existence had been confined to this neighborhood, where they lived according to the opinion of their
neighbors and the pity of the world.
A beautiful woman enjoys—and expects to enjoy—a life of diversion, a life of pleasure. This man’s wife
had been beautiful, and she had expected to enjoy a life of diversion and pleasure. He was a trucker, and
worked hard all during their married life. They had had two
daughters, both of whom were married. And a lame son who was a leatherworker and lived with his
parents.
At about forty, this woman had been stricken by a terrible disease. She was, etc., enriched by her heedless
life. For a decade she dragged out an unendurable existence. This martyrdom lasted so long that those
around her . . . she could die.
She had a tubercular nephew who occasionally came to see her. She enjoyed his visits because she felt on
an equal footing with him. But he was very young, and his natural cowardice shrank from these (illegible) which sapped all his resistance.
One day she died. She was fifty-six. She had married very young. Then her husband realized how old he
was. He had worked too hard to notice up till now. People felt sorry for him. In the neighborhood, they
looked forward to the funeral. They recalled the husband’s deep feeling for the dead woman. The
daughters were warned not to cry, so that their father would not give way to his grief. He was urged not to
mourn, to take care of himself. Meanwhile, the man dressed in his best clothes. And with his hat in his
hand, he watched the arrangements, etc., that was all.
However, he immediately sold his truck, despite his lack of means, paid his debts, and then found himself
poor and penniless. He lived with one of his daughters now, spending long days on the balcony. He had
left his old neighborhood. On the house where he had lived was a sign: For Rent, and speculation over its
meaning never ceased.
Another manuscript, virtually without erasures and obviously subsequent to the one just quoted, gives
virtually the same text, but begins with this sentence added to the preceding manuscript, a sentence
Camus appears to have valued for its own sake: “A beautiful woman, she had enjoyed—and expected to
enjoy—a life of diversion, a life of pleasure.” Then: “Her husband was a trucker . . .” etc. Another modification in the last sentence may be noted: “this sign: For Rent, which always means more than it
says.”
h) Mersault’s attachment to his room.
The manuscript pages, after the blank left for the insertion of the mother’s death and burial, continue:
But he had had to abandon his studies and his ambitions and take a job. At first he had resisted, he had
wanted to live for himself, work, write, have a life of his own. Later on, he had given it all up and tried to expunge his own life. He wakened, etc. (Mersault at the office).
64
i) Mersault at the office.
This text is given in extenso in the manuscript pages. j) Mersault at home.
Idem.
page 17, line 19
Ms.: M. Langlois. M. Langlois had read Courteline.
page 18, line 1
Ms.: in front of his name or in an influential position.
page 18, line 4
Ms.: strutting and slobbering
page 18, line 7
Ms.: vegetables. The secretaries were giggling openly. The old lady bending (illegible) glancing up and still writing finally announced: “I should appreciate it, M. Langlois, if you would do without my
approval.”
“One to zero,” P. said calmly. And he listened to the thousand noises of the harbor behind the walls (illegible) tasting of salt and blood, so remote and yet so close to him. Then comes the line: In the evening he returned at 6 o’clock— It was Saturday.
page 18, line 27
Ms.: pasted carefully into a booklet printed for the purpose
page 18, line 30 Ms.: beautiful, sultry
page 19, line 8
Ms.: silk dress and cloche hat,
page 21, line 18
T.: The chapter ends as follows:
bread. He scratched his head and walked toward the mirror, meeting himself. He yawned and turned
toward his bed. Already he was taking off his shoes. He said: “Another Sunday shot.”
page 21, line 23
Ms. his windows. He went to bed and slept till the next
morning, when he left for his office. For several years
he lived this way, except for certain evenings when
Marthe came or when he went out with her, certain
65
rarer Sundays which he shared with Zagreus and
Marthe’s girlfriends.
Here the manuscript pages end.
Chapter 3
Devoted to relations between Marthe and Mersault, this chapter, in the first outlines, was to take its place
in the second part of the novel, and was to be subdivided. Thus, in the first outline in the Notebooks, if we read Marthe instead of Lucienne, we find:
Chapter Bl Recollections. Liaison with Lucienne. Chapter B2 Lucienne describes her infidelities. Chapter
B4 Sexual jealousy. Salzburg. Prague.
It will be noted that the trip and the liaison, by means of sexual jealousy, are linked as effect to cause.
Somewhat later Camus sketches, among his six stories, that of “sexual jealousy.” An outline dated August 1937 specifies, in the second part; “. . . Liaison with Catherine . . . Caught in the game. Sexual jealousy.
Flight.” Catherine now takes the role of Lucienne. But in this same month, another sketch situates the
episode of sexual jealousy in the first part, right at the beginning. This episode and that of the trip which follows it then form the essentials of the plot, as this note proves: “Reduce and condense. Story of sexual jealousy which leads to departure. Return to life.” Later, when Marthe’s name has been adopted, the two
episodes are again united; this results in a partial outline.
1 Liaison with Marthe . . .
2 Marthe describes her infidelities
3 Innsbruck and Salzburg operetta
the letter and the room departure with fever
The heading “Liaison with Marthe” is followed by a bracket in which can be made out, among several
names, that of Othello. Did Camus want to make some reference to Shakespeare’s study of jealousy? A
curious
text, which begins with “Of beware, my lord, of jealousy / It is the green-ey’d monster” suggests as much.
But Camus will decide that Iago, Desdemona, and the Moor of Venice have nothing to do with Algiers,
where Mersault walks with Marthe on his arm. Moreover, he will reduce the importance of this affair and
cut it by the trip to central Europe. The only trace of the old connection, at the end of the first part, is
found in the letter breaking off the affair.
Of this third chapter two manuscripts exist, one for the first pages, down to “all the shame and humiliation that had been awakened in Mersault’s angry heart,” and the penultimate paragraph, down to “. . . and after that he went back to visit Zagreus by himself,” the rest originally forming the beginning of the chapter devoted to their conversation, the other for the rest of the chapter, from “That was the day Mersault began to be attached to Marthe” to “He wanted to meet him, and his relations with Zagreus began that evening.
He saw him frequently, visiting almost every Sunday morning.”
page 22, line 7
“Ms.: some delicate intoxication, designating him as its owner in the world’s eyes.
66
page 23, line 10
Ms.: compared to the crystalline brilliance of a woman’s face, in which all the beauty and futility of the world appears, ultimate luxury of a man’s life, given up to (pleasure?) and preoccupation.
page 24, line 10
Ms.: in his temples and his eyes go blank.
page 24, line 13
Ms.: soiled, transformed into a sordid scene in which
rags dangled above garbage.
page 28, line 10 T.: already asked you not to. “Yes, darling.”
page 31, line 20
According to Chapter 4, Zagreus is at least fifty; hence it is difficult to imagine that Marthe, though
younger than Zagreus, should be young enough for Mersault.
page 32, line 19
Ms.: Rose, Claire, Catherine. We may note that Ca-
mus’s mother was named Catherine Sintes.
page 32, line 20 Ms.: Oran
page 34, line 26
Ms. before he spoke. Then he would speak fast and volubly, generally laughing, but drawing swift
conclusions which were always concrete and gave a curiouis weight of experience to his most trivial
jokes. He was alive, that was what was striking. This trunk of a man was alive, and in his eyes appeared
occasional dim gleams of a kind of concentrated passion which was never melancholy.
Chapter 4
page 36, line 11
Ms.: at the office. Still I know the secret and ardent life 1 would have if I had turned into a success, as the saying goes.
It should be noted that in one of the last outlines, Chapter 2 of Part II is called “secret and ardent happiness at Tipasa.”