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- Full text of "Stranger, The Albert Camus"
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- ALBERT
- CAMUS
- *
- *
- INTERNATIONAL
- “Matthew Ward has done
- Camus and us a great service.
- The Stranger is now a dif-
- ferent and better novel for
- its American readers; it is
- now our classic as well as
- France’s.” —Chicago Sun -Times
- THE S
- T R A N G
- E R
- FICTION/LITERATURE
- G
- ince it was first published
- in English, in 1946, Albert Camus’s first novel, THE STRAN
- GER ( L'etranger) , has had a profound impact on millions of
- American readers. Through this story of an ordinary man who
- unwittingly gets drawn into a senseless murder on a sun-
- drenched Algerian beach, Camus explored what he termed “the
- nakedness of man faced with the absurd.”
- Now, in an illuminating new American translation, extraordi-
- nary for its exactitude and clarity, the original intent of THE
- STRANGER is made more immediate. This haunting novel has
- been given a new life for generations to come.
- Translated from the French by Matthew Ward
- $ 8.00
- Cover design by Marc J. Cohen
- 9 780679 720201
- ISBN D-b7 c 1-7EBaO-B
- Photograph by Barnaby Hall
- THE STRANGER.
- ALSO BY ALBERT CAMUS
- Awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1957
- Notebooks 1942-1951 (Carnets,
- janvier 1942— mars 1951) 1965
- Notebooks 1935-1942 (Carnets,
- mai 1935— fevrier 1942) 1963
- Resistance, Rebellion, and Death (Actuelles
- — a selection) 1 96 1
- The Possessed (Les Possedes) i960
- Caligula and Three Other Plays (Caligula,
- Le Malentendu, L'Etat de siege,
- Les Justes) 1958
- Exile and the Kingdom (L’Exil
- et le Royaume) 1958
- The Fall (La Chute ) 1957
- The Myth of Sisyphus (Le Mythe de Sisyphe)
- and Other Essays 1955
- The Rebel (L' Homme Revolte) 1954
- The Plague (La Peste) 1948
- The Stranger (L'Etranger) 1946
- THE
- STRANGER
- ALBERT CAMUS
- Translated from the French
- by Matthew Ward
- VINTAGE INTERNATIONAL
- VINTAGE BOOKS
- A DIVISION OF RANDOM HOUSE, INC.
- NEW YORK
- First Vintage International Edition, March 1989
- Copyright © 1988 by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc,
- All rights reserved under International and Pan-American
- Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by
- Random House, Inc., New York. Originally published in
- French as LEtrangerby LibrairieGallimard, France, in 1942.
- Copyright 1942 by Librairie Gallimard. Copyright renewed
- 1969 by Mmc Veuve Albert Camus. This translation origi-
- nally published, in hardcover, by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., in
- 1988.
- Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
- Camus, Albert, 1913-1960.
- The Stranger.
- (Vintage international)
- Translation of: Litranger.
- I. Ward, Matthew. II. Title.
- PQ2605.A3734E813 1989 843'. 914 88-40378
- ISBN 0-679-72020-0 (pbk.)
- Manufactured in the United States of America
- TRANSLATOR’S NOTE
- The Stranger demanded of Camus the creation of a style
- at once literary and profoundly popular, an artistic
- sleight of hand that would make the complexities of a
- man’s life appear simple. Despite appearances, though,
- neither Camus nor Meursault ever tried to make things
- simple for themselves. Indeed, in the mind of a moralist,
- simplification is tantamount to immorality, and Meursault
- and Camus are each moralists in their own way. What
- little Meursault says or feels or does resonates with all he
- does not say, all he does not feel, all he does not do. The
- “simplicity” of the text is merely apparent and every-
- where paradoxical.
- Camus acknowledged employing an “American
- method” in writing The Stranger, in the first half of the
- book in particular: the short, precise sentences; the
- depiction of a character ostensibly without consciousness;
- and, in places, the “tough guy” tone. Hemingway, Dos
- Passos, Faulkner, Cain, and others had pointed the way.
- There is some irony then in the fact that for forty years
- the only translation available to American audiences
- should be Stuart Gilbert’s "Britannic” rendering. His
- 0 TRANSLATOR S NOTE 0
- is the version we have all read, the version I read as a
- schoolboy in the boondocks some twenty years ago. As
- all translators do, Gilbert gave the novel a consistency
- and voice all his own. A certain paraphrastic earnestness
- might be a way of describing his effort to make the text
- intelligible, to help the English-speaking reader under-
- stand what Camus meant. In addition to giving the text
- a more “American” quality, I have also attempted to
- venture farther into the letter of Camus’s novel, to
- capture what he said and how he said it, not what he
- meant. In theory, the latter should take care of itself.
- When Meursault meets old Salamano and his dog in
- the dark stairwell of their apartment house, Meursault
- observes, “II etait avec son chien.” With the reflex of a
- well-bred Englishman, Gilbert restores the conventional
- relation between man and beast and gives additional
- adverbial information: “As usual, he had his dog with
- him.” But I have taken Meursault at his word: “He was
- with his dog.” — in the way one is with a spouse or a
- friend. A sentence as straightforward as this gives us the
- world through Meursault’s eyes. As he says toward the
- end of his story, as he sees things, Salamano’s dog was
- worth just as much as Salamano’s wife. Such peculiarities
- of perception, such psychological increments of character
- are Meursault. It is by pursuing what is unconventional
- in Camus’s writing that one approaches a degree of its
- still startling originality.
- In the second half of the novel Camus gives freer
- rein to a lyricism which is his alone as he takes Meursault,
- now stripped of his liberty, beyond sensation to enforced
- vi
- 0 TRANSLATOR S NOTE 0
- memory, unsatisfied desire and, finally, to a kind of
- understanding. In this stylistic difference between the
- two parts, as everywhere, an impossible fidelity has been
- my purpose.
- No sentence in French literature in English trans-
- lation is better known than the opening sentence of The
- Stranger. It has become a sacred cow of sorts, and I have
- changed it. In his notebooks Camus recorded the obser-
- vation that “the curious feeling the son has for his mother
- constitutes all his sensibility.” And Sartre, in his “Ex-
- plication de L'Etranger," goes out of his way to point out
- Meursault’s use of the child’s word “Maman” when
- speaking of his mother. To use the more removed, adult
- "Mother” is, I believe, to change the nature of Meursault’s
- curious feeling for her. It is to change his very sensibility.
- As Richard Howard pointed out in his classic state-
- ment on retranslation in his prefatory note to The lm-
- moralist, time reveals all translation to be paraphrase. All
- translations date; certain works do not. Knowing this,
- and with a certain nostalgia, I bow in Stuart Gilbert’s
- direction and ask, as Camus once did, for indulgence and
- understanding from the reader of this first American
- translation of The Stranger, which I affectionately dedi-
- cate to Karel Wahrsager.
- The special circumstances under which this transla-
- tion was completed require that I thank my editor at
- Knopf, Judith Jones, for years of patience and faith.
- Nancy Festinger and Melissa Weissberg also deserve my
- gratitude.
- vii
- PART ONE
- 1
- Maman died today. Or yesterday maybe, I don’t know.
- I got a telegram from the home: “Mother deceased.
- Funeral tomorrow. Faithfully yours.” That doesn’t mean
- anything. Maybe it was yesterday.
- The old people’s home is at Marengo, about eighty
- kilometers from Algiers, I’ll take the two o’clock bus and
- get there in the afternoon. That way I can be there for the
- vigil and come back tomorrow night. I asked my boss for
- two days off and there was no way he was going to re-
- fuse me with an excuse like that. But he wasn’t too
- happy about it. I even said, "It’s not my fault.” He didn’t
- say anything. Then I thought I shouldn’t have said that.
- After all, I didn’t have anything to apologize for. He’s
- the one who should have offered his condolences. But he
- probably will day after tomorrow, when he sees I’m in
- mourning. For now, it’s almost as if Maman weren’t dead.
- After the funeral, though, the case will be closed, and
- everything will have a more official feel to it.
- I caught the two o’clock bus. It was very hot. I ate
- at the restaurant, at Celeste’s, as usual. Everybody felt
- very sorry for me, and Celeste said, "You only have one
- 3
- 0 THE STRANGER O
- mother.” When I left, they walked me to the door. I
- was a little distracted because I still had to go up to
- Emmanuel’s place to borrow a black tie and an arm band.
- He lost his uncle a few months back.
- I ran so as not to miss the bus. It was probably be-
- cause of all the rushing around, and on top of that the
- bumpy ride, the smell of gasoline, and the glare of the
- sky and the road, that I dozed off. I slept almost
- the whole way. And when I woke up, I was slumped
- against a soldier who smiled at me and asked if I’d been
- traveling long. I said, “Yes,” just so I wouldn’t have to
- say anything else.
- The home is two kilometers from the village. I walked
- them. I wanted to see Maman right away. But the care-
- taker told me I had to see the director first. He was busy,
- so I waited awhile. The caretaker talked the whole time
- and then I saw the director. I was shown into his office.
- He was a little old man with the ribbon of the Legion
- of Honor in his lapel. He looked at me with his clear
- eyes. Then he shook my hand and held it so long I
- didn’t know how to get it loose. He thumbed through
- a file and said, "Madame Meursault came to us three
- years ago. You were her sole support.” I thought he was
- criticizing me for something and I started to explain.
- But he cut me off. “You don’t have to justify yourself,
- my dear boy. I’ve read your mother’s file. You weren’t
- able to provide for her properly. She needed someone to
- look after her. You earn only a modest salary. And the
- truth of the matter is, she was happier here.” I said,
- 4
- 0 THE STRANGER 0
- “Yes, sir.” He added, “You see, she had friends here,
- people her own age. She was able to share things from
- the old days with them. You’re young, and it must have
- been hard for her with you.”
- It was true. When she was at home with me, Maman
- used to spend her time following me with her eyes, not
- saying a thing. For the first few days she was at the home
- she cried a lot. But that was because she wasn’t used to
- it. A few months later and she would have cried if she’d
- been taken out. She was used to it. That’s partly why I
- didn’t go there much this past year. And also because it
- took up my Sunday — not to mention the trouble of
- getting to the bus, buying tickets, and spending two hours
- traveling.
- The director spoke to me again. But I wasn’t really
- listening anymore. Then he said, “I suppose you’d like
- to see your mother.” I got up without saying anything
- and he led the way to the door. On the way downstairs, he
- explained, “We’ve moved her to our little mortuary. So
- as not to upset the others. Whenever one of the residents
- dies, the others are a bit on edge for the next two or
- three days. And that makes it difficult to care for them."
- We crossed a courtyard where there were lots of old
- people chatting in little groups. As we went by, the talk-
- ing would stop. And then the conversation would start
- up again behind us. The sound was like the muffled
- jabber of parakeets. The director stopped at the door of
- a small building. “I’ll leave you now, Monsieur Meur-
- sault. If you need me for anything, I’ll be in my office.
- 5
- 0 THE STRANGER 0
- As is usually the case, the funeral is set for ten o’clock in
- the morning. This way you’ll be able to keep vigil over
- the departed. One last thing: it seems your mother
- often expressed to her friends her desire for a religious
- burial. I’ve taken the liberty of making the necessary
- arrangements. But I wanted to let you know.” I thanked
- him. While not an atheist, Maman had never in her life
- given a thought to religion.
- I went in. It was a very bright, whitewashed room
- with a skylight for a roof. The furniture consisted of
- some chairs and some cross-shaped sawhorses. Two of
- them, in the middle of the room, were supporting a
- closed casket. All you could see were some shiny screws,
- not screwed down all the way, standing out against the
- walnut-stained planks. Near the casket was an Arab
- nurse in a white smock, with a brightly colored scarf on
- her head.
- Just then the caretaker came in behind me. He must
- have been running. He stuttered a little. “We put the
- cover on, but I’m supposed to unscrew the casket so you
- can see her.” He was moving toward the casket when I
- stopped him. He said, “You don’t want to?” I answered,
- “No.” He was quiet, and I was embarrassed because I
- felt I shouldn’t have said that. He looked at me and then
- asked, “Why not?” but without criticizing, as if he just
- wanted to know. I said, “I don’t know.” He started twirl-
- ing his moustache, and then without looking at me, again
- he said, “I understand.” He had nice pale blue eyes and
- a reddish complexion. He offered me a chair and then
- 6
- 0 THE STRANGER 0
- sat down right behind me. The nurse stood up and went
- toward the door. At that point the caretaker said to me,
- “She’s got an abscess.” I didn’t understand, so I looked
- over at the nurse and saw that she had a bandage
- wrapped around her head just below the eyes. Where
- her nose should have been, the bandage was flat. All
- you could see of her face was the whiteness of the ban-
- dage.
- When she’d gone, the caretaker said, “I’ll leave you
- alone.” I don’t know what kind of gesture I made, but
- he stayed where he was, behind me. Having this presence
- breathing down my neck was starting to annoy me. The
- room was filled with beautiful late-afternoon sunlight.
- Two hornets were buzzing against the glass roof. I
- could feel myself getting sleepy. Without turning around,
- I said to the caretaker, “Have you been here long?”
- Right away he answered, “Five years” — as if he’d been
- waiting all along for me to ask.
- After that he did a lot of talking. He would have been
- very surprised if anyone had told him he would end up
- caretaker at the Marengo home. He was sixty-four and
- came from Paris. At that point I interrupted him. “Oh,
- you’re not from around here?” Then I remembered that
- before taking me to the director’s office, he had talked
- to me about Maman. He’d told me that they had to
- bury her quickly, because it gets hot in the plains, espe-
- cially in this part of the country. That was when he told
- me he had lived in Paris and that he had found it hard
- to forget it. In Paris they keep vigil over the body for
- 7
- 0 THE STRANGER 0
- three, sometimes four days. But here you barely have
- time to get used to the idea before you have to start
- running after the hearse. Then his wife had said to him,
- "Hush now, that’s not the sort of thing to be telling the
- gentleman.” The old man had blushed and apologized.
- I’d stepped in and said, "No, not at all.” I thought what
- he’d been saying was interesting and made sense.
- In the little mortuary he told me that he’d come to
- the home because he was destitute. He was in good
- health, so he’d offered to take on the job of caretaker. I
- pointed out that even so he was still a resident. He said
- no, he wasn’t. I’d already been struck by the way he
- had of saying “they” or “the others” and, less often, "the
- old people,” talking about the patients, when some of
- them weren’t any older than he was. But of course it
- wasn’t the same. He was the caretaker, and to a certain
- extent he had authority over them.
- Just then the nurse came in. Night had fallen sud-
- denly. Darkness had gathered, quickly, above the sky-
- light. The caretaker turned the switch and I was blinded
- by the sudden flash of light. He suggested I go to the
- dining hall for dinner. But I wasn’t hungry. Then he
- offered to bring me a cup of coffee with milk. I like milk
- in my coffee, so I said yes, and he came back a few
- minutes later with a tray. I drank the coffee. Then I felt
- like having a smoke. But I hesitated, because I didn’t
- know if I could do it with Maman right there. I thought
- about it; it didn’t matter. I offered the caretaker a ciga-
- rette and we smoked.
- 8
- 0 THE STRANGER 0
- At one point he said, “You know, your mother’s
- friends will be coming to keep vigil too. It’s customary.
- I have to go get some chairs and some black coffee.” I
- asked him if he could turn off one of the lights. The
- glare on the white walls was making me drowsy. He said
- he couldn’t. That was how they’d been wired: it was all
- or nothing. I didn’t pay too much attention to him after
- that. He left, came back, set up some chairs. On one of
- them he stacked some cups around a coffee pot. Then
- he sat down across from me, on the other side of Maman.
- The nurse was on that side of the room too, but with
- her back to me. I couldn’t see what she was doing. But
- the way her arms were moving made me think she was
- knitting. It was pleasant; the coffee had warmed me
- up, and the smell of flowers on the night air was coming
- through the open door. I think I dozed off for a while.
- It was a rustling sound that woke me up. Because
- I’d had my eyes closed, the whiteness of the room seemed
- even brighter than before. There wasn’t a shadow any-
- where in front of me, and every object, every angle and
- curve stood out so sharply it made my eyes hurt. That’s
- when Maman’s friends came in. There were about ten
- in all, and they floated into the blinding light without a
- sound. They sat down without a single chair creaking. I
- saw them more clearly than I had ever seen anyone, and
- not one detail of their faces or their clothes escaped me.
- But I couldn’t hear them, and it was hard for me to be-
- lieve they really existed. Almost all the women were
- wearing aprons, and the strings, which were tied tight
- 9
- 0 THE STRANGER 0
- around their waists, made their bulging stomachs stick
- out even more. I’d never noticed what huge stomachs
- old women can have. Almost all the men were skinny
- and carried canes. What struck me most about their
- faces was that I couldn’t see their eyes, just a faint
- glimmer in a nest of wrinkles. When they’d sat down,
- most of them looked at me and nodded awkwardly, their
- lips sucked in by their toothless mouths, so that I couldn’t
- tell if they were greeting me or if it was just a nervous
- tic. I think they were greeting me. It was then that I
- realized they were all sitting across from me, nodding
- their heads, grouped around the caretaker. For a second
- I had the ridiculous feeling that they were there to judge
- me.
- Soon one of the women started crying. She was in
- the second row, hidden behind one of her companions,
- and I couldn’t see her very well. She was crying softly,
- steadily, in little sobs. I thought she’d never stop. The
- others seemed not to hear her. They sat there hunched
- up, gloomy and silent. They would look at the casket,
- or their canes, or whatever else, but that was all they
- would look at. The woman kept on crying. It surprised
- me, because I didn’t know who she was. I wished I
- didn’t have to listen to her anymore. But I didn’t dare
- say anything. The caretaker leaned over and said some-
- thing to her, but she shook her head, mumbled some-
- thing, and went on crying as much as before. Then the
- caretaker came around to my side. He sat down next to
- me. After a long pause he explained, without looking at
- IO
- o THE STRANGER 0
- me, “She was very close to your mother. She says your
- mother was her only friend and now she hasn’t got any-
- »
- one.
- We just sat there like that for quite a while. The
- woman’s sighs and sobs were quieting down. She sniffled
- a lot. Then finally she shut up. I didn’t feel drowsy
- anymore, but I was tired and my back was hurting me.
- Now it was all these people not making a sound that
- was getting on my nerves. Except that every now and
- then I’d hear a strange noise and I couldn’t figure out
- what it was. Finally I realized that some of the old
- people were sucking at the insides of their cheeks and
- making these weird smacking noises. They were so lost
- in their thoughts that they weren’t even aware of it. I
- even had the impression that the dead woman lying in
- front of them didn’t mean anything to them. But I think
- now that that was a false impression.
- We all had some coffee, served by the caretaker.
- After that I don’t know any more. The night passed. I
- remember opening my eyes at one point and seeing that
- all the old people were slumped over asleep, except for one
- old man, with his chin resting on the back of his hands
- wrapped around his cane, who was staring at me as if he
- were just waiting for me to wake up. Then I dozed off
- again. I woke up because my back was hurting more
- and more. Dawn was creeping up over the skylight. Soon
- afterwards, one of the old men woke up and coughed a
- lot. He kept hacking into a large checkered handker-
- chief, and every cough was like a convulsion. He woke
- i r
- 0 THE STRANGER O
- the others up, and the caretaker told them that they
- ought to be going. They got up. The uncomfortable
- vigil had left their faces ashen looking. On their way
- out, and much to my surprise, they all shook my hand —
- as if that night during which we hadn’t exchanged as
- much as a single word had somehow brought us closer
- together.
- I was tired. The caretaker took me to his room and
- I was able to clean up a little. I had some more coffee
- and milk, which was very good. When I went outside,
- the sun was up. Above the hills that separate Marengo
- from the sea, the sky was streaked with red. And the
- wind coming over the hills brought the smell of salt
- with it. It was going to be a beautiful day. It had been
- a long time since I’d been out in the country, and I
- could feel how much I’d enjoy going for a walk if it
- hadn’t been for Maman.
