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Albert Camus v THE STRANGER
1
THE
Stranger
By ALBERT CAMUS
Translated from the French
by Stuart Gilbert
VINTAGE BOOKS
A Division of Random House
NEW YORK
Albert Camus v THE STRANGER
2
VINTAGE BOOKS
are published by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.
and Random House, Inc.
Copyright 1942 by Librairie Gallimard as L’éTRANGER
Copyright 1946 by ALFRED A. KNOPF, INC. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission in
writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review to be printed in a magazine or newspaper. Manufactured
in the United States of America. Distributed in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.
Albert Camus v THE STRANGER
3
Contents
Contents ....................................................................................................................3
Part One.....................................................................................................................4
I..............................................................................................................................4
II .......................................................................................................................... 14
III ......................................................................................................................... 18
IV......................................................................................................................... 24
V.......................................................................................................................... 28
VI......................................................................................................................... 32
Part Two .................................................................................................................. 40
I............................................................................................................................ 40
II .......................................................................................................................... 46
III ......................................................................................................................... 52
IV......................................................................................................................... 62
V.......................................................................................................................... 68
About the Author..................................................................................................... 77
Albert Camus v THE STRANGER
4
Part One
I
MOTHER died today. Or, maybe, yesterday; I can’t be sure. The telegram from the
Home says: YOUR MOTHER PASSED AWAY. FUNERAL TOMORROW. DEEP
SYMPATHY. Which leaves the matter doubtful; it could have been yesterday.
The Home for Aged Persons is at Marengo, some fifty miles from Algiers. With
the two o’clock bus I should get there well before nightfall. Then I can spend the
night there, keeping the usual vigil beside the body, and be back here by tomorrow
evening. I have fixed up with my employer for two days’ leave; obviously, under the
circumstances, he couldn’t refuse. Still, I had an idea he looked annoyed, and I said,
without thinking: “Sorry, sir, but it’s not my fault, you know.”
Afterwards it struck me I needn’t have said that. I had no reason to excuse myself;
it was up to him to express his sympathy and so forth. Probably he will do so the day
after tomorrow, when he sees me in black. For the present, it’s almost as if Mother
weren’t really dead. The funeral will bring it home to me, put an official seal on it, so
to speak. ...
I took the two-o’clock bus. It was a blazing hot afternoon. I’d lunched, as usual, at
Céleste’s restaurant. Everyone was most kind, and Céleste said to me, “There’s no
one like a mother.” When I left they came with me to the door. It was something of a
rush, getting away, as at the last moment I had to call in at Emmanuel’s place to
borrow his black tie and mourning band. He lost his uncle a few months ago.
I had to run to catch the bus. I suppose it was my hurrying like that, what with the
glare off the road and from the sky, the reek of gasoline, and the jolts, that made me
feel so drowsy. Anyhow, I slept most of the way. When I woke I was leaning against
a soldier; he grinned and asked me if I’d come from a long way off, and I just nodded,
to cut things short. I wasn’t in a mood for talking.
The Home is a little over a mile from the village. I went there on foot. I asked to
be allowed to see Mother at once, but the doorkeeper told me I must see the warden
first. He wasn’t free, and I had to wait a bit. The doorkeeper chatted with me while I
waited; then he led me to the office. The warden was a very small man, with gray
hair, and a Legion of Honor rosette in his buttonhole. He gave me a long look with
his watery blue eyes. Then we shook hands, and he held mine so long that I began to
feel embarrassed. After that he consulted a register on his table, and said:
Albert Camus v THE STRANGER
5
“Madame Meursault entered the Home three years ago. She had no private means
and depended entirely on you.”
I had a feeling he was blaming me for something, and started to explain. But he
cut me short.
“There’s no need to excuse yourself, my boy. I’ve looked up the record and
obviously you weren’t in a position to see that she was properly cared for. She
needed someone to be with her all the time, and young men in jobs like yours don’t
get too much pay. In any case, she was much happier in the Home.”
I said, “Yes, sir; I’m sure of that.”
Then he added: “She had good friends here, you know, old folks like herself, and
one gets on better with people of one’s own generation. You’re much too young; you
couldn’t have been much of a companion to her.”
That was so. When we lived together, Mother was always watching me, but we
hardly ever talked. During her first few weeks at the Home she used to cry a good
deal. But that was only because she hadn’t settled down. After a mo nth or two she’d
have cried if she’d been told to leave the Home. Because this, too, would have been a
wrench. That was why, during the last year, I seldom went to see her. Also, it would
have meant losing my Sunday— not to mention the trouble of going to the bus,
getting my ticket, and spending two hours on the journey each way.
The warden went on talking, but I didn’t pay much attention. Finally he said:
“Now, I suppose you’d like to see your mother?”
I rose without replying, and he led the way to the door. As we were going down
the stairs he explained:
“I’ve had the body moved to our little mortuary— so as not to upset the other old
people, you understand. Every time there’s a death here, they’re in a nervous state for
two or three days. Which means, of course, extra work and worry for our staff.”
We crossed a courtyard where there were a number of old men, talking amongst
themselves in little groups. They fell silent as we came up with them. Then, behind
our backs, the chattering began again. Their voices reminded me of parakeets in a
cage, only the sound wasn’t quite so shrill. The warden stopped outside the entrance
of a small, low building.
“So here I leave you, Monsieur Meursault. If you want me for anything, you’ll
find me in my office. We propose to have the funeral tomorrow morning. That will
enable you to spend the night beside your mother’s coffin, as no doubt you would
wish to do. Just one more thing; I gathered from your mother’s friends that she
wished to be buried with the rites of the Church. I’ve made arrangements for this; but
I thought I should let you know.”
