5
For the third time I've refused to see the chaplain. I
don't have anything to say to him; I don't feel like
talking, and I'll be seeing him soon enough as it is. All
care about right now is escaping the machinery ofI
justice, seeing if there's any way out of the inevitable.
They've put me in a different cell. From this one, when
I'm stretched out on my bunk, I see the sky and that's
all I see. I spend my days watching how the dwindling
of color turns day into night. Lying here, I put my
hands behind my head and wait. I can't count the times
I've wondered if there have ever been any instances of
condemned men escaping the relentless machinery, dis
appearing before the execution or breaking through the
cordon of police. Then I blame myself every time for
not having paid enough attention to accounts of execu
tions. A man should always take an interest in those
things. You never know what might happen. I'd read
stories in the papers like everybody else. But there must
have been books devoted to the subject that I'd never
been curious enough to look into. Maybe I would have
found some accounts of escapes in them. I might have
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discovered that in at least one instance the wheel had
stopped, that in spite of all the unrelenting calculation,
chance and luck had, at least once, changed something.
Just once! In a way, I think that would have been
enough. My heart would have taken over from there.
The papers were always talking about the debt owed to
society. According to them, it had to be paid. But that
doesn't speak to the imagination. What really counted
was the possibility of escape, a leap to freedom, out of
the implacable ritual, a wild run for it that would give
whatever chance for hope there was. Of course, hope
meant being cut down on some street comer, as you ran
like mad, by a random bullet. But when I really thought
it through, nothing was going to allow me such a luxury.
Everything was against it; I would just be caught up in
the machinery again.
Despite my willingness to understand, I just couldn't
accept such arrogant certainty. Because, after all, there
really was something ridiculously out of proportion be
tween the verdict such certainty was based on and the
imperturbable march of events from the moment the
verdict was announced. The fact that the sentence had
been read at eight o'clock at night and not at five o'clock,
the fact that it could have been an entirely different
one, the fact that it had been decided by men who change
their underwear, the fact that it had been handed down
in the name of some vague notion called the French (or
German, or Chinese) people-all of it seemed to de
tract from the seriousness of the decision. I was forced
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to admit, however, that from the moment it had been
passed its· consequences became as real and as serious
as the wall against which I pressed the length of my
body.
At times like this I remembered a story Maman used
to tell me about my father. I never knew him . Maybe
the only thing I did know about the man was the story
Maman would tell me back then : he'd gone to watch a
murderer be executed. Just the thought of going had
made him sick to his stomach. But he went anyway,
and when he came back he spent half the morning
throwing up. I remember feeling a little disgusted by
him at the time. But now I understood, it was perfectly
normal. How had I not seen that there was nothing
more important than an execution, and that when you
come right down to it, it was the only thing a man
could truly be interested in? If I ever got out of this
prison I would go and watch every execution there was.
But I think it was a mistake even to consider the pos
sibility. Because at the thought that one fine morning I
would find myself a free man standing behind a cordon
of police--on the outside, as it were-at the thought
of being the spectator who comes to watch and then can
go and throw up afterwards, a wave of poisoned joy rose
in my throat. But I wasn't being reasonable. It was a
mistake to let myself get carried away by such imaginings,
because the next minute I would get so cold that I would
curl up into a ball under my blanket and my teeth would
be chattering and I couldn't make them stop.
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But naturally, you can't always be reasonable. At
other times, for instance, I would make up new laws. I
would reform the penal code. I'd realized that the most
important thing was to give the condemned man a
chance. Even one in a thousand was good enough to
set things right. So it seemed to me that you could come
up with a mixture of chemicals that if ingested by the
patient (that's the word I'd use : "patient") would kill
him nine times out of ten. But he would know this
that would be the one condition. For by giving it some
hard thought, by considering the whole thing calmly, I
could see that the trouble with the guillotine was that
you had no chance at all, absolutely none. The fact was
that it had been decided once and for all that the patient
was to die. It was an open-and-shut case, a fixed arrange
ment, a tacit agreement that there was no question of
going back on. If by some extraordinary chance the
blade failed, they would just start over. So the thing
that bothered me most was that the condemned man
had to hope the machine would work the first time. And
I say that's wrong. And in a way I was right. But in
another way I was forced to admit that that was the
whole secret of good organization. In other words, the
condemned man was forced into a kind of moral col
laboration . It was in his interest that everything go off
without a hitch.
I was also made to see that until that moment I'd had
mistaken ideas about these things. For a long time I
believed-and I don't know why-that to get to the
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guillotine you had to climb stairs onto a scaffold. I think
it was because of the French Revolution-! mean, be
cause of everything I'd been taught or shown about it.
