The Fall

by Albert Camus

Anyway, I have ceased to like anything but confessions, and authors of confessions write especially to avoid confessing, to tell nothing of what they know.

When they claim to get to the painful admissions, you have to watch out, for they are about to dress the corpse.

A hundred and fifty years ago, people became sentimental about lakes and forests. Today we have the lyricism of the prison cell.

Bare to the waist and covered with sweat, he drummed with his hands on the visible keyboard of his ribs.

empires and churches are born under the sun of death.

Not being sufficiently big-hearted to share my wealth with a deserving poor man, I left it at the disposal of possible thieves, hoping thus to correct injustice by chance.

Once upon a time, I was always talking of freedom. At breakfast I used to spread it on my toast, I used to chew it all day long, and in company my breath was delightfully redolent of freedom.

However, I have a superiority in that I know it and this gives me the right to speak. You see the advantage, I am sure. The more I accuse myself, the more I have a right to judge you. Even better, I provoke you into judging yourself, and this relieves me of that much of the burden.

And why should I change, since I have found the happiness that suits me? I have accepted duplicity instead of being upset about it.

How intoxicating to feel like God the Father and to hand out definitive testimonials of bad character and habits. I sit enthroned among my bad angels at the summit of the Dutch heaven and I watch ascending toward me, as they issue from the fogs and the water, the multitude of the Last Judgment.

But let’s not worry! It’s too late now. It will always be too late. Fortunately!