future. And I said yes. I even did the things you had to do to have such things. But even back then, it was
all alien to me. To devote myself to impersonality—that’s what concerned me. Not to be happy, not to be
‘against.’ I can’t explain it, but you know what I mean.”
“Yes,” Zagreus said.
“Even now, if I had the time … I would only have to let myself go. Everything else that would happen to me would be like rain on a stone. The stone cools off and that’s fine. Another day, the sun
bakes it. I’ve always thought that’s exactly what happiness would be.”
Zagreus had folded his hands to come down twice as hard, and the clouds swelled in a vague mist. The
room grew a little darker, as if the sky was pouring its burden of shadow and silence into it. And the
cripple said intensely: “A body always has the ideal it deserves. That ideal of a stone—if I may say so, you’d have to have a demigod’s body to sustain it.”
“Right,” Mersault said, a little surprised, “but don’t exaggerate—I’ve done a lot of sports, that’s all. And I’m capable of going quite far in pleasure.”
15
Zagreus reflected. “Yes—so much the better for you. To know your body’s limits—that’s the true psychology. But it doesn’t matter anyway. We don’t have time to be ourselves. We only have time to be
happy. But would you mind defining what you mean by impersonality?”
“No,” Mersault said, but that was all.
Zagreus took a sip of tea and set down his full cup. He drank very little, preferring to urinate only once a
day. He willed himself to reduce the burden of humiliations each day brought him. “You can’t save a little here, a little there,” he had told Mersault one day. “It’s a record like any other.” For the first time a few raindrops fell down the chimney. The fire hissed. The rain beat harder on the win-dowpanes. Somewhere
a door slammed. On the road, automobiles streaked by like gleaming rats.
One of them blew its horn, and across the valley the hollow, lugubrious blast made the wet space of the
world even larger, until its very memory became for Mersault an element of the silence and the agony of
that sky.
“I’m sorry, Zagreus, but it’s been a long time since I talked about certain things. So I don’t know any
more—or I’m not sure. When I look at my life and its secret colors, I feel like bursting into tears. Like that sky. It’s rain and sun both, noon and midnight. You know, Zagreus, I think of the lips I’ve kissed, and of
the wretched child I was, and of the madness of life and the ambition that sometimes carries me away. I’m
all those things at once. I’m sure there are times when you wouldn’t even recognize me. Extreme in
misery, excessive in happiness—I can’t say it.”
“You’re playing several games at the same time?”
“Yes, but not as an amateur,” Mersault said vehemently. “Each time I think of that flood of pain and joy in myself, I know—I can’t tell you how deeply I know that the game I’m playing is the most serious and
exciting one of all.”
Zagreus smiled. “Then you have something to do?”
Mersault said vehemently: “I have my living to earn. My work—those eight hours a day other people can
stand—my work keeps me from doing it.” He broke off and lit the cigarette he had held till now between
his fingers. “And yet,” he said, the
match still burning, “if I was strong enough, and patient enough . . .” He blew out the match and pressed the tip against the back of his left hand. “… I know what kind of life I’d have. I wouldn’t make an
experiment out of my life: I would be the experiment of my life. Yes, I know what passion would fill me with all its power. Before, I was too young. I got in the way. Now I know that acting and loving and
suffering is living, of course, but it’s living only insofar as you can be transparent and accept your fate,
like the unique reflection of a rainbow of joys and passions which is the same for everyone.”
“Yes,” Zagreus said, “but you can’t live that way and work . . .”
“No, because I’m constantly in revolt. That’s what’s wrong.”
Zagreus said nothing. The rain had stopped, but in the sky night had replaced the clouds, and the darkness
was now virtually complete in the room. Only the fire illuminated their gleaming faces. Zagreus, silent for
a long time, stared at Patrice, and all he said was: “Anyone who loves you is in for a lot of pain …” and stopped, surprised when Mer-sault suddenly stood up.
“Other people’s feelings have no hold over me,” Patrice exclaimed, thrusting his head into the shadows.
“True,” Zagreus said, “I was just remarking on the fact. You’ll be alone someday, that’s all. Now sit 16
down and listen to me. What you’ve told me is interesting. One thing especially, because it confirms everything my own experience of human beings has taught me. I like you very much, Mersault. Because
of your body, moreover. It’s your body that’s taught you all that. Today I feel as if I can talk to you
frankly.”
Mersault sat down again slowly, and his face turned back to the already dimmer firelight that was sinking
closer to the coals. Suddenly a kind of opening in the darkness appeared in the square of the window
between the silk curtains. Something relented behind the panes. A milky glow entered the room, and
Mersault recognized on the Bodhisattva’s ironic lips and on the cased brass of the trays the familiar and
fugitive signs of the nights of moonlight and starlight he loved so much. It was as if the night had lost its lining of clouds and shone now in its tranquil luster. The cars went by more slowly. Deep in the valley, a
sudden agitation readied the birds for sleep. Footsteps passed in front of the house, and in this night that
covered the world like milk, every noise seemed large, more distinct. Between the reddening fire, the
ticking of the clock, and the secret life of the familiar objects which surrounded him, a fugitive poetry
was being woven which prepared Mersault to receive in a different mood, in confidence and love, what
Zagreus would say. He leaned back in his chair, and it was in front of the milky sky that he listened to
Zagreus’ strange story.
“What I’m sure of,” he began, “is that you can’t be happy without money. That’s all. I don’t like superficiality and I don’t like romanticisim. I like to be conscious. And what I’ve noticed is that there’s a kind of spiritual snobbism in certain ‘superior beings’ who think that money isn’t necessary for happiness.
Which is stupid, which is false, and to a certain degree cowardly. You see, Mersault, for a man who is
well born, being happy is never complicated. It’s enough to take up the general fate, only not with the will
for renunciation like so many fake great men, but with the will for happiness. Only it takes time to be
happy. A lot of time. Happiness, too, is a long patience. And in almost every case, we use up our lives
making money, when we should be using our money to gain time. That’s the only problem that’s ever
interested me. Very specific. Very clear.” Zagreus stopped talking and closed his eyes. Mersault kept on staring at the sky. For a moment the sounds of the road and the countryside became distinct, and then
Zagreus went on, without hurrying: “Oh, I know perfectly well that most rich men have no sense of
happiness. But that’s not the question. To have money is to have time. That’s my main point. Time can be
bought. Everything can be bought. To be or to become rich is to have time to be happy, if you deserve it.”
He looked at Patrice. “At twenty-five, Mersault, I had already realized that any man with the sense, the will, and the craving for happiness was entitled to be rich. The craving for happiness seemed to me the
noblest thing in
man’s heart. In my eyes, that justified everything. A pure heart was enough . . .” Still looking at Mer-sault, Zagreus suddenly began to speak more slowly, in a cold harsh tone, as if he wanted to rouse Mersault
from his apparent distraction. “At twenty-five I began making my fortune. I didn’t let the law get in my way. I wouldn’t have let anything get in my way. In a few years, I had done it—you know what I mean,
Mersault, nearly two million. The world was all before me. And with the world, the life I had dreamed of