei l e e o s r d go ing r c f an ai in s o g l a es d a y h s,t n . c a h re Th tiv bit e dw r-w th y iti in e w ou ell e do rea e nd rs w m ar e.
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
MAKE THE
Ye a t an tim I co a d e ul re nd go tab d h ar ac in l e a -w ti gs o ve in vit , t f t co my movements were do ie he he n limited just w s. T ir ir sstrictly tr uc dw he da co around this ti m t i e el y l y inme. l e w h g d I co rs er ab suld ar e t its ou he get nd from mthe bed e 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.
FIRST MOVE.
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
The third one down no longer offered any insight, the windows were just slits like in a medieval batt l ement, due to foreshortening. Th at brings us aro und to the one on the end. In th at one, frontal vis ion came back full depth again, since it stood at right angl es 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 freel y 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 h ad been constru cted originall y as such, not just cut up into furnished roo ms. It topped them by two stor ies and h ad rear fire escapes, to show for this distinction. But it was old,
HIS MIND.
ON
HAS
YO
T
MAR
HIM
evide hadn own ofit. as in proc of be
NCE
EKS
OU
O
RRY
M,
ently n’t sh a pr It w n the cess eing
BE PREPARED TO PUT YOUR LIPSTICK ON,
d of cl ea rin g mo de rn ize d. Ins tea wh il e the wo ing ild bu e tir the en y we re do ing the , rk wa s go ing on e, tim a at a fla t in ord er to los e as litt l e ren tal in co me as po ssi bl ard fla ts it off e e. Of the six rea rw mo st on e ha d top red to vie w, the ete d, bu t no t y l mp co en be alrea dy wo rki ng on t re we et ren ted . Th ey now dis tur bin g he fif th- flo or on e on e all up an d ery the pe ac e of ev the blo ck wi of e� sid “in down the d sa wi ng . I an ng th the ir ha mm eri co up l e in the fla t fel t so rry for the nd er how the y wo be low. II us ed to
AND EAT MEALS ALONE.
SILENTLY
SUCCUMB TO DOMESTIC
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 h ammering and sawing. I felt sorry for the coupl e in the flat below. I used to wonder how they stood it with that bedlam going on above their heads.
VIOLENCE,
THEN PLAY A SAD SONG ON LOOP. Then play a sad song on loop.
WATCH HIM IN
THE ARMS OF
ANOTHER WOMAN.
Not th at I sat watch ing all th at time. T he light wa s still burnin g at three i n the mor ning, wh
fail ed to, a nd hopscot ched back again arou nd dawn, i t was still p eering wan l y out beh ind the t
en I finall y transferred from chair to bed to see if I co uld get a lit tl e sl eep m yself. And when I
an sh ade. Moments later, with the first b rightening of day, it su ddenl y dim med arou nd the e
WATCH HIM IN
THE ARMS OF YET
ANOTHER WOMAN.
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 abou t her, I guess. I didn’t blame him for it that.
THINK POPPING PILL Any husba nd would onl y just dropp ed off long suffer ing. &then so, at the most, that clatte ring buckets over them again . of my busin ess, I he reall y ought there. If I had
ROBLEM. P E H T E V L S WILL SO
st he mu een. S h a ve b , a f te r n ig h t p to s l e e u r or th er h o d and o n a in o o w of s a win g s ta r t in g t o a n y o g s a w ’t n s a w We ll , it y s e lf, b u t m s a id t o e r o u t of h t o g et h m e .. . if e wit w l il an
SCRATCH He was l eaning slightl y out,m aybe an inc h past the window fra me, carefu ll y scanning the back fa ces of all t he houses abutting on the hollow square that lay before him.
THAT SILLY ITCHY
THOUGHT AWAY.
WELCOME OTHER MEN,
You can tell, even at a distance, when a person is looking fixedl y. There’s somethingabout the way the head is held. And yet his scrutiny wasn’t held fixedl y 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 l et it go safel y by. I didn’t
AND BREAK HIS HEART.
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 vaguel y why he had given that peculiar, comprehensive, semicircular stare at all the rear windows around him. There wasn’t anyone at any of them.
THEN CALL
THE
POLICE
AND GET
RID OF HIM.
It wasn’t important, of course. It was jus t a littl e oddity,it fai l ed to bl end in with his being worried or disturbed about his wife. When you’re w orried or disturbed, that’s an internal pr eoccupation, you st are vacantl y at noth
nothing at all. W hen you u in a great s utward intere stare ar weeping arc st. One doesn ound yo at windows, that betrays external pre occupation, o
’t quite jibe wi th the other. T o call such a d iscrepancy trif ling is to add to its importa
nce. Onl y som eone like me, s tewing in a va
cuum of tota l idl eness, wo uld h ave noti ced it at all.
THE
Rear Window by Alfred Hitchcock Interpretative Fotonovela by Ananya Singh
END
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 girl friend Lisa (Grace Kelly), the binocular-wielding Jeffries stares through the rear window of his apartment at the goings-on in the other apartme nts around his courtyard. As he spies on his neighbours from his apartm ent window and becomes convinced one of them has committed murder.
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