life. They had learned that my mother died recently in a home. Inquiries had been
conducted at Marengo and the police informed that I’d shown “great callousness” at
my mother’s funeral.
“You must understand,” the lawyer said, “that I don’t relish having to question
you about such a matter. But it has much importance, and, unless I find some way of
answering the charge of ‘callousness,’ I shall be handicapped in conducting your
defense. And that is where you, and only you, can help me.”
He went on to ask if I had felt grief on that “sad occasion.” The question struck me
as an odd one; I’d have been much embarrassed if I’d had to ask anyone a thing like
that.
I answered that, of recent years, I’d rather lost the habit of noting my feelings, and
hardly knew what to answer. I could truthfully say I’d been quite fond of Mother—
but really that didn’t mean much. All normal people, I added as on afterthought, had
more or less desired the death of those they loved, at some time or another.
Here the lawyer interrupted me, looking greatly perturbed.
“You must promise me not to say anything of that sort at the trial, or to the
examining magistrate.”
I promised, to satisfy him, but I explained that my physical condition at any given
moment often influenced my feelings. For instance, on the day I attended Mother’s
funeral, I was fagged out and only half awake. So, really, I hardly took stock of what
was happening. Anyhow, I could assure him of one thing: that I’d rather Mother
hadn’t died.
The lawyer, however, looked displeased. “That’s not enough,” he said curtly.
After considering for a bit he asked me if he could say that on that day I had kept
my feelings under control.
“No,” I said. “That wouldn’t be true.”
He gave me a queer look, as if I slightly revolted him; then informed me, in an
almost hostile tone, that in any case the head of the Home and some of the staff
would be cited as witnesses.
“And that might do you a very nasty turn,” he concluded.
When I suggested that Mother’s death had no connection with the charge against
me, he merely replied that this remark showed I’d never had any dealings with the
law.
Soon after this he left, looking quite vexed. I wished he had stayed longer and I
could have explained that I desired his sympathy, not for him to make a better job of
my defense, but, if I might put it so, spontaneously. I could see that I got on his
nerves; he couldn’t make me out, and, naturally enough, this irritated him. Once or
twice I had a mind to assure him that I was just like everybody else; quite an ordinary
Albert Camus v THE STRANGER
42
person. But really that would have served no great purpose, and I let it go— out of
laziness as much as anything else.
Later in the day I was taken again to the examining magistrate’s office. It was two
in the afternoon and, this time, the room was flooded with light— there was only a
thin curtain on the window— and extremely hot.
After inviting me to sit down, the magistrate informed me in a very polite tone that,
“owing to unforeseen circumstances,” my lawyer was unable to be present. I should
be quite entitled, he added, to reserve my answers to his questions until my lawyer
could attend.
To this I replied that I could answer for myself. He pressed a bell push on his desk
and a young clerk came in and seated himself just behind me. Then we— I and the
magistrate— settled back in our chairs and the examination began. He led off by
remarking that I had the reputation of being a taciturn, rather self-centered person,
and he’d like to know what I had to say to that. I answered:
“Well, I rarely have anything much to say. So, naturally I keep my mouth shut.”
He smiled as on the previous occasion, and agreed that that was the best of reasons.
“In any case,” he added, “it has little or no importance.”
After a short silence he suddenly leaned forward, looked me in the eyes, and said,
raising his voice a little:
“What really interests me is— you!”
I wasn’t quite clear what he meant, so I made no comment.
“There are several things,” he continued, “that puzzle me about your crime. I feel
sure that you will help me to understand them.”
When I replied that really it was quite simple, he asked me to give him an account
of what I’d done that day. As a matter of fact, I had already told him at our first
interview— in a summary sort of way, of course— about Raymond, the beach, our
swim, the fight, then the beach again, and the five shots I’d fired. But I went over it
all again, and after each phrase he nodded. “Quite so, quite so.” When I described the
body lying on the sand, he nodded more emphatically, and said, “Good!” I was tired
of repeating the same story; I felt as if I’d never talked so much in all my life before.
