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.5.

ABSTRACT

THE LYRICAL ESSAYS OF fiLBERT CAMUS:
UNE LONGUE FIDELITE

BY

Marcia Weis

The scope of Albert Camus' work is greater than
might generally be recalled. In addition to the novels,
the plays, and two philosophical essays, Le Mythe de Sisyphe

and L'Homme révolté, he produced numerous prefaces, lectures,

 

adaptations of foreign works, miscellaneous essays, and a
large body of journalistic writings. A great many composite
studies of his work have been written treating all or sev-
eral of these genres. Other critical works have examined
a major theme and traced it throughout his writings. Still
others have concentrated on a specific genre. To date,
however, although they have been treated summarily in
conjunction with his other works, no detailed study has
been devoted to the three major groups of essays which I
have designated as "lyrical": L'Envers et l'endroit, goggs,
and ELEEér The main purpose of this dissertation, therefore,
has been to provide one.

Such an examination is warranted for several reasons.

For one, and with reference to the eventual evaluation of

Marcia Weis

Camus' literary merit, the essay collections in question
demonstrate to a greater degree than his other works a
lyricism.which.has not received attention in proportion
to its significance. In my analysis, therefore, I have
stressed poetic style as well as the affective and sub—
jective content of the essays, these being the elements
which justify their classification as "lyrical."

This study also demonstrates that the lyrical essays
are of paramount importance to a full understanding of Camus'
total work; in this respect they are unique in the tradition
of the essay genre. They contain all the major themes
treated by the writer and, in most instances, presented
these themes prior to publication of his better-known
writings. The last collection, £L§£§J completes the circle,
demonstrating the author's continuing adherence to these
basic themes, while at the same time pointing to a rear-
rangement of perspective.

The dissertation is divided into six parts: a
brief introductory note, five chapters forming the main
body of the work, and a conclusion. Chapter I discusses
the components of lyricism, the essay genre in France, and
Camus' qualities as lyrist and essayist. The second chapter
examines the major themes appearing in his work. Chapters
III, IV, and V analyze chronologically each of the three

collections. In the examination of the individual essays

Marcia Weis

their lyrical aspects are pointed out where present, and
attention is drawn to the aforementioned Camusian themes
which appear in them. The conclusion returns in a general
way to these themes and indicates their rapport with other
works in the cases where this has not already been shown.

It also comments on various aspects of Camus' style and
summarizes its lyrical manifestation both in the collections

studied and in other works of this author.

THE LYRICAL ESSAYS OF ALBERT CAMUS:

UNE LONGUE FIDELITE

BY

V
Marcia Weis

A THESIS

Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
Department of Romance Languages

1973

To

Mom and Joe

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I gratefully acknowledge the contributions of the
following professors whose aid and encouragement greatly
forwarded my study of French Literature: Laszlo Borbas,
Joseph Donohoe, Eugene Gray, Ann Harrison, Maria Kronegger,
and Francis Tafoya.

I wish to express my deepest gratitude to Georges
Joyaux, director of this dissertation, whose knowledge of
Albert Camus' works and of twentieth-century French
Literature were a constant source of inspiration for me.
His help and his continuing confidence in me made possible

the completion of this study.

*****

iii

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTORY NOTE 0 O O O O O O O O 0

Chapter
I.
II.

III.

IV.

LYRICISM AND THE ESSAY . . .

THE THEWS O O O O O O I O

L'ENVERS ET L'ENDROIT: THE WELLSPRING

 

"L'Ironie" . . . . . .
"Entre oui et non" . .
"La Mort dans l'ame" .
"Amour de vivre" . . .
"L'Envers et l'endroit" .

NOCES: LIFE AND DEATH . . .

"Noces a Tipasa" . . . .
"Le Vent a Djémila" . . .
"L'Eté a Alger" . . . . .
"Le Désert" . . . . . . .

L'ETE: REAFFIRMATION . . . .

 

"Le Minotaure ou la halte
"Les Amandiers" . . . . .
"Prométhée aux enfers" .

d'Oran"

"Petit Guide pour des villes sans

passé" . . . . . . . .
"L'Exil d'Héléne" .
"L'Enigme" . . . .
"Retour a Tipasa" .
"La Mer au plus pres

CONCLUSION O O O O O O O O O O O O O

BIBLIOGRMHY O O O O O O O O O O O 0

iv

journal de

Page

31
75

83
97
113
125
136

146

150
160
171
182

196

198
220
225

231
235
243
254
261

275

281

INTRODUCTORY NOTE

The work of Albert Camus spans a quarter-century
of political, ideological and moral upheaval in the western
world and projects the growing concern of our time with the
evolution of occidental values. The questions he raised
and the concern he voiced are perhaps even more relevant
today than during his lifetime, which ended in a fatal car
accident in January, 1960. Relevance alone, however, cannot
account for the proliferation of critical studies of his
work, nor can we look to the charisma of the man himself,
for in the 1970's other heroes and martyrs have replaced
him and few in the new generation remain deeply touched
by Camus' almost lifelong struggle with tuberculosis, his
participation in the Resistance, his ideological quarrel
with Sartre, or the countless acts that linked him as a
man with other men and women.

There remains, beyond the relevance and the
charisma, the writer's art. In the eventual evaluation of
Camus' literary production critics will doubtless continue
the debate concerning which of its elements are of most

lasting value. An article in L'Express of April 18, 1971,

 

for example, occasioned by the appearance of Camus'

 

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previously unpublished novel La Mort heureuse, suggests

 

that the best of his writing is to be found in the works
where he gives freest rein to his emotion--"les oeuvres

ou Camus ne démontre rien, ne ménage rien dans le
jaillissement de la jeunesse ou l'amertume lucide de

la quarantaine"--a qualification that is clearly appli-
cable to a major portion of the three essay collections

I have designated as lyrical: L'Envers et l'endroit, Noces,
and LLEEé. Camus himself, however, deprecates the artistic

merit of at least the first of these collections, L'Envers

 

et l'endroit, in his preface to the 1958 reedition of this
work, (" ... a vingt-deux ans, sauf génie, on sait a peine
écrirel"), and it is not precisely the spontaneity suggested
by the Express commentator that I would stress as an endur-
ing value in these essays, but rather their emotive and
subjective content, as well as a developing poetic style,
all as aspects of a much broader term: lyricism.
Consequently, while the chief purpose of this study
is to examine in detail the essays mentioned, two secondary
objectives will be pursued concurrently: to focus attention
on lyricism.when it appears in Camus' writing,and to demon-
strate the significant relationship of these essays to his
total work. As preparation for the examination of the essays
themselves in order to place them in clearer perspective,

I shall first discuss lyricism and the essay genre, and

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the dominant themes which appear throughout Camus' work.
The three collections will then be analyzed chronologically.
All citations from Camus' essays are taken from

IUbert Camus: Essais, edited by Roger Quilliot and Louis

 

Ehucon (Paris: Gallimard, Bibliothéque de la Pléiade, 1965)
Imreinafter referred to as Essais, and page numbers are

rmted within the text immediately after quotations. I have
tmed the following abbreviations in referring to the essays:

m3(L'Envers et l'endroit), N (Noces), E (L'Eté), MS (Lg

 

flfime de Sisyphe), and HR (L'Homme révolté).

