3
I worked hard at the office today. The boss was nice. He
asked me if I wasn't too tired and he also wanted to
know Maman's age. I said, "About sixty," so as not to
make a mistake; and I don't know why, but he seemed
to be relieved somehow and to consider the matter
closed.
There was a stack of freight invoices that had piled
up on my desk, and I had to go through them all . Before
leaving the office to go to lunch, I washed my hands. I
really like doing this at lunchtime. I don't enjoy it so
much in the evening, because the roller towel you use
is soaked through : one towel has to last all day. I men
tioned it once to my boss. He told me he was sorry but
it was really a minor detail. I left a little late, at half past
twelve, with Emmanuel, who works as a dispatcher. The
office overlooks the sea, and we took a minute to watch
the freighters in the harbor, which was ablaze with sun
light. Then a truck came toward us with its chains
rattling and its engine backfiring. Emmanuel said, "How
'bout it?" and I started running. The truck passed us and
we ran after it. I was engulfed by the noise and the dust.
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I couldn't see anything, and all I was conscious of was
the sensation of hurtling forward in a mad dash through
cranes and winches, masts bobbing on the horizon and
the hulls of ships alongside us as we ran. I was first to
grab hold and take a Hying leap. Then I reached out
and helped Emmanuel scramble up. We were out of
breath; the truck was bumping around on the uneven
cobblestones of the quay in a cloud of dust and sun.
Emmanuel was laughing so hard he could hardly breathe.
We arrived at Celeste's dripping with sweat. Celeste
was there, as always, with his big belly, his apron, and his
white moustache. He asked me if things were "all right
now." I told him yes they were and said I was hungry. I
ate fast and had some coffee. Then I went home and
slept for a while because I'd drunk too much wine, and
when I woke up I felt like having a smoke. It was late
and I ran to catch a streetcar. I worked all afternoon. It
got very hot in the office, and that evening, when I
left, I was glad to walk back slowly along the docks. The
sky was green; I felt good. But I went straight home
because I wanted to boil myself some potatoes.
On my way upstairs, in the dark, I ran into old
Salamano, my neighbor across the landing. He was with
his dog. The two of them have been inseparable for
eight years. The spaniel has a skin disease-mange, I
think-which makes almost all its hair fall out and
leaves it covered with brown sores and scabs. After
living together for so long, the two of them alone in one
tiny room, they've ended up looking like each other. Old
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Salamano has reddish scabs on his face and wispy yellow
hair. As for the dog, he's sort of taken on his master's
stooped look, muzzle down, neck straining. They look as
if they belong to the same species, and yet they hate each
other. Twice a day, at eleven and six, the old man takes
the dog out for a walk. They haven't changed their route
in eight years. You can see them in the rue de Lyon, the
dog pulling the man along until old Salamano stumbles.
Then he beats the dog and swears at it. The dog cowers
and trails behind. Then it's the old man who pulls the
dog. Once the dog has forgotten, i t starts dragging its
master along again, and again gets beaten and sworn at.
Then they both stand there on the sidewalk and stare at
each other, the dog in terror, the man in hatred. I t's the
same thing every day. When the dog wants to urinate,
the old man won't give him enough time and yanks at
him, so that the spaniel leaves behind a trail of little
drops. If the dog has an accident in the room, it gets
beaten again. This has been going on for eight years.
Celeste is always saying, "It's pitiful," but really, who's
to say? When I ran into him on the stairs, Salamano was
swearing away at the dog. He was saying, "Filthy, stink
ing bastard!" and the dog was whimpering. I said "Good
evening," but the old man just went on cursing. So I
asked him what the dog had done. He didn ' t answer.
All he said was "Filthy, stinking bastard!" I could barely
see him leaning over his dog, trying to fix something on
its collar. I spoke louder. Then, without turning around,
he answered with a kind of suppressed rage, "He's always
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there." Then he left, yanking at the animal, which was
letting itself be dragged along, whimpering.