- But I waited in the courtyard, under a plane tree. I
- breathed in the smell of fresh earth and I wasn’t sleepy
- anymore. I thought of the other guys at the office. They’d
- be getting up to go to work about this time : for me that
- was always the most difficult time of day. I thought about
- those things a little more, but I was distracted by the
- sound of a bell ringing inside the buildings. There was
- some commotion behind the windows, then everything
- quieted down again. The sun was now a little higher in
- the sky: it was starting to warm my feet. The caretaker
- came across the courtyard and told me that the director
- was asking for me. I went to his office. He had me sign
- 12
- 0 THE STRANGER 0
- a number of documents. I noticed that he was dressed
- in black with pin-striped trousers. He picked up the
- telephone and turned to me. "The undertaker’s men
- arrived a few minutes ago. I’m going to ask them to seal
- the casket. Before I do, would you like to see your
- mother one last time?” I said no. He gave the order into
- the telephone, lowering his voice: "Figeac, tell the men
- they can go ahead.”
- After that he told me he would be attending the
- funeral and I thanked him. He sat down behind his desk
- and crossed his short legs. He informed me that he and
- I would be the only ones there, apart from the nurse on
- duty. The residents usually weren’t allowed to attend
- funerals. He only let them keep the vigil. "It’s more
- humane that way,” he remarked. But in this case he’d
- given one of mother’s old friends — Thomas Perez —
- permission to join the funeral procession. At that the
- director smiled. He said, “I’m sure you understand. It’s
- a rather childish sentiment. But he and your mother were
- almost inseparable. The others used to tease them and
- say, ‘Perez has a fiancee.’ He’d laugh. They enjoyed it.
- And the truth is he’s taking Madame Meursault’s death
- very hard. I didn’t think I could rightfully refuse him
- permission. But on the advice of our visiting physician,
- I did not allow him to keep the vigil last night.”
- We didn’t say anything for quite a long time. The
- director stood up and looked out the window of his office.
- A moment later he said, “Here’s the priest from Marengo
- already. He’s early.” He warned me that it would take at
- 13
- 0 THE STRANGER 0
- least three-quarters of an hour to walk to the church,
- which is in the village itself. We went downstairs. Out
- in front of the building stood the priest and two altar
- boys. One of them was holding a censer, and the priest
- was leaning toward him, adjusting the length of its silver
- chain. As we approached, the priest straightened up. He
- called me “my son” and said a few words to me. He went
- inside; I followed.
- I noticed right away that the screws on the casket
- had been tightened and that there were four men wear-
- ing black in the room. The director was telling me that the
- hearse was waiting out in the road and at the same time
- I could hear the priest beginning his prayers. From then
- on everything happened very quickly. The men moved
- toward the casket with a pall. The priest, his acolytes, the
- director and I all went outside. A woman I didn’t know
- was standing by the door. “Monsieur Meursault,” the
- director said. I didn’t catch the woman’s name; I just
- understood that she was the nurse assigned by the home.
- Without smiling she lowered her long, gaunt face. Then
- we stepped aside to make way for the body. We fol-
- lowed the pall bearers and left the home. Outside the
- gate stood the hearse. Varnished, glossy, and oblong, it
- reminded me of a pencil box. Next to it was the funeral
- director, a little man in a ridiculous getup, and an awk-
- ward, embarrassed-looking old man. I realized that it was
- Monsieur Perez. He was wearing a soft felt hat with a
- round crown and a wide brim (he took it off as the
- casket was coming through the gate), a suit with trousers
- 14
- 0 THE STRANGER 0
- that were corkscrewed down around his ankles, and a
- black tie with a knot that was too small for the big white
- collar of his shirt. His lips were trembling below a nose
- dotted with blackheads. Strange, floppy, thick-rimmed
- ears stuck out through his fine, white hair, and I was
- struck by their blood-red color next to the pallor of his
- face. The funeral director assigned us our places. First
- came the priest, then the hearse. Flanking it, the four
- men. Behind it, the director and myself and, bringing up
- the rear, the nurse and Monsieur Perez.
- The sky was already filled with light. The sun was
- beginning to bear down on the earth and it was getting
- hotter by the minute. I don’t know why we waited so
- long before getting under way. I was hot in my dark
- clothes. The little old man, who had put his hat back on,
- took it off again. I turned a little in his direction and
- was looking at him when the director started talking to
- me about him. He told me that my mother and Monsieur
- Perez often used to walk down to the village together in
- the evenings, accompanied by a nurse. I was looking at
- the countryside around me. Seeing the rows of cypress
- trees leading up to the hills next to the sky, and the
- houses standing out here and there against that red
- and green earth, I was able to understand Maman better.
- Evenings in that part of the country must have been a
- kind of sad relief. But today, with the sun bearing down,
- making the whole landscape shimmer with heat, it was in-
- human and oppressive.
- We got under way. It was then that I noticed that
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- Perez had a slight limp. Little by little, the hearse was
- picking up speed and the old man was losing ground.
- One of the men flanking the hearse had also dropped
- back and was now even with me. I was surprised at
- how fast the sun was climbing in the sky. I noticed that
- for quite some time the countryside had been buzzing
- with the sound of insects and the crackling of grass. The
- sweat was pouring down my face. I wasn’t wearing a
- hat, so I fanned myself with my handkerchief. The man
- from the undertaker’s said something to me then which
- I missed. He was lifting the edge of his cap with his
- right hand and wiping his head with a handkerchief
- with his left at the same time. I said, “What?” He pointed
- up at the sky and repeated, “Pretty hot.” I said, “Yes.”
- A minute later he asked, “Is that your mother in there?”
- Again I said, “Yes.” “Was she old?” I answered, "Fairly,”
- because I didn’t know the exact number. After that he
- was quiet. I turned around and saw old Perez about fifty
- meters behind us. He was going as fast as he could, swing-
- ing his felt hat at the end of his arm. I looked at the
- director, too. He was walking with great dignity, without
- a single wasted motion. A few beads of sweat were form-
- ing on his forehead, but he didn’t wipe them off.
- The procession seemed to me to be moving a little
- faster. All around me there was still the same glowing
- countryside flooded with sunlight. The glare from the
- sky was unbearable. Atone point, we went over a section
- of the road that had just been repaved. The tar had
- burst open in the sun. Our feet sank into it, leaving its
- 1 6
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- shiny pulp exposed. Sticking up above the top of the
- hearse, the coachman’s hard leather hat looked as if it
- had been molded out of the same black mud. I felt a
- little lost between the blue and white of the sky and the
- monotony of the colors around me — the sticky black of
- the tar, the dull black of all the clothes, and the shiny
- black of the hearse. All of it — the sun, the smell of leather
- and horse dung from the hearse, the smell of varnish and
- incense, and my fatigue after a night without sleep — was
- making it hard for me to see or think straight. I turned
- around again: Perez seemed to be way back there, fading
- in the shimmering heat. Then I lost sight of him alto-
- gether. I looked around and saw that he’d left the road
- and cut out across the fields. I also noticed there was a
- bend in the road up ahead. I realized that Perez, who
- knew the country, was taking a short cut in order to catch
- up with us. By the time we rounded the bend, he was
- back with us. Then we lost him again. He set off cross
- country once more, and so it went on. I could feel the
- blood pounding in my temples.
- After that, everything seemed to happen so fast, so
- deliberately, so naturally that I don’t remember any of
- it anymore. Except for one thing: as we entered the
- village, the nurse spoke to me. She had a remarkable
- voice which didn’t go with her face at all, a melodious,
- quavering voice. She said, “If you go slowly, you risk
- getting sunstroke. But if you go too fast, you work up
- a sweat and then catch a chill inside the church.” She
- was right. There was no way out. Several other images
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- from that day have stuck in my mind: for instance,
- Perez’s face when he caught up with us for the last time,
- just outside the village. Big tears of frustration and ex-
- haustion were streaming down his cheeks. But because
- of all the wrinkles, they weren’t dripping off. They
- spread out and ran together again, leaving a watery film
- over his ruined face. Then there was the church and
- the villagers on the sidewalks, the red geraniums on the
- graves in the cemetery, Perez fainting (he crumpled like
- a rag doll), the blood-red earth spilling over Maman’s
- casket, the white flesh of the roots mixed in with it, more
- people, voices, the village, waiting in front of a cafe, the
- incessant drone of the motor, and my joy when the bus
- entered the nest of lights that was Algiers and I knew I
- was going to go to bed and sleep for twelve hours.
- 1 8
- 2
- As I was waking up, it came to me why my boss had
- seemed annoyed when I asked him for two days off:
- today is Saturday. I’d sort of forgotten, but as I was
- getting up, it came to me. And, naturally, my boss
- thought about the fact that I’d be getting four days’
- vacation that way, including Sunday, and he couldn’t
- have been happy about that. But, in the first place, it
- isn’t my fault if they buried Maman yesterday instead
- of today, and second, I would have had Saturday and
- Sunday off anyway. Obviously, that still doesn’t keep me
- from understanding my boss’s point of view.
- I had a hard time getting up, because I was tired
- from the day before. While I was shaving, I wondered
- what I was going to do and I decided to go for a swim. I
- caught the streetcar to go to the public beach down at
- the harbor. Once there, I dove into the channel. There
- were lots of young people. In the water I ran into Marie
- Cardona, a former typist in our office whom I’d had a
- thing for at the time. She did too, I think. But she’d left
- soon afterwards and we didn’t have the time. I helped
- her onto a float and as I did, I brushed against her breasts.
- 0 THE STRANGER v
- I was still in the water when she was already lying flat
- on her stomach on the float. She turned toward me. Her
- hair was in her eyes and she was laughing. I hoisted
- myself up next to her. It was nice, and, sort of joking
- around, I let my head fall back and rest on her stomach.
- She didn’t say anything so I left it there. I had the whole
- sky in my eyes and it was blue and gold. On the back
- of my neck I could feel Marie’s heart beating softly. We
- lay on the float for a long time, half asleep. When the
- sun got too hot, she dove off and I followed. I caught
- up with her, put my arm around her waist, and we
- swam together. She laughed the whole time. On the
- dock, while we were drying ourselves off, she said, “I’m
- darker than you.” I asked her if she wanted to go to
- the movies that evening. She laughed again and told me
- there was a Fernandel movie she’d like to see. Once we
- were dressed, she seemed very surprised to see I was
- wearing a black tie and she asked me if I was in mourn-
- ing. I told her Maman had died. She wanted to know
- how long ago, so I said, “Yesterday.” She gave a little
- start but didn’t say anything. I felt like telling her it
- wasn’t my fault, but I stopped myself because I re-
- membered that I’d already said that to my boss. It didn’t
- mean anything. Besides, you always feel a little guilty.
- By that evening Marie had forgotten all about it. The
- movie was funny in parts, but otherwise it was just too
- stupid. She had her leg pressed against mine. I was
- fondling her breasts. Toward the end of the show, I gave
- her a kiss, but not a good one. She came back to my place.
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- When I woke up, Marie had gone. She’d explained
- to me that she had to go to her aunt’s. I remembered that
- it was Sunday, and that bothered me: I don’t like Sun-
- days. So I rolled over, tried to find the salty smell Marie’s
- hair had left on the pillow, and slept until ten. Then I
- smoked a few cigarettes, still in bed, till noon. I didn’t
- feel like having lunch at Celeste’s like I usually did be-
- cause they’d be sure to ask questions and I don’t like
- that. I fixed myself some eggs and ate them out of the
- pan, without bread because I didn’t have any left and
- I didn’t feel like going downstairs to buy some.
- After lunch I was a little bored and I wandered
- around the apartment. It was just the right size when
- Maman was here. Now it’s too big for me, and I’ve had
- to move the dining room table into my bedroom. I live in
- just one room now, with some saggy straw chairs, a ward-
- robe whose mirror has gone yellow, a dressing table, and
- a brass bed. I’ve let the rest go. A little later, just for
- something to do, I picked up an old newspaper and read
- it. I cut out an advertisement for Kruschen Salts and
- stuck it in an old notebook where I put things from the
- papers that interest me. I also washed my hands, and
- then I went out onto the balcony.
- My room looks out over the main street in the neigh-
- borhood. It was a beautiful afternoon. Yet the pavement
- was wet and slippery, and what few people there were
- were in a hurry. First, it was families out for a walk: two
- little boys in sailor suits, with trousers below the knees,
- looking a little cramped in their stiff clothes, and a little
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- girl with a big pink bow and black patent-leather shoes.
- Behind them, an enormous mother, in a brown silk
- dress, and the father, a rather frail little man I know by
- sight. He had on a straw hat and a bow tie and was
- carrying a walking stick. Seeing him with his wife, I
- understood why people in the neighborhood said he was
- distinguished. A little later the local boys went by, hair
- greased back, red ties, tight-fitting jackets, with em-
- broidered pocket handkerchiefs and square-toed shoes. I
- thought they must be heading to the movies in town.
- That was why they were leaving so early and hurrying
- toward the streetcar, laughing loudly.
- After them, the street slowly emptied out. The
- matinees had all started, I guess. The only ones left were
- the shopkeepers and the cats. The sky was clear but dull
- above the fig trees lining the street. On the sidewalk
- across the way the tobacconist brought out a chair, set
- it in front of his door, and straddled it, resting his arms
- on the back. The streetcars, packed a few minutes before,
- were almost empty. In the little cafe Chez Pierrot, next
- door to the tobacconist’s, the waiter was sweeping up the
- sawdust in the deserted restaurant inside. It was Sunday
- all right.
- I turned my chair around and set it down like the
- tobacconist’s because I found that it was more comfortable
- that way. I smoked a couple of cigarettes, went inside to
- get a piece of chocolate, and went back to the window to
- eat it. Soon after that, the sky grew dark and I thought
- we were in for a summer storm. Gradually, though, it
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- cleared up again. But the passing clouds had left a hint
- of rain hanging over the street, which made it look
- darker. I sat there for a long time and watched the sky.
- At five o’clock some streetcars pulled up, clanging
- away. They were bringing back gangs of fans from the
- local soccer stadium. They were crowded onto the run-
- ning boards and hanging from the handrails. The street-
- cars that followed brought back the players, whom I
- recognized by their little athletic bags. They were shout-
- ing and singing at the tops of their lungs that their team
- would never die. Several of them waved to me. One of
- them even yelled up to me, “We beat ’em!” And I
- nodded, as if to say “Yes.” From then on there was a
- steady stream of cars.
- The sky changed again. Above the rooftops the sky
- had taken on a reddish glow, and with evening coming
- on the streets came to life. People were straggling back
- from their walks. I recognized the distinguished little
- man among the others. Children were either crying or
- lagging behind. Almost all at once moviegoers spilled
- out of the neighborhood theaters into the street. The
- young men among them were gesturing more excitedly
- than usual and I thought they must have seen an ad-
- venture film. The ones who had gone to the movies in
- town came back a little later. They looked more serious.
- They were still laughing, but only now and then, and
- they seemed tired and dreamy. But they hung around
- anyway, walking up and down the sidewalk across the
- street. The local girls, bareheaded, were walking arm in
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- arm. The young men had made sure they would have
- to bump right into them and then they would make
- cracks. The girls giggled and turned their heads away.
- Several of the girls, whom I knew, waved to me.
- Then the street lamps came on all of a sudden and
- made the first stars appearing in the night sky grow dim.
- I felt my eyes getting tired from watching the street
- filled with so many people and lights. The street lamps
- were making the pavement glisten, and the light from
- the streetcars would glint off someone’s shiny hair, or off
- a smile or a silver bracelet. Soon afterwards, with the
- streetcars running less often and the sky already blue
- above the trees and the lamps, the neighborhood emptied
- out, almost imperceptibly, until the first cat slowly made
- its way across the now deserted street. Then I thought
- maybe I ought to have some dinner. My neck was a little
- stiff from resting my chin on the back of the chair for
- so long. I went downstairs to buy some bread and spa-
- ghetti, did my cooking, and ate standing up. I wanted to
- smoke a cigarette at the window, but the air was getting
- colder and I felt a little chilled. I shut my windows, and
- as I was coming back I glanced at the mirror and saw a
- corner of my table with my alcohol lamp next to some
- pieces of bread. It occurred to me that anyway one more
- Sunday was over, that Maman was buried now, that I
- was going back to work, and that, really, nothing had
- changed.
- 24
- 3
- I worked hard at the office today. The boss was nice. He
- asked me if I wasn’t too tired and he also wanted to
- know Maman’s age. I said, "About sixty,” so as not to
- make a mistake; and I don’t know why, but he seemed
- to be relieved somehow and to consider the matter
- closed.
- There was a stack of freight invoices that had piled
- up on my desk, and I had to go through them all. Before
- leaving the office to go to lunch, I washed my hands. I
- really like doing this at lunchtime. I don’t enjoy it so
- much in the evening, because the roller towel you use
- is soaked through: one towel has to last all day. I men-
- tioned it once to my boss. He told me he was sorry but
- it was really a minor detail. I left a little late, at half past
- twelve, with Emmanuel, who works as a dispatcher. The
- office overlooks the sea, and we took a minute to watch
- the freighters in the harbor, which was ablaze with sun-
- light. Then a truck came toward us with its chains
- rattling and its engine backfiring. Emmanuel said, "How
- ’bout it?” and I started running. The truck passed us and
- we ran after it. I was engulfed by the noise and the dust.
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- I couldn’t see anything, and all I was conscious of was
- the sensation of hurtling forward in a mad dash through
- cranes and winches, masts bobbing on the horizon and
- the hulls of ships alongside us as we ran. I was first to
- grab hold and take a flying leap. Then I reached out
- and helped Emmanuel scramble up. We were out of
- breath; the truck was bumping around on the uneven
- cobblestones of the quay in a cloud of dust and sun.
- Emmanuel was laughing so hard he could hardly breathe.
- We arrived at Celeste’s dripping with sweat. Celeste
- was there, as always, with his big belly, his apron, and his
- white moustache. He asked me if things were "all right
- now.” I told him yes they were and said I was hungry. I
- ate fast and had some coffee. Then I went home and
- slept for a while because I’d drunk too much wine, and
- when I woke up I felt like having a smoke. It was late
- and I ran to catch a streetcar. I worked all afternoon. It
- got very hot in the office, and that evening, when I
- left, I was glad to walk back slowly along the docks. The
- sky was green; I felt good. But I went straight home
- because I wanted to boil myself some potatoes.
- On my way upstairs, in the dark, I ran into old
- Salamano, my neighbor across the landing. He was with
- his dog. The two of them have been inseparable for
- eight years. The spaniel has a skin disease — mange, I
- think — which makes almost all its hair fall out and
- leaves it covered with brown sores and scabs. After
- living together for so long, the two of them alone in one
- tiny room, they’ve ended up looking like each other. Old
- 2 6
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- Salamano has reddish scabs on his face and wispy yellow
- hair. As for the dog, he’s sort of taken on his master’s
- stooped look, muzzle down, neck straining. They look as
- if they belong to the same species, and yet they hate each
- other. Twice a day, at eleven and six, the old man takes
- the dog out for a walk. They haven’t changed their route
- in eight years. You can see them in the rue de Lyon, the
- dog pulling the man along until old Salamano stumbles.
- Then he beats the dog and swears at it. The dog cowers
- and trails behind. Then it’s the old man who pulls the
- dog. Once the dog has forgotten, it starts dragging its
- master along again, and again gets beaten and sworn at.
- Then they both stand there on the sidewalk and stare at
- each other, the dog in terror, the man in hatred. It’s the
- same thing every day. When the dog wants to urinate,
- the old man won’t give him enough time and yanks at
- him, so that the spaniel leaves behind a trail of little
- drops. If the dog has an accident in the room, it gets
- beaten again. This has been going on for eight years.
- Celeste is always saying, "It’s pitiful,” but really, who’s
- to say? When I ran into him on the stairs, Salamano was
- swearing away at the dog. He was saying, “Filthy, stink-
- ing bastard!” and the dog was whimpering. I said “Good
- evening,” but the old man just went on cursing. So I
- asked him what the dog had done. He didn’t answer.