CHAPTER I

LYRICISM AND THE ESSAY

"Quel est celui de nous qui n'a pas,
dans ses jours d'ambition, révé 1e miracle
d'une prose poétique, musicale sans rythme
et sans rime, assez souple et assez heurtée
pour s'adapter aux mouvements lyriques de
l'ame, aux ondulations de la reverie, aux
soubresauts de la conscience?"

Baudelaire
Dédicace, Le Spleen de Paris, 1869

In order to establish the significance of Albert

(mmus as a lyrist it is essential to explore first the mean-
ing of this term. The term "lyrical" is usually applied to
Poetry that is a brief, unified expression of emotion in
hmguage as melodious as possible. The emotive quality of

l
IWTicism is emphasized by Robert de Souza in "Un Débat sur
la poésie":

Ceux qui ont un peu approfondi la genése du

lyrisme reconnaitront l'excellence de cette

formation poétique et de son développement.

Elle doit son ardente origine a l'émotion de

la vie totale, a la propulsion sentimentale

entiére qui ne sépare aucun des éléments
physiques et spirituels de notre étre.1

 

1Henri Bremond, La Poésiegpure avec un débat sur la
ppésie par Robert de Souza (Paris: Bernard Grasset, 1926),
p. 187.

In The Poetry of Experience Robert Langbaum cites Wordsworth

in the latter's Preface to the Lyrical Ballads: ". . . the

 

feeling therein developed gives importance to the action and
situation, and not the action and situation to the feeling,"
and Professor Langbaum adds "he [Wordsworth] must have meant
they were lyrical in the sense of subjective, stressing
feeling over action"2 in contrast to the traditional ballad.
Inevitably, with the stress on the affective quality
ct lyricism, the artist's subjectivity must be included as
armimary factor. What is communicated is the result of
mIintensely personal experience. The idea of immediate
experience as a dominant element of both nineteenth and
twentieth-century poetry is what links both of them to
nmmntic lyricism and to each other, according to Dr.
Langbaum, and he adds that the poetry of experience is "in
.M3 meaning if not its events, autobiographical both for
Umzwriter and the reader."3 In the case of Camus' lyrical
essays we know that not only their meaning but their events

iue for the most part autobiographical. It is actual

k

2Robert Langbaum, The_Poetry of Experience (New
fink: W. W. Norton & Co., 1957), p. 56.

31bid., p. 52.

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experience that is related, along with its effects on the
writer's sensibility and intellect. It is Camus himself,
returning to the milieu of his childhood and youth who
communicates his reactions to it; Camus, the bored and
lonely traveler in Prague--"J'aurais pleuré comme un enfant
si quelqu'un m'avait ouvert ses bras" (EE, 36)-—who becomes
aware that it is the very isolation of the traveler in a
strange place which brings him new lucidity. Again it is
Chmus "en chair et en 05" living to the fullest the outdoor
life of sun and sea in Algeria, experiencing with all his
senses the beauties of Tipasa and the winds of Djémila;
traveling again, now in Italy, assessing the art, the
iflowers, and the women; witnessing a boxing match in Oran;
returning to Tipasa, to find barbed-wire around its ruins;
vmndering the streets of Manhattan in the rain.

The experiences related are not only intensely
{mrsona1, but their emotional content evolves from physical
Emenomena--from flowers, from rain, from a death's head on
'&m table of a Franciscan monk, from the marinated cucumbers
and by the street-vendors of Prague. One is reminded of
the advice of Max Jacob in his "Conseils a un jeune poéte":
"Concrétisez, ca ne veut pas dire 1a poésie populiste, 1es
pmysans, 1es sabots, etc., ca veut dire: placer votre voix

dans 1e ventre, la pensée dans 1e ventre, et parler du

sublime avec la voix dans le ventre."“ A very special
quality of Camus' lyricism lies in his ability not only to
respond with great sensitivity to the external world, but
also to communicate this response on both the level of the
sublime and that of the "ventre." This is often accom-
plished by means of stark reporting, in blunt and concrete
terms, which provokes the reader's sensitivity only after it
has first aroused an almost physical reaction. Referring,
for example, to the words on a grave-marker in a cemetery
of Algiers, he describes them as a "feinte sinistre par
quoi on préte un corps et des désirs a ce qui au mieux est
un liquide noir" (N, 73) . The horror and revulsion invoked
by the words "liquide noir" is of an elemental and irra—
tional nature, and it precedes the more refined association
With the tragedy and absurdity of human mortality. At
Djémila, on a less tragic note, he says, "Je me sentais
claquer au vent comme une mature" (N, 62) . The appeal is
first to the physical and instinctual, and the development
of the reader's relationship to the experience being re-
COUnted begins not through a process of reason, but through
an emotional charge which passes from writer to reader.

It is an appeal having its origin in emotion and in turn
Pr0ducing it.

¥

I'Jacques Charpier and Pierre Seghers, L'Art pogtique
(Paris: Editions Seghers, 1956), p. 469.

The external world, in addition to its function as
catalyst to provoke instinctual reaction, interrelates in
yet another way with the emotions of the lyrical writer.

The latter, supersensitive, perceives the physical concrete
world in a special way, in what Dr. Langbaum calls an
"extraordinary perspective." The disruption of the ordinary
appearance of things has a twofold effect. First, it
permits the poet's imagination to transform them into
significance. One of Wordsworth's declared objectives in
Ins Lyrical Ballads was to choose "incidents and situations
fkom common life" and "to throw over them a certain coloring
ofihmgination, whereby ordinary things should be presented
'u>the mind in an unusual aspect. . . ."5

A second effect of the disruption is to permit entry
QEthe poet's imagination into the physical world itself.
'Hmeromantic lyrist not only perceives the exterior world
Vfiih extraordinary sensitivity but himself enters into what
1leahas perceived and becomes to a certain extent a part of
it. It is the kind of union suggested by Baudelaire in his
(Xmments on the modern conception of pure art in his "Art
Emilosophique": "C'est créer une magie suggestive contenant

5 la fois l'objet et le sujet, le monde extérieur a l'artiste

¥

sErnest Bernbaum, ed., Anthology of Romanticism
Ckfl.ed.; New York: Ronald Press, 1948), p. 301.

