The Stranger

by Albert Camus

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.

When we had dressed, she stared at my black tie and asked if I was in mourning. I explained that my mother had died. “When?” she asked, and I said, “Yesterday.” She made no remark, though I thought she shrank away a little. I was just going to explain to her that it wasn’t my fault, but I checked myself, as I remembered having said the same thing to my employer, and realizing then it sounded rather foolish. Still, foolish or not, somehow one can’t help feeling a bit guilty, I suppose.

I decided not to lunch at Céleste’s restaurant as I usually did; they’d be sure to pester me with questions, and I dislike being questioned.

“You’re a young man,” he said, “and I’m pretty sure you’d enjoy living in Paris. And, of course, you could travel about France for some months in the year.” I told him I was quite prepared to go; but really I didn’t care much one way or the other. He then asked if a “change of life,” as he called it, didn’t appeal to me, and I answered that one never changed his way of life; one life was as good as another, and my present one suited me quite well.

As a student I’d had plenty of ambition of the kind he meant. But, when I had to drop my studies, I very soon realized all that was pretty futile.

Marie came that evening and asked me if I’d marry her. I said I didn’t mind; if she was keen on it, we’d get married.

Then she asked me again if I loved her. I replied, much as before, that her question meant nothing or next to ...

“If that’s how you feel,” she said, “why marry me?” I explained that it had no importance really, but, if it would give her pleasure, we could get married right away. I pointed out that, anyhow, the sugge...

Then she remarked that marriage was a serious matter. To whic...

“Suppose another girl had asked you to marry her—I mean, a girl you liked in the same way as you like me—would you have said ‘Yes’ to her, too?” “Naturally.”

“Don’t you want to know what I’m doing this evening?” I did want to know, but I hadn’t thought of asking her, and I guessed she was making a grievance of it. I must have looked embarrassed, for suddenly she started laughing and bent toward me, pouting her lips for a kiss.

Having nothing better to do, I followed her for a short distance.

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 an afterthought, had more or less desired the death of those they loved, at some time or another.

Once or twice I had a mind to assure him that I was just like everybody else; quite an ordinary person. But really that would have served no great purpose, and I let it go—out of laziness as much as anything else.

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.

“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.”

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.

“But why, why did you go on firing at a prostrate man?” Again I found nothing to reply.

“I ask you ‘Why?’ I insist on your telling me.” I still kept silent.

Of course, I realized it was absurd to feel like this, considering that, after all, it was I who was the criminal.

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 h...

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.

“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.

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…

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 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.

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 only oasis of silence was made by the young fellow and the old woman gazing into each other’s eyes.

Well, here, anyhow, I wasn’t penned in a hollow tree trunk. There were others in the world worse off than I. I remembered it had been one of Mother’s pet ideas—she was always voicing it—that in the long run one gets used to anything.

The jailer nodded. “Yes, you’re different, you can use your brains. The others can’t. Still, those fellows find a way out; they do it by themselves.” With which remark the jailer left my cell. Next day I did like the others.

So, what with long bouts of sleep, my memories, readings of that scrap of newspaper, the tides of light and darkness, the days slipped by. I’d read, of course, that in jail one ends up by losing track of time. But this had never meant anything definite to me. I hadn’t grasped how days could be at once long and short. Long, no doubt, as periods to live through, but so distended that they ended up by overlapping on each other. In fact, I never thought of days as such; only the words “yesterday” and “tomorrow” still kept some meaning.

When, one morning, the jailer informed me I’d now been six months in jail, I believed him—but the words conveyed nothing to my mind. To me it seemed like one and the same day that had been going on since I’d been in my cell, and that I’d been doing the same thing all the time.

For the nth time I was asked to give particulars of my identity and, though heartily sick of this formality, I realized that it was natural enough; after all, it would be a shocking thing for the court to be trying the wrong man.

Céleste turned and gazed at me. His eyes were moist and his lips trembling. It was exactly as if he’d said: “Well, I’ve done my best for you, old man. I’m afraid it hasn’t helped much. I’m sorry.” I didn’t say anything, or make any movement, but for the first time in my life I wanted to kiss a man.

And so I learned that familiar paths traced in the dusk of summer evenings may lead as well to prisons as to innocent, untroubled sleep.

I must admit that hearing oneself talked about loses its interest very soon.

I noticed that he laid stress on my “intelligence.” It puzzled me rather why what would count as a good point in an ordinary person should be used against an accused man as an overwhelming proof of his guilt.

Of course, I had to own that he was right; I didn’t feel much regret for what I’d done.

have a chance of explaining to him, in a quite friendly, almost affectionate way, that I have never been able really to regret anything in all my life.

I’ve always been far too much absorbed in the present moment, or the immediat...

that I lost the thread and was conscious only of the steadily increasing heat.

And then a rush of memories went through my mind—memories of a life which was mine no longer and had once provided me with the surest, humblest pleasures: warm smells of summer, my favorite streets, the sky at evening, Marie’s dresses and her laugh.

How had I failed to recognize that nothing was more important than an execution; that, viewed from one angle, it’s the only thing that can genuinely interest a man? And I decided that, if ever I got out of jail, I’d attend every execution that took place.

For, the moment I’d pictured myself in freedom, standing behind a double rank of policemen—on the right side of the line, so to speak—the mere thought of being an onlooker who comes to see the show, and can go home and vomit afterward, flooded my mind with a wild, absurd exultation.

It came to this; the man under sentence was obliged to collaborate mentally, it was in his interest that all should go off without a hitch.

Mother used to say that however miserable one is, there’s always something to be thankful for. And each morning, when the sky brightened and light began to flood my cell, I agreed with her.

“But,” I reminded myself, “it’s common knowledge that life isn’t worth living, anyhow.”