- All he said was “Filthy, stinking bastard!” I could barely
- see him leaning over his dog, trying to fix something on
- its collar. I spoke louder. Then, without turning around,
- he answered with a kind of suppressed rage, “He’s always
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- there.” Then he left, yanking at the animal, which was
- letting itself be dragged along, whimpering.
- Just then my other neighbor came in. The word
- around the neighborhood is that he lives off women. But
- when you ask him what he does, he’s a "warehouse
- guard.” Generally speaking, he’s not very popular. But
- he often talks to me and sometimes stops by my place for
- a minute, because I listen to him. I find what he, has to
- say interesting. Besides, I don’t have any reason not to
- talk to him. His name is Raymond Sintes. He’s a little
- on the short side, with broad shoulders and a nose like
- a boxer’s. He always dresses very sharp. And once he
- said to me, talking about Salamano, “If that isn’t pitiful!”
- He asked me didn’t I think it was disgusting and I said
- no.
- We went upstairs and I was about to leave him when
- he said, "I’ve got some blood sausage and some wine at
- my place. How about joining me?” I figured it would save
- me the trouble of having to cook for myself, so I ac-
- cepted. He has only one room too, and a little kitchen
- with no window. Over his bed he has a pink-and-white
- plaster angel, some pictures of famous athletes, and
- two or three photographs of naked women. The room
- was dirty and the bed was unmade. First he lit his
- paraffin lamp, then he took a pretty dubious-looking
- bandage out of his pocket and wrapped it around his
- right hand. I asked him what he’d done to it. He said
- he’d been in a fight with some guy who was trying to
- start trouble.
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- “You see, Monsieur Meursault,” he said, "it’s not that
- I’m a bad guy, but I have a short fuse. This guy says to
- me, ‘If you’re man enough you’ll get down off that
- streetcar.’ I said, ‘C’mon, take it easy.’ Then he said,
- ‘You’re yellow.’ So I got off and I said to him, ‘I think
- you better stop right there or I’m gonna have to teach
- you a lesson.’ And he said, ‘You and who else?’ So I
- let him have it. He went down. I was about to help him
- up but he started kicking me from there on the ground.
- So I kneed him one and slugged him a couple of times.
- His face was all bloody. I asked him if he’d had enough.
- He said, ‘Yes.’ ” All this time, Sintes was fiddling with
- his bandage. I was sitting on the bed. He said, "So you
- see, I wasn’t the one who started it. He was asking for
- it.” It was true and I agreed. Then he told me that as a
- matter of fact he wanted to ask my advice about the
- whole business, because I was a man, I knew about
- things, I could help him out, and then we’d be pals. I
- didn’t say anything, and he asked me again if I wanted
- to be pals. I said it was fine with me: he seemed pleased.
- He got out the blood sausage, fried it up, and set out
- glasses, plates, knives and forks, and two bottles of wine.
- All this in silence. Then we sat down. As we ate, he
- started telling me his story. He was a little hesitant at
- first. "I knew this lady ... as a matter of fact, well, she
- was my mistress.” The man he’d had the fight with was
- this woman’s brother. He told me he’d been keeping
- her. I didn’t say anything, and yet right away he added
- that he knew what people around the neighborhood
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- were saying, but that his conscience was clear and that
- he was a warehouse guard.
- “To get back to what I was saying,” he continued,
- “I realized that she was cheating on me.” He’d been
- giving her just enough to live on. He paid the rent on
- her room and gave her twenty francs a day for food.
- “Three hundred francs for the room, six hundred for
- food, a pair of stockings every now and then — that made
- it a thousand francs. And Her Highness refused to work.
- But she was always telling me that things were too tight,
- that she couldn’t get by on what I was giving her. And
- I’d say to her, ‘Why not work half-days? You’d be helping
- me out on all the little extras. I bought you a new outfit
- just this month, I give you twenty francs a day, I pay
- your rent, and what do you do? . . . You have coffee in
- the afternoons with your friends. You even provide the
- coffee and sugar. And me, I provide the money. I’ve been
- good to you, and this is how you repay me.’ But she
- wouldn’t work; she just kept on telling me she couldn’t
- make ends meet — and that’s what made me realize she
- was cheating on me.”
- Then he told me that he’d found a lottery ticket in
- her purse and she hadn’t been able to explain how she
- paid for it. A short time later he’d found a ticket from the
- shop in Mont-de-Piete in her room which proved that
- she’d pawned two bracelets. Until then he hadn’t even
- known the bracelets existed. “It was clear that she was
- cheating on me. So I left her. But first I smacked her
- around. And then I told her exactly what I thought of
- 3 °
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- her. I told her that all she was interested in was getting
- into the sack. You see, Monsieur Meursault, it’s like' I
- told her: ’You don’t realize that everybody’s jealous of
- how good you have it with me. Someday you’ll know just
- how good it was.’ ”
- He’d beaten her till she bled. He’d never beaten her
- before. "I’d smack her around a little, but nice-like, you
- might say. She’d scream a little. I’d close the shutters
- and it always ended the same way. But this time it’s
- for real. And if you ask me, she still hasn’t gotten what
- she has coming.”
- Then he explained that that was what he needed
- advice about. He stopped to adjust the lamp’s wick,
- which was smoking. I just listened. I’d drunk close to a
- liter of wine and my temples were burning. I was
- smoking Raymond’s cigarettes because I’d run out. The
- last streetcars were going by, taking the now distant
- sounds of the neighborhood with them. Raymond went
- on. What bothered him was that he “still had sexual
- feelings for her.” But he wanted to punish her. First
- he’d thought of taking her to a hotel and calling the
- vice squad to cause a scandal and have her listed as a
- common prostitute. After that he’d looked up some of his
- underworld friends. But they didn’t come up with any-
- thing. As Raymond pointed out to me, a lot of good it
- does being in the underworld. He’d said the same thing
- to them, and then they’d suggested "marking” her. But
- that wasn’t what he wanted. He was going to think
- about it. But first he wanted to ask me something. Be-
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- fore he did, though, he wanted to know what I thought
- of the whole thing. I said I didn’t think anything but
- that it was interesting. He asked if I thought she was
- cheating on him, and it seemed to me she was; if I
- thought she should be punished and what I would do
- in his place, and I said you can’t ever be sure, but I
- understood his wanting to punish her. I drank a little
- more wine. He lit a cigarette and let me in on what he
- was thinking about doing. He wanted to write her a
- letter, "one with a punch and also some things in it to
- make her sorry for what she’s done.” Then, when she
- came running back, he’d go to bed with her and "right
- at the last minute” he’d spit in her face and throw her
- out. Yes, that would punish her, I thought. But Ray-
- mond told me he didn’t think he could write the kind
- of letter it would take and that he’d thought of asking
- me to write it for him. Since I didn’t say anything, he
- asked if I’d mind doing it right then and I said no.
- He downed a glass of wine and then stood up. He
- pushed aside the plates and the little bit of cold sausage
- we’d left. He carefully wiped the oilcloth covering the
- table. Then from a drawer in his night table he took out
- a sheet of paper, a yellow envelope, a small red pen box,
- and a square bottle with purple ink in it. When he told
- me the woman’s name I realized she was Moorish. I
- wrote the letter. I did it just as it came to me, but I
- tried my best to please Raymond because I didn’t have
- any reason not to please him. Then I read it out loud. He
- listened, smoking and nodding his head; then he asked
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- me to read it again. He was very pleased. He said, "I
- could tell you knew about these things.” I didn’t notice
- at first, but he had stopped calling me “monsieur.” It
- was only when he announced “Now you’re a pal,
- Meursault” and said it again that it struck me. He re-
- peated his remark and I said, “Yes.” I didn’t mind being
- his pal, and he seemed set on it. He sealed the letter
- and we finished off the wine. Then we sat and smoked
- for a while without saying anything. Outside, every-
- thing was quiet; we heard the sound of a car passing. I
- said, "It’s late.” Raymond thought so too. He remarked
- how quickly the time passed, and in a way it was true.
- I felt sleepy, but it was hard for me to get up. I must
- have looked tired, because Raymond told me not to let
- things get to me. At first I didn’t understand. Then he
- explained that he’d heard about Maman’s death but
- that it was one of those things that was bound to happen
- sooner or later. I thought so too.
- I got up. Raymond gave me a very firm handshake
- and said that men always understand each other. I left
- his room, closing the door behind me, and paused for a
- minute in the dark, on the landing. The house was
- quiet, and a breath of dark, dank air wafted up from
- deep in the stairwell. All I could hear was the blood
- pounding in my ears. I stood there, motionless. And in
- old Salamano’s room, the dog whimpered softly.
- 33
- 4
- I worked hard all week. Raymond stopped by and told
- me he’d sent the letter. I went to the movies twice with
- Emmanuel, who doesn’t always understand what’s going
- on on the screen. So you have to explain things to him.
- Yesterday was Saturday, and Marie came over as we’d
- planned. I wanted her so bad when I saw her in that
- pretty red-and-white striped dress and leather sandals.
- You could make out the shape of her firm breasts, and
- her tan made her face look like a flower. We caught a
- bus and went a few kilometers outside Algiers, to a
- beach with rocks at either end, bordered by shore grass
- on the land side. The four o’clock sun wasn’t too hot,
- but the water was warm, with slow, gently lapping waves.
- Marie taught me a game. As you swam, you had to
- skim off the foam from the crest of the waves with your
- mouth, hold it there, then roll over on your back and
- spout it out toward the sky. This made a delicate froth
- which disappeared into the air or fell back in a warm
- spray over my face. But after a while my mouth was
- stinging with the salty bitterness. Then Marie swam
- over to me and pressed herself against me in the water.
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- She put her lips on mine. Her tongue cooled my lips
- and we tumbled in the waves for a moment.
- When we’d gotten dressed again on the beach, Marie
- looked at me with her eyes sparkling. I kissed her. We
- didn’t say anything more from that point on. I held her
- to me and we hurried to catch a bus, get back, go to my
- place, and throw ourselves onto my bed. I’d left my
- window open, and the summer night air flowing over
- our brown bodies felt good.
- That morning Marie stayed and I told her that we
- would have lunch together. I went downstairs to buy
- some meat. On my way back upstairs I heard a woman’s
- voice in Raymond’s room. A little later old Salamano
- growled at his dog; we heard the sound of footsteps and
- claws on the wooden stairs and then “Lousy, stinking
- bastard” and they went down into the street. I told
- Marie all about the old man and she laughed. She was
- wearing a pair of my pajamas with the sleeves rolled up.
- When she laughed I wanted her again. A minute later
- she asked me if I loved her. I told her it didn’t mean any-
- thing but that I didn’t think so. She looked sad. But
- as we were fixing lunch, and for no apparent reason, she
- laughed in such a way that I kissed her. It was then
- that we heard what sounded like a fight break out in
- Raymond’s room.
- First we heard a woman’s shrill voice and then
- Raymond saying, "You used me, you used me. I’ll teach
- you to use me.” There were some thuds and the woman
- screamed, but in such a terrifying way that the landing
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- immediately filled with people. Marie and I went to see,
- too. The woman was still shrieking and Raymond was
- still hitting her. Marie said it was terrible and I didn’t
- say anything. She asked me to go find a policeman, but
- I told her I didn’t like cops. One showed up anyway with
- the tenant from the third floor, who’s a plumber. The
- cop knocked on the door and we couldn’t hear anything
- anymore. He knocked harder and after a minute the
- woman started crying and Raymond opened the door.
- He had a cigarette in his mouth and an innocent look on
- his face. The girl rushed to the door and told the police-
- man that Raymond had hit her. “What’s your name?”
- the cop said. Raymond told him. “Take that cigarette
- out of your mouth when you’re talking to me,” the cop
- said. Raymond hesitated, looked at me, and took a drag
- on his cigarette. Right then the cop slapped him — a
- thick, heavy smack right across the face. The cigarette
- went flying across the landing. The look on Raymond’s
- face changed, but he didn’t say anything for a minute,
- and then he asked, in a meek voice, if he could pick up
- his cigarette. The cop said to go ahead and added,
- “Next time you’ll know better than to clown around
- with a policeman.” Meanwhile the girl was crying and
- she repeated, “He beat me up! He’s a pimp!” “Officer,”
- Raymond asked, “is that legal, calling a man a pimp like
- that?” But the cop ordered him to shut his trap. Then
- Raymond turned to the girl and said, “You just wait,
- sweetheart — we’re not through yet.” The cop told him
- to knock it off and said that the girl was to go and he was
- to stay in his room and wait to be summoned to the
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- police station. He also said that Raymond ought to be
- ashamed to be so drunk that he’d have the shakes like
- that. Then Raymond explained, “I’m not drunk, officer.
- It’s just that I’m here, and you’re there, and I’m shaking,
- I can’t help it.” He shut his door and everybody went
- away. Marie and I finished fixing lunch. But she wasn’t
- hungry; I ate almost everything. She left at one o’clock
- and I slept awhile.
- Around three o’clock there was a knock on my door
- and Raymond came in. I didn’t get up. He sat down on
- the edge of my bed. He didn’t say anything for a minute
- and I asked him how it had all gone. He told me that
- he’d done what he wanted to do but that she’d slapped
- him and so he’d beaten her up. I’d seen the rest. I told
- him it seemed to me that she’d gotten her punishment
- now and he ought to be happy. He thought so too, and
- he pointed out that the cop could do anything he wanted,
- it wouldn’t change the fact that she’d gotten her beat-
- ing. He added that he knew all about cops and how to
- handle them. Then he asked me if I’d expected him to
- hit the cop back. I said I wasn’t expecting anything, and
- besides I didn’t like cops. Raymond seemed pretty happy.
- He asked me if I wanted to go for a walk with him. I
- got up and started combing my hair. He told me that
- I’d have to act as a witness for him. It didn’t matter to
- me, but I didn’t know what I was supposed to say.
- According to Raymond, all I had to do was to state that
- the girl had cheated on him. I agreed to act as a wit-
- ness for him.
- We went out and Raymond bought me a brandy.
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- Then he wanted to shoot a game of pool, and I just
- barely lost. Afterwards he wanted to go to a whorehouse,
- but I said no, because I don’t like that. So we took our
- time getting back, him telling me how glad he was that
- he’d been able to give the woman what she deserved. I
- found him very friendly with me and I thought it was a
- nice moment.
- From a distance I noticed old Salamano standing on
- the doorstep. He looked flustered. When we got closer,
- I saw that he didn’t have his dog. He was looking all
- over the place, turning around, peering into the darkness
- of the entryway, muttering incoherently, and then he
- started searching the street again with his little red eyes.
- When Raymond asked him what was wrong, _ he didn’t
- answer right away. I barely heard him mumble “Stink-
- ing bastard,” and he went on fidgeting around. I asked
- him where his dog was. He snapped at me and said he
- was gone. And then all of a sudden the words came
- pouring out: “I took him to the Parade Ground, like
- always. There were lots of people around the booths
- at the fair. I stopped to watch ‘The King of the Escape
- Artists.’ And when I was ready to go, he wasn’t there.
- Sure, I’ve been meaning to get him a smaller collar for
- a long time. But I never thought the bastard would take
- off like that.”
- Then Raymond pointed out to him that the dog
- might have gotten lost and that he would come back.
- He gave examples of dogs that had walked dozens of
- kilometers to get back to their masters. Nevertheless, the
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- old man looked even more flustered. “But they’ll take
- him away from me, don’t you see? If only somebody
- would take him in. But that’s impossible — everybody’s
- disgusted by his scabs. The police’ll get him for sure.”
- So I told him he should go to the pound and they’d give
- the dog back to him after he paid a fee. He asked me if
- it was a big fee. I didn’t know. Then he got mad: “Pay
- money for that bastard — ha! He can damn well die!”
- And he started cursing the dog. Raymond laughed and
- went inside. I followed him and we parted upstairs on
- the landing. A minute later I heard the old man’s foot-
- steps and he knocked on my door. When I opened it, he
- stood in the doorway for a minute and said, “Excuse me,
- excuse me.” I asked him to come in, but he refused. He
- was looking down at the tips of his shoes and his scabby
- hands were trembling. Without looking up at me he
- asked, “They’re not going to take him away from me,
- are they, Monsieur Meursault? They’ll give him back
- to me. Otherwise, what’s going to happen to me?” I
- told him that the pound kept dogs for three days so that
- their owners could come and claim them and that after
- that they did with them as they saw fit. He looked at
- me in silence. Then he said, “Good night.” He shut his
- door and I heard him pacing back and forth. His bed
- creaked. And from the peculiar little noise coming
- through the partition, I realized he was crying. For
- some reason I thought of Maman. But I had to get up
- early the next morning. I wasn’t hungry, and I went
- to bed without any dinner.
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- 5
- Raymond called me at the office. He told me that a
- friend of his (he’d spoken to him about me) had invited
- me to spend the day Sunday at his little beach house,
- near Algiers. I said I’d really like to, but I’d promised to
- spend the day with a girlfriend. Raymond immediately
- told me that she was invited too. His friend’s wife would
- be very glad not to be alone with a bunch of men.
- I wanted to hang up right away because I know the
- boss doesn’t like people calling us from town. But Ray-
- mond asked me to hang on and told me he could have
- passed on the invitation that evening, but he had some-
- thing else to tell me. He’d been followed all day by a
- group of Arabs, one of whom was the brother of his
- former mistress. "If you see him hanging around the
- building when you get home this evening, let me know.”
- I said I would.
- A little later my boss sent for me, and for a second I
- was annoyed, because I thought he was going to tell me
- to do less talking on the phone and more work. But that
- wasn’t it at all. He told me he wanted to talk to me about
- a plan of his that was still pretty vague. He just wanted
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- to have my opinion on the matter. He was planning to
- open an office in Paris which would handle his business
- directly with the big companies, on the spot, and he
- wanted to know how I felt about going there. I’d be
- able to live in Paris and to travel around for part of the
- year as well. “You’re young, and it seems to me it’s the
- kind of life that would appeal to you.” I said yes but
- that really it was all the same to me. Then he asked me
- if I wasn’t interested in a change of life. I said that peo-
- ple never change their lives, that in any case one life was
- as good as another and that I wasn’t dissatisfied with
- mine here at all. He looked upset and told me that I
- never gave him a straight answer, that I had no ambition,
- and that that was disastrous in business. So I went back
- to work. I would rather not have upset him, but I
- couldn’t see any reason to change my life. Looking back
- on it, I wasn’t unhappy. When I was a student, I had
- lots of ambitions like that. But when I had to give up my
- studies I learned very quickly that none of it really
- mattered.
- That evening Marie came by to see me and asked me
- if I wanted to marry her. I said it didn’t make any differ-
- ence to me and that we could if she wanted to. Then she
- wanted to know if I loved her. I answered the same way
- I had the last time, that it didn't mean anything but that
- I probably didn’t love her. “So why marry me, then?”
- she said. I explained to her that it didn’t really matter
- and that if she wanted to, we could get married. Besides,
- she was the one who was doing the asking and all I was
- 4 r
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- saying was yes. Then she pointed out that marriage was
- a serious thing. I said, “No.” She stopped talking for a
- minute and looked at me without saying anything. Then
- she spoke. She just wanted to know if I would have
- accepted the same proposal from another woman, with
- whom I was involved in the same way. I said, “Sure.”
- Then she said she wondered if she loved me, and there
- was no way I could know about that. After another
- moment’s silence, she mumbled that I was peculiar, that
- that was probably why she loved me but that one day I
- might hate her for the same reason. I didn’t say anything,
- because I didn’t have anything to add, so she took my arm
- with a smile and said she wanted to marry me. I said
- we could do it whenever she wanted. Then I told her
- about my boss’s proposition and she said she’d love to see
- Paris. I told her that I’d lived there once and she asked
- me what it was like. I said, “It’s dirty. Lots of pigeons and
- dark courtyards. Everybody’s pale.”