Just then my other neighbor carne in. The word
around the neighborhood is that he lives off women. But
when you ask him what he does, he's a "warehouse
guard." Generally speaking, he's not very popular. But
he often talks to me and sometimes stops by my place for
a minute, because I listen to him. I find what he.has to
say interesting. Besides, I don't have any reason not to
talk to him. His name is Raymond Sintes. He's a little
on the short side, with broad shoulders and a nose like
a boxer's. He always dresses very sharp. And once he
said to me, talking about Salarnano, "If that isn't pitiful !"
He asked me didn't I think it was disgusting and I said
no.
We went upstairs and I was about to leave him when
he said, "I've got some blood sausage and some wine at
my place. How about joining me?" I figured it would save
me the trouble of having to cook for myself, so I ac
cepted . He has only one room too, and a little kitchen
with no window. Over his bed he has a pink-and-white
plaster angel, some pictures of famous athletes, and
two or three photographs of naked women. The room
was dirty and the bed was unmade. First he lit his
paraffin lamp, then he took a pretty dubious-looking
bandage out of his pocket and wrapped it around his
right hand. I asked him what he'd done to it. He said
he'd been in a fight with some guy who was trying to
start trouble.
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"You see, Monsieur Meursault," he said, "it's not that
I'm a bad guy, butl have a short fuse. This guy says to
me, 'If you're man enough you'll get down off that
streetcar.' I said, 'C'mon, take it easy.' Then he said,
'You're yellow.' So I got off and I said to him, 'I think
you better stop right there or I'm gonna have to teach
you a lesson .' And he said, 'You and who else?' So I
let him have it. He went down. I was about to help him
up but he started kicking me from there on the ground .
So I kneed him one and slugged him a couple of times.
His face was all bloody. I asked him if he'd had enough.
He said, 'Yes.' " All this time, Sintes was fiddling with
his bandage. I was sitting on the bed. He said, "So you
see, I wasn't the one who started it. He was asking for
i t . " It was true and I agreed. Then he told me that as a
matter of fact he wanted to ask my advice about the
whole business, because I was a man, I knew about
things, I could help him out, and then we'd be pals. I
didn' t say anything, and he asked me again if I wanted
to be pals. I said it was fine with me: he seemed pleased.
He got out the blood sausage, fried it up, and set out
glasses, plates, knives and forks, and two bottles of wine.
All this in silence. Then we sat down. As we ate, he
started telling me his story. He '>vas a little hesitant a t
first. " I knew this lady . . . as a matter o f fact, well, she
was my mistress ." The man he'd had the fight with was
this woman's brother. He told me he'd been keeping
her. I didn't say anything, and yet righ t away he added
that he knew what people around the neighborhood
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were saying, but that his conscience was clear and tha t
he was a warehouse guard.
'To get back to what I was saying," he continued,
"I realized that she was cheating on me." He'd been
giving her just enough to live on. He paid the rent on
her room and gave her twenty francs a day for food.
"Three hundred francs for the room, six hundred for
food, a pair of stockings every now and then-that made
it a thousand francs. And Her Highness refused to work.
But she was always telling me that things were too tight,
that she couldn't get by on what I was giving her. And
I'd say to her, 'Why not work half-days? You'd be helping
me out on all the little extras. I bought you a new outfit
just this month, I give you twenty francs a day, I pay
your rent, and what do you do? . . . You have coffee in
the afternoons with your friends. You even provide the
coffee and sugar. And me, I provide the money. I've been
good to you, and this is how you repay me.' But she
wouldn't work; she just kept on telling me she couldn't
make ends meet-and that's what made me realize she
was cheating on me."
