The Fall

by Albert Camus

One of the rare sentences I have ever heard from his mouth proclaimed that you could take it or leave it. What did one have to take or leave?

As for me … Well, judge for yourself. By my stature, my shoulders, and this face

Knowing certain themes of Camus' novel, I find it quite interesting that Jean uses physicality, occupation, and anything prominent of first glance as an identification factor of someone. Kind of creates the initial nudge on how we base our identity/others on a constant forefront glance

I knew a pure heart who rejected distrust. He was a pacifist and libertarian and loved all humanity and the animals with an equal love. An exceptional soul, that’s certain. Well, during the last wars of religion in Europe he had retired to the country. He had written on his threshold: “Wherever you come from, come in and be welcome.” Who do you think answered that noble invitation? The militia, who made themselves at home and disemboweled him.

it’s kind of funny about how that’s life tends to be, how kindness of one can also be persevered as gullibility because it tends to be exploited by others…how kind of does it really even matter or care, does it really mean of value to anyone including yourself

I was on the right side; that was enough to satisfy my conscience. The feeling of the law, the satisfaction of being right, the joy of self-esteem, cher monsieur, are powerful incentives for keeping us upright or keeping us moving forward.

are we really helping others for the sake of others or is it really just selfish? is it really genuine , or in that nature knowing its rewards and awaiting its rewards in doing them turns them bogus

But you can already imagine my satisfaction. I enjoyed my own nature to the fullest, and we all know that there lies happiness, although, to soothe one another mutually, we occasionally pretend to condemn such joys as selfishness.

I derived constant pleasures from this—among them a sort of melancholy which occasionally rose within me at the thought of the sterility of those gifts and the probable ingratitude that would follow.

Yes, I have never felt comfortable except in lofty places. Even in the details of daily life, I needed to feel above.

this line is weirdly crazy but real to me. we got a higher-middle class man, known for his generosity, yet he only feels content when he’s confident and superior to his surroundings. he doesn’t care for the most extravagant surrounding, he cares for a surrounding which holds him different (non-derogatory) and the “appeal of him “ brings comfort

all decent people would get to thinking they themselves were constantly innocent, cher monsieur. And in my opinion—all right, all right, I’m coming!—that’s what must be avoided above all. Otherwise, everything would be just a joke.

It seemed to me that I was half unlearning what I had never learned and yet knew so well—how to live.

That we should be forced to establish it at home or in our factories—well, that’s natural; but boasting about it, that’s the limit!

Commanding is breathing—you agree with me? And even the most destitute manage to breathe. The lowest man in the social scale still has his wife or his child. If he’s unmarried, a dog. The essential thing, after all, is being able to get angry with someone who has no right to talk back.

Power, on the other hand, settles everything.

I have always wanted to be served with a smile. If the maid looked sad, she poisoned my days. She had a right not to be cheerful, to be sure. But I told myself that it was better for her to perform her service with a laugh than with tears. In fact, it was better for me.

I discovered something. When I would leave a blind man on the sidewalk to which I had convoyed him, I used to tip my hat to him. Obviously the hat tipping wasn’t intended for him, since he couldn’t see it. To whom was it addressed? To the public.

I was always bursting with vanity. I, I, I is the refrain of my whole life, which could be heard in everything I said.

Fundamentally, nothing mattered.

But basically I didn’t really take part in it except, of course, when my freedom was thwarted.

Still it took me some time to forget it, and that’s what counts.

The truth is that every intelligent man, as you know, dreams of being a gangster and of ruling over society by force alone.

after all, if by humiliating one’s mind one succeeds in dominating everyone? I discovered in myself sweet dreams of oppression.

You know what charm is: a way of getting the answer yes without having asked any clear question.

I loved them, according to the hallowed expression, which amounts to saying that I never loved any of them. I always considered misogyny vulgar and stupid, and almost all the women I have known seemed to me better than I. Nevertheless, setting them so high, I made use of them more often than I served them.

There was also the gambit of the mysterious happiness no other woman has ever given you; it may be a blind alley—indeed, it surely is (for one cannot protect oneself too much)—but it just happens to be unique.

another. But the oath they swore to me liberated me while it bound them.

one gets in the habit. Soon the speech comes without thinking and the reflex follows; and one day you find yourself taking without really desiring. Believe me, for certain men at least, not taking what one doesn’t desire is the hardest thing in the world.

The act of love, for instance, is a confession. Selfishness screams aloud, vanity shows off, or else true generosity reveals itself.

I told myself that the ideal solution would have been the death of the person I was interested in. Her death would, on the one hand, have definitively fixed our relationship and, on the other, removed its compulsion. But one cannot long for the death of everyone or, in the extreme, depopulate the planet in order to enjoy a freedom that cannot be imagined otherwise. My sensibility was opposed to this, and my love of mankind.

In short, for me to live happily it was essential for the creatures I chose not to live at all. They must receive their life, sporadically, only at my bidding.

shame sting a little? It does?

I say “my friends,” moreover, as a convention. I have no more friends; I have nothing but accomplices.

How do I know I have no friends? It’s very easy: I discovered it the day I thought of killing myself to play a trick on them, to punish them, in a way. But punish whom? Some would be surprised, and no one would feel punished. I realized I had no friends. Besides, even if I had had, I shouldn’t be any better off.

Men are never convinced of your reasons, of your sincerity, of the seriousness of your sufferings, except by your death. So long as you are alive, your case is doubtful; you have a right only to their skepticism.

he went back to the river—to forget, as he said. He was right; he forgot.

You think you are dying to punish your wife and actually you are freeing her.

Martyrs, cher ami, must choose between being forgotten, mocked, or made use of. As for being understood—never!

I love life—that’s my real weakness. I love it so much that I am incapable of imagining what is not life.

Today we are always ready to judge as we are to fornicate.

let’s not give them any pretext, no matter how small, for judging us! Otherwise, we’ll be left in shreds.

It was harder and more painful, on the other hand, to admit that I had enemies among people I hardly knew or didn’t know at all. I had always thought, with the ingenuousness I have already illustrated to you, that those who didn’t know me couldn’t resist liking me if they came to know me. Not at all! I encountered hostility especially among those who knew me only at a distance without my knowing them myself.

out? Your successes and happiness are forgiven you only if you generously consent to share them. But to be happy it is essential not to be too concerned with others. Consequently, there is no escape. Happy and judged, or absolved and wretched.

The day I was alerted I became lucid; I received all the wounds at the same time and lost my strength all at once. The whole universe then began to laugh at me.

That is what no man (except those who are not really alive—in other words, wise men) can endure.

We are all exceptional cases. We all want to appeal against something! Each of us insists on being innocent at all cost, even if he has to accuse the whole human race and heaven itself.

Therefore, if you are in that situation, don’t hesitate: promise to tell the truth and then lie as best you can. You will satisfy their hidden desire and doubly prove your affection.

This is so true that we rarely confide in those who are better than we.

We merely wish to be pitied and encouraged in the course we have chosen. In short, we should like, at the same time, to cease being guilty and yet not to make the effort of cleansing ourselves.

Then I realized, as a result of delving in my memory, that modesty helped me to shine, humility to conquer, and virtue to oppress.

A ridiculous fear pursued me, in fact: one could not die without having confessed all one’s lies.

What did one man’s lie matter in the history of generations?

In any case, the very word “justice” gave me strange fits of rage.