- Then we went for a walk through the main streets to
- the other end of town. The women were beautiful and I
- asked Marie if she’d noticed. She said yes and that she
- understood what I meant. For a while neither of us said
- anything. But I wanted her to stay with me, and I told
- her we could have dinner together at Celeste’s. She
- would have liked to but she had something to do. We
- were near my place and I said goodbye to her. She
- looked at me. “Don’t you want to know what I have to
- do?” I did, but I hadn’t thought to ask, and she seemed to
- be scolding me. Then, seeing me so confused, she
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- laughed again and she moved toward me with her whole
- body to offer me her lips.
- I had dinner at Celeste’s. I’d already started eating
- when a strange little woman came in and asked me if
- she could sit at my table. Of course she could. Her
- gestures were jerky and she had bright eyes in a little
- face like an apple. She took off her jacket, sat down, and
- studied the menu feverishly. She called Celeste over and
- ordered her whole meal all at once, in a voice that was
- clear and very fast at the same time. While she was
- waiting for her first course, she opened her bag, took
- out a slip of paper and a pencil, added up the bill in
- advance, then took the exact amount, plus tip, out of a
- vest pocket and set it down on the table in front of her.
- At that point the waiter brought her first course and she
- gulped it down. While waiting for the next course, she
- again took out of her bag a blue pencil and a magazine
- that listed the radio programs for the week. One by one,
- and with great care, she checked off almost every pro-
- gram. Since the magazine was about a dozen pages long,
- she meticulously continued this task throughout the
- meal. I had already finished and she was still checking
- away with the same zeal. Then she stood up, put her
- jacket back on with the same robotlike movements, and
- left. I didn’t have anything to do, so I left too and fol-
- lowed her for a while. She had positioned herself right
- next to the curb and was making her way with in-
- credible speed and assurance, never once swerving or
- looking around. I eventually lost sight of her and turned
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- back. I thought about how peculiar she was but forgot
- about her a few minutes later.
- I found old Salamano waiting outside my door. I
- asked him in and he told me that his dog was lost, be-
- cause it wasn’t at the pound. The people who worked
- there had told him that maybe it had been run over. He
- asked if he could find out at the police station. They
- told him that they didn’t keep track of things like that
- because they happened every day. I told old Salamano
- that he could get another dog, but he was right to point
- out to me that he was used to this one.
- I was sitting cross-legged on my bed and Salamano
- had sat down on a chair in front of the table. He was
- facing me and he had both hands on his knees. He had
- kept his old felt hat on. He was mumbling bits and pieces
- of sentences through his yellowing moustache. He was
- getting on my nerves a little, but I didn’t have anything
- to do and I didn’t feel sleepy. Just for something to say, I
- asked him about his dog. He told me he’d gotten it after
- his wife died. He had married fairly late. When he was
- young he’d wanted to go into the theater: in the army he
- used to act in military vaudevilles. But he had ended
- up working on the railroads, and he didn’t regret it,
- because now he had a small pension. He hadn’t been
- happy with his wife, but he’d pretty much gotten used
- to her. When she died he had been very lonely. So he
- asked a shop buddy for a dog and he’d gotten this one
- very young. He’d had to feed it from a bottle. But since
- a dog doesn’t live as long as a man, they’d ended up
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- being old together. “He was bad-tempered,” Salamano
- said. “We’d have a run-in every now and then. But he
- was a good dog just the same.” I said he was well bred
- and Salamano looked pleased. “And,” he added, “you
- didn’t know him before he got sick. His coat was the
- best thing about him.” Every night and every morning
- after the dog had gotten that skin disease, Salamano
- rubbed him with ointment. But according to him, the
- dog’s real sickness was old age, and there’s no cure for
- old age.
- At that point I yawned, and the old man said he’d be
- going. I told him that he could stay and that I was sorry
- about what had happened to his dog. He thanked me.
- He told me that Maman was very fond of his dog. He
- called her “your poor mother.” He said he supposed I
- must be very sad since Maman died, and I didn’t say
- anything. Then he said, very quickly and with an em-
- barrassed look, that he realized that some people in the
- neighborhood thought badly of me for having sent
- Maman to the home, but he knew me and he knew I
- loved her very much. I still don’t know why, but I said
- that until then I hadn’t realized that people thought
- badly of me for doing it, but that the home had seemed
- like the natural thing since I didn’t have enough money
- to have Maman cared for. “Anyway,” I added, "it had
- been a long time since she’d had anything to say to me,
- and she was bored all by herself.” “Yes,” he said, “and at
- least in a home you can make a few friends.” Then he
- said good night. He wanted to sleep. His life had changed
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- now and he wasn’t too sure what he was going to do.
- For the first time since I’d known him, and with a furtive
- gesture, he offered me his hand, and I felt the scales on
- his skin. He gave a little smile, and before he left he
- said, "I hope the dogs don’t bark tonight. I always think
- it’s mine.”
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- 6
- I had a hard dme waking up on Sunday, and Marie had
- to call me and shake me. We didn’t eat anything, be-
- cause we wanted to get to the beach early. I felt com-
- pletely drained and I had a slight headache. My cigarette
- tasted bitter. Marie made fun of me because, she said,
- I had on a "funeral face.” She had put on a white
- linen dress and let her hair down. I told her she was
- beautiful and she laughed with delight.
- On our way downstairs we knocked on Raymond’s
- door. He told us he’d be right down. Once out in the
- street, because I was so tired and also because we hadn’t
- opened the blinds, the day, already bright with sun, hit
- me like a slap in the face. Marie was jumping with joy
- and kept on saying what a beautiful day it was. I felt a
- little better and I noticed that I was hungry. I told Marie,
- who pointed to her oilcloth bag where she’d put our bath-
- ing suits and a towel. I just had to wait and then we
- heard Raymond shutting his door. He had on blue
- trousers and a white short-sleeved shirt. But he’d put on
- a straw hat, which made Marie laugh, and his forearms
- were all white under the black hairs. I found it a little
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- repulsive. He was whistling as he came down the stairs
- and he seemed very cheerful. He said “Good morning,
- old man” to me and called Marie “mademoiselle.”
- The day before, we’d gone to the police station
- and I’d testified that the girl had cheated on Raymond.
- He’d gotten off with a warning. They didn’t check out
- my statement. Outside the front door we talked about
- it with Raymond, and then we decided to take the bus.
- The beach wasn’t very far, but we’d get there sooner
- that way. Raymond thought his friend would be glad
- to see us get there early. We were just about to leave
- when all of a sudden Raymond motioned to me to look
- across the street. I saw a group of Arabs leaning against
- the front of the tobacconist’s shop. They were staring at
- us in silence, but in that way of theirs, as if we were
- nothing but stones or dead trees. Raymond told me that
- the second one from the left was his man, and he seemed
- worried. But, he added, it was all settled now. Marie
- didn’t really understand and asked us what was wrong.
- I told her that they were Arabs who had it in for Ray-
- mond. She wanted to get going right away. Raymond
- drew himself up and laughed, saying we’d better step
- on it.
- We headed toward the bus stop, which wasn’t far,
- and Raymond said that the Arabs weren’t following us.
- I turned around. They were still in the same place and
- they were looking with the same indifference at the spot
- where we’d just been standing. We caught the bus.
- Raymond, who seemed very relieved, kept on cracking
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- jokes for Marie. I could tell he liked her, but she hardly
- said anything to him. Every once in a while she’d look at
- him and laugh.
- We got off in the outskirts of Algiers. The beach
- wasn’t far from the bus stop. But we had to cross a small
- plateau which overlooks the sea and then drops steeply
- down to the beach. It was covered with yellowish rocks
- and the whitest asphodels set against the already hard
- blue of the sky. Marie was having fun scattering the
- petals, taking big swipes at them with her oilcloth bag.
- We walked between rows of small houses behind green
- or white fences, some with their verandas hidden be-
- hind the tamarisks, others standing naked among the
- rocks. Before we reached the edge of the plateau, we
- could already see the motionless sea and, farther out, a
- massive, drowsy-looking promontory in the clear water.
- The faint hum of a motor rose up to us in the still air.
- And way off, we saw a tiny trawler moving, almost im-
- perceptibly, across the dazzling sea. Marie gathered
- some rock irises. From the slope leading down to the
- beach, we could see that there were already some people
- swimming.
- Raymond’s friend lived in a little wooden bungalow
- at the far end of the beach. The back of the house
- rested up against the rocks, and the pilings that held it
- up in front went straight down into the water. Raymond
- introduced us. His friend’s name was Masson. He was a
- big guy, very tall and broad-shouldered, with a plump,
- sweet little wife with a Parisian accent. Right off he told
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- us to make ourselves at home and said that his wife had
- just fried up some fish he’d caught that morning. I told
- him how nice I thought his house was. He told me that
- he spent Saturdays and Sundays and all his days off
- there. “With my wife, of course,” he added. Just then
- his wife was laughing with Marie. For the first time
- maybe, I really thought I was going to get married.
- Masson wanted to go for a swim, but his wife and
- Raymond didn’t want to come. The three of us went
- down to the beach and Marie jumped right in. Masson
- and I waited a little. He spoke slowly, and I noticed
- that he had a habit of finishing everything he said with
- “and I’d even say,” when really it didn’t add anything to
- the meaning of his sentence. Referring to Marie, he
- said, “She’s stunning, and I’d even say charming.” After
- that I didn’t pay any more attention to this mannerism
- of his, because I was absorbed by the feeling that the
- sun was doing me a lot of good. The sand was starting
- to get hot underfoot. I held back the urge to get into the
- water a minute longer, but finally I said to Masson,
- “Shall we?” I dove in. He waded in slowly and started
- swimming only when he couldn’t touch bottom anymore.
- He did the breast stroke, and not too well, either, so I
- left him and joined Marie. The water was cold and I was
- glad to be swimming. Together again, Marie and I
- swam out a ways, and we felt a closeness as we moved
- in unison and were happy.
- Out in deeper water we floated on our backs and
- the sun on my upturned face was drying the last of the
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- water trickling into my mouth. We saw Masson making
- his way back to the beach to stretch out in the sun.
- From far away he looked huge. Marie wanted us to
- swim together. I got behind her to hold her around
- the waist. She used her arms to move us forward and
- I did the kicking. The little splashing sound followed
- us through the morning air until I got tired. I left
- Marie and headed back, swimming smoothly and breath-
- ing easily. On the beach I stretched out on my stomach
- alongside Masson and put my face on the sand. I said
- it was nice and he agreed. Soon afterwards Marie came
- back. I rolled over to watch her coming. She was
- glistening all over with salty water and holding her hair
- back. She lay down right next to me and the combined
- warmth from her body and from the sun made me doze
- off.
- Marie shook me and told me that Masson had gone
- back up to the house, that it was time for lunch. I got
- up right away because I was hungry, but Marie told me
- I hadn’t kissed her since that morning. It was true,
- and yet I had wanted to. “Come into the water,” she said.
- We ran and threw ourselves into the first little waves.
- We swam a few strokes and she reached out and held
- on to me. I felt her legs wrapped around mine and I
- wanted her.
- When we got back, Masson was already calling us.
- I said I was starving and then out of the blue he an-
- nounced to his wife that he liked me. The bread was
- good; I devoured my share of the fish. After that there
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- was some meat and fried potatoes. We all ate without
- talking. Masson drank a lot of wine and kept filling my
- glass. By the time the coffee came, my head felt heavy
- and I smoked a lot. Masson, Raymond, and I talked
- about spending August together at the beach, sharing
- expenses. Suddenly Marie said, “Do you know what
- time it is? It’s only eleven-thirty!” We were all sur-
- prised, but Masson said that we’d eaten very early and
- that it was only natural because lunchtime was when-
- ever you were hungry. For some reason that made Marie
- laugh. I think she’d had a little too much to drink.
- Then Masson asked me if I wanted to go for a walk on
- the beach with him. “My wife always takes a nap after
- lunch. Me, I don’t like naps. I need to walk. I tell her all
- the time it’s better for her health. But it's her business.”
- Marie said she’d stay and help Madame Masson with
- the dishes. The little Parisienne said that first they’d have
- to get rid of the men. The three of us went down to the
- beach.
- The sun was shining almost directly overhead onto
- the sand, and the glare on the water was unbearable.
- There was no one left on the beach. From inside the
- bungalows bordering the plateau and jutting out over
- the water, we could hear the rattling of plates and
- silverware. It was hard to breathe in the rocky heat
- rising from the ground. At first Raymond and Masson
- discussed people and things I didn’t know about. I
- gathered they’d known each other for a long time and
- had even lived together at one point. We headed down
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- to the sea and walked along the water’s edge. Now and
- then a little wave would come up higher than the
- others and wet our canvas shoes. I wasn’t thinking
- about anything, because I was half asleep from the sun
- beating down on my bare head.
- At that point Raymond said something to Masson
- which I didn’t quite catch. But at the same time I
- noticed, at the far end of the beach and a long way from
- us, two Arabs in blue overalls coming in our direction.
- I looked at Raymond and he said, "It’s him.” We kept
- walking. Masson asked how they’d managed to follow
- us all this way. I thought they must have seen us get on
- the bus with a beach bag, but I didn’t say anything.
- The Arabs were walking slowly, but they were
- already much closer. We didn’t change our pace, but
- Raymond said, "If there’s any trouble, Masson, you
- take the other one. I’ll take care of my man. Meursault,
- if another one shows up, he’s yours.” I said, “Yes,” and
- Masson put his hands in his pockets. The blazing sand
- looked red to me now. We moved steadily toward the
- Arabs. The distance between us was getting shorter and
- shorter. When we were just a few steps away from each
- other, the Arabs stopped. Masson and I slowed down.
- Raymond went right up to his man. I couldn’t hear
- what he said to him, but the other guy made a move as
- though he were going to butt him. Then Raymond struck
- the first blow and called Masson right away. Masson went
- for the one that had been pointed out as his and hit him
- twice, as hard as he could. The Arab fell flat in the water,
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- facedown, and lay there for several seconds with bubbles
- bursting on the surface around his head. Meanwhile
- Raymond had landed one too, and the other Arab’s face
- was bleeding. Raymond turned to me and said, “Watch
- this. I’m gonna let him have it now.” I shouted, “Look
- out, he’s got a knife!” But Raymond’s arm had already
- been cut open and his mouth slashed. Masson lunged
- forward. But the other Arab had gotten back up and gone
- around behind the one with the knife. We didn’t dare
- move. They started backing off slowly, without taking
- their eyes off us, keeping us at bay with the knife. When
- they thought they were far enough away, they took off
- running as fast as they could while we stood there
- motionless in the sun and Raymond clutched at his arm
- dripping with blood.
- Masson immediately said there was a doctor who
- spent his Sundays up on the plateau. Raymond wanted
- to go see him right away. But every time he tried to talk
- the blood bubbled in his mouth. We steadied him and
- made our way back to the bungalow as quickly as we
- could. Once there, Raymond said that they were only
- flesh wounds and that he could make it to the doctor’s.
- He left with Masson and I stayed to explain to the
- women what had happened. Madame Masson was cry-
- ing and Marie was very pale. I didn’t like having to ex-
- plain to them, so I just shut up, smoked a cigarette, and
- looked at the sea.
- Raymond came back with Masson around one-thirty.
- His arm was bandaged up and he had an adhesive
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- plaster on the comer of his mouth. The doctor had told
- him that it was nothing, but Raymond looked pretty
- grim. Masson tried to make him laugh. But he still
- wouldn’t say anything. When he said he was going
- down to the beach, I asked him where he was going.
- He said he wanted to get some air. Masson and I said
- we’d go with him. But that made him angry and he swore
- at us. Masson said not to argue with him. I followed
- him anyway.
- We walked on the beach for a long time. By now
- the sun was overpowering. It shattered into little pieces
- on the sand and water. I had the impression that Ray-
- mond knew where he was going, but I was probably
- wrong. At the far end of the beach we finally came to a
- little spring running down through the sand behind a
- large rock. There we found our two Arabs. They were
- lying down, in their greasy overalls. They seemed per-
- fectly calm and almost content. Our coming changed
- nothing. The one who had attacked Raymond was
- looking at him without saying anything. The other one
- was blowing through a little reed over and over again,
- watching us out of the comer of his eye. He kept repeat-
- ing the only three notes he could get out of his in-
- strument.
- The whole time there was nothing but the sun and
- the silence, with the low gurgling from the spring and
- the three notes. Then Raymond put his hand in his
- hip pocket, but the others didn’t move, they just kept
- looking at each other. I noticed that the toes on the one
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- playing the flute were tensed. But without taking his
- eyes off his adversary, Raymond asked me, “Should I
- let him have it?” I thought that if I said no he’d get
- himself all worked up and shoot for sure. All I said was,
- “He hasn’t said anything yet. It’d be pretty lousy to
- shoot him like that.” You could still hear the sound of
- the water and the flute deep within the silence and the
- heat. Then Raymond said, “So I’ll call him something
- and when he answers back, I’ll let him have it.” I
- answered, “Right. But if he doesn’t draw his knife, you
- can’t shoot.” Raymond started getting worked up. The
- other Arab went on playing, and both of them were
- watching every move Raymond made. “No,” I said
- to Raymond, “take him on man to man and give me your
- gun. If the other one moves in, or if he draws his knife,
- I’ll let him have it.”
- The sun glinted off Raymond’s gun as he handed it
- to me. But we just stood there motionless, as if every-
- thing had closed in around us. We stared at each other
- without blinking, and everything came to a stop there
- between the sea, the sand, and the sun, and the double
- silence of the flute and the water. It was then that I
- realized that you could either shoot or not shoot. But
- all of a sudden, the Arabs, backing away, slipped be-
- hind the rock. So Raymond and I turned and headed
- back the way we’d come. He seemed better and talked
- about the bus back.
- I went with him as far as the bungalow, and as he
- climbed the wooden steps, I just stood there at the
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- bottom, my head ringing from the sun, unable to face
- the effort it would take to climb the wooden staircase
- and face the women again. But the heat was so intense
- that it was just as bad standing still in the blinding
- stream falling from the sky. To stay or to go, it amounted
- to the same thing. A minute later I turned back toward
- the beach and started walking.
- There was the same dazzling red glare. The sea
- gasped for air with each shallow, stifled little wave that
- broke on the sand. I was walking slowly toward the
- rocks and I could feel my forehead swelling under the
- sun. All that heat was pressing down on me and making
- it hard for me to go on. And every time I felt a blast of
- its hot breath strike my face, I gritted my teeth, clenched
- my fists in my trouser pockets, and strained every nerve
- in order to overcome the sun and the thick drunkenness
- it was spilling over me. With every blade of light that
- flashed off the sand, from a bleached shell or a piece of
- broken glass, my jaws tightened. I walked for a long
- time.
- From a distance I could see the small, dark mass of
- rock surrounded by a blinding halo of light and sea
- spray. I was thinking of the cool spring behind the rock.
- I wanted to hear the murmur of its water again, to escape
- the sun and the strain and the women’s tears, and to
- find shade and rest again at last. But as I got closer, I
- saw that Raymond’s man had come back.
- He was alone. He was lying on his back, with his
- hands behind his head, his forehead in the shade of the
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- rock, the rest of his body in the sun. His blue overalls
- seemed to be steaming in the heat. I was a little sur-
- prised. As far as I was concerned, the whole thing was
- over, and I’d gone there without even thinking about it.
- As soon as he saw me, he sat up a little and put his
- hand in his pocket. Naturally, I gripped Raymond’s
- gun inside my jacket. Then he lay back again, but with-
- out taking his hand out of his pocket. I was pretty far
- away from him, about ten meters or so. I could tell he was
- glancing at me now and then through half-closed eyes.
- But most of the time, he was just a form shimmering
- before my eyes in the fiery air. The sound of the waves
- was even lazier, more drawn out than at noon. It was
- the same sun, the same light still shining on the same
- sand as before. For two hours the day had stood still;
- for two hours it had been anchored in a sea of molten
- lead. On the horizon, a tiny steamer went by, and I
- made out the black dot from the corner of my eye be-
- cause I hadn’t stopped watching the Arab.