After another silence he stood up and said he’d like to help me; I interested him,
and, with God’s help, he would do something for me in my trouble. But, first, he
must put a few more questions.
He began by asking bluntly if I’d loved my mother.
“Yes,” I replied, “like everybody else.” The clerk behind me, who had been typing
away at a steady pace, must just then have hit the wrong keys, as I heard him pushing
the carrier back and crossing something out.
Next, without any apparent logical connection, the magistrate sprang another
question.
“Why did you fire five consecutive shots?”
Albert Camus v THE STRANGER
43
I thought for a bit; then explained that they weren’t quite consecutive. I fired one
at first, and the other four after a short interval.
“Why did you pause between the first and second shot?”
I seemed to see it hovering again before my eyes, the red glow of the beach, and to
feel that fiery breath on my cheeks— and, this time, I made no answer.
During the silence that followed, the magistrate kept fidgeting, running his fingers
through his hair, half rising, then sitting down again. Finally, planting his elbows on
the desk, he bent toward me with a queer expression.
“But why, why did you go on firing at a prostrate man?”
Again I found nothing to reply.
The magistrate drew his hand across his forehead and repeated in a slightly
different tone:
“I ask you ‘Why?’ I insist on your telling me.” I still kept silent.
Suddenly he rose, walked to a file cabinet standing against the opposite wall,
pulled a drawer open, and took from it a silver crucifix, which he was waving as he
came back to the desk.
“Do you know who this is?” His voice had changed completely; it was vibrant
with emotion.
“Of course I do,” I answered.
That seemed to start him off; he began speaking at a great pace. He told me he
believed in God, and that even the worst of sinners could obtain forgiveness of Him.
But first he must repent, and become like a little child, with a simple, trustful heart,
open to conviction. He was leaning right across the table, brandishing his crucifix
before my eyes.
As a matter of fact, I had great difficulty in following his remarks, as, for one
thing, the office was so stiflingly hot and big flies were buzzing round and settling on
my cheeks; also because he rather alarmed me. Of course, I realized it was absurd to
feel like this, considering that, after all, it was I who was the criminal. However, as
he continued talking, I did my best to understand, and I gathered that there was only
one point in my confession that badly needed clearing up— the fact that I’d waited
before firing a second time. All the rest was, so to speak, quite in order; but that
completely baffled him.
I started to tell him that he was wrong in insisting on this; the point was of quite
minor importance. But, before I could get the words out, he had drawn himself up to
his full height and was asking me very earnestly if I believed in God. When I said,
“No,” he plumped down into his chair indignantly.
That was unthinkable, he said; all men believe in God, even those who reject Him.
Of this he was absolutely sure; if ever he came to doubt it, his life would lose all
meaning. “Do you wish,” he asked indignantly, “my life to have no meaning?”
Really I couldn’t see how my wishes came into it, and I told him as much.
Albert Camus v THE STRANGER
44
While I was talking, he thrust the crucifix again just under my nose and shouted:
“I, anyhow, am a Christian. And I pray Him to forgive you for your sins. My poor
young man, how can you not believe that He suffered for your sake?”
I noticed that his manner seemed genuinely solicitous when he said, “My poor
young man”— but I was beginning to have enough of it. The room was growing
steadily hotter.
As I usually do when I want to get rid of someone whose conversation bores me, I
pretended to agree. At which, rather to my surprise, his face lit up.
“You see! You see! Now won’t you own that you believe and put your trust in
Him?”
I must have shaken my head again, for he sank back in his chair, looking limp and
dejected.
For some moments there was a silence during which the typewriter, which had
been clicking away all the time we talked, caught up with the last remark. Then he
looked at me intently and rather sadly.
“Never in all my experience have I known a soul so case-hardened as yours,” he
said in a low tone. “All the criminals who have come before me until now wept when
they saw this symbol of our Lord’s sufferings.”