But one morning I remembered seeing a photograph that
appeared in the papers at the time of a much-talked-about
execution. In reality, the machine was set up right on
the ground, as simple as you please. It was much
narrower than I'd thought. It was funny I'd never
noticed that before. I'd been struck by this picture be
cause the guillotine looked like such a precision in
strument, perfect and gleaming. You always get exag
gerated notions of things you don't know anything about.
I was made to see that contrary to what I thought,
everything was very simple: the guillotine is on the
same level as the man approaching it. He walks up to
it the way you walk up to another person. That bothered
me too. Mounting the scaffold, going right up into the
sky, was something the imagination could hold on to.
vVhereas, once again, the machine destroyed everything :
you were killed discreetly, with a little shame and with
great precision.
There were two other things I was always thinking
about : the dawn and my appeal. I would reason with
myself, though , and try not to think about them any
more. I would stretch out, look at the sky, and force
myself to find something interesting about it. It would
turn green : that was evening. I would make another
effort to divert my thoughts. I would listen to my heart
beat. I couldn't imagine that this sound which had been
with me for so long could ever stop. I've never really
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had much of an imagination. But still I would try to
picture the exact moment when the beating of my
heart would no longer be going on inside my head. But
i t was no use. The dawn or my appeal would still be
there. I would end up telling myself that the most
rational thing was not to hold myself back.
They always came at dawn, I knew that. And so I
spent my nights waiting for that dawn. I've never liked
being surprised. If something is going to happen to me,
I want to be there. That's why I ended up sleeping only
a little bit during the day and then, all night long, waited
patiently for the first light to show on the pane of sky.
The h ardest time was that uncertain hour when I knew
they usually set to work. After midnight, I would wait
and watch . .My ears had never heard so many noises or
picked up such small sounds. One thing I can say,
though, is that in a certain way I was lucky that whole
time, since I never heard footsteps. Maman used to say
that you can always find something to be happy about.
In my prison, when the sky turned red and a new day
slipped into my cell, I found out that she was right.
Because I might just as easily have heard footsteps and
my heart could have burst. Even though I would rush
to the door at the slightest shuffie, even though, with
my ear pressed to the wood, I would wait frantically
until I heard the sound of my own breathing, terrified
to find it so hoarse, like a dog's panting, my heart would
not burst after all, and I would have gained another
twenty-four hours.
All day long there was the thought of my appeal. I
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think I got everything out of it that I could. I would
assess my holdings and get the maximum return on my
thoughts. I would always begin by assuming the wors t :
m y appeal was denied. "Well, so I'm going to die."
Sooner than other people will, obviously. But everybody
knows life isn't worth living. Deep down I knew per
fectly well that it doesn't much matter whether you
die at thirty or at seventy, since in either case other
men and women will naturally go on living-and for
thousands of years. In fact, nothing could be clearer.
Whether it was now or twenty years from now, I would
still be the one dying. At that point, what would disturb
my train of thought was the terrifying leap I would feel
my heart take at the idea of having twenty more years of
life ahead of me. But I simply had to stifle it by im
agining what I'd be thinking in twenty years when it
would all come down to the same thing anyway. Since
we're all going to die, it's obvious that when and
how don't matter. Therefore (and the difficult thing
was not to lose sight of all the reasoning that went into
this "therefore") , I had to accept the rejection of my
appeal.
Then and only then would I have the right, so to
speak-would I give myself permission , as it were-to
consider the alternative hypothesis : I was pardoned. The
trouble was that I would somehow have to cool the hot
blood that would suddenly surge through my body and
sting my eyes with a delirious joy. It would take all my
strength to quiet my heart, to be rational. In order to
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make my resignation to the first hypothesis more plau
sible, I had to be level-headed about this one as well.
If I succeeded, I gained an hour of calm. That was
something anyway.
It was at one such moment that I once again refused
to see the chaplain . I was lying down, and I could tell
from the golden glow in the sky that evening was
coming on. I had just denied my appeal and I could
feel the steady pulse of my blood circulating inside me.
I didn't need to see the chaplain. For the first time in
a long time I thought about Marie. The days had been
long since she'd stopped writing. That evening I thought
about it and told myself that maybe she had gotten
tired of being the girlfriend of a condemned man. It also
occurred to me that maybe she was sick, or dead. These
things happen. How was I to know, since apart from our
two bodies, now separated, there wasn't anything to
keep us together or even to remind us of each other?
Anyway, after that, remembering Marie meant nothing
to me. I wasn't interested in her dead. That seemed
perfectly normal to me, since I understood very well
that people would forget me when I was dead. They
wouldn't have anything more to do with me . I wasn't
even able to tell myself that it was hard to think those
things.