- It occurred to me that all I had to do was turn
- around and that would be the end of it. But the whole
- beach, throbbing in the sun, was pressing on my back. I
- took a few steps toward the spring. The Arab didn’t
- move. Besides, he was still pretty far away. Maybe it
- was the shadows on his face, but it looked like he was
- laughing. I waited. The sun was starting to burn my
- cheeks, and I could feel drops of sweat gathering in my
- eyebrows. The sun was the same as it had been the
- day I’d buried Maman, and like then, my forehead
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- especially was hurting me, all the veins in it throbbing
- under the skin. It was this burning, which I couldn’t
- stand anymore, that made me move forward. I knew
- that it was stupid, that I wouldn’t get the sun off me
- by stepping forward. But I took a step, one step, forward.
- And this time, without getting up, the Arab drew his
- knife and held it up to me in the sun. The light shot off
- the steel and it was like a long flashing blade cutting at
- my forehead. At the same instant the sweat in my eye-
- brows dripped down over my eyelids all at once and
- covered them with a warm, thick film. My eyes were
- blinded behind the curtain of tears and salt. All I could
- feel were the cymbals of sunlight crashing on my fore-
- head and, indistinctly, the dazzling spear flying up from
- the knife in front of me. The scorching blade slashed at
- my eyelashes and stabbed at my stinging eyes. That’s
- when everything began to reel. The sea carried up a
- thick, fiery breath. It seemed to me as if the sky split open
- from one end to the other to rain down fire. My whole
- being tensed and I squeezed my hand around the
- revolver. The trigger gave; I felt the smooth underside
- of the butt; and there, in that noise, sharp and deafen-
- ing at the same time, is where it all started. I shook off
- the sweat and sun. I knew that I had shattered the
- harmony of the day, the exceptional silence of a beach
- where I’d been happy. Then I fired four more times at
- the motionless body where the bullets lodged without
- leaving a trace. And it was like knocking four quick times
- on the door of unhappiness.
- 59
- PART TWO
- 1
- Right after my arrest I was questioned several times, but
- it was just so they could find out who I was, which didn’t
- take long. The first time, at the police station, nobody
- seemed very interested in my case. A week later, how-
- ever, the examining magistrate looked me over with
- curiosity. But to get things started he simply asked my
- name and address, my occupation, the date and place of
- my birth. Then he wanted to know if I had hired an
- attorney. I admitted I hadn’t and inquired whether it
- was really necessary to have one. “Why do you ask?”
- he said. I said I thought my case was pretty simple. He
- smiled and said, “That’s your opinion. But the law is
- the law. If you don’t hire an attorney yourself, the court
- will appoint one.” I thought it was very convenient that
- the court should take care of those details. I told him
- so. He agreed with me and concluded that it was a
- good law.
- At first, I didn’t take him seriously. I was led into a
- curtained room; there was a single lamp on his desk
- which was shining on a chair where he had me sit while
- he remained standing in the shadows. I had read
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- descriptions of scenes like this in books and it all
- seemed like a game to me. After our conversation,
- though, I looked at him and saw a tall, fine-featured
- man with deep-set blue eyes, a long gray moustache, and
- lots of thick, almost white hair. He struck me as being
- very reasonable and, overall, quite pleasant, despite a
- nervous tic which made his mouth twitch now and then.
- On my way out I was even going to shake his hand, but
- just in time, I remembered that I had killed a man.
- The next day a lawyer came to see me at the prison.
- He was short and chubby, quite young, his hair care-
- fully slicked back. Despite the heat (I was in my shirt
- sleeves), he had on a dark suit, a wing collar, and an
- odd-looking tie with broad black and white stripes. He
- put the briefcase he was carrying down on my bed, in-
- troduced himself, and said he had gone over my file.
- My case was a tricky one, but he had no doubts we’d
- win, if I trusted him. I thanked him and he said, “Let’s
- get down to business.”
- He sat down on the bed and explained to me that
- there had been some investigations into my private life.
- It had been learned that my mother had died recently at
- the home. Inquiries had then been made in Marengo.
- The investigators had learned that I had “shown in-
- sensitivity” the day of Maman’s funeral. “You under-
- stand,” my lawyer said, "it’s a little embarrassing for me
- to have to ask you this. But it’s very important. And it
- will be a strong argument for the prosecution if I can’t
- come up with some answers.” He wanted me to help him.
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- He asked if I had felt any sadness that day. The ques-
- tion caught me by surprise and it seemed to me that I
- would have been very embarrassed if I’d had to ask it.
- Nevertheless I answered that I had pretty much lost the
- habit of analyzing myself and that it was hard for me to
- tell him what he wanted to know. I probably did love
- Maman, but that didn’t mean anything. At one time or
- another all normal people have wished their loved ones
- were dead. Here the lawyer interrupted me and he
- seemed very upset. He made me promise I wouldn’t say
- that at my hearing or in front of the examining magis-
- trate. I explained to him, however, that my nature was
- such that my physical needs often got in the way of my
- feelings. The day I buried Maman, I was very tired and
- sleepy, so much so that I wasn’t really aware of what
- was going on. What I can say for certain is that I would
- rather Maman hadn’t died. But my lawyer didn’t seem
- satisfied. He said, “That’s not enough.”
- He thought for a minute. He asked me if he could
- say that that day I had held back my natural feelings. I
- said, “No, because it’s not true.” He gave me a strange
- look, as if he found me slightly disgusting. He told me
- in an almost snide way that in any case the director
- and the staff of the home would be called as witnesses
- and that “things could get very nasty” for me. I pointed
- out to him that none of this had anything to do with my
- case, but all he said was that it was obvious I had never
- had any dealings with the law.
- He left, looking angry. I wished I could have made
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- him stay, to explain that I wanted things between us to
- be good, not so that he’d defend me better but, if I can
- put it this way, good in a natural way. Mostly, I could
- tell, I made him feel uncomfortable. He didn’t under-
- stand me, and he was sort of holding it against me. I
- felt the urge to reassure him that I was like everybody
- else, just like everybody else. But really there wasn’t
- much point, and I gave up the idea out of laziness.
- Shortly after that, I was taken before the examining
- magistrate again. It was two o’clock in the afternoon,
- and this time his office was filled with sunlight barely
- softened by a flimsy curtain. It was very hot. He had me
- sit down and very politely informed me that, “due to
- unforeseen circumstances,” my lawyer had been unable
- to come. But I had the right to remain silent and to wait
- for my lawyer’s counsel. I said that I could answer for
- myself. He pressed a button on the table. A young clerk
- came in and sat down right behind me.
- The two of us leaned back in our chairs. The
- examination began. He started out by saying that peo-
- ple were describing me as a taciturn and withdrawn
- person and he wanted to know what I thought. I an-
- swered, "It’s just that I don’t have much to say. So I
- keep quiet.” He smiled the way he had the first time,
- agreed that that was the best reason of all, and added,
- “Besides, it’s not important.” Then he looked at me
- without saying anything, leaned forward rather abruptly,
- and said very quickly, “What interests me is you.” I
- didn’t really understand what he meant by that, so I
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- didn’t respond. “There are one or two things,” he
- added, “that I don’t quite understand. I’m sure you’ll
- help me clear them up.” I said it was all pretty simple.
- He pressed me to go back over that day. I went back
- over what I had already told him : Raymond, the beach,
- the swim, the quarrel, then back to the beach, the little
- spring, the sun, and the five shots from the revolver.
- After each sentence he would say, “Fine, fine.” When I
- got to the body lying there, he nodded and said, “Good.”
- But I was tired of repeating the same story over and
- over. It seemed as if I had never talked so much in my
- life.
- After a short silence, he stood up and told me that he
- wanted to help me, that I interested him, and that, with
- God’s help, he would do something for me. But first
- he wanted to ask me a few more questions. Without
- working up to it, he asked if I loved Maman. I said,
- “Yes, the same as anyone,” and the clerk, who up to then
- had been typing steadily, must have hit the wrong key,
- because he lost his place and had to go back. Again
- without any apparent logic, the magistrate then asked if
- I had fired all five shots at once. I thought for a minute
- and explained that at first I had fired a single shot and
- then, a few seconds later, the other four. Then he said,
- “Why did you pause between the first and second shot?”
- Once again I could see the red sand and feel the burning
- of the sun on my forehead. But this time I didn’t answer.
- In the silence that followed, the magistrate seemed to be
- getting fidgety. He sat down, ran his fingers through his
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- hair, put his elbows on his desk, and leaned toward me
- slightly with a strange look on his face. “Why, why did
- you shoot at a body that was on the ground?’’ Once again
- I didn’t know how to answer. The magistrate ran his
- hands across his forehead and repeated his question with
- a slightly different tone in his voice. “Why? You must
- tell me. Why?” Still I didn’t say anything.
- Suddenly he stood up, strode over to a far corner
- of his office, and pulled out a drawer in a file cabinet.
- He took out a silver crucifix which he brandished as he
- came toward me. And in a completely different, almost
- cracked voice, he shouted, “Do you know what this is?”
- I said, "Yes, of course.” Speaking very quickly and pas-
- sionately, he told me that he believed in God, that it
- was his conviction that no man was so guilty that God
- would not forgive him, but in order for that to happen
- a man must repent and in so doing become like a child
- whose heart is open and ready to embrace all. He was
- leaning all the way over the table. He was waving his
- crucifix almost directly over my head. To tell the truth,
- I had found it very hard to follow his reasoning, first
- because I was hot and there were big flies in his office
- that kept landing on my face, and also because he was
- scaring me a little. At the same time I knew that that
- was ridiculous because, after all, I was the criminal. He
- went on anyway. I vaguely understood that to his mind
- there was just one thing that wasn’t clear in my con-
- fession, the fact that I had hesitated before I fired my
- second shot. The rest was fine, but that part he couldn’t
- understand.
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- I was about to tell him he was wrong to dwell on it,
- because it really didn’t matter. But he cut me off and
- urged me one last time, drawing himself up to his full
- height and asking me if I believed in God. I said no. He
- sat down indignantly. He said it was impossible; all men
- believed in God, even those who turn their backs on him.
- That was his belief, and if he were ever to doubt it, his
- life would become meaningless. “Do you want my life to
- be meaningless?” he shouted. As far as I could see, it
- didn’t have anything to do with me, and I told him so.
- But from across the table he had already thrust the
- crucifix in my face and was screaming irrationally, “I
- am a Christian. I ask Him to forgive you your sins. How
- can you not believe that He suffered for you?” I was
- struck by how sincere he seemed, but I had had enough.
- It was getting hotter and hotter. As always, whenever I
- want to get rid of someone I’m not really listening to,
- I made it appear as if I agreed. To my surprise, he acted
- triumphant. “You see, you see!” he said. “You do believe,
- don’t you, and you’re going to place your trust in Him,
- aren’t you?” Obviously, I again said no. He fell back
- in his chair.
- He seemed to be very tired. He didn’t say anything
- for a minute while the typewriter, which hadn’t let up
- the whole time, was still tapping out the last few sen-
- tences. Then he looked at me closely and with a little
- sadness in his face. In a low voice he said, “I have never
- seen a soul as hardened as yours. The criminals who have
- come before me have always wept at the sight of this
- image of suffering.” I was about to say that that was
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- precisely because they were criminals. But then I
- realized that I was one too. It was an idea I couldn’t get
- used to. Then the judge stood up, as if to give me the
- signal that the examination was over. He simply asked,
- in the same weary tone, if I was sorry for what I had
- done. I thought about it for a minute and said that
- more than sorry I felt kind of annoyed. I got the im-
- pression he didn’t understand. But that was as far as
- things went that day.
- After that, I saw a lot of the magistrate, except that
- my lawyer was with me each time. But it was just a
- matter of clarifying certain things in my previous state-
- ments. Or else the magistrate would discuss the charges
- with my lawyer. But on those occasions they never really
- paid much attention to me. Anyway, the tone of the ques-
- tioning gradually changed. The magistrate seemed to
- have lost interest in me and to have come to some sort
- of decision about my case. He didn’t talk to me about
- God anymore, and I never saw him as worked up as he
- was that first day. The result was that our discussions
- became more cordial. A few questions, a brief conversa-
- tion with my lawyer, and the examinations were over.
- As the magistrate put it, my case was taking its course.
- And then sometimes, when the conversation was of a
- more general nature, I would be included. I started to
- breathe more freely. No one, in any of these meetings,
- was rough with me. Everything was so natural, so well
- handled, and so calmly acted out that I had the ridicu-
- lous impression of being “one of the family.” And I can
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- say that at the end of the eleven months that this in-
- vestigation lasted, I was almost surprised that I had ever
- enjoyed anything other than those rare moments when
- the judge would lead me to the door of his office, slap me
- on the shoulder, and say to me cordially, “That’s all for
- today, Monsieur Antichrist.” I would then be handed
- back over to the police.
- 7 l
- 2
- There are some things I’ve never liked talking about. A
- few days after I entered prison, I realized that I wouldn’t
- like talking about this part of my life.
- Later on, though, I no longer saw any point to my
- reluctance. In fact, I wasn’t really in prison those first
- few days: I was sort of waiting for something to happen.
- It was only after Marie’s first and last visit that it all
- started. From the day I got her letter (she told me she
- would no longer be allowed to come, because she wasn’t
- my wife), from that day on I felt that I was at home in
- my cell and that my life was coming to a standstill
- there. The day of my arrest I was first put in a room
- where there were already several other prisoners, most of
- them Arabs. They laughed when they saw me. Then they
- asked me what I was in for. I said I’d killed an Arab
- and they were all silent. A few minutes later, it got dark.
- They showed me how to fix the mat I was supposed to
- sleep on. One end could be rolled up to make a pillow.
- All night I felt bugs crawling over my face. A few days
- later I was put in a cell by myself, where I slept on
- wooden boards suspended from the wall. I had a bucket
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- for a toilet and a tin washbasin. The prison was on
- the heights above the town, and through a small window
- I could see the sea. One day as I was gripping the bars,
- my face straining toward the light, a guard came in and
- told me I had a visitor. I thought it must be Marie. It
- was.
- To get to the visiting room I went down a long cor-
- ridor, then down some stairs and, finally, another cor-
- ridor. I walked into a very large room brightened by a
- huge bay window. The room was divided, into three
- sections by two large grates that ran the length of the
- room. Between the two grates was a space of eight to
- ten meters which separated the visitors from the prisoners.
- I spotted Marie standing at the opposite end of the room
- with her striped dress and her sun-tanned face. On my
- side of the room there were about ten prisoners, most
- of them Arabs. Marie was surrounded by Moorish women
- and found herself between two visitors: a little, thin-
- lipped old woman dressed in black and a fat, bareheaded
- woman who was talking at the top of her voice and
- making lots of gestures. Because of the distance between
- the grates, the visitors and the prisoners were forced to
- speak very loud. When I walked in, the sound of the
- voices echoing off the room’s high, bare walls and the
- harsh light pouring out of the sky onto the windows and
- spilling into the room brought on a kind of dizziness.
- My cell was quieter and darker. It took me a few seconds
- to adjust. But eventually I could see each face clearly,
- distinctly in the bright light. I noticed there was a
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- guard sitting at the far end of the passage between the
- two grates. Most of the Arab prisoners and their families
- had squatted down facing each other. They weren’t
- shouting. Despite the commotion, they were managing to
- make themselves heard by talking in very low voices.
- Their subdued murmuring, coming from lower down,
- formed a kind of bass accompaniment to the conversa-
- tions crossing above their heads. I took all this in very
- quickly as I made my way toward Marie. Already pressed
- up against the grate, she was smiling her best smile for
- me. I thought she looked very beautiful, but I didn’t
- know how to tell her.
- “Well?” she called across to me. “Well, here I am.”
- “Are you all right? Do you have everything you want?”
- “Yes, everything.”
- We stopped talking and Marie went on smiling. The
- fat woman yelled to the man next to me, her husband
- probably, a tall blond guy with an honest face. It was the
- continuation of a conversation already under way.
- “Jeanne wouldn’t take him,” she shouted as loudly as
- she could. “Uh-huh,” said the man. "I told her you’d
- take him back when you get out, but she wouldn’t take
- him.”
- Then it was Marie’s turn to shout, that Raymond
- sent his regards, and I said, “Thanks.” But my voice was
- drowned out by the man next to me, who asked, “Is he
- all right?” His wife laughed and said, “He’s never been
- better.” The man on my left, a small young man with
- delicate hands, wasn’t saying anything. I noticed that
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- he was across from the little old lady and that they were
- staring intently at each other. But I didn’t have time to
- watch them any longer, because Marie shouted to me
- that I had to have hope. I said, “Yes.” I was looking at
- her as she said it and I wanted to squeeze her shoulders
- through her dress. I wanted to feel the thin material and
- I didn’t really know what else I had to hope for other
- than that. But that was probably what Marie meant,
- because she was still smiling. All I could see was the
- sparkle of her teeth and the little folds of her eyes. She
- shouted again, “You’ll get out and we’ll get married!” I
- answered, “You think so?” but it was mainly just to say
- something. Then very quickly and still in a very loud
- voice she said yes, that I would be acquitted and that we
- would go swimming again. But the other woman took
- her turn to shout and said that she had left a basket at
- the clerk’s office. She was listing all the things she had
- put in it, to make sure they were all there, because they
- cost a lot of money. The young man and his mother
- were still staring at each other. The murmuring of the
- Arabs continued below us. Outside, the light seemed to
- surge up over the bay window.
- I was feeling a little sick and I’d have liked to leave.
- The noise was getting painful. But on the other hand, I
- wanted to make the most of Marie’s being there. I don’t
- know how much time went by. Marie told me about her
- job and she never stopped smiling. The murmuring, the
- shouting, and the conversations were crossing back and
- forth. The only oasis of silence was next to me where
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- the small young man and the old woman were gazing at
- each other. One by one the Arabs were taken away.
- Almost everyone stopped talking as soon as the first one
- left. The little old woman moved closer to the bars,
- and at the same moment a guard motioned to her son.
- He said “Goodbye, Maman,” and she reached between
- two bars to give him a long, slow little wave.
- She left just as another man came in, hat in hand,
- and took her place. Another prisoner was brought in and
- they talked excitedly, but softly, because the room had
- once again grown quiet. They came for the man on my
- right, and his wife said to him without lowering her
- voice, as if she hadn’t noticed there was no need to
- shout anymore, “Take care of yourself and be careful.”
- Then it was my turn. Marie threw me a kiss. I looked
- back before disappearing. She hadn’t moved and her face
- was still pressed against the bars with the same sad, forced
- smile on it.
- Shortly after that was when she wrote to me. And
- the things I’ve never liked talking about began. Anyway,
- I shouldn’t exaggerate, and it was easier for me than
- for others. When I was first imprisoned, the hardest
- thing was that my thoughts were still those of a free man.
- For example, I would suddenly have the urge to be on a
- beach and to walk down to the water. As I imagined the
- sound of the first waves under my feet, my body enter-
- ing the water and the sense of relief it would give me,
- all of a sudden I would feel just how closed in I was by
- the walls of my cell. But that only lasted a few months.
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- Afterwards my only thoughts were those of a prisoner.
- I waited for the daily walk, which I took in the courtyard,
- or for a visit from my lawyer. The rest of the time I
- managed pretty well. At the time, I often thought that
- if I had had to live in the trunk of a dead tree, with
- nothing to do but look up at the sky flowering overhead,
- little by little I would have gotten used to it. I would
- have waited for birds to fly by or clouds to mingle,
- just as here I waited to see my lawyer’s ties and just as,
- in another world, I used to wait patiently until Saturday
- to hold Marie’s body in my arms. Now, as I think back
- on it, I wasn’t in a hollow tree trunk. There were others
- worse off than me. Anyway, it was one of Maman’s ideas,
- and she often repeated it, that after a while you could
- get used to anything.
- Besides, I usually didn’t take things so far. The first
- months were hard. But in fact the effort I had to make
- helped pass the time. For example, I was tormented by
- my desire for a woman. It was only natural; I was young.