I was on the point of replying that was precisely because they were criminals. But
then I realized that I, too, came under that description. Somehow it was an idea to
which I never could get reconciled.
To indicate, presumably, that the interview was over, the magistrate stood up. In
the same weary tone he asked me a last question: Did I regret what I had done?
After thinking a bit, I said that what I felt was less regret than a kind of vexation—
I couldn’t find a better word for it. But he didn’t seem to understand. ... This was as
far as things went at that day’s interview.
I came before the magistrate many times more, but on these occasions my lawyer
always accompanied me. The examinations were confined to asking me to amplify
my previous statements. Or else the magistrate and my lawyer discussed
technicalities. At such times they took very little notice of me, and, in any case, the
tone of the examinations changed as time went on. The magistrate seemed to have
lost interest in me, and to have come to some sort-of decision about my case. He
never mentioned God again or displayed any of the religious fervor I had found so
embarrassing at our first interview. The result was that our relations became more
cordial. After a few questions, followed by an exchange of remarks with the lawyer,
the magistrate closed the interview. My case was “taking its course,” as he put it.
Sometimes, too, the conversation was of a general order, and the magistrate and
lawyer encouraged me to join in it. I began to breathe more freely. Neither of the two
men, at these times, showed the least hostility toward me, and everything went so
smoothly, so amiably, that I had an absurd impression of being “one of the family.” I
Albert Camus v THE STRANGER
45
can honestly say that during the eleven months these examinations lasted I got so
used to them that I was almost surprised at having ever enjoyed anything better than
those rare moments when the magistrate, after escorting me to the door of the office,
would pat my shoulder and say in a friendly tone: “Well, Mr. Antichrist, that’s all for
the present!” After which I was made over to my jailers.
Albert Camus v THE STRANGER
46
II
THERE are some things of which I’ve never cared to talk. And, a few days after I’d
been sent to prison, I decided that this phase of my life was one of them. However, as
time went by, I came to feel that this aversion had no real substance. In point of fact,
during those early days, I was hardly conscious of being in prison; I had always a
vague hope that something would turn up, some agreeable surprise.
The change came soon after Marie’s first and only visit. From the day when I got
her letter telling me they wouldn’t let her come to see me any more, because she
wasn’t my wife— it was from that day that I realized that this cell was my last home,
a dead end, so to speak.
On the day of my arrest they put me in a biggish room with several other prisoners,
mostly Arabs. They grinned when they saw me enter, and asked me what I’d done. I
told them I’d killed an Arab, and they kept mum for a while. But presently night
began to fall, and one of them explained to me how to lay out my sleeping mat. By
rolling up one end one makes a sort of bolster. All night I felt bugs crawling over my
face.
Some days later I was put by myself in a cell, where I slept on a plank bed hinged
to the wall. The only other furniture was a latrine bucket and a tin basin. The prison
stands on rising ground, and through my little window I had glimpses of the sea. One
day when I was hanging on the bars, straining my eyes toward the sunlight playing
on the waves, a jailer entered and said I had a visitor. I thought it must be Marie, and
so it was.
To go to the Visitors’ Room, I was taken along a corridor, then up a flight of steps,
then along another corridor. It was a very large room, lit by a big bow window, and
divided into three compartments by high iron grilles running transversally. Between
the two grilles there was a gap of some thirty feet, a sort of no man’s land between
the prisoners and their friends. I was led to a point exactly opposite Marie, who was
wearing her striped dress. On my side of the rails were about a dozen other prisoners,
Arabs for the most part. On Marie’s side were mostly Moorish women. She was
wedged between a small old woman with tight-set lips and a fat matron, without a
hat, who was talking shrilly and gesticulated all the time. Because of the distance
between the visitors and prisoners I found I, too, had to raise my voice.
When I came into the room the babel of voices echoing on the bare walls, and the
sunlight streaming in, flooding everything in a harsh white glare, made me feel quite
dizzy. After the relative darkness and the silence of my cell it took me some
moments to get used to these conditions. After a bit, however, I came to see each