It was at that exact moment that the chaplain carne
in. When I saw him I felt a little shudder go through me.
He noticed it and told me not to be afraid. I told him
that it wasn't his usual time. He replied that it was just
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a friendly visit and had nothing to do with my appeal,
which he knew nothing about. He sat down on my bunk
and invited me to sit next to him. I refused. All the
same, there was something very gentle about him.
He sat there for a few seconds, leaning forward,
with his elbows on his knees, looking at his hands. They
were slender and sinewy and they reminded me of two
nimble animals. He slowly rubbed one against the other.
Then he sat there, leaning forward like that, for so long
that for an instant I seemed to forget he was there.
But suddenly he raised his head and looked straight
at me. "Why have you refused to see me?" he asked. I
said that I didn't believe in God. He wanted to know if
I was sure and I said that I didn't see any reason to ask
myself that question : it seemed unimportant. He then
leaned back against the wall, hands Bat on his thighs. .
Almost as if it wasn't me he was talking to, he remarked
that sometimes we think we're sure when in fact we're
not. I didn't say anything. He looked at me and asked,
"What do you think?" I said it was possible. In any
case, I may not have been sure about what really did
interest me, but I was absolutely sure about what didn't.
And it just so happened that what he was talking about
didn't interest me.
He looked away and without moving asked me if I
wasn't talking that way out of extreme despair. I ex
plained to him that I wasn't desperate. I was just afraid,
which was only natural. "Then God can help you," he
said. "Every man I have known in your position has
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turned to Him." I acknowledged that that was their right.
It also meant that they must have had the time for it. As
for me, I didn't want anybody's help, and I just didn't
have the time to interest myself in what didn't interest
me.
At that point he threw up his hands in annoyance
but then sat forward and smoothed out the folds of his
cassock. When he had finished he started in again, ad
dressing me as "my friend." If he was talking to me this
way, it wasn't because I was condemned to die; the way
he saw it, we were all condemned to die. But I interrupted
him by saying that it wasn't the same thing and that
sides, it wouldn't be a consolation anyway. "Certainly,"
he agreed . "But if you don't die today, you'll die to
morrow, or the next day. And then the same question
will arise. How will you face that terrifying ordeal?" I
said I would face it exactly as I was facing it now.
At that he stood up and looked me straight in the
eye. It was a game I knew well. I played it a lot with
Emmanuel and Celeste and usually they were the ones
who looked away. The chaplain knew the game well
too, I could tell right away : his gaze never faltered.
And his voice didn't falter, either, when he said, "Have
you no hope at all? And do you really live with the
thought that when you die, you die, and nothing re
mains?" "Yes," I said.
Then he lowered his head and sat back down. He
told me that he pitied me. He thought it was more than
a man could bear. I didn't feel anything except that he
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was beginning to annoy me. Then I turned away and
went and stood under the skylight. I leaned my shoulder
against the wall. Without really following what he
was saying, I heard him start asking me questions
again. He was talking in an agitated, urgent voice. I
could see that he was genuinely upset, so I listened
more closely.
He was expressing his certainty that my appeal would
be granted, but I was carrying the burden of a sin from
which I had to free myself. According to him, human
justice was nothing and divine justice was everything. I
pointed out that it was the former that had condemned
me. His response was that it hadn't washed away my sin
for all that. I told him I didn't know what a sin was.
they had told me was that I was guilty. I wasAll
guilty, I was paying for it, and nothing more could be
asked of me. At that point he stood up again, and the
thought occurred to me that in such a narrow cell, if
he wanted to move around he didn't have many options.
He could either sit down or stand up.
I was staring at the ground. He took a step toward me
and stopped, as if he didn't dare come any closer. He
looked at the sky through the bars. "You're wrong, my
son," he said. "More could be asked of you. And it may
be asked." "And what's that?" "You could be asked to
see." "See what?'
The priest gazed around my cell and answered in a
voice that sounded very weary to me. "Every stone here
sweats with suffering, I know that. I have never looked
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at them without a feeling of anguish. But deep in my
heart I know that the most wretched among you have
seen a divine face emerge from their darkness. That is
the face you are asked to see."
This perked me up a li ttle . I said I had been looking
at the stones in these walls for months. There wasn't
anything or anyone in the world I knew better. M aybe
at one time, way back, I had searched for a face in them.
But the face I was looking for was as bright as the sun
and the flame of desire-and it belonged to Marie. I had
searched for it in vain. Now it was all over. And in any
case, I 'd never seen anything emerge from any sweat
ing stones.