- I never thought specifically of Marie. But I thought so
- much about a woman, about women, about all the ones
- I had known, about all the circumstances in which I had
- enjoyed them, that my cell would be filled with their
- faces and crowded with my desires. In one sense, it
- threw me off balance. But in another, it killed time. I
- had ended up making friends with the head guard, who
- used to make the rounds with the kitchen hands at meal-
- time. He’s the one who first talked to me about women.
- He told me it was the first thing the others complained
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- about. I told him it was the same for me and that I
- thought it was unfair treatment. “But,” he said, "that’s
- exactly why you’re in prison.” “What do you mean that’s
- why?” “Well, yes — freedom, that’s why. They’ve taken
- away your freedom.” I’d never thought about that. I
- agreed. “It’s true,” I said. “Otherwise, what would be
- the punishment?” “Right. You see, you understand
- these things. The rest of them don’t. But they just end
- up doing it by themselves.” The guard left after that.
- There were the cigarettes, too. When I entered
- prison, they took away my belt, my shoelaces, my tie, and
- everything I had in my pockets, my cigarettes in par-
- ticular. Once I was in my cell, I asked to have them back.
- But I was told I wasn’t allowed. The first few days were
- really rough. That may be the thing that was hardest
- for me. I would suck on chips of wood that I broke off
- my bed planks. I walked around nauseated all day long.
- I couldn’t understand why they had taken them away
- when they didn’t hurt anybody. Later on I realized that
- that too was part of the punishment. But by then I had
- gotten used to not smoking and it wasn’t a punishment
- anymore.
- Apart from these annoyances, I wasn’t too unhappy.
- Once again the main problem was killing time. Eventu-
- ally, once I learned how to remember things, I wasn’t
- bored at all. Sometimes I would get to thinking about
- my room, and in my imagination I would start at one
- corner and circle the room, mentally noting everything
- there was on the way. At first it didn’t take long. But
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- every time I started over, it took a little longer. I would
- remember every piece of furniture; and on every piece of
- furniture, every object; and of every object, all the de-
- tails; and of the details themselves — a flake, a crack, or
- a chipped edge — the color and the texture. At the same
- time I would try not to lose the thread of my inventory,
- to make a complete list, so that after a few weeks I
- could spend hours just enumerating the things that
- were in my room. And the more I thought about it, the
- more I dug out of my memory things I had overlooked
- or forgotten. I realized then that a man who had lived
- only one day could easily live for a hundred years in
- prison. He would have enough memories to keep him
- from being bored. In a way, it was an advantage.
- Then there was sleep. At first, I didn’t sleep well at
- night and not at all during the day. Little by little, my
- nights got better and I was able to sleep during the day,
- too. In fact, during the last few months I’ve been sleep-
- ing sixteen to eighteen hours a day. That would leave
- me six hours to kill with meals, nature’s call, my
- memories, and the story about the Czechoslovakian.
- Between my straw mattress and the bed planks, I
- had actually found an old scrap of newspaper, yellow
- and transparent, half-stuck to the canvas. On it was a
- news story, the first part of which was missing, but
- which must have taken place in Czechoslovakia. A
- man had left a Czech village to seek his fortune. Twenty-
- five years later, and now rich, he had returned with a
- wife and a child. His mother was running a hotel with
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- his sister in the village where he’d been born. In order
- to surprise them, he had left his wife and child at another
- hotel and gone to see his mother, who didn’t recognize
- him when he walked in. As a joke he’d had the idea of
- taking a room. He had shown off his money. During the
- night his mother and his sister had beaten him to death
- with a hammer in order to rob him and had thrown his
- body in the river. The next morning the wife had come
- to the hotel and, without knowing it, gave away the
- traveler’s identity. The mother hanged herself. The
- sister threw herself down a well. I must have read that
- story a thousand times. On the one hand it wasn’t very
- likely. On the other, it was perfectly natural. Anyway,
- I thought the traveler pretty much deserved what he
- got and that you should never play games.
- So, with all the sleep, my memories, reading my
- crime story, and the alternation of light and darkness,
- time passed. Of course I had read that eventually you
- wind up losing track of time in prison. But it hadn’t
- meant much to me when I’d read it. I hadn’t understood
- how days could be both long and short at the same time :
- long to live through, maybe, but so drawn out that they
- ended up flowing into one another. They lost their
- names. Only the words “yesterday” and “tomorrow” still
- had any meaning for me.
- One day when the guard told me that I’d been in for
- five months, I believed it, but I didn’t understand it.
- For me it was one and the same unending day that was
- unfolding in my cell and the same thing I was trying to
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- do. That day, after the guard had left, I looked at my-
- self in my tin plate. My reflection seemed to remain
- serious even though I was trying to smile at it. I moved
- the plate around in front of me. I smiled and it still had
- the same sad, stern expression. It was near the end of the
- day, the time of day I don’t like talking about, that
- nameless hour when the sounds of evening would rise up
- from every floor of the prison in a cortege of silence. I
- moved closer to the window, and in the last light of day
- I gazed at my reflection one more time. It was still
- serious — and what was surprising about that, since at
- that moment I was too? But at the same time, and for
- the first time in months, I distinctly heard the sound
- of my own voice. I recognized it as the same one that
- had been ringing in my ears for many long days, and I
- realized that all that time I had been talking to myself.
- Then I remembered what the nurse at Maman’s funeral
- said. No, there was no way out, and no one can imagine
- what nights in prison are like.
- 8 1
- 3
- But I can honestly say that the time from summer to
- summer went very quickly. And I knew as soon as the
- weather turned hot that something new was in store for
- me. My case was set down for the last session of the
- Court of Assizes, and that session was due to end some
- time in June. The trial opened with the sun glaring out-
- side. My lawyer had assured me that it wouldn’t last more
- than two or three days. “Besides,” he had added, “the
- court will be pressed for time. Yours isn’t the most im-
- portant case of the session. Right after you, there’s a
- parricide coming up.”
- They came for me at seven-thirty in the morning and
- I was driven to the courthouse in the prison van. The
- two policemen took me into a small room that smelled
- of darkness. We waited, seated near a door through
- which we could hear voices, shouts, chairs being dragged
- across the floor, and a lot of commotion which made me
- think of those neighborhood fetes when the hall is
- cleared for dancing after the concert. The policemen
- told me we had to wait for the judges and one of them
- offered me a cigarette, which I turned down. Shortly
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- after that he asked me if I had the "jitters.” I said no —
- and that, in a way, I was even interested in seeing a trial.
- I’d never had the chance before. "Yeah,” said the other
- policeman, "but it gets a little boring after a while.”
- A short time later a small bell rang in the room.
- Then they took my handcuffs off. They opened the door
- and led me into the dock. The room was packed.
- Despite the blinds, the sun filtered through in places
- and the air was already stifling. They hadn’t opened the
- windows. I sat down with the policemen standing on
- either side of me. It was then that I noticed a row of
- faces in front of me. They were all looking at me: I
- realized that they were the jury. But I can’t say what
- distinguished one from another. I had just one im-
- pression: I was sitting across from a row of seats on a
- streetcar and all these anonymous passengers were look-
- ing over the new arrival to see if they could find some-
- thing funny about him. I knew it was a silly idea since it
- wasn’t anything funny they were after but a crime.
- There isn’t much difference, though — in any case that
- was the idea that came to me.
- I was feeling a little dizzy too, with all those people
- in that stuffy room. I looked around the courtroom again
- but I couldn’t make out a single face. I think that at
- first I hadn’t realized that all those people were crowding
- in to see me. Usually people didn’t pay much attention
- to me. It took some doing on my part to understand that
- I was the cause of all the excitement. I said to the police-
- man, “Some crowd!” He told me it was because of the
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- press and he pointed to a group of men at a table just
- below the jury box. He said, “That’s them.” I asked,
- “Who?” and he repeated, “The press.” He knew one of
- the reporters, who just then spotted him and was making
- his way toward us. He was an older, friendly man with
- a twisted little grin on his face. He gave the policeman a
- warm handshake. I noticed then that everyone was
- waving and exchanging greetings and talking, as if they
- were in a club where people are glad to find themselves
- among others from the same world. That is how I ex-
- plained to myself the strange impression I had of being
- odd man out, a kind of intruder. Yet the reporter turned
- and spoke to me with a smile. He told me that he hoped
- everything would go well for me. I thanked him and
- he added, “You know, we’ve blown your case up a little.
- Summer is the slow season for the news. And your story
- and the parricide were the only ones worth bothering
- about.” Then he pointed in the direction of the group
- he had just left, at a little man who looked like a
- fattened-up weasel. He told me that the man was a
- special correspondent for a Paris paper. “Actually, he
- didn’t come because of you. But since they assigned him
- to cover the parricide trial, they asked him to send a dis-
- patch about your case at the same time.” And again I
- almost thanked him. But I thought that that would be
- ridiculous. He waved cordially, shyly, and left us. We
- waited a few more minutes.
- My lawyer arrived, in his gown, surrounded by lots
- of colleagues. He walked over to the reporters and shook
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- some hands. They joked and laughed and looked com-
- pletely at ease, until the moment when the bell in the
- court rang. Everyone went back to his place. My lawyer
- walked over to me, shook my hand, and advised me to
- respond briefly to the questions that would be put to me,
- not to volunteer anything, and to leave the rest to him.
- To my left I heard the sound of a chair being pulled
- out and I saw a tall, thin man dressed in red and wear-
- ing a pince-nez who was carefully folding his robe as he
- sat down. That was the prosecutor. A bailiff said, “All
- rise.” At the same time two large fans started to whir.
- Three judges, two in black, the third in red, entered with
- files in hand and walked briskly to the rostrum which
- dominated the room. The man in the red gown sat on
- the chair in the middle, set his cap down in front of him,
- wiped his bald little head with a handkerchief, and an-
- nounced that the court was now in session.
- The reporters already had their pens in hand. They
- all had the same indifferent and somewhat snide look on
- their faces. One of them, however, much younger than
- the others, wearing gray flannels and a blue tie, had left
- his pen lying in front of him and was looking at me. All
- I could see in his slightly lopsided face were his two
- very bright eyes, which were examining me closely
- without betraying any definable emotion. And I had the
- odd impression of being watched by myself. Maybe it
- was for that reason, and also because I wasn’t familiar
- with all the procedures, that I didn’t quite understand
- everything that happened next: the drawing of lots for
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- the jury; the questions put by the presiding judge to my
- lawyer, the prosecutor, and the jury (each time, the
- jurors’ heads would all turn toward the bench at the
- same time); the quick reading of the indictment, in
- which I recognized names of people and places; and
- some more questions to my lawyer.
- Anyway, the presiding judge said he was going to
- proceed with the calling of witnesses. The bailiff read off
- some names that caught my attention. In the middle of
- what until then had been a shapeless mass of spectators,
- I saw them stand up one by one, only to disappear
- again through a side door : the director and the caretaker
- from the home, old Thomas Perez, Raymond, Masson,
- Salamano, and Marie. She waved to me, anxiously. I
- was still feeling surprised that I hadn’t seen them before
- when Celeste, the last to be called, stood up. I recog-
- nized next to him the little woman from the restaurant,
- with her jacket and her stiff and determined manner.
- She was staring right at me. But I didn’t have time to
- think about them, because the presiding judge started
- speaking. He said that the formal proceedings were
- about to begin and that he didn’t think he needed to
- remind the public to remain silent. According to him,
- he was there to conduct in an impartial manner the pro-
- ceedings of a case which he would consider objectively.
- The verdict returned by the jury would be taken in a
- spirit of justice, and, in any event, he would have the
- courtroom cleared at the slightest disturbance.
- It was getting hotter, and I could see the people in
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- the courtroom fanning themselves with newspapers,
- which made a continuous low rustling sound. The
- presiding judge gave a signal and the bailiff brought
- over three fans made of woven straw which the three
- judges started waving immediately.
- My examination began right away. The presiding
- judge questioned me calmly and even, it seemed to me,
- with a hint of cordiality. Once again he had me state
- my name, age, date and place of birth, and although it
- irritated me, I realized it was only natural, because it
- would be a very serious thing to try the wrong man. Then
- he reread the narrative of what I’d done, turning to me
- every few sentences to ask “Is that correct?” Each time
- I answered “Yes, Your Honor,” as my lawyer had in-
- structed me to do. It took a long time because the
- judge went into minute detail in his narrative. The
- reporters were writing the whole time. I was conscious
- of being watched by the youngest of them and by
- the little robot woman. Everyone on the row of streetcar
- seats was turned directly toward the judge, who coughed,
- leafed through his file, and turned toward me, fanning
- himself.
- He told me that he now had to turn to some ques-
- tions that might seem irrelevant to my case but might in
- fact have a significant bearing on it. I knew right away
- he was going to talk about Maman again, and at the
- same time I could feel how much it irritated me. He
- asked me wh) I had put Maman in the home. I answered
- that it was because I didn’t have the money to have her
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- looked after and cared for. He asked me if it had been
- hard on me, and I answered that Maman and I didn’t
- expect anything from each other anymore, or from any-
- one else either, and that we had both gotten used to our
- new lives. The judge then said that he didn’t want to
- dwell on this point, and he asked the prosecutor if he had
- any further questions.
- The prosecutor had his back half-turned to me, and
- without looking at me he stated that, with the court’s
- permission, he would like to know whether I had gone
- back to the spring by myself intending to kill the Arab.
- “No,” I said. Well, then, why was I armed and why
- did I return to precisely that spot? I said it just happened
- that way. And the prosecutor noted in a nasty voice,
- “That will be all for now.” After that things got a little
- confused, at least for me. But after some conferring, the
- judge announced that the hearing was adjourned until
- the afternoon, at which time the witnesses would be
- heard.
- I didn’t even have time to think. I was taken out,
- put into the van, and driven to the prison, where I had
- something to eat. After a very short time, just long
- enough for me to realize I was tired, they came back
- for me; the whole thing started again, and I found
- myself in the same courtroom, in front of the same
- faces. Only it was much hotter, and as if by some
- miracle each member of the jury, the prosecutor, my
- lawyer, and some of the reporters, too, had been pro-
- vided with straw fans. The young reporter and the little
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- robot woman were still there. They weren’t fanning
- themselves, but they were still watching me without
- saying a word.
- I wiped away the sweat covering my face, and I had
- barely become aware of where I was and what I was
- doing when I heard the director of the home being
- called. He was asked whether Maman ever complained
- about me, and he said yes but that some of it was just a
- way the residents all had of complaining about their
- relatives. The judge had him clarify whether she used
- to reproach me for having put her in the home, and the
- director again said yes. But this time he didn’t add any-
- thing else. To another question he replied that he had
- been surprised by my calm the day of the funeral. He
- was asked what he meant by “calm.” The director then
- looked down at the tips of his shoes and said that I
- hadn’t wanted to see Maman, that I hadn’t cried once,
- and that I had left right after the funeral without pay-
- ing my last respects at her grave. And one other thing
- had surprised him: one of the men who worked for the
- undertaker had told him I didn’t know how old Maman
- was. There was a brief silence, and then the judge
- asked him if he was sure I was the man he had just been
- speaking of. The director didn’t understand the question,
- so the judge told him, “It’s a formality.” He then asked
- the prosecutor if he had any questions to put to the
- witness, and the prosecutor exclaimed, “Oh no, that is
- quite sufficient!” with such glee and with such a tri-
- umphant look in my direction that for the first time in
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- years I had this stupid urge to cry, because I could feel
- how much all these people hated me.
- After asking the jury and my lawyer if they had any
- questions, the judge called the caretaker. The same
- ritual was repeated for him as for all the others. As he
- took the stand the caretaker glanced at me and then
- looked away. He answered the questions put to him. He
- said I hadn’t wanted to see Maman, that I had smoked
- and slept some, and that I had had some coffee. It was
- then I felt a stirring go through the room and for the
- first time I realized that I was guilty. The caretaker was
- asked to repeat the part about the coffee and the cigarette.
- The prosecutor looked at me with an ironic gleam in his
- eye. At that point my lawyer asked the caretaker if it
- wasn’t true that he had smoked a cigarette with me. But
- the prosecutor objected vehemently to this question.
- “Who is on trial here and what kind of tactics are these,
- trying to taint the witnesses for the prosecution in an
- effort to detract from testimony that remains nonethe-
- less overwhelming!” In spite of all that, the judge directed
- the caretaker to answer the question. The old man
- looked embarrassed and said, “I know I was wrong to do
- it. But I couldn’t refuse the cigarette when monsieur
- offered it to me.” Lastly, I was asked if I had anything to
- add. “Nothing,” I said, “except that the witness is right.
- It’s true, I did offer him a cigarette.” The caretaker gave
- me a surprised and somehow grateful look. He hesitated
- and then he said that he was the one who offered me
- the coffee. My lawyer was exultant and stated loudly that
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- the jury would take note of the fact. But the prosecutor
- shouted over our heads and said, “Indeed, the gentlemen
- of the jury will take note of the fact. And they will
- conclude that a stranger may offer a cup of coffee, but
- that beside the body of the one who brought him into the
- world, a son should have refused it.” The caretaker went
- back to his bench.
- When Thomas Perez’s turn came, a bailiff had to
- hold him up and help him get to the witness stand.
- Perez said it was really my mother he had known and
- that he had seen me only once, on the day of the funeral.
- He was asked how I had acted that day and he replied,
- “You understand, I was too sad. So I didn’t see anything.
- My sadness made it impossible to see anything. Be-
- cause for me it was a very great sadness. And I even
- fainted. So I wasn’t able to see monsieur.” The prosecu-
- tor asked him if he had at least seen me cry. Perez
- answered no. The prosecutor in turn said, “The gentle-
- men of the jury will take note.” But my lawyer got
- angry. He asked Perez in what seemed to be an exag-
- gerated tone of voice if he had seen me not cry. Perez
- said, “No.” The spectators laughed. And my lawyer,
- rolling up one of his sleeves, said with finality, “Here
- we have a perfect reflection of this entire trial : everything
- is true and nothing is true!” The prosecutor had a blank
- expression on his face, and with a pencil he was poking
- holes in the title page of his case file.
- After a five-minute recess, during which my lawyer
- told me that everything was working out for the best, we
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- heard the testimony of Celeste, who was called by the
- defense. “The defense” meant me. Every now and then
- Celeste would glance over in my direction and rotate
- his panama hat in his hands. He was wearing the new
- suit he used to put on to go with me to the races some-
- times on Sundays. But I think he must not have been
- able to get his collar on, because he only had a brass
- stud keeping his shirt fastened. He was asked if I was
- a customer of his and he said, “Yes, but he was also a
- friend”; what he thought of me, and he answered that I
- was a man; what he meant by that, and he stated that
- everybody knew what that meant; if he had noticed that
- I was ever withdrawn, and all he would admit was that
- I didn’t speak unless I had something to say. The prosecu-
- tor asked him if I kept up with my bill. Celeste laughed
- and said, “Between us those were just details.” He was
- again asked what he thought about my crime. He put his
- hands on the edge of the box, and you could tell he had
- something prepared. He said, “The way I see it, it’s bad
- luck. Everybody knows what bad luck is. It leaves you
- defenseless. And there it is! The way I see it, it’s bad
- luck.” He was about to go on, but the judge told him
- that that would be all and thanked him. Celeste was a
- little taken aback. But he stated that he had more to say.
- He was asked to be brief. He again repeated that it was
- bad luck. And the judge said, “Yes, fine. But we are here
- to judge just this sort of bad luck. Thank you.” And
- as if he had reached the end of both his knowledge and
- his goodwill, Celeste then turned toward me. It looked
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- to me as if his eyes were glistening and his lips were
- trembling. He seemed to be asking me what else he
- could do. I said nothing; I made no gesture of any kind,
- but it was the first time in my life I ever wanted to kiss
- a man. The judge again instructed him to step down.
- Celeste went and sat among the spectators. He sat there
- throughout the entire trial, leaning forward, his elbows on
- his knees, the panama hat in his hands, listening to
- everything that was said.
