He had nothing to do, and his time stretched out, measureless, before him. Each minute recovered its miraculous value, but he did not yet recognize it for what it was. Just as the days of a journey seem interminable whereas in an office the trajectory from Monday occurs in a flash, so Mersault, stripped of all his props, still tried to locate them in a life which had nothing but itself to consider. Sometimes he picked up his watch and stared as the minute hand shifted from one number to the next, marveling that five minutes should seem so interminable. Doubtless that watch opened the way—a
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