occasion he triumphed over Bingues, who lacked imagination. During the war, when Bingues pledged
several hundred thousand francs for a national bond drive, Morales had declared: “I’ll do better than that, I’ll give my son.” And he had made his son, who was too young to be mobilized, volunteer. In 1925,
Bingues had driven out from Algiers in a magnificent racing Bugatti; two weeks later, Morales had built
himself a hangar and bought a plane. The plane was still sleeping in
its hangar, and was shown to visitors on Sundays. Bingues called Morales “that barefoot beggar,” and Morales referred to Bingues as “that lime kiln.”
Bernard took Mersault to visit Morales, who welcomed them warmly to his huge farm, humming with
wasps and fragrant with grapes. Wearing es-padrilles and shirtsleeves because he could not endure a
jacket and shoes, Morales showed them the airplane, the son’s medal framed in the living room, and
explained the necessity of keeping foreigners out of Algeria (he was naturalized, “but that Bingues, for instance . . .”), then led them to inspect his latest acquisition. They walked through an enormous vineyard in the middle of which was a cleared space where a kind of Louis XV salon had been set up, each piece
made of the most precious woods and fabrics. Thus Morales could receive visitors on his grounds. When
Mersault courteously asked what happened when it rained, Morales shifted his cigar and without even
blinking answered: “I replace it.” On his way home, Mersault spent the time arguing with Bernard over the difference between the nouveau riche and the poet. Morales, according to Bernard, was a poet.
Mersault declared he would have made a splendid Roman emperor during the decline.
Some time later, Lucienne came to the Chenoua for a few days, then left. One Sunday morning, Claira,
Rose, and Catherine paid Mersault a visit, as they had promised. But Patrice was already very far
from the state of mind that had driven him to Algiers during the first days of his retreat. He was glad to
see them again, nevertheless, and brought Bernard to meet them at the stop where the big yellow bus let
them off. It was a magnificent day, the village full of the fine red carts of itinerant butchers, flowers
everywhere, and the villagers dressed in bright colors. At Catherine’s request they took a table at the cafe, and the girls marveled at all this brilliant life, divining the sea’s presence behind the wall they leaned
against. As they were leaving, an astonishing burst of music exploded in a nearby street: the toreador song
from Carmen, but performed with an exuberance that prevented the instruments from keeping in tune or time. “The gymnastic society,” Bernard explained. Then some twenty strange musicians appeared, each puffing on a different kind of wind instrument. They marched toward the cafe, and behind them, his hat
worn over a handkerchief on the back of his head, fanning himself with a cheap fan, appeared Morales.
He had hired these musicians in the city because, as he explained, “With this depression, life around here is too sad.” He sat down at a table and grouped the musicians around him, where they finished their
rendition. The cafe was crowded. Then Morales stood up and announced with tremendous dignity,
making a sweeping movement toward the audience: “At my request, the orchestra will play ‘Toreador’
again.” As they left, the girls were choking with laughter,
but once they reached Mersault’s house and the cool shade of the rooms, which emphasized the dazzling
whiteness of the sun-drenched garden walls, they discovered a silent harmony that Catherine expressed by
the desire to take a sunbath on the terrace. Mersault walked Bernard home. This was the second time the
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doctor had glimpsed something of Mersault’s life; they had never confided in each other, Mersault conscious that Bernard was not a happy man, and Bernard rather baffled by Mersault’s way of life. They
parted without a word. Mersault and the girls decided to make an excursion the following day, starting
very early. The Chenoua was high and difficult to climb—ahead of them lay a splendid day of sunlight
and fatigue.
At dawn they climbed the first steep slopes. Rose and Claire walked ahead, Patrice and Catherine
following. No one spoke. Gradually they rose above the sea, still pale in the morning mist. Patrice felt he
belonged to the mountain, with its pelt of saffron blossoms, his eager but weakening body a part of the
icy springs, the shadows, and the sunlight. They entered into the concentrated effort of climbing, the
morning air sharp in their lungs, determined to conquer the slope. Rose and Claire, exhausted, began to
slow down. Catherine and Patrice walked on, and soon lost sight of the other two.
