The Voyeur

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It was as if no one had heard.

The whistle blew again—a shrill, prolonged noise followed by three short blasts of ear-splitting violence: a violence without purpose that remained without effect. There was no more reaction—no further exclamation—than there had been at first; not one feature of one face had even trembled.

A motionless and parallel series of strained, almost anxious stares crossed—tried to cross—struggled against the narrowing space that still separated them from their goal. Every head was raised, one next to the other, in an identical attitude. A last puff of heavy, noiseless steam formed a great plume in the air above them, and vanished as soon as it had appeared.

Slightly to one side, behind the area in which the steam had just appeared, one passenger stood apart from the expectant group. The whistle had had no more effect on his withdrawal than on the passionate attention of his neighbors. Standing like them, his body and limbs rigid, he kept his eyes on the deck.

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