- Marie entered. She had put on a hat and she was still
- beautiful. But I liked her better with her hair loose.
- From where I was sitting, I could just make out the
- slight fullness of her breasts, and I recognized the little
- pout of her lower lip. She seemed very nervous. Right
- away she was asked how long she had known me. She
- said since the time she worked in our office. The judge
- wanted to know what her relation to me was. She said
- she was my friend. To another question she answered
- yes, it was true that she was supposed to marry me. Flip-
- ping through a file, the prosecutor asked her bluntly
- when our “liaison” had begun. She indicated the date.
- The prosecutor remarked indifferently that if he was
- not mistaken, that was the day after Maman died. Then
- in a slightly ironic tone he said that he didn’t mean to
- dwell on such a delicate matter, and that he fully ap-
- preciated Marie’s misgivings, but (and here his tone
- grew firmer) that he was duty bound to go beyond
- propriety. So he asked Marie to describe briefly that day
- when I had first known her. Marie didn’t want to, but
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- at the prosecutor’s insistence, she went over our swim,
- the movies, and going back to my place. The prosecutor
- said that after Marie had given her statements to the
- examining magistrate, he had consulted the movie list-
- ings for that day. He added that Marie herself would tell
- the court what film was showing. In an almost expression-
- less voice she did in fact tell the court that it was a
- Fernandel film. By the time she had finished there was
- complete silence in the courtroom. The prosecutor then
- rose and, very gravely and with what struck me as real
- emotion in his voice, his finger pointing at me, said
- slowly and distinctly, “Gentlemen of the jury, the day
- after his mother’s death, this man was out swimming,
- starting up a dubious liaison, and going to the movies, a
- comedy, for laughs. I have nothing further to say.” He
- sat down in the still-silent courtroom. But all of a
- sudden Marie began to sob, saying it wasn’t like that,
- there was more to it, and that she was being made to say
- the opposite of what she was thinking, that she knew me
- and I hadn’t done anything wrong. But at a signal from
- the judge, the bailiff ushered her out and the trial pro-
- ceeded.
- Hardly anyone listened after that when Masson testi-
- fied that I was an honest man “and I’d even say a
- decent one.” Hardly anyone listened to Salamano either,
- when he recalled how I had been good to his dog and
- when he answered a question about my mother and me
- by saying that I had run out of things to say to Maman
- and that was why I’d put her in the home. “You must
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- understand,” Salamano kept saying, ‘‘you must under-
- stand.” But no one seemed to understand. He was
- ushered out.
- Next came Raymond, who was the last witness. He
- waved to me and all of a sudden, he blurted out that I was
- innocent. But the judge advised him that he was being
- asked not for judgments but for facts. He was instructed
- to wait for the questions before responding. He was
- directed to state precisely what his relations with the
- victim were. Raymond took this opportunity to say that
- he was the one the victim hated ever since he had hit
- the guy’s sister. Nevertheless, the judge asked him
- whether the victim hadn’t also had reason to hate me.
- Raymond said that my being at the beach was just
- chance. The prosecutor then asked him how it was that
- the letter that set the whole drama in motion had been
- written by me. Raymond responded that it was just
- chance. The prosecutor retorted that chance already had
- a lot of misdeeds on its conscience in this case. He
- wanted to know if it was just by chance that I hadn’t
- intervened when Raymond had beaten up his girlfriend,
- just by chance that I had acted as a witness at the police
- station, and again just by chance that my statements on
- that occasion had proved to be so convenient. Finishing
- up, he asked Raymond how he made his living, and
- when Raymond replied “warehouse guard,” the prosecu-
- tor informed the jury that it was common knowledge that
- the witness practiced the profession of procurer. I was
- his friend and accomplice. They had before them the
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- basest of crimes, a crime made worse than sordid by the
- fact that they were dealing with a monster, a man with-
- out morals. Raymond wanted to defend himself and my
- lawyer objected, but they were instructed that they must
- let the prosecutor finish. "I have little to add,” the prose-
- cutor said. “Was he your friend?” he asked Raymond.
- “Yes,” Raymond said. “We were pals.” The prosecutor
- then put the same question to me, and I looked at Ray-
- mond, who returned my gaze. I answered, “Yes.” The
- prosecutor then turned to the jury and declared, “The
- same man who the day after his mother died was in-
- dulging in the most shameful debauchery killed a man
- for the most trivial of reasons and did so in order to
- settle an affair of unspeakable vice.”
- He then sat down. But my lawyer had lost his
- patience, and, raising his hands so high that his sleeves
- fell, revealing the creases of a starched shirt, he shouted,
- “Come now, is my client on trial for burying his mother
- or for killing a man?” The spectators laughed. But the
- prosecutor rose to his feet again, adjusted his robe, and
- declared that only someone with the naivete of his
- esteemed colleague could fail to appreciate that between
- these two sets of facts there existed a profound, funda-
- mental, and tragic relationship. “Indeed,” he loudly
- exclaimed, “I accuse this man of burying his mother
- with crime in his heart!” This pronouncement seemed
- to have a strong effect on the people in the courtroom.
- My lawyer shrugged his shoulders and wiped the sweat
- from his brow. But he looked shaken himself, and I
- realized that things weren’t going well for me.
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- The trial was adjourned. As I was leaving the court-
- house on my way back to the van, I recognized for a
- brief moment the smell and color of the summer eve-
- ning. In the darkness of my mobile prison I could make
- out one by one, as if from the depths of my exhaustion,
- all the familiar sounds of a town I loved and of a cer-
- tain time of day when I used to feel happy. The cries
- of the newspaper vendors in the already languid air, the
- last few birds in the square, the shouts of the sandwich
- sellers, the screech of the streetcars turning sharply
- through the upper town, and that hum in the sky before
- night engulfs the port: all this mapped out for me a
- route I knew so well before going to prison and which
- now I traveled blind. Yes, it was the hour when, a long
- time ago, I was perfectly content. What awaited me
- back then was always a night of easy, dreamless sleep.
- And yet something had changed, since it was back to
- my cell that I went to wait for the next day ... as if
- familiar paths traced in summer skies could lead as
- easily to prison as to the sleep of the innocent.
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- Even in the prisoner’s dock it’s always interesting to hear
- people talk about you. And during the summations by
- the prosecutor and my lawyer, there was a lot said about
- me, maybe more about me than about my crime. But
- were their two speeches so different after all? My lawyer
- raised his arms and pleaded guilty, but with an explana-
- tion. The prosecutor waved his hands and proclaimed my
- guilt, but without an explanation. One thing bothered me
- a little, though. Despite everything that was on my mind,
- I felt like intervening every now and then, but my lawyer
- kept telling me, “Just keep quiet — it won’t do your case
- any good.” In a way, they seemed to be arguing the
- case as if it had nothing to do with me. Everything was
- happening without my participation. My fate was being
- decided without anyone so much as asking my opinion.
- There were times when I felt like breaking in on all of
- them and saying, “Wait a minute! Who’s the accused
- here? Being the accused counts for something. And I
- have something to say!” But on second thought, I didn’t
- have anything to say. Besides, I have to admit that what-
- ever interest you can get people to take in you doesn’t
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- last very long. For example, I got bored very quickly
- with the prosecutor’s speech. Only bits and pieces — a
- gesture or a long but isolated tirade — caught my atten-
- tion or aroused my interest.
- The gist of what he was saying, if I understood him
- correctly, was that my crime was premeditated. At least
- that is what he tried to show. As he himself said, “I will
- prove it to you, gentlemen, and I will prove it in two
- ways. First, in the blinding clarity of the facts, and
- second, in the dim light cast by the mind of this
- criminal soul.” He reminded the court of my insensi-
- tivity; of my ignorance when asked Maman’s age; of my
- swim the next day — with a woman; of the Fernandel
- movie; and finally of my taking Marie home with me. It
- took me a few minutes to understand the last part be-
- cause he kept saying “his mistress” and to me she was
- Marie. Then he came to the business with Raymond. I
- thought his way of viewing the events had a certain
- consistency. What he was saying was plausible. I had
- agreed with Raymond to write the letter in order to lure
- his mistress and submit her to mistreatment by a man
- “of doubtful morality.” I had provoked Raymond’s ad-
- versaries at the beach. Raymond had been wounded. I
- had asked him to give me his gun. I had gone back
- alone intending to use it. I had shot the Arab as I
- planned. I had waited. And to make sure I had done the
- job right, I fired four more shots, calmly, point-blank —
- thoughtfully, as it were.
- “And there you have it, gentlemen,” said the prosecu-
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- tor. “I have retraced for you the course of events which
- led this man to kill with full knowledge of his actions.
- I stress this point," he said, "for this is no ordinary
- murder, no thoughtless act for which you might find
- mitigating circumstances. This man, gentlemen, this
- man is intelligent. You heard him, didn’t you? He knows
- how to answer. He knows the value of words. And no
- one can say that he acted without realizing what he
- was doing.”
- I was listening, and I could hear that I was being
- judged intelligent. But I couldn’t quite understand how
- an ordinary man’s good qualities could become crushing
- accusations against a guilty man. At least that was what
- struck me, and I stopped listening to the prosecutor until
- I heard him say, "Has he so much as expressed any re-
- morse? Never, gentlemen. Not once during the pre-
- liminary hearings did this man show emotion over his
- heinous offense.” At that point, he turned in my direc-
- tion, pointed his finger at me, and went on attacking me
- without my ever really understanding why. Of course, I
- couldn’t help admitting that he was right. I didn’t feel
- much remorse for what I’d done. But I was surprised by
- how relentless he was. I would have liked to have tried
- explaining to him cordially, almost affectionately, that I
- had never been able to truly feel remorse for anything.
- My mind was always on what was coming next, today
- or tomorrow. But naturally, given the position I’d been
- put in, I couldn’t talk to anyone in that way. I didn’t
- have the right to show any feeling or goodwill. And I
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- tried to listen again, because the prosecutor started talk-
- ing about my soul.
- He said that he had peered into it and that he had
- found nothing, gentlemen of the jury. He said the truth
- was that I didn’t have a soul and that nothing human,
- not one of the moral principles that govern men’s hearts,
- was within my reach. “Of course,” he added, “we cannot
- blame him for this. We cannot complain that he lacks
- what it was not in his power to acquire. But here in this
- court the wholly negative virtue of tolerance must give
- way to the sterner but loftier virtue of justice. Espe-
- cially when the emptiness of a man’s heart becomes, as
- we find it has in this man, an abyss threatening to
- swallow up society.” It was then that he talked about
- my attitude toward Maman. He repeated what he had
- said earlier in the proceedings. But it went on much
- longer than when he was talking about my crime — so
- long, in fact, that finally all I was aware of was how hot a
- morning it was. At least until the prosecutor stopped and
- after a short silence continued in a very low voice filled
- with conviction: “Tomorrow, gentlemen, this same court
- is to sit in judgment of the most monstrous of crimes : the
- murder of a father.” According to him, the imagination re-
- coiled before such an odious offense. He went so far
- as to hope that human justice would mete out punish-
- ment unflinchingly. But he wasn’t afraid to say it: my
- callousness inspired in him a horror nearly greater than
- that which he felt at the crime of parricide. And also
- according to him, a man who is morally guilty of killing
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- his mother severs himself from society in the same way
- as the man who raises a murderous hand against the
- father who begat him. In any case, the one man paved
- the way for the deeds of the other, in a sense fore-
- shadowed and even legitimized them. "I am convinced,
- gentlemen,” he added, raising his voice, “that you will
- not think it too bold of me if I suggest to you that the
- man who is seated in the dock is also guilty of the murder
- to be tried in this court tomorrow. He must be punished
- accordingly.” Here the prosecutor wiped his face, which
- was glistening with sweat. He concluded by saying that
- his duty was a painful one but that he would carry it
- out resolutely. He stated that I had no place in a society
- whose most fundamental rules I ignored and that I could
- not appeal to the same human heart whose elementary
- response I knew nothing of. “I ask you for this man’s
- head,” he said, “and I do so with a heart at ease. For
- if in the course of what has been a long career I have
- had occasion to call for the death penalty, never as
- strongly as today have I felt this painful duty made
- easier, lighter, clearer by the certain knowledge of a
- sacred imperative and by the horror I feel when I look
- into a man’s face and all I see is a monster.”
- When the prosecutor returned to his seat, there was a
- rather long silence. My head was spinning with heat and
- astonishment. The presiding judge cleared his throat and
- in a very low voice asked me if I had anything to add. I
- stood up, and since I did wish to speak, I said, almost at
- random, in fact, that I never intended to kill the Arab.
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- The judge replied by saying that at least that was an
- assertion, that until then he hadn’t quite grasped the
- nature of my defense, and that before hearing from my
- lawyer he would be happy to have me state precisely the
- motives for my act. Fumbling a little with my words and
- realizing how ridiculous I sounded, I blurted out that
- it was because of the sun. People laughed. My lawyer
- threw up his hands, and immediately after that he was
- given the floor. But he stated that it was late and that he
- would need several hours. He requested that the trial be
- reconvened in the afternoon. The court granted his
- motion.
- That afternoon the big fans were still churning
- the thick air in the courtroom and the jurors’ brightly
- colored fans were all moving in unison. It seemed to me
- as if my lawyer’s summation would never end. At one
- point, though, I listened, because he was saying, “It is
- true I killed a man.” He went on like that, saying “I”
- whenever he was speaking about me. I was completely
- taken aback. I leaned over to one of the guards and
- asked him why he was doing that. He told me to keep
- quiet, and a few seconds later he added, “All lawyers
- do it.” I thought it was a way to exclude me even further
- from the case, reduce me to nothing, and, in a sense, sub-
- stitute himself for me. But I think I was already very
- far removed from that courtroom. Besides, my lawyer
- seemed ridiculous to me. He rushed through a plea of
- provocation, and then he too talked about my soul. But
- to me he seemed to be a lot less talented than the
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- prosecutor. “I, too,” he said, "have peered into this man’s
- soul, but unlike the esteemed representative of the
- government prosecutor’s office, I did see something there,
- and I can assure you that I read it like an open book.”
- What he read was that I was an honest man, a steadily
- employed, tireless worker, loyal to the firm that employed
- him, well liked, and sympathetic to the misfortunes of
- others. To him, I was a model son who had supported
- his mother as long as he could. In the end I had hoped
- that a home for the aged would give the old woman the
- comfort that with my limited means I could not provide
- for her. “Gentlemen,” he added, "I am amazed that so
- much has been made of this home. For after all, if it
- were necessary to prove the usefulness and importance
- of such institutions, all one would have to say is that
- it is the state itself which subsidizes them.” The only
- thing is, he didn’t say anything about the funeral, and I
- thought that that was a glaring omission in his sum-
- mation. But all the long speeches, all the interminable
- days and hours that people had spent talking about my
- soul, had left me with the impression of a colorless swirl-
- ing river that was making me dizzy.
- In the end, all I remember is that while my lawyer
- went on talking, I could hear through the expanse of
- chambers and courtrooms an ice cream vendor blowing
- his tin trumpet out in the street. I was assailed by
- memories of a life that wasn’t mine anymore, but one
- in which I’d found the simplest and most lasting joys:
- the smells of summer, the part of town I loved, a certain
- evening sky, Marie’s dresses and the way she laughed.
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- The utter pointlessness of whatever I was doing there
- seized me by the throat, and all I wanted was to get it
- over with and get back to my cell and sleep. I barely
- even heard when my lawyer, wrapping up, exclaimed
- that the jury surely would not send an honest, hard-
- working man to his death because he had lost control of
- himself for one moment, and then he asked them to find
- extenuating circumstances for a crime for which I was
- already suffering the most agonizing of punishments —
- eternal remorse. Court was adjourned and my lawyer
- sat back down. He looked exhausted. But his colleagues
- came over to shake his hand. I heard: “That was
- brilliant!” One of them even appealed to me as a wit-
- ness. “Wasn’t it?” he said. I agreed, but my congratula-
- tions weren’t sincere, because I was too tired.
- Meanwhile, the sun was getting low outside and it
- wasn’t as hot anymore. From what street noises I could
- hear, I sensed the sweetness of evening coming on.
- There we all were, waiting. And what we were all wait-
- ing for really concerned only me. I looked around the
- room again. Everything was the same as it had been the
- first day. My eyes met those of the little robot woman
- and the reporter in the gray jacket. That reminded me
- that I hadn’t tried to catch Marie’s eye once during the
- whole trial. I hadn’t forgotten about her; I’d just had too
- much to do. I saw her sitting between Celeste and Ray-
- mond. She made a little gesture as if to say “At last.”
- There was a worried little smile on her face. But my
- heart felt nothing, and I couldn’t even return her smile.
- The judges came back in. Very quickly a series of
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- questions was read to the jury. I heard “guilty of
- murder” . . . "premeditated” . . . “extenuating cir-
- cumstances.” The jurors filed out, and I was taken to
- the little room where I had waited before. My lawyer
- joined me. He was very talkative and spoke to me more
- confidently and cordially than he ever had before. He
- thought that everything would go well and that I would
- get off with a few years in prison or at hard labor. I
- asked him whether he thought there was any chance of
- overturning the verdict if it was unfavorable. He said
- no. His tactic had been not to file any motions so as not
- to antagonize the jury. He explained to me that verdicts
- weren’t set aside just like that, for nothing. That seemed
- obvious and I accepted his logic. Looking at it objectively,
- it made perfect sense. Otherwise there would be too
- much pointless paperwork. "Anyway,” he said, “we can
- always appeal. But I’m convinced that the outcome will
- be favorable.”
- We waited a long time — almost three-quarters of an
- hour, I think. Then a bell rang. My lawyer left me, say-
- ing, “The foreman of the jury is going to announce the
- verdict. You’ll only be brought in for the passing of
- sentence.” Doors slammed. People were running on stairs
- somewhere, but I couldn’t tell if they were nearby or far
- away. Then I heard a muffled voice reading something in
- the courtroom. When the bell rang again, when the
- door to the dock opened, what rose to meet me was the
- silence in the courtroom, silence and the strange feeling
- I had when I noticed that the young reporter had turned
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- his eyes away. I didn’t look in Marie’s direction. I didn’t
- have time to, because the presiding judge told me in
- bizarre language that I was to have my head cut off in a
- public square in the name of the French people. Then
- it seemed to me that I suddenly knew what was on
- everybody’s face. It was a look of consideration, I’m sure.
- The policemen were very gentle with me. The lawyer
- put his hand on my wrist. I wasn’t thinking about any-
- thing anymore. But the presiding judge asked me if I
- had anything to say. I thought about it. I said, “No.”
- That’s when they took me away.
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- For the third time I’ve refused to see the chaplain. I
- don’t have anything to say to him; I don’t feel like
- talking, and I’ll be seeing him soon enough as it is. All
- I care about right now is escaping the machinery of
- justice, seeing if there’s any way out of the inevitable.
- They’ve put me in a different cell. From this one, when
- I’m stretched out on my bunk, I see the sky and that’s
- all I see. I spend my days watching how the dwindling
- of color turns day into night. Lying here, I put my
- hands behind my head and wait. I can’t count the times
- I’ve wondered if there have ever been any instances of
- condemned men escaping the relentless machinery, dis-
- appearing before the execution or breaking through the
- cordon of police. Then I blame myself every time for
- not having paid enough attention to accounts of execu-
- tions. A man should always take an interest in those
- things. You never know what might happen. I’d read
- stories in the papers like everybody else. But there must
- have been books devoted to the subject that I’d never
- been curious enough to look into. Maybe I would have
- found some accounts of escapes in them. I might have
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- discovered that in at least one instance the wheel had
- stopped, that in spite of all the unrelenting calculation,
- chance and luck had, at least once, changed something.
- Just once! In a way, I think that would have been
- enough. My heart would have taken over from there.