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et l'artiste lui-méme."6

The lyrist's poetry is successful
to the degree that he can transmit this fusion of object,
emotion and thought to his reader as a shared experience.
But what actually happens, what is accomplished by
such fusion of poet with the world? Dr. Langbaum suggests
that it permits at least a glimpse of the ultimate reality
cm the object perceived, "in its organic connection, that
is, with the observer and, through the observer's innate
cxmception of universality, with the universe."7 The
gnocess described by Dr. Langbaum could imply a platonic
guogression, with the intellect playing a substantial role,
whereas the development of Camus' interaction with the
{mysical world appears to come about as a kind of total
abandonment of the self on a spontaneous, irrational level.
Ifis lyrical essays abound with expressions of fusion with
the world of nature. In "Le Vent a Djémdla," for example
Ileadeclares: "Bientét, répandu aux quatre coins du monde,
(leieux, oublié de moi-meme, je suis ce vent et dans le
VEnt, ces colonnes et cet arc, ces dalles qui sentent chaud
eitces montagnes pales autour de la ville déserte" (N, 62).
3h1"Le Minotaure": "Quelle tentation de s'identifier a

Ces pierres, de se confondre avec cet univers brfilant et

‘

6Charles Baudelaire, Oeuvres completes, ed. by
Claude Pichois (Paris: Gallimard, Bibliothéque de la
Ffléiade, 1961), p. 1099.

7Langbaum, The Poetry of Experience, p. 42.

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impassible qui défie l'histoire et ses agitations!"

(E, 830). The urge to fuse with the physical world, to
lose personal identity and become part of the universe,
appears in many guises in Camus' works, and nowhere so
directly as in his lyrical writings. The much-desired
"loss-of-self," however, is counterpoised by an insistence
on lucidity, on an awareness that is inextricably bound to
individuality. Before the same landscape of Djémila, where
luafeels himself a "pierre parmi 1es pierres" he affirms:
"Je veux porter ma lucidité jusqu'au bout et regarder ma
fhxavec toute la profusion de ma jalousie et de mon
horr‘eur" (N, 65).

The allusions to a merging with the world of nature
have other implications. Philosophically Camus rejected
éflmolutes, and the world of the concrete and the particular
fixm.precedence for him over the abstract principle and
UuaPlatonic ideal. Nevertheless in his lyrical works
fluayearning for submergence of his particularity into
mfiyersal nature appears to be a form of "nostalgie d'un
absolu." This yearning reaches its apogee at moments when
1“Bis deeply moved, when, seeing the world in an "extraor-
Cbinary perspective" his emotions are most strongly aroused.
(he such moment is described in "Le Désert": "Des millions
(Tyeux, je 1e savais, ont contemplé ce paysage et pour moi,

i1 était comme le premier sourire du ciel. 11 me mettait

11

hors de moi au sens profond du terme ... " (N, 87). In a
later chapter treating the Camusian themes I shall explore
further this "nostalgie de l'Absolu," but at this point I
wish only to call attention to it as it relates to emotion
in lyricism in general, and in Camus' lyricism in particular.
Thus far in the endeavor to reach a clearer under-
standing of lyricism two major characteristics have emerged,
emotion and subjectivity, both of which pervade the essays
tmder study. One of the unique qualities of the lyrical
vuiter as artist, aiding him to project these two charac-
teristics, was found to be his ability to perceive the
cudinary world in an unusual way.8 Another type of vision
is attributed to the romantic lyrist by Jacques Barzun, and
it serves to emphasize the dramatic aspect of lyricism. He
refers to it as a "playwright's vision," and states that "he
(the romantic lyrist) is in effect a dramatist using his own
Self as a sensitive plate to catch whatever molecular or
Spiritual motion the outer world may supply."9 While this
is essentially repeating the earlier-mentioned idea of the
Vniter as intermediary, the suggestion of a new perspective,
that of the dramatist, calls to mind another dramatic trait

Inesent in Camus' lyrical essays, one which is related to

k

aSupra, p. 8.

9Jacques Barzun, Romanticism and the Modern Ego
(Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1944), pp. 97i98.

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lyricism by its personal and immediate character. I

would describe it as a tone which at times approaches the
conversational. Dr. Langbaum has noted this dramatic aspect
of lyricism, and has remarked on its similarity to "one

side of a dialogue, with the other side understood by its

"10

effect. Often in Camus' lyrical essays there is the

impression of a spoken phrase, with a listener present and
ready to respond. In "L'Eté a Alger," for example, when
describing a twilight in Algiers he says: "Quand je suis
cnmlque temps loin de ce pays j'imagine ses crépuscules
(xmme des promesses de bonheur" (N, 70). Further on in

the same essay the impression is reinforced: "Presque
anmsitdt aprés, la premiere étoile apparait ... Et puis,
<Pun coup, dévorante, la nuit" (N, 70). Of the open air
dance floor on the beach of Padovani: "Souvent, j'attendais
13.une minute singuliere. Pendant la journée, la salle est
Emotégée par des auvents de bois inclines. Quand le soleil
iidisparu, on les reléve. Alors, la salle s'emplit d'une
étrange lumiere verte ... " (N, 71).

The sense of immediacy, of speech heard rather than
read, derives from several elements that appear with far
Sneater frequency in the lyrical essays than in those termed
Emilosophical. The voice of the personal "je," also present

h1the latter, speaks now of physical phenomena, and by its

—¥

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13

very concentration on the physical, draws the reader into
the framework of a concrete situation beside the speaker.
Time as well as space is involved, and the feeling of being
present is enhanced when the speaker begins many of his
remarks conversationally with such words as "alors,"
"quand," "souvent," "et puis," presque aussitdt aprés,"
conveying to his auditor the movement of his experience.
Increasingly involved in this movement the reader identifies
with the invisible listener, and the personal emotional tone
that is so much a part of lyricism is further heightened.
Emotional and subjective, lyricism is also charac-
terized to a certain extent by spontaneity, and it will be
recalled that the Express article cited in the introductory
note to this study called attention to this quality in some
of Camus' work. C. Day Lewis considers it essential to true
lyricism, and states somewhat ambiguously that the poet's
utterance will be lyrical "provided he has made contact with
what, in nature and human nature, is spontaneous."11 He
also wonders if "the elaborate self-consciousness of modern
man has not, by reaching an imbalance with his instinctual

u 12

spontaneity, killed the lyric medium. The gist of his

remarks seems to be that the lyrical writer must above all

 

11C. Day Lewis, The L ric Im ulse (Cambridge:
Harvard University Press, 1965), p. 152.

12Ibid., p. 4.

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14

be sensitive to what is most spontaneous in nature, in man,
and in himself. While I would insist that it is the writer's
art which ultimately makes possible the communication of his
emotion, it is nonetheless true that spontaneous and in-
stinctual reaction is at the base of lyrical expression.
Still another attribute of lyricism remains to be
discussed--the musical quality from which it derives its
name. As Dr. Lewis points out, "Melody—-a singing line--
has always been essential to the lyric and the lyrical poem

"13 In lyrical writing more than in other

as we know them.
kinds, the complete meaning is communicated by how the
writer says what he is saying, and it is this aspect that
is ultimately untranslatable. We know only that the effect
is destroyed if the words or the order of the words is

changed. The musical quality of lyricism is one of ces

“ and to analyze

graces secretes" mentioned by Pere Rapin,1
definitively the mysterious order that produces it would

be an impossible task. However, an approach can be made
through a process of elimination. Lyricism is not a quality
confined to the formalized structure of poetry, and its

melody does not depend necessarily on meter and rhyme.