Then he told me that he'd found a lottery ticket in
her purse and she hadn't been able to explain how she
paid for it. A short time later he'd found a ticket from the
shop in Mont-de-Piete in her room which proved that
she'd pawned two bracelets. Until then he hadn't even
known the bracelets existed. "It was clear that she was
cheating on me. So I left her. But first I smacked her
around. And then I told her exactly what I thought of
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her. I told her that all she was interested in was getting
into the sack. You see, Monsieur Meursault, it's like I
told her: 'You don't realize that everybody's jealous of
how good you have it with me. Someday you'll know just
how good it was.' "
He'd beaten her till she bled. He'd never beaten her
before. ''I'd smack her around a little, but nice-like, you
might say. She'd scream a little. I'd close the shutters
and it always ended the same way. But this time it's
for real. And if you ask me, she still hasn't gotten what
she has corning."
Then he explained that that was what he needed
advice about. He stopped to adjust the lamp's wick,
which was smoking. I just listened. I'd drunk close to a
liter of wine and my temples were burning. I was
smoking Raymond's cigarettes because I'd run out. The
last streetcars were going by, taking the now distant
sounds of the neighborhood with them. Raymond went
on. What bothered him was that he "still had sexual
feelings for her." But he wanted to punish her. First
he'd thought of taking her to a hotel and calling the
vice squad to cause a scandal and have her listed as a
common prostitute. After that he'd looked up some of his
underworld friends. But they didn't come up with any
thing. As Raymond pointed out to me, a lot of good it
does being in the underworld. He'd said the same thing
to them, and then they'd suggested "marking" her. But
that wasn't what he wanted. He was going to think
about it. But first he wanted to ask me something. Be-
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fore he did, though, he wanted to know what I thought
of the whole thing. I said I didn't think anything but
that it was interesting. He asked if I thought she was
cheating on him, and it seemed to me she was; if I
thought she should be punished and what I would do
in his place, and I said you can't ever be sure, but I
understood his wanting to punish her. I drank a little
more wine. He lit a cigarette and let me in on what he
was thinking about doing. He wanted to write her a
letter, "one with a punch and also some things in it to
make her sorry for what she's done." Then, when she
carne running back, he'd go to bed with her and "right
at the last minute" he'd spit in her face and throw her
out. Yes, that would punish her, I thought. But Ray
mond told me he didn't think he could write the kind
of letter it would take and that he'd thought of asking
me to write it for him. Since I didn't say anything, he
asked if I'd mind doing it right then and I said no.
He downed a glass of wine and then stood up. He
pushed aside the plates and the little bit of cold sausage
we'd left. He carefully wiped the oilcloth covering the
table. Then from a drawer in his night table he took out
a sheet of paper, a yellow envelope, a small red pen box,
and a square bottle with purple ink in it. When he told
me the woman's name I realized she was Moorish. I
wrote the letter. I did it just as it came to me, but I
tried my best to please Raymond because I didn't have
any reason not to please him. Then I read it out loud. He
listened, smoking and nodding his head; then he asked
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me to read it again. He was very pleased. He said, "I
could tell you knew about these things." I didn't notice
at first, but he had stopped calling me "monsieur." I t
was only when h e announced "Now you're a pal,
l\lleursault" and said it again that it struck me. He re·
peated his remark and I said, "Yes." I didn't mind being
his pal, and he seemed set on it. He sealed the letter
and we finished off the wine. Then we sat and smoked
for a while without saying anything. Outside, every·
thing was quiet; we heard the sound of a car passing. I
said, "It's late." Raymond thought so too. He remarked
how quickly the time passed, and in a way it was true .
I felt sleepy, but it was hard for me to get up . I must
have looked tired, because Raymond told me not to let
things get to me. At first I didn't understand. Then he
explained that he'd heard about l\llaman's death but
that it was one of those things that was bound to happen
sooner or later. I thought so too.
I got up. Raymond gave me a very firm handshake
and said that men always understand each other. I left
his room, closing the door behind me, and paused for a
minute in the dark, on the landing. The house was
quiet, and a breath of dark, dank air wafted up from
deep in the stairwell. All I could hear was the blood
pounding in my ears. I stood there, motionless. And in
old Salamano's room, the dog whimpered softly.
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