The chaplain looked at me with a kind of sadness. I
now had my back flat against the wall, and light was
streaming over my forehead. He muttered a few words
I didn't catch and abruptly asked if he could embrace
me. "No," I said. He turned and walked over to the wall
and slowly ran his hand over it. "Do you really love this
earth as much as all that?" he murmured. I didn't
answer.
He stood there with his back to me for quite a long
time. His presence was grating and oppressive. I was
just about to tell him to go, to leave me alone, when all
of a sudden, turning toward me, he burst out, "No, I
refuse to believe you! I know that at one time or another
you've wished for another life." I said of course I had,
but it didn't mean any more than wishing to be rich,
to be able to swim faster, or to have a more nicely shaped
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mouth. It was all the same. But he stopped me and
wanted to know how I pictured this other life. Then I
shouted at him, "One where I could remember this
life!" and that's when I told him I'd had enough . He
wanted to talk to me about God again, but I went up
to him and made one last attempt to explain to him that
I had only a little time left and I didn't want to waste
on God. He tried to change the subject by askingit
me why I was calling him "monsieur" and not "father."
That got me mad, and I told him he wasn't my father;
he wasn't even on my side.
"Yes, my son," he said, putting his hand on my
shoulder, "I am on your side. But you have no way of
knowing it, because your heart is blind. I shall pray for
you."
Then, I don't know why, but something inside me
snapped. I started yelling at the top of my lungs, and I
insulted him and told him not to waste his prayers on me.
I grabbed him by the collar of his cassock. I was pour
ing out on him everything that was in my heart, cries of
anger and cries of joy. He seemed so certain about every
thing, didn't he? And yet none of his certainties was
worth one hair of a woman's head. He wasn't even sure
he was alive, because he was living like a dead man.
Whereas it looked as if I was the one who'd come
up emptyhanded. But I was sure about me, about
everything, surer than he could ever be, sure of my life
and sure of the death I had waiting for me. Yes, that
was all I had . But at least I had as much of a hold on
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it as it had on me . I had been right, I was still right, I was
always right. I had lived my life one way and I could
just as well have lived it another. I had done this and I
hadn't done that. I hadn't done this thing but I had done
another. And so? It was as if I had waited all this time
for this moment and for the first light of this dawn to
be vindicated. Nothing, nothing mattered , and I knew
why. So did he. Throughout the whole absurd life I'd
lived, a dark wind had been rising toward me from
somewhere deep in my future, across years that were
still to come, and as it passed, this wind leveled whatever
was offered to me at the time, in years no more real than
the ones I was living. What did other people's deaths
or a mother's love matter to me; what did his God or the
lives people choose or the fate they think they elect
matter to me when we're all elected by the same fate,
me and billions of privileged people like him who also
called themselves my brothers? Couldn't he see, couldn't
he see that? Everybody was privileged. There were only
privileged people. The others would all be condemned
one day. And he would be condemned, too. What would
it matter if he were accused of murder and then executed
because he didn't cry at his mother's funeral? Sala
mano's dog was worth just as much as his wife. The
little robot woman was just as guilty as the Parisian
woman M asson married, or as Marie, who had wanted
me to marry her. What did it matter that Raymond was
as much my friend as Celeste, who was worth a lot more
than him? What did it matter that Marie now offered
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her lips to a new Meursault? Couldn't he, couldn't this
condemned man see . . . And that from somewhere deep
in my future . . . All the shouting had me gasping for
air. But they were already tearing the chaplain from my
grip and the guards were threatening me. He calmed
them, though, and looked at me for a moment without
saying anything. His eyes were full of tears. Then he
turned and disappeared.
With him gone, I was able to calm down again . I
was exhausted and threw myself on my bunk. I must
have fallen asleep, because I woke up with the stars in
my face. Sounds of the countryside were drifting in.
Smells of night, earth , and salt air were cooling my
temples. The wondrous peace of that sleeping summer
Rowed through me like a tide. Then, in the dark hour
before dawn, sirens blasted. They were announcing
departures for a world that now and forever meant noth
ing to me. For the first time in a long time I thought
about Maman. I felt as if I understood why at the end
of her life she had taken a "fiance," why she had
played at beginning again. Even there, in that home
where lives were fading out, evening was a kind of wist
ful respite. So close to death, Maman must have felt
free then and ready to live it all again. Nobody, nobody
had the right to cry over her. And I felt ready to live i t
all again too. As if that blind rage had washed m e clean,
rid me of hope; for the first time, in that night alive with
signs and stars, I opened myself to the gentle indifference
of the world. Finding it so much like myself-so like a
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brother, really-! felt that I had been happy and that I
was happy again. For everything to be consummated, for
me to feel less alone, I had only to wish that there be a
large crowd of spectators the day of my execution and
that they greet me with cries of hate.
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