Lyricism itself, moreover, including its singing quality,

 

laIbido ' p. 19 o

l"René Rapin S. J., Les Réflexions sur la poétique de
ce temps et sur les ouvra es des poétes anciens et modernes,
ed. by E. T. DubOIs (1675 ed.; Geneva: Librairie Droz,
1970), p. 60.

 

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15

can be equated in many respects with poetry. Indeed it

is interesting to note that the term "poetic” when it is
applied to prose seems to be particularly directed toward
traits which, when observed in versified poetry, are termed
"lyrical." The musical quality of lyricism, leaving aside
its emotional and subjective aspects, will depend then on
its use of language, not necessarily restricted by meter
and rhyme, but sharing other characteristics in common with
the broader term of "poetry."

Since this study is not intended as an analysis of
what constitutes poetic language or poetic techniques, I
shall discuss them only briefly in order to show how they
are employed by Camus in these essays to create the inner
harmony of "singing lines" which move us as much by their
beauty as by the feelings and thoughts they seek to express.
In the detailed analysis of each essay which makes up the
main body of this study, closer attention will be given to
these as well as other poetic elements.

In La Prose poétique francaise Albert Cherel
describes Racine as "maitre de tous les moyens musicaux,"
and lists some of these latter as "alternance de longues
et de bréves, retour des mémes sons au cours d'un couplet,
insistances accentuées par le rythme, variété indéfiniment

souple des mouvements et des cadences. ... "15 The variety

 

15Albert Cherel, La Prose poétique frangaise (Paris:
L'Artisan du Livre, 1940), p. 29.

,p

 

16

of movement and cadence, free of formal restriction and
coupled with alternation of long and brief sounds, is one
of the most admirable characteristics of Camus' lyrical
essays, and thus one finds brief apostrophes juxtaposed
with sensual images in which the vowel sounds are prolonged:
O matins d'Oranie! Du haut des plateaux, 1es
hirondelles plongent dans d'immense cuves ou
l'air bouillonne (E, 832).
A phrase of predominantly short sounds sometimes appears

enclosed between two in which the vowels are prolonged:

A chaque vague, une promesse, toujours 1a
méme (E, 886).

In some instances the rhythm encompasses a group of
sentences whose varying lengths and cadences correspond
to the total movement of the passage, as in the following
description of approaching evening on a beach, as the sea
grows more and more calm:

Le soir venu, sous le ciel qui verdit et recule,

la mer, si calme pourtant, s'apaise encore. De

courtes vagues soufflent une buée d'écume sur

la gréve tiéde. Les oiseaux de mer ont disparu.

Il ne reste qu'un eSpace, offert au voyage

immobile (E, 886).
As the sea calms and night falls, each succeeding sentence
grows shorter, as a voice growing softer. The last
sentence expresses the final stasis of the scene.

Enumeration as a means of insistence is another

poetic characteristics of Camus' essays which contributes

to their musical quality. Jacques-G. Krafft, discussing

 

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17

enumeration, distinguishes between two types: juxtaposition,
which he calls a "fait de prose," and superposition, "fait
plus fonciérement émané de la poésie." In the former a
series of terms, each adding a new factor to what preceded
it, evokes a linear progression. In superposition, on the
other hand, all the terms stress a single signification.

In juxtaposed enumeration "L'esprit marche au pas réellement
cadencé vers le total parfait," whereas in the use of super—

position ”on saute sur place."16

Camus employs both kinds
of enumeration, but his use of superposition is much more
frequent. His tendency toward a "rythme ternaire," the
grouping of three terms, was the subject of a study by
Osten SESdergardl7 and it is true that his superposition
appears most often in this form. Whatever the number of
elements, the build-up of insistence by means of such
enumeration is one of the qualities contributing to the
melodic movement of so many lines of these essays:

... si longuement frotté du vent, secoué depuis

plus d'une heure, étourdi de résistance, je

perdais conscience du dessin que tracait mon

corps (N, 62).

Les montagnes, le ciel, la mer sont comme

des visages dont on découvre l'aridité ou

la splendeur, a force de regarder au lieu
de voir (N, 59).

 

16Jacques-G. Krafft, Essai sur l'esthétique de la
prose (Paris: Librairie philosophique J. Vrin, 1952),
pp. 23-24.

l7Osten Sadegard, "Un Aspect de la prose de Camus:
le rythme ternaire," Studio Neophilologica, XXXI (1959).

 

 

 

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In

2,

 

l8

Ensuite étaient Venus 1es barbelés, je veux
dire 1es tyrannies, la guerre, 1es polices,

le temps de la révolte (E, 870).

... l'eau des confidences coule a petit bruit,

interminablement, parmi les fontaines, 1es
statues et les jardins (E, 848).

Even Camus' employ of juxtaposition, which Krafft calls a
"fait de prose," takes on a poetic quality when metaphors
are involved, and this juxtaposition has yet another rhythm,
classical in its balance:

Ces villes n'offrent rien a la réflexion et
tout a la passion (E, 847).

La beauté isolée finit par grimacer, la

justice solitaire finit par opprimer

(E, 871).
Repetition of words is also used to insist, and adds strong
accent to the rhythm:

Entre cet endroit et cet envers du monde,

je ne veux pas choisir, je n'aime pas qu'on

choisisse (EB, 49).

Grande mer, toujours labourée, toujours vierge,
ma religion avec la nuit (E, 886)!

Occasionally an alexandrine appears, rhythmically complete
in itself:
Ciel malade sur une mer décomposée (E, 882).

Roi fainéant, mon chariot se trafnait alors
(E, 884);

or as part of another phrase:
Voici 1es déserts oh la pensée va se reprendre,

la main fraiche du soir sur un coeur agité
(E, 830).

 

 

 

 

 

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19

All three of the essay collections, L'Envers et

 

l'Endroit, Noces, and L'Eté, demonstrate every character—
istic--emotion, subjectivity, music--implied by the term
lyrical, and in fact to a large degree deserve the desig-
nation of "poésie en prose," as will be verified further
in the more detailed analysis to follow.

