innocence of his heart, Mersault accepted this green sky and this love-soaked earth with the same thrill of
passion and desire as when he had killed Zagreus in the innocence of his heart.
5
In January, the almond trees bloomed. In March, the pear, peach, and apple trees were covered with
blossoms. The next month, the streams gradually swelled, then returned to a normal flow. Early in May,
the hay was cut, and the oats and barley at the month’s end. Already the apricots were ripening. In June,
the early pears appeared with the major crops. The streams began to dry up, and the heat grew more
intense. But the earth’s blood, shrinking here on the coast, made the cotton bloom farther inland and
sweetened the first grapes. A great hot wind arose, parching the land and spreading brushfires
everywhere. And then, suddenly, the year changed direction: hurriedly, the grape harvests were brought
to an end. The downpours of September and October drenched the land. No sooner was the summer’s
work done than the first sowing began, while the streams and springs suddenly swelled to torrents with
the rain. At the year’s end, the wheat was already sprouting in some fields; on others plowing had only
just been finished. A little later, the almond trees were once again white against the ice-blue sky. The new
year had begun in the earth, in the sky. Tobacco was planted, vines cultivated and fertilized, trees grafted.
In the same month, the medlars ripened. Again, the haymaking, the harvesting, the summer plowing.
Halfway through the
year, the ripe fruits, juicy and sticky, were served on every table: between one threshing and the next, the
men ate the figs, peaches, and pears greedily. During the next grape harvest, the sky grew overcast. Out of
the north, silent flocks of black starlings and thrushes passed over—for them the olives were already ripe.
Soon after they had flown away, the olives were gathered. The wheat sprouted a second time from the
viscous soil. Huge clouds, also from the north, passed over the sea, then the land, brushing the water with
foam and leaving it smooth and icy under a crystal sky. For several days there were distant, silent flashes
in the sky. The first cold spells set in.
During this period, Mersault took to his bed for the first time. Bouts of pleurisy confided him to his room
for a month. When he got up, the foothills of the Chenoua were covered with flowering trees, all the way
to the sea’s edge. Never had spring touched him so deeply. The first night of his convalescence, he walked
across the fields for a long time—as far as the hill where the ruins of Tipasa slept. In a silence violated
only by the silky sounds of the sky, the night lay like milk upon the world. Mersault walked along the
cliff, sharing the night’s deep concentration. Below him the sea whispered gently. It was covered with
velvety moonlight, smooth and undulating, like the pelt of some animal. At this hour of night, his life
seemed so remote to him, he was so solitary and indifferent to everything and to
himself as well, that Mersault felt he had at last attained what he was seeking, that the peace which filled
him now was born of that patient self-abandonment he had pursued and achieved with the help of this
warm world so willing to deny him without anger. He walked lightly, and the sound of his own footsteps
seemed alien to him, familiar too, no doubt, but familiar the way the rustling of animals in the mastic
bushes was familiar, or the breaking waves, or the rhythm of the night itself in the sky overhead. And he
could feel his own body too, but with the same external consciousness as the warm breath of this spring
night and the smell of salt and decay that rose from the beach. His actions in the world, his thirst for
happiness, Zagreus’ terrible wound baring brain and bone, the sweet, uncommitted hours in the House
above the World, his wife, his hopes, and his gods—all this lay before him, but no more than one story
chosen among so many others without any valid reason, at once alien and secretly familiar, a favorite
book which flatters and justifies the heart at its core, but a book someone else has written. For the first
time, Mersault was aware of no other reality in himself than that of a passion for adventure, a desire for
power, a warm and an intelligent instinct for a relationship with the world—without anger, without
49
hatred, without regret. Sitting on a rock he let his fingers explore its crannies as he watched the sea swell in silence under the moon. He thought of Lucienne’s face he had caressed, and the warmth of her lips. The moon poured its long, straying smiles like oil on the water’s
smooth surface—the sea would be warm as a mouth, and as soft, ready to yield beneath a man’s weight.
Motionless now, Mersault felt how close happiness is to tears, caught up in that silent exultation which
weaves together the hopes and despairs of human life. Conscious yet alienated, devoured by passion yet
disinterested, Mersault realized that his life and his fate were completed here and that henceforth all his
efforts would be to submit to this happiness and to confront its terrible truth.
Now he must sink into the warm sea, lose himself in order to find himself again, swim in that warm
moonlight in order to silence what remained of the past, to bring to birth the deep song of his happiness.
He undressed, clambered down a few rocks, and entered the sea. It was as warm as a body, another body
that ran down his arms and clung to his legs with an ineffable yet omnipresent embrace. Mersault swam
steadily now, feeling the muscles of his back shift with each stroke. Whenever he raised an arm, he cast
sheaves of silver drops upon the sea, sowing under this mute and vivid sky the splendid harvest of
happiness; then his arm thrust back into the water, and like a vigorous plowshare tilled the waves,
dividing them in order to gain a new support, a firmer hope. Behind him, his feet churned the water into
seething foam, producing a strangely distinct hissing noise in the night’s silence and soli-
tude. Conscious of this cadence, this vigor, an exultation seized Mersault; he swam faster and soon
realized he was far from land, alone in the heart of the night, of the world. Suddenly he thought of the
depths which lay beneath him and stopped moving. Everything that was below attracted him like an
unknown world, the extension of this darkness which restored him to himself, the salty center of a life
still unexplored. A temptation flashed through his mind, but he immediately rejected it in the great joy of
his body—he swam harder, farther. Gloriously tired, he turned back toward the shore. At that moment he
suddenly entered an icy current and was forced to stop swimming, his teeth shattered, his movements lost
their harmony. This surprise of the sea left him bewildered; the chill penetrated his limbs and seared him
like the love of some god of clear and impassioned exultation whose embrace left him powerless.
Laboriously he returned to the beach, where he dressed facing the sky and the sea, shivering and laughing
with happiness.
On his way home, he began to feel faint. From the path sloping up toward his house, he could make out
the rocky promontory across the bay, the smooth shafts of the columns among the ruins. Then suddenly
the landscape tilted and he found himself leaning against a rock, half-supported by a mastic bush, the
fragrance of its crushed leaves strong in his nostrils. He dragged himself back to the house. His body,
which had just now carried him to the
limits of joy, plunged him into a suffering that gripped his bowels, making him close his eyes. He decided
tea would help, but he used a dirty pan to boil the water in, and the tea was so greasy it made him retch.
He drank it, though, before he went to bed. As he was pulling off his shoes he noticed how pink his nails
were, long and curving over the fingertips of his bloodless hands. His nails had never been like that, and
they gave his hands a twisted, unhealthy look. His chest felt as though it were caught in a vise. He
coughed and spat several times—only phlegm, though the taste of blood lingered on his tongue. In bed,
his body was seized by long spasms of shivering. He could feel the chill rising from every extremity of
his body, meeting in his shoulders like a confluence of icy streams, while his teeth chattered and the
sheets felt as if they had been soaked. The house seemed enormous, the usual noises swelled to infinity,