The Stranger

by Albert Camus

The sky was already a blaze of light, and the air stoking up rapidly.

It occurred to me that somehow I’d got through another Sunday, that Mother now was buried, and tomorrow I’d be going back to work as usual. Really, nothing in my life had changed.

changed his way of life; one life was as good as another, and my present one suited me quite well.

she was always voicing it—that in the long run one gets used to anything.

I couldn’t imagine that this faint throbbing which had been with me for so long would ever cease.

Mother used to say that however miserable one is, there’s always something to be thankful for.

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

I said I saw no point in troubling my head about the matter; whether I believed or didn’t was, to my mind, a question of so little importance.

“No! No! I refuse to believe it. I’m sure you’ve often wished there was an afterlife.” Of course I had, I told him. Everybody has that wish at times. But that had no more importance than wishing to be rich, or to swim very fast, or to have a better- shaped mouth. It was in the same order of things. I was going on in the same vein, when he cut in with a question. How did I picture the life after the grave?