"He came to a flat, weed-covered rock surrounded by a
pool of clear water, and he was amusedly watching the antics of a small, intrepid
crab which was defying him with two upraised pincers of unequal
size, like a hired assassin with sword and dagger, when he was
struck dumb with amazement at seeing
the imprint of a naked foot. It would not have surprised him to come upon his own
traces in the
sand or mud, although he had long since given up going without clogs, but this
footprint was sunk into the rock itself. Was it that of some
other man? Or had he been on the island so long that the imprint of his
foot in the sandy slime covering the rock had had time to become petrified? He took off his right clog and set his
foot in the
imprint, which was half-filled with sea water. That was precisely what it was. His foot fitted the imprint as through he were putting on a
well-worn slipper. There could be no
doubt about it, no fantasy or mystification; it was not Adam's footprint when he had taken
possession of the
Garden, or that of Venus rising from the
sea; it was his
personal signature and his alone,
impressed in the living rock, indelible and eternal."
Michel Tournier,
Friday, trans. Norman Denny, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1969, 57.