I thanked him. So far as I knew, my mother, though not a professed atheist, had
never given a thought to religion in her life.
Albert Camus v THE STRANGER
6
I entered the mortuary. It was a bright, spotlessly clean room, with whitewashed
walls and a big skylight. The furniture consisted of some chairs and trestles. Two of
the latter stood open in the center of the room and the coffin rested on them. The lid
was in place, but the screws had been given only a few turns and their nickeled heads
stuck out above the wood, which was stained dark walnut. An Arab woman— a nurse,
I supposed— was sitting beside the bier; she was wearing a blue smock and had a
rather gaudy scarf wound round her hair.
Just then the keeper came up behind me. He’d evidently been running, as he was a
little out of breath.
“We put the lid on, but I was told to unscrew it when you came, so that you could
see her.”
While he was going up to the coffin I told him not to trouble.
“Eh? What’s that?” he exclaimed. “You don’t want me to ...?”
“No,” I said.
He put back the screwdriver in his pocket and stared at me. I realized then that I
shouldn’t have said, “No,” and it made me rather embarrassed. After eying me for
some moments he asked:
“Why not?” But he didn’t sound reproachful; he simply wanted to know.
“Well, really I couldn’t say,” I answered.
He began twiddling his white mustache; then, without looking at me, said gently:
“I understand.”
He was a pleasant-looking man, with blue eyes and ruddy cheeks. He drew up a
chair for me near the coffin, and seated himself just behind. The nurse got up and
moved toward the door. As she was going by, the keeper whispered in my ear:
“It’s a tumor she has, poor thing.”
I looked at her more carefully and I noticed that she had a bandage round her head,
just below her eyes. It lay quite flat across the bridge of her nose, and one saw hardly
anything of her face except that strip of whiteness.
As soon as she had gone, the keeper rose.
“Now I’ll leave you to yourself.”
I don’t know whether I made some gesture, but instead of going he halted behind
my chair. The sensation of someone posted at my back made me uncomfortable. The
sun was getting low and the whole room was flooded with a pleasant, mellow light.
Two hornets were buzzing overhead, against the skylight. I was so sleepy I could
hardly keep my eyes open. Without looking round, I asked the keeper how long he’d
been at the Home. “Five years.” The answer came so pat that one could have thought
he’d been expecting my question.
That started him off, and he became quite chatty. If anyone had told him ten years
ago that he’d end his days as doorkeeper at a home at Marengo, he’d never have
believed it. He was sixty-four, he said, and hailed from Paris.
Albert Camus v THE STRANGER
7
When he said that, I broke in. “Ah, you don’t come from here?”
I remembered then that, before taking me to the warden, he’d told me something
about Mother. He had said she’d have to be buried mighty quickly because of the
heat in these parts, especially down in the plain. “At Paris they keep the body for
three days, sometimes four.” After that he had mentioned that he’d spent the best part
of his life in Paris, and could never manage to forget it. “Here,” he had said, “things
have to go with a rush, like. You’ve hardly time to get used to the idea that
someone’s dead, before you’re hauled off to the funeral.” “That’s enough,” his wife
had put in. “You didn’t ought to say such things to the poor young gentleman.” The
old fellow had blushed and begun to apologize. I told him it was quite all right. As a
matter of fact, I found it rather interesting, what he’d been telling me; I hadn’t
thought of that before.
Now he went on to say that he’d entered the Home as an ordinary inmate. But he
was still quite hale and hearty, and when the keeper’s job fell vacant, he offered to
take it on.
I pointed out that, even so, he was really an inmate like the others, but he wouldn’t
hear of it. He was “an official, like.” I’d been struck before by his habit of saying
“they” or, less often, “them old folks,” when referring to inmates no older than
himself. Still, I could see his point of view. As doorkeeper he had a certain standing,
and some authority over the rest of them.
Just then the nurse returned. Night had fallen very quickly; all of a sudden, it
seemed, the sky went black above the skylight. The keeper switched on the lamps,
and I was almost blinded by the blaze of light.
He suggested I should go to the refectory for dinner, but I wasn’t hungry. Then he
proposed bringing me a mug of café au lait. As I am very partial to café au lait I said,
“Thanks,” and a few minutes later he came back with a tray. I drank the coffee, and
then I wanted a cigarette. But I wasn’t sure if I should smoke, under the
circumstances— in Mother’s presence. I thought it over; really, it didn’t seem to
matter, so I offered the keeper a cigarette, and we both smoked.
After a while he started talking again.
“You know, your mother’s friends will be coming soon, to keep vigil with you
beside the body. We always have a ‘vigil’ here, when anyone dies. I’d better go and
get some chairs and a pot of black coffee.”
The glare off the white walls was making my eyes smart, and I asked him if he
couldn’t turn off one of the lamps. “Nothing doing,” he said. They’d arranged the
lights like that; either one had them all on or none at all. After that I didn’t pay much
more attention to him. He went out, brought some chairs, and set them out round the
coffin. On one he placed a coffeepot and ten or a dozen cups. Then he sat down
facing me, on the far side of Mother. The nurse was at the other end of the room,
with her back to me. I couldn’t see what she was doing, but by the way her arms
Albert Camus v THE STRANGER
8
moved I guessed that she was knitting. I was feeling very comfortable; the coffee had
warmed me up, and through the open door came scents of flowers and breaths of