“Are you all right?” Patrice asked.
“Yes, it’s beautiful.”
The sun rose in the sky, and with it a hum of in-
sects swelled in the growing warmth. Soon Patrice took off his shirt and walked on bare-chested. Sweat
ran down his shoulders where the skin had peeled with sunburn. They took a little path that seemed to
follow the mountainside. The grass was wetter here; soon a sound of springs greeted them, and in a
hollow they almost stumbled over the sudden gush of coolness and shade. They sprinkled each other,
drank a little, and Catherine stretched out on the grass while Patrice, his hair black with water and curling over his forehead, stared blinking over the landscape that was covered with ruins, gleaming roads, and
splinters of sunlight. Then he sat down beside Catherine.
“While we’re alone, Mersault, tell me—are you happy now?”
“Look,” Mersault said. The road trembled in the sun, and the air was filled with a thousand colored specks. He smiled and rubbed his arms.
“Yes, but . . . Well, I wanted to ask you—of course you don’t have to answer if you don’t want to . . .” She hesitated: “Do you love your wife?”
Mersault smiled: “That’s not essential.” He gripped Catherine’s shoulder and shook his head, sprinkling water into her face. “You make the mistake of thinking you have to choose, that you have to do what you
want, that there are conditions for happiness. What matters—all that matters, really— is the will to
happiness, a kind of enormous, ever-present consciousness. The rest—women, art, suc-
cess—is nothing but excuses. A canvas waiting for our embroideries.”
“Yes,” Catherine said, her eyes filled with sunlight.
“What matters to me is a certain quality of happi-nes. I can only find it in a certain struggle with its opposite—a stubborn and violent struggle. Am I happy? Catherine! You know the famous formula— ‘If I
had my life to live over again’—well, I would live it over again just the way it has been. Of course you
can’t know what that means.”
“No.”
“And I don’t know how to tell you. If I’m happy, it’s because of my bad conscience. I had to get away and reach this solitude where I could face—in myself, I mean—what had to be faced, what was sun and what
was tears . . . Yes, I’m happy, in human terms.”
45
Rose and Claire arrived. They shouldered their knapsacks. The path still followed the mountainside, keeping them in a zone of dense vegetation, prickly pears, olive trees, and jujubes. They passed Arabs on
donkeys. Then they climbed again. The sun pounded now on each stone in the path. At noon, crushed by
the heat, drunk on fragrance and fatigue, they flung down their knapsacks and gave up reaching the top.
The slopes were sheer and full of sharp flints. A wizened oak sheltered them in its circle of shade. They
took provisions out of the knapsack and ate. The whole mountain quivered
under the light. The cicadas were deafening as the heat assailed them under their oak. Patrice threw
himself on the ground and pressed his chest against the stones, inhaling the scorched aroma. Under his
belly he could feel the faint throbs of the mountain that seemed to be in labor. This regular pulse and the
unremitting song of the insects between the hot stones finally put him to sleep.
When he awakened he was covered with sweat, and every muscle ached. It must have been three in the
afternoon. The girls had vanished, but soon he heard their laughter and shouts. It was cooler now, time to
go back down. At this moment, as they were about to start, Mersault fainted for the first time. When he
came to, he saw the cobalt sea between three anxious faces. They walked on more slowly. On the last
slopes, Mersault asked for a rest. The sea was turning green along with the sky, and the horizon began to
blur. On the foothills that stretched from the Chenoua around the little bay, the cypresses blackened
slowly. No one spoke, until Claire said: “You look tired.”
“I’m not surprised. Are you?”
“It’s none of my business, but I don’t think this place is good for you. It’s too near the sea—too damp.