In an examination of prose works described as
"lyrical" one must at the outset take account of the fact
that this term has been much more frequently associated with
poetry than with prose, and there may still be objections to
the title lyrist when applied to a writer of prose. However,
the existence of poetic prose is a literary fact. Opposition
of the two terms "poetry" and "prose" has often been called
into question. The English poet Wordsworth wrote in 1800:

. . . much confusion has been introduced into
criticism by this contradistinction of oetr
and prose, instead of the more philOSOpElcal
one of poetry and matter of fact or science.
The only strict antithesis to prose 18 meter;
nor is this, in truth a strict antitheSis,
because lines and passages of meter so
naturally occur in writing prose that it would

be scarcely possible to avoid them, even were
it desirable.18

 

Over a century later Robert de Souza pointed out that "la
prose peut ressortir au poétique et 1e vers au prosaique
par le contenu et par le contenant," and he adds:

Dans cet esprit, i1 convient de laisser come

pletement de c6té 1a vieille distinction bila-
térale de la prose et du vers, aussi fausse que

 

18Bernbaum, Anthology of Romanticism, p. 303.

20

toutes 1es autres, pour identifier la poésie

partout ou elle se présente dans l'alliance

indivisible qui la constitue du sentiment et

de son expression esthétique.19
Paul Claudel, exploring the subject of what constitutes
poetry, cites lines which at first glance appear to be
prose, and then remarks on their musical quality and other
poetic elements. To his interlocutor who argues "Mais
c'est de la prose, ce que vous dites 15!" he replies:

Non, ce n'est pas de la prose, cher Monsieur,

ca n'a aucun rapport, ce sont des vers dont

chacun est distinct, dont chacun a une figure

sonore différente et contient en lui-meme tout

ce qu 'il faut pour etre parfait, en un mot

c 'est de la poésie latente, ... 2°

A good many illustrious French writers have even

maintained the superiority of prose for the expression of
feeling. In the article just quoted Claudel says of rhyme
that it is "inutile et nuisible dans le drame et dans la
grande poésie lyrique ou le sentiment domine tout et 00 1e
mmyen doit se faire oublier. ... "21 Cherel reminds us of
the "Lettre a l'Académie" of Fenelon in which the latter

recognizes the power of poetic expression, but deplores

the inadequacy of French versification to interpret it,

 

19Bremond, La Poésie pure, pp. 258-259.

2°Paul Claudel, "Réflexions et propositions sur la
vers francais," Nouvelle Revue francaise, XXV (juillet—
déC., 1925), 556.

”Ibid. , p. 569.

21

declaring that rhyme is the enemy of variety and true
harmony, and further, that it tends to falsify meaning
and stultify inspiration by its constraints.

The greater freedom allowed by prose seems to be
the chief point in its favor according to its proponents,
and once more I shall cite the very poetic prose of Claudel:

Ah, il n'y a plus besoin de mesurer et de compter!
Quel soulagement! Comme l'esprit jouit de cet
affranchissement de l'oreille! Qu'est-ce qui va
arriver? Quelle musique toujours changeante et
toujours imprévue et quelle joie de se sentir
ainsi gracieusement porté sans que l'on sache
comment par-dessus tous les obstacles! Et comme
1e vers alexandrin a c6té de ces roulades d'oi-
seaux parait quelque chose de barbare, a la fois
enfantin et vieillot, quelque chose de pionnesque
et de mécanique, inventé pour dépouiller 1es
vibrations de l'ame, les initiatives sonores de
la simple Psyche, de leur accent 1e plus naif et
de leur fleur la plus délicate.22

For the subjective writer of lyrical tendency who
rejects the constraints of formally structured poetry, the
essay genre seems a particularly happy choice. There have
been many definitions of the essay, but most agree on the
three following characteristics: it should be brief, of a
personal, reflective nature, and written in prose. Within
these modest restrictions it has the virtue of allowing the
writer greater freedom than any other genre.

The essay had its beginning in France, receiving its

name from the work of its French originator, Michel Eyquem

 

”Ibid., p. 556.

 

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22

de Montaigne. This initial "essayist" left no doubt as

to the total subjectivity of his work both tOpic and point
of view: " ... c'est moy que je peins" (Avis au lecteur,
Essais, 1580). Since the sixteenth-century Essais of
Montaigne, the essay has continued to serve other writers

in France as a vehicle for the expression of personal
opinions and/or feelings, although some critics have wrongly
tended to consider the form a predominantly English one.

H. V. Routh, for example, in his article "The Origins of the
Essay Compared in French and English Literatures" implies
that the essay in France began and ended with Montaigne, and
he adds the following rather shocking statement: "And yet
the literature which created the essay and offers so many
facilities for its continuance, has failed to produce a
successor at all comparable to Montaigne, while another
nation, apparently less adapted to the cultivation of this
art, can claim all the great essayists of the world from
Bacon to Lamb."23 Mr. Routh gives as his explanation of
this failure the particular conditions of French society in
the seventeenth century: it was a period of reconstruction
and desire for authority, within which the institution of

the salon, with its stress on form, tended to eliminate what

 

23H. V. Routh, "The Origins of the Essay Compared in
French and English Literature," Modern Language Review, XV:
No. l (1920), 33.

 

23

was personal and peculiar. "A writer was not expected to
reveal his own soul but to play a part."2“

This argument carries some weight insofar as it
confines itself to the seventeenth century. While many of
the carefully composed letters of the period, as well as
the writings of the moralists, are close kin to the essay,
they fail in significant ways to fulfill the criteria men-
tioned earlier. As Routh points out, La Rochefoucauld's
Maximes are really an exposition of the society of his time,
and La Bruyére, who perhaps had the "potentialities for the
greatest of essayists," did not fulfill them, preferring

in the succeeding editions of his Caracteres to augment the

 

more popular portraits rather than the meditations and com-
ments which were more akin to the essay. It is nonetheless
true that many seventeenth-century writers were in fact
writing essays as we now recognize them, but under different
names, such as "discours," "traité," and "réflexions." Guez
de Balzac's letters, of contemplative style expressing his
thoughts, would have been called essays in another era, and
Saint-Evremond's literary and historical observations,
though intended primarily to clarify certain subjects for
his readers, contain many personal reflections.

While it is understandable that Mr. Routh, writing

in l920,would omit many twentieth-century writers in the

 

2"Ibid., p. 35.

 
 

, .1_. .....\ . ...~ .... ... .... ‘. .~‘ .. . __ p‘\ a».\

 

24

genre such as Malraux, Duhamel, Sartre, and Camus, it is
inconceivable that he would overlook completely the great
French writers of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries
who employed it. It was during the eighteenth century that
the "essay" so named returned to France under the influence
of Bacon and Locke, and the use of the genre soon expanded
and gained momentum in the form of well-knit studies of a
variety of subjects, always from a personal point of view.
Many major figures of the Enlightenment, such as Voltaire,
Diderot, Holbach, and Montesquieu made use of it. Marivaux,
generally thought of as a novelist and dramatist, produced

one-quarter of his total work in this form. Le Spectateur

 

frangais (1722), L'Indigent Philosophe (1728), and L2
Cabinet du philosophe (1734) are all essay collections.
The eighteenth century also witnessed the increasing use
of the genre in art criticism. Diderot employed it
extensively for this purpose.

