Alexandria's computer

Alexandre Farel’s computer is both an essential tool in his highly managed life and a repository whose contents acquire new meaning when police seize it during the rape investigation. Alexandre relies on it for work and exam preparation, but its stored data also gives investigators access to a private digital record that they use to question him. The object links his cultivated professional persona to the intimate evidence examined in the case.

Work, Ambition, and Self-Presentation

Before the investigation, Alexandre uses his computer to rehearse the version of himself he hopes to present to employers. He has pre-recorded sample interview questions and plays them back so that he can practise answering in fluent English. The exercise belongs to a wider effort to make his résumé and performance legible to elite recruiters: he has spent years building his language skills and has carefully shaped his educational and professional profile. The computer is not merely a place where information is stored; it is part of the apparatus through which Alexandre prepares himself to be evaluated.

That preparation also exposes the pressure behind his polished image. Asked to describe a failure, he rehearses a story about an anonymous collection of short stories rejected by thirty publishers, followed by a second-place prize in a student magazine competition. As he speaks, he worries that mentioning his mother will make him appear dependent. His computer-assisted rehearsal thus frames self-presentation as editing: even a true account must be selected and arranged to satisfy an imagined interviewer.

Seizure During the Investigation

The computer’s role changes abruptly when three judicial police officers arrive at Jean Farel’s apartment while Alexandre is exercising alone. They tell him that a young woman has accused him of rape. During their search, officers empty drawers, turn over the mattress and cushions, and search his clothing and luggage. They seize Alexandre’s computer as part of that search.

Alexandre begs them to leave it behind. Without it, he says, he cannot work; he has upcoming examinations, and all his data is on the machine because he has made no backup. His appeal describes the immediate practical cost of the seizure: the device contains work he needs and material he fears he may not be able to recover. The officers dismiss the plea, suggesting that the hard drive will reveal what he is hiding. A tool he regarded as indispensable to his studies and professional future has become, in the investigators’ hands, a potential source of evidence.

Digital Material as Evidence

The seized computer returns in questioning, where investigators use its contents to challenge Alexandre’s answers about pornography. Asked whether he watches pornographic films, magazines, or websites, he initially denies it, then admits that he watches conventional pornography after the interviewer invokes the hard drive. Later, he acknowledges regularly visiting pornographic sites when confronted again with the record.

The questioning becomes more specific: investigators cite searches for phrases equivalent to “submissive woman,” “big bitch,” and “slut to punish,” and ask whether humiliation arouses him. Alexandre says that the searches were casual and objects that an apparently ordinary search can later be brought back against someone. The computer therefore supplies searchable traces, but the traces do not speak for themselves: investigators frame them as clues, while Alexandre disputes what can be inferred from them. The distinction between recorded activity and its interpretation becomes central to the device’s evidentiary significance.

Privacy, Scrutiny, and Narrative Function

The computer’s meaning shifts across the novel’s treatment of Alexandre. It first supports rehearsal and controlled self-fashioning; after the seizure, it becomes an involuntary archive exposed to police scrutiny. Its contents allow investigators to confront him with facts he had not volunteered, while also making visible the gap between his public presentation and his private browsing. The device does not establish the accusation by itself, and the narrative does not treat a search history as a direct account of the alleged encounter. Instead, it shows how digital traces enter an investigation as material that must be questioned and interpreted.

That shift also gives the computer a concrete role in the conflict between personal privacy and institutional access. Before the search, Alexandre uses digital tools to prepare for interviews and manage his prospects; after it, he cannot control who examines the machine or how its contents are framed. The same device that helps him compose a legible version of himself becomes a record others can read against him. Its significance lies in this reversal: the computer remains physically the same, but the power to use and interpret its contents passes from Alexandre to the investigators.