- The papers were always talking about the debt owed to
- society. According to them, it had to be paid. But that
- doesn’t speak to the imagination. What really counted
- was the possibility of escape, a leap to freedom, out of
- the implacable ritual, a wild run for it that would give
- whatever chance for hope there was. Of course, hope
- meant being cut down on some street comer, as you ran
- like mad, by a random bullet. But when I really thought
- it through, nothing was going to allow me such a luxury.
- Everything was against it; I would just be caught up in
- the machinery again.
- Despite my willingness to understand, I just couldn’t
- accept such arrogant certainty. Because, after all, there
- really was something ridiculously out of proportion be-
- tween the verdict such certainty was based on and the
- imperturbable march of events from the moment the
- verdict was announced. The fact that the sentence had
- been read at eight o’clock at night and not at five o’clock,
- the fact that it could have been an entirely different
- one, the fact that it had been decided by men who change
- their underwear, the fact that it had been handed down
- in the name of some vague notion called the French (or
- German, or Chinese) people — all of it seemed to de-
- tract from the seriousness of the decision. I was forced
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- to admit, however, that from the moment it had been
- passed its consequences became as real and as serious
- as the wall against which I pressed the length of my
- body.
- At times like this I remembered a story Maman used
- to tell me about my father. I never knew him. Maybe
- the only thing I did know about the man was the story
- Maman would tell me back then : he’d gone to watch a
- murderer be executed. Just the thought of going had
- made him sick to his stomach. But he went anyway,
- and when he came back he spent half the morning
- throwing up. I remember feeling a little disgusted by
- him at the time. But now I understood, it was perfectly
- normal. How had I not seen that there was nothing
- more important than an execution, and that when you
- come right down to it, it was the only thing a man
- could truly be interested in? If I ever got out of this
- prison I would go and watch every execution there was.
- But I think it was a mistake even to consider the pos-
- sibility. Because at the thought that one fine morning I
- would find myself a free man standing behind a cordon
- of police — on the outside, as it were — at the thought
- of being the spectator who comes to watch and then can
- go and throw up afterwards, a wave of poisoned joy rose
- in my throat. But I wasn’t being reasonable. It was a
- mistake to let myself get carried away by such imaginings,
- because the next minute I would get so cold that I would
- curl up into a ball under my blanket and my teeth would
- be chattering and I couldn’t make them stop.
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- But naturally, you can’t always be reasonable. At
- other times, for instance, I would make up new laws. I
- would reform the penal code. I’d realized that the most
- important thing was to give the condemned man a
- chance. Even one in a thousand was good enough to
- set things right. So it seemed to me that you could come
- up with a mixture of chemicals that if ingested by the
- patient (that’s the word I’d use: "patient”) would kill
- him nine times out of ten. But he would know this —
- that would be the one condition. For by giving it some
- hard thought, by considering the whole thing calmly, I
- could see that the trouble with the guillotine was that
- you had no chance at all, absolutely none. The fact was
- that it had been decided once and for all that the patient
- was to die. It was an open-and-shut case, a fixed arrange-
- ment, a tacit agreement that there was no question of
- going back on. If by some extraordinary chance the
- blade failed, they would just start over. So the thing
- that bothered me most was that the condemned man
- had to hope the machine would work the first time. And
- I say that’s wrong. And in a way I was right. But in
- another way I was forced to admit that that was the
- whole secret of good organization. In other words, the
- condemned man was forced into a kind of moral col-
- laboration. It was in his interest that everything go off
- without a hitch.
- I was also made to see that until that moment I’d had
- mistaken ideas about these things. For a long time I
- believed — and I don’t know why — that to get to the
- 1 1 1
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- guillotine you had to climb stairs onto a scaffold. I think
- it was because of the French Revolution — I mean, be-
- cause of everything I’d been taught or shown about it.
- But one morning I remembered seeing a photograph that
- appeared in the papers at the time of a much-talked-about
- execution. In reality, the machine was set up right on
- the ground, as simple as you please. It was much
- narrower than I’d thought. It was funny I’d never
- noticed that before. I’d been struck by this picture be-
- cause the guillotine looked like such a precision in-
- strument, perfect and gleaming. You always get exag-
- gerated notions of things you don’t know anything about.
- I was made to see that contrary to what I thought,
- everything was very simple: the guillotine is on the
- same level as the man approaching it. He walks up to
- it the way you walk up to another person. That bothered
- me too. Mounting the scaffold, going right up into the
- sky, was something the imagination could hold on to.
- Whereas, once again, the machine destroyed everything:
- you were killed discreetly, with a little shame and with
- great precision.
- There were two other things I was always thinking
- about: the dawn and my appeal. I would reason with
- myself, though, and try not to think about them any-
- more. I would stretch out, look at the sky, and force
- myself to find something interesting about it. It would
- turn green: that was evening. I would make another
- effort to divert my thoughts. I would listen to my heart-
- beat. I couldn’t imagine that this sound which had been
- with me for so long could ever stop. I’ve never really
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- had much of an imagination. But still I would try to
- picture the exact moment when the beating of my
- heart would no longer be going on inside my head. But
- it was no use. The dawn or my appeal would still be
- there. I would end up telling myself that the most
- rational thing was not to hold myself back.
- They always came at dawn, I knew that. And so I
- spent my nights waiting for that dawn. I’ve never liked
- being surprised. If something is going to happen to me,
- I want to be there. That’s why I ended up sleeping only
- a little bit during the day and then, all night long, waited
- patiently for the first light to show on the pane of sky.
- The hardest time was that uncertain hour when I knew
- they usually set to work. After midnight, I would wait
- and watch. . My ears had never heard so many noises or
- picked up such small sounds. One thing I can say,
- though, is that in a certain way I was lucky that whole
- time, since I never heard footsteps. Maman used to say
- that you can always find something to be happy about.
- In my prison, when the sky turned red and a new day
- slipped into my cell, I found out that she was right.
- Because I might just as easily have heard footsteps and
- my heart could have burst. Even though I would rush
- to the door at the slightest shuffle, even though, with
- my ear pressed to the wood, I would wait frantically
- until I heard the sound of my own breathing, terrified
- to find it so hoarse, like a dog’s panting, my heart would
- not burst after all, and I would have gained another
- twenty-four hours.
- All day long there was the thought of my appeal. I
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- think I got everything out of it that I could. I would
- assess my holdings and get the maximum return on my
- thoughts. I would always begin by assuming the worst:
- my appeal was denied. “Well, so I’m going to die.”
- Sooner than other people will, obviously. But everybody
- knows life isn’t worth living. Deep down I knew per-
- fectly well that it doesn’t much matter whether you
- die at thirty or at seventy, since in either case other
- men and women will naturally go on living — and for
- thousands of years. In fact, nothing could be clearer.
- Whether it was now or twenty years from now, I would
- still be the one dying. At that point, what would disturb
- my train of thought was the terrifying leap I would feel
- my heart take at the idea of having twenty more years of
- life ahead of me. But I simply had to stifle it by im-
- agining what I’d be thinking in twenty years when it
- would all come down to the same thing anyway. Since
- we’re all going to die, it’s obvious that when and
- how don’t matter. Therefore (and the difficult thing
- was not to lose sight of all the reasoning that went into
- this “therefore”), I had to accept the rejection of my
- appeal.
- Then and only then would I have the right, so to
- speak — would I give myself permission, as it were — to
- consider the alternative hypothesis : I was pardoned. The
- trouble was that I would somehow have to cool the hot
- blood that would suddenly surge through my body and
- sting my eyes with a delirious joy. It would take all my
- strength to quiet my heart, to be rational. In order to
- n 4
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- make my resignation to the first hypothesis more plau-
- sible, I had to be level-headed about this one as well.
- If I succeeded, I gained an hour of calm. That was
- something anyway.
- It was at one such moment that I once again refused
- to see the chaplain. I was lying down, and I could tell
- from the golden glow in the sky that evening was
- coming on. I had just denied my appeal and I could
- feel the steady pulse of my blood circulating inside me.
- I didn’t need to see the chaplain. For the first time in
- a long time I thought about Marie. The days had been
- long since she’d stopped writing. That evening I thought
- about it and told myself that maybe she had gotten
- tired of being the girlfriend of a condemned man. It also
- occurred to me that maybe she was sick, or dead. These
- things happen. How was I to know, since apart from our
- two bodies, now separated, there wasn’t anything to
- keep us together or even to remind us of each other?
- Anyway, after that, remembering Marie meant nothing
- to me. I wasn’t interested in her dead. That seemed
- perfectly normal to me, since I understood very well
- that people would forget me when I was dead. They
- wouldn’t have anything more to do with me. I wasn’t
- even able to tell myself that it was hard to think those
- things.
- It was at that exact moment that the chaplain came
- in. When I saw him I felt a little shudder go through me.
- He noticed it and told me not to be afraid. I told him
- that it wasn’t his usual time. He replied that it was just
- JI 5
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- a friendly visit and had nothing to do with my appeal,
- which he knew nothing about. He sat down on my bunk
- and invited me to sit next to him. I refused. All the
- same, there was something very gentle about him.
- He sat there for a few seconds, leaning forward,
- with his elbows on his knees, looking at his hands. They
- were slender and sinewy and they reminded me of two
- nimble animals. He slowly rubbed one against the other.
- Then he sat there, leaning forward like that, for so long
- that for an instant I seemed to forget he was there.
- But suddenly he raised his head and looked straight
- at me. “Why have you refused to see me?” he asked. I
- said that I didn’t believe in God. He wanted to know if
- I was sure and I said that I didn’t see any reason to ask
- myself that question: it seemed unimportant. He then
- leaned back against the wall, hands flat on his thighs.
- Almost as if it wasn’t me he was talking to, he remarked
- that sometimes we think we’re sure when in fact we’re
- not. I didn’t say anything. He looked at me and asked,
- “What do you think?” I said it was possible. In any
- case, I may not have been sure about what really did
- interest me, but I was absolutely sure about what didn’t.
- And it just so happened that what he was talking about
- didn’t interest me.
- He looked away and without moving asked me if I
- wasn’t talking that way out of extreme despair. I ex-
- plained to him that I wasn’t desperate. I was just afraid,
- which was only natural. “Then God can help you,” he
- said. “Every man I have known in your position has
- 1 1 6
- 0 THE STRANGER O
- turned to Him.” I acknowledged that that was their right.
- It also meant that they must have had the time for it. As
- for me, I didn’t want anybody’s help, and I just didn’t
- have the time to interest myself in what didn’t interest
- me.
- At that point he threw up his hands in annoyance
- but then sat forward and smoothed out the folds of his
- cassock. When he had finished he started in again, ad-
- dressing me as ‘‘my friend.” If he was talking to me this
- way, it wasn’t because I was condemned to die; the way
- he saw it, we were all condemned to die. But I interrupted
- him by saying that it wasn’t the same thing and that be-
- sides, it wouldn’t be a consolation anyway. ‘‘Certainly,”
- he agreed. “But if you don’t die today, you’ll die to-
- morrow, or the next day. And then the same question
- will arise. How will you face that terrifying ordeal?” I
- said I would face it exactly as I was facing it now.
- At that he stood up and looked me straight in the
- eye. It was a game I knew well. I played it a lot with
- Emmanuel and Celeste and usually they were the ones
- who looked away. The chaplain knew the game well
- too, I could tell right away: his gaze never faltered.
- And his voice didn’t falter, either, when he said, “Have
- you no hope at all? And do you really live with the
- thought that when you die, you die, and nothing re-
- mains?” “Yes,” I said.
- Then he lowered his head and sat back down. He
- told me that he pitied me. He thought it was more than
- a man could bear. I didn’t feel anything except that he
- ii 7
- 0 THE STRANGER 0
- was beginning to annoy me. Then I turned away and
- went and stood under the skylight. I leaned my shoulder
- against the wall. Without really following what he
- was saying, I heard him start asking me questions
- again. He was talking in an agitated, urgent voice. I
- could see that he was genuinely upset, so I listened
- more closely.
- He was expressing his certainty that my appeal would
- be granted, but I was carrying the burden of a sin from
- which I had to free myself. According to him, human
- justice was nothing and divine justice was everything. I
- pointed out that it was the former that had condemned
- me. His response was that it hadn’t washed away my sin
- for all that. I told him I didn’t know what a sin was.
- All they had told me was that I was guilty. I was
- guilty, I was paying for it, and nothing more could be
- asked of me. At that point he stood up again, and the
- thought occurred to me that in such a narrow cell, if
- he wanted to move around he didn’t have many options.
- He could either sit down or stand up.
- I was staring at the ground. He took a step toward me
- and stopped, as if he didn’t dare come any closer. He
- looked at the sky through the bars. “You’re wrong, my
- son,” he said. “More could be asked of you. And it may
- be asked.” “And what’s that?” “You could be asked to
- see.” “See what?’
- The priest gazed around my cell and answered in a
- voice that sounded very weary to me. “Every stone here
- sweats with suffering, I know that. I have never looked
- r 1 8
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- at them without a feeling of anguish. But deep in my
- heart I know that the most wretched among you have
- seen a divine face emerge from their darkness. That is
- the face you are asked to see.”
- This perked me up a little. I said I had been looking
- at the stones in these walls for months. There wasn’t
- anything or anyone in the world I knew better. Maybe
- at one time, way back, I had searched for a face in them.
- But the face I was looking for was as bright as the sun
- and the flame of desire — and it belonged to Marie. I had
- searched for it in vain. Now it was all over. And in any
- case, I’d never seen anything emerge from any sweat-
- ing stones.
- The chaplain looked at me with a kind of sadness. I
- now had my back flat against the wall, and light was
- streaming over my forehead. He muttered a few words
- I didn’t catch and abruptly asked if he could embrace
- me. “No,” I said. He turned and walked over to the wall
- and slowly ran his hand over it. “Do you really love this
- earth as much as all that?” he murmured. I didn’t
- answer.
- He stood there with his back to me for quite a long
- time. His presence was grating and oppressive. I was
- just about to tell him to go, to leave me alone, when all
- of a sudden, turning toward me, he burst out, “No, I
- refuse to believe you! I know that at one time or another
- you’ve wished for another life.” I said of course I had,
- but it didn’t mean any more than wishing to be rich,
- to be able to swim faster, or to have a more nicely shaped
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- mouth. It was all the same. But he stopped me and
- wanted to know how I pictured this other life. Then I
- shouted at him, “One where I could remember this
- life!” and that’s when I told him I’d had enough. He
- wanted to talk to me about God again, but I went up
- to him and made one last attempt to explain to him that
- I had only a little time left and I didn’t want to waste
- it on God. He tried to change the subject by asking
- me why I was calling him “monsieur” and not “father.”
- That got me mad, and I told him he wasn’t my father;
- he wasn’t even on my side.
- “Yes, my son,” he said, putting his hand on my
- shoulder, “I am on your side. But you have no way of
- knowing it, because your heart is blind. I shall pray for
- >>
- you.
- Then, I don’t know why, but something inside me
- snapped. I started yelling at the top of my lungs, and I
- insulted him and told him not to waste his prayers on me.
- I grabbed him by the collar of his cassock. I was pour-
- ing out on him everything that was in my heart, cries of
- anger and cries of joy. He seemed so certain about every-
- thing, didn’t he? And yet none of his certainties was
- worth one hair of a woman’s head. He wasn’t even sure
- he was alive, because he was living like a dead man.
- Whereas it looked as if I was the one who’d come
- up emptyhanded. But I was sure about me, about
- everything, surer than he could ever be, sure of my life
- and sure of the death I had waiting for me. Yes, that
- was all I had. But at least I had as much of a hold on
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- it as it had on me. I had been right, I was still right, I was
- always right. I had lived my life one way and I could
- just as well have lived it another. I had done this and I
- hadn’t done that. I hadn’t done this thing but I had done
- another. And so? It was as if I had waited all this time
- for this moment and for the first light of this dawn to
- be vindicated. Nothing, nothing mattered, and I knew
- why. So did he. Throughout the whole absurd life I’d
- lived, a dark wind had been rising toward me from
- somewhere deep in my future, across years that were
- still to come, and as it passed, this wind leveled whatever
- was offered to me at the time, in years no more real than
- the ones I was living. What did other people’s deaths
- or a mother’s love matter to me; what did his God or the
- lives people choose or the fate they think they elect
- matter to me when we’re all elected by the same fate,
- me and billions of privileged people like him who also
- called themselves my brothers? Couldn’t he see, couldn’t
- he see that? Everybody was privileged. There were only
- privileged people. The others would all be condemned
- one day. And he would be condemned, too. What would
- it matter if he were accused of murder and then executed
- because he didn’t cry at his mother’s funeral? Sala-
- mano’s dog was worth just as much as his wife. The
- little robot woman was just as guilty as the Parisian
- woman Masson married, or as Marie, who had wanted
- me to marry her. What did it matter that Raymond was
- as much my friend as Celeste, who was worth a lot more
- than him? What did it matter that Marie now offered
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- her lips to a new Meursault? Couldn’t he, couldn’t this
- condemned man see . . . And that from somewhere deep
- in my future . . . All the shouting had me gasping for
- air. But they were already tearing the chaplain from my
- grip and the guards were threatening me. He calmed
- them, though, and looked at me for a moment without
- saying anything. His eyes were full of tears. Then he
- turned and disappeared.
- With him gone, I was able to calm down again. I
- was exhausted and threw myself on my bunk. I must
- have fallen asleep, because I woke up with the stars in
- my face. Sounds of the countryside were drifting in.
- Smells of night, earth, and salt air were cooling my
- temples. The wondrous peace of that sleeping summer
- flowed through me like a tide. Then, in the dark hour
- before dawn, sirens blasted. They were announcing
- departures for a world that now and forever meant noth-
- ing to me. For the first time in a long time I thought
- about Maman. I felt as if I understood why at the end
- of her life she had taken a “fiance,” why she had
- played at beginning again. Even there, in that home
- where lives were fading out, evening was a kind of wist-
- ful respite. So close to death, Maman must have felt
- free then and ready to live it all again. Nobody, nobody
- had the right to cry over her. And I felt ready to live it
- all again too. As if that blind rage had washed me clean,
- rid me of hope; for the first time, in that night alive with
- signs and stars, I opened myself to the gentle indifference
- of the world. Finding it so much like myself — so like a
- 122
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- brother, really — I felt that I had been happy and that I
- was happy again. For everything to be consummated, for
- me to feel less alone, I had only to wish that there be a
- large crowd of spectators the day of my execution and
- that they greet me with cries of hate.
- 123
- ABOUT THE AUTHOR
- Albert Camus, son of a working-class family, was born
- in Algeria in 1913. He spent the early years of his life
- in North Africa, where he worked at various jobs — in
- the weather bureau, in an automobile-accessory firm, in
- a shipping company — to help pay for his courses at the
- University of Algiers. He then turned to journalism as
- a career. His report on the unhappy state of the
- Muslims of the Kabylie region aroused the Algerian
- government to action and brought him public notice.
- From 1935 to 1938 he ran the Theatre de l’Equipe,
- a theatrical company that produced plays by Malraux,
- Gide, Synge, Dostoevski, and others. During World
- War II he was one of the leading writers of the French
- Resistance and editor of Combat, then an important
- underground newspaper. Camus was always very ac-
- tive in the theater, and several of his plays have
- been published and produced. His fiction, including
- The Stranger, The Plague, The Fall, and Exile and
- the Kingdom-, his philosophical essays, The Myth of
- Sisyphus and The Rebel; and his plays have assured
- his preeminent position in modem French letters. In
- 1957 Camus was awarded the Nobel Prize for Litera-
- ture. His sudden death on January 4, 1 960, cut short
- the career of one of the most important literary figures
- of the Western world when he was at the very summit
- of his powers.
- ABOUT THE TRANSLATOR
- Matthew Ward is a poet, critic, and translator. His
- translations include works by Colette, Barthes, Picasso,
- Sartre, and others. He was educated at Stanford, Uni-
- versity College in Dublin (where he was a Fulbright
- Scholar), and Columbia. He taught for several years at
- the Fieldston School in Riverdale, New York. Matthew
- Ward was born in Colorado and now lives in Man-
- hattan.
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