Nineteenth-century writers in France continued
the previous century's usage of the essay. Baudelaire,
following in the footsteps of Diderot, used it in art
criticism, for example. However, other writers, such as
Chateaubriand (Essai historique, politique et moral sur 1es
révolutions anciennes et modernes, 1797), Stendhal (Egggi

sur l'amour, 1822), Mérimée (Essai sur la guerre sociale,

 

1841), Taine (Essai sur les fables de La Fontaine, 1853),

25

Renan and Cousin gave the name of "essay" to works which
were in fact lengthy treatises. It was not until the
latter part of the century that shorter pieces more closely
resembling those of Montaigne began to appear, although
these were not always entitled essays. Dr. Sidney Braun
cites as examples of some of these nineteenth-century

shorter works the Du Dandysme (1845) of Barbey d'Aurevilly,

 

some of the Actes et paroles (1872) of Victor Hugo, and

 

short pieces of Léon Bloy and Rémy de Gourmont.25

In the twentieth century the essay has become
increasingly popular, and many critics attribute this
phenomenon to the growing independence of writers which
permits them greater freedom of thought. A possible
related cause suggested by Dr. Braun is the decline of the
fixed form in our century. The novel, for example, which
had come to encompass other genres formerly distinct in
themselves, such as satire and tragedy, eventually tended
to become a fixed form itself. The essay was a convenient
outlet for writers such as Gide who revolted against fixed
form.

Emile Bouvier calls the essayist's manner a
"réaction de défense de la sensibilité littéraire."

The essay's dominant characteristics of eclecticism

 

25Sidney D. Braun, ed., Dictionary of French
Literature (New York: Philosophical Library, 1958), p. 113.

 

26

and personality, according to Bouvier, are directly opposed
to the requirements of scientific didacticism, specializa-
tion, and objectivity. The writer, situated in a collective
environment, and forced to seek his personal justifications
within the limits of his historical milieu, at least tries
to do it in his own way, "suivant des procédés qui relévent
pour autant de l'art d'agréer que de celui de démontrer."

As a means of viewing the twentieth-century essay in per-
spective with usage in other periods, Bouvier's definition
of it is worth citing in its entirety:

L'essai est d'abord un totalitarisme. Le
sens de la solution du probléme est dicté par
une conviction intérieure, souvent préconcue;
l'argumentation fait appel tour a tour a la
raison, au coeur, a l'imagination; la composi-
tion est souple, parfois irreguliére, avec
raccourcis et digressions; le 'tempo' varié;
le style calque un mouvement interieur et est
frappé a l'empreinte personnelle de l'auteur.
En bref, quelle que soit sa significantion
didactique, méme et surtout lorsque l'es-
sayiste y attache une importance capitale,
l'essai reste oeuvre d'art et objet de plaisir,
détachable de la demonstration proprement dite.26

Most of the above is applicable not only to Camus' lyrical

essays, but to the four Lettres a un ami allemand of 1943-

 

1944 and to the philosophical essays as well. It would be
well to state here that the term "philosophical" applied

to Le Mythe de Sisyphe and L'Homme révolté is not strictly

 

 

25Emile Bouvier, Les Lettres frangaises au XXe sieclg
(Paris: Presses universitairesgde France, 1962), pp. 76-77.

 

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27

accurate, since Camus made no pretensions to being a
philosopher or of formulating a philosophical system.
The two above-mentioned essays are frequently referred
to by this term because of their objective concern with
certain principles as they apply to human life. Even in
these so-called "philosophical" essays, however, Camus'
strong tendency toward subjective and lyrical expression

is apparent. The concluding pages of L'Homme révolté and

 

a large part of Le Mythe de Sisyphe approach very closely

 

the designation of prose poetry.

The field of subjects for essays has expanded to
include personal speculation and reflection on every con-
ceivable matter. Twentieth-century novelists have found
the genre an effective means of expressing philOSOphical
ideas and principles that underly their subsequent novels.

Malraux's La Tentation de l'Occident explores basic differ-

 

ences between the East and the West in their orientation
toward human life and the world. The separation of Western
man from the world, his insistence on particularity, and
his need for action are among the themes which appear and
are developed later in his novels. For Camus Le Mythe de

Sisyphe stands in the same relationship with L'Etranger:

 

the theme of the Absurd conveyed in the former by means of
personal reflection, is revealed in the latter through the

experience of the protagonist, Meursault. The expansion of

28

Camus' thought, as expressed in L'Homme révolté, is revealed

 

novelistically in La Peste, both works demonstrating a shift

 

toward enlarged responsibility.

Other twentieth-century writers have found their
sources of inspiration in nature, travel, politics, art
religion, literature, and philosophy. So great was the
impact of one collection of essays on the young Camus,
that by his own admission it was the deciding factor in
his becoming a writer. In his preface to the 1959 edition
of Les Iles, essays of his mentor and friend, Jean Grenier,

Camus writes: "A 1'époque ou je découvris Les Iles, je

 

voulais écrire, je crois. Mais je n'ai vraiment décidé
de la faire qu'apres cette lecture." It was this slender
book, he says, which guided him toward "une réflexion plus
profonde" and in addition, "Un jardin s'ouvrait, en effet,
d'une richesse incomparable; je venais de découvrir l'art."27
The influence of Les Iles on Camus was therefore twofold,
since he also chose its form for his first published work.
Many of the above-mentioned speculations on the
situation of the essay genre in France in the twentieth
century point up its peculiar appropriateness for Camus.

Certainly he stressed the freedom and independence of the

writer, and as an artist he was deeply concerned with form.

 

”Jean Grenier, Les Iles (1930; rpt. Paris:
Gallimard, 1959), preface by Albert Camus, p. 13.

o. M"
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29

It has been suggested by various critics that as a craftsman
Camus was not an unqualified success in certain of his
dramatic and novelistic works, tending in some cases to
allow his themes to overflow the limits of the genre
employed, to the detriment of the finished work. It is
possible to view this alleged defect as a manifestation
of the artist's impatience with fixed form, whether con-
scious or unconscious. It is also, however, a support to
the thesis that Camus, with his pronounced lyrical tendency,
writes best in the essay, where he is entirely free to
reflect and to speculate, to express his emotions with the
greatest degree of spontaneity, to speak in his own voice
finally without the constraints imposed by other forms.
Although Camus' Le Mythe de Sisyphe and L'Homme
révolté are perhaps more widely known than the three
collections of lyrical essays, the latter have a special
relationship to his total work in that they contain all of
the major themes whose development makes up their author's
literary production. This was suggested by Camus himself

in his preface to the 1958 reedition of L'Envers et

 

l'endroit, the earliest collection, when he speaks of

 

"ce long cheminement pour retrouver par les détours de

l'art les deux ou trois images simples et grandes sur

1esquelles 1e coeur, une premiere fois, s'est ouvert."28

 

28Henry Bonnier, Albert Camusfiou la force d'étre
(Lyon: Editions Emmanuel Vitte, 1959), P. 58.

30

Others have perceived the importance of the lyrical
essays to an understanding of Camus' other works. Henry
Bonnier, for example, refers to Ngggg as "la premiere et
déterminante impulsion a une oeuvre riche de franchise et
d'honnéteté"29 and stresses the decisive influence of Camus'
experience at Djémila as transcribed in the second essay of
Npggg, Albert Maquet30 sees "Les Amandiers" (written in
1950 and later published in the collection Li§5§_in 1954)

reflected in the final lyrical chapter of L'Homme révolté

 

(1951). Before beginning the examination of the lyrical
essays themselves, a brief survey will be made of the
recurring themes in Camus' writing in order to demonstrate
more clearly the unique rapport between the lyrical essays

and Camus' total literary production.

 

29Ibid., p. 97.

30Albert Maquet, Albert Camus ou l'invincible été:
essai (Paris: Nouvelles Editions Debresse, 1955), p. 105.

 

CHAPTER II

THE THEMES

" ... une oeuvre d'homme n'est rien d'autre

que ce long cheminement pour retrouver par

les détours de l'art les deux ou trois images

simples et grandes sur 1esquelles 1e coeur,

une premiere fois, s'est ouvert."

Camus
Préface, L'Envers et l'Endroit

Even a cursory perusal of Camus' total writing
discloses the predominance of certain themes. A closer
look will reveal that all of them are present in the lyrical
essays under study, and further, that they remain his pre-
occupation from the beginning to the end of his career as
a writer.

In the examination of these subjects some overlap-
ping is unavoidable and this is particularly true of the
first theme I propose to discuss--tension--which I consider
to be at the base of all of Camus' work. Aspects of it are
apparent in all of the other major themes to be treated and
as a result each of these subsequent themes, with few excep-
tions, will be examined either from a double perspective or

paired with another subject. Since this chapter will be

concerned primarily with "fond" rather than "forme"

31

 

 

 

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32

discussion of details of style will be postponed until
analysis of the essays themselves. It should at least
be noted here, however, that tension, first theme to be
treated, manifests itself also in Camus' "forme," as Henri

Hell has remarked in the special edition of La Table Ronde

 

of February, 1960 dedicated to Camus:

... 1e style de Camus est celui d'un grand
écrivain. Le dépouillement et 1'élan lyrique,
tels sont ses caractéristiques essentielles.
Dans ses livres les plus accomplis ... ces deux
tendances qui peuvent sembler contradictoires
donnent naissance a une oeuvre classique, ofi
s'équilibrent la volonté d'ordre, d'unité, et

la tension intérieure contre laquelle l'écrivain
ne cesse de lutter. C'est cette lutte qui donne
a ses plus belles pages leur ton particulier:
celui d'une voix harmonieuse et crispée, ardente
et sobre, douce et révoltée. Voix a laquelle
l'oeuvre de Camus devra sa vertu la plus durable.1

Tension in Camus' work takes several aspects.
One of these appears in the idea of limit, of "la mesure."
Indeed this aspect has been so closely associated with Camus
that he himself commented humorously on the subject in an

interview with Frank Jotterand of the Gazette de Lausanne

 

in March of 1954: "D'autres termes encore que l'on répete
a tout propos 5 mon égard; limite, mesure ... Il faudra que

je renouvelle mes adjectifs ... "2

 

1Henri Hell, "Gide et Camus," La Table ronde,
NO. 146 (1960), 25.

 

2Camus, Essais, p. 1836.

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33

Camusian "mesure" is the kind of tension or
equilibrium achieved by recognition of limits and the
acceptance of restraint within those limits. As a student
and admirer of the Greeks, who sensed deeply his own affin-
ity with Greek ideals and Greek rapport with the natural
world, Camus makes frequent allusion to them as observers
of "la mesure" whose example our western civilization has
failed to follow. For the Greeks, will was restrained by
reason; we have instead placed "l'élan de la volonté au
coeur de la raison, qui en est devenue meurtriere" (E, 855);
for the Greeks' action was based on preéxistent values, and
it was restricted to precise limits, but:

... la philosophie moderne place ses valeurs

a la fin de l'action. Elles ne sont pas, mais

elles deviennent, et nous ne 1es connaitrons

dans leur entier qu'a l'achévement de l'histoire.

Avec elles, 1a limite disparait, et comme 1es

conceptions different sur ce qu'elles seront,

comme il n'est pas de lutte qui, sans le frein

de ces mémes valeurs, ne s'étende indéfiniment,

1es messianismes aujourd'hui s'affrontent et

leurs clameurs se fondent dans le choc des

empires (E, 855).
In modern philosophy's enshrinement of History and the
concept of the progression of human society toward a better
future, the field of our action becomes open-ended, and the
action itself, without pre-set values to act as guide and
restraint, proceeds without limits to unimaginable excesses.

The idea of limitation governed all areas of Greek

thought because it embraced all things, yet permitted none

34

to excess: "Elle n'a rien poussé a bout, ni 1e sacré ni
1a raison, parce qu'elle n'a rien nié, ni 1e sacré, ni la
raison. Elle a fait la part de tout, équilibrant l'ombre
par la lumiere" (E, 853). Western society, dedicated to
absolutist ideologies, "est fille de la démesure." The
Greeks recognized that justice itself had limitations, while
today the continent of Europe "se convulse a la recherche
d'une justice qu'il veut totale" (E, 853).

Camus' preoccupation with the concept of limits,
so respected by the Greeks, dates back to his study of
philosophy and is already apparent in his "diplOme d'études
supérieures" written after completion of the "licence"
and preparatory to candidacy for the "agrégation." This

dissertation, Entre Plotin et Saint Augustin,3 traces the

 

relationship of Greek philosophy to Christianity, and par-
ticularly the role played by neoplatonism in the evolution
of Christian thought. Briefly, it is structured as follows:
An introduction discusses Greek thought insofar as it both
differed from and prefigured Christianity. One important
difference lay in the Greek acceptance of and harmony with
the world: "Leur évangile disait: notre Royaume est de

"lo

ce monde. In L'Envers et l'endroit Camus will repeat

 

 

3Roger Quilliot in the Pléiade edition of Camus'
Essais states that the exact title is Métaphysique
chrétienne et Néoplatonisme.

 

I'Camus, Essais, p. 1225.

35

these words speaking this time for himself (EB, 49). A
second area of difference was the Greeks' rational concep-
tion of life and the world, with man sufficient in himself
to explain the universe. In this view virtue can be learned,
and moral evil is equated with ignorance or error.

In the wake of Alexander, however, in the melange
of races and beliefs, of oriental and occidental thought,
in a period of social and political upheaval, a longing for
a God and a preoccupation with the destiny of the human soul
began to surface and grow stronger, and "a l'orgueil de la
vie qui animait le monde antique se substitue l'humilité

5 Thus more and more

d'esprits en quéte d'inspirations."
after 200 B.C. the principal religions began preparing the
way for Christianity. Camus' first chapter, concerning
earliest Christianity, describes its chief characteristics
as: scorn for all speculation or inquiry; concern for
religious practice; the primacy of faith; pessimism con-
cerning man; and great hOpe because of the Incarnation.
Above all, with the concept of universal sin ("nemo bonus")
a great distance separates man from God. Plato's scale of
ideas, constructed to join Man to the Good, is replaced in

Christianity by a single factor outside the orbit of man's

reason or control: the coming of Jesus as man's only hope.

 

5Ibid., p. 1227.

36

The second chapter, dealing with the further
evolution of Christianity, describes the growing efforts
to show that Christianity conforms with Reason, and the
various manifestations of Gnosticism. Christian in their
pessimism with regard to the world, the Gnostics were Greek
in their acceptance of reason as an aid to salvation.

Center of the "dipléme," the third chapter discusses
the rapport of ne0p1atonism with Christianity, and partic-
ularly the thought of Plotinus, a third-century neoplatonist
torn between a rational view of the world and anguish before
man's destiny. "En une certaine mesure 1a Raison plotinienne
est déja 1e 'coeur' de Pascal."6 However, seeing the cosmos
as a cyclic "procession" or "emanation" from God, Plotinus
is not tortured by 'disproportion' nor the abyss separating
man from God. Although he views the world from the per-
spective of Greek idealism, i.e., inferior to "le monde
supérieur," nevertheless for him the things of this world
are the valued indicators and reminders of that superior
realm. "Chaque chose ici-bas s'en fait 1e vivant rappel."7
Camus cites passages from the Enneads of Plotinus which
abound in sensual imagery, and remarks "C'est donc avec

sa sensibilité que Plotin se saisit de l'intelligible,"8

 

5151a., p. 1271.
7Ibid.

8Ibid.

 

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37

a comment which might well be applied to Camus himself. For
Plotinus there is a harmony, an accord, even a sense of
mutual participation between physical phenomena and Reason,
between the beauty of the world and Truth. He is critical
of the Christian Gnostics for their scorn of the beauties of
this world, and rejects the "salut gratuit" of Christianity,
running counter as it does to Greek concept of virtue based
upon reason. For this neoplatonist "la mesure" was essen-
tial to virtue and Camus translates from the first Ennead:
"Car un étre devient meilleur parce qu'il se limite et parce
que, soumis a la mesure, 11 sort du domaine des étres privés
de mesure et de limite."9

Hellenism, one of the sub-themes recurring often
in Camus' work, remains closely linked to his preoccupation
with "1a mesure" as a guard against excess in any form. The
essay, "L'Exil d'Hélene," first published in Cahiers du Sud
in 1948 (republished in pigpé in 1954) expresses many of
Camus' thoughts on limit that will appear in the long phil-
osophical and political essay of 1951, L'Homme révolté:lo
from "L'Exil d'Héléne”:

Némésis veille, déesse de la mesure, non de la

vengeance. Tous ceux qui dépassent la limite
sont, par elle, impitoyablement chatiés (E, 853).

 

9Camus' translation appears in a footnote on p. 1270
of the Pléiade edition of the Essais.

10An entire Section from the last chapter of L'Homme
révolté is entitled "Mesure et démesure."

 

u
n .

 

.A

\f“

38

Dans nos plus extremes démences, nous révons
d'un équilibre que nous avons laissé derriére
nous et dont nous croyons ingénument que nous
allons 1e retrouver au bout de nos erreurs
(E, 854).

... 1es Grecs n'ont jamais dit que la limite

ne pouvait étre franchie. Ils ont dit qu'elle
existait et que celui-la était frappé sans merci
qui osait 1a dépasser. Rien dans l'histoire
d'aujourd'hui ne peut les contredire (E, 855-56).

 

From L'Homme révolté:

Ou cette valeur de limite sera servie, en tout

cas, ou la démesure contemporaine ne trouvera

sa régle et sa paix que dans la destruction

universelle (HR, 698).

Dans leur [the Greeks] univers, 11 y a plus de

fautes que de crimes, le seul crime définitif

étant 1a démesure (HR, 440).

As an individual, man must recognize and accept

the limitations of his own condition. The consequences of
disregard for such "limite" are frighteningly portrayed in
Camus' play Caligula. The protagonist's transgression of
"1a limite" has a double aspect: refusing to accept human
mortality and the limitations of human destiny, Caligula
attempts to thwart them by usurping destiny's role. In
assuming the capricious and arbitrary power of destiny, he
abandons every restraint in his treatment of those under his
rule. The failure to accept his own human condition leads
him to the perpetration of inhuman excesses against others,
and in the end to his own destruction.

"Limite" with reference to human mortality has

strong ties to other themes of Camus' writing, and is

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39

reflected particularly in his emphasis on life and beauty
in the here-and-now, and on lucidity as one of the necessary
ingredients of the Absurd, which will be explored subse-
quently. Already in "Le Desert" he opts for the acceptance
of such limits:

... c'est que 1'Italie comme d'autres lieux

privilégiés m'offre 1e spectacle d'une beauté

ofi meurent quand meme 1es hommes. Ici encore

la vérité doit pourrir et quoi de plus exaltant?

Meme si je la souhaite, qu'ai-je a faire d'une

vérité qui ne doive pas pourrir? Elle n'est

pas a ma mesure (N, 87).

Later in La Peste Dr. Rieux will affirm.the same acceptance

 

of human limitation: "Le salut de l'homme est un trOp grand
mot pour moi. Je ne vais pas si loin. C'est sa santé qui
m'intéresse ... "1' and "Je n'ai pas de gout, je crois, pour
l'héroisme et la saintété. Ce qui m'intéresse, c'est d'étre
un homme."12
Tension appears in Camus' work in a second guise,
one more closely related to the definition of "équilibre"
itself. The latter is defined as "état de repos d'un corps
sollicité par plusieurs forces qui s'annulent." If a single
concept--that of limit--predominates in "la mesure," in

"l'équilibre" the focus is on two elements maintained in

balance. These two elements may or may not be opposed to

 

11Albert Camus, Theatre, Récits, Nouvelles, ed. by
Roger Quilliot (Paris: Gallimard, Bibliotheque de la
Pléiade, 1962), p. 1397.

 

12Ibid., p. 1427.

40

each other, but either way, as Hazel Barnes correctly
points out in a 1960 article, they should be viewed in
terms of certain absolutes to be maintained rather than

by seeking a golden mean between opposing systems.13
Dozens of examples can be found in Camus' work of equi-
librium between non-contradictory factors. In "La Mort
dans l'ame" five years before his essay on the Absurd,

Le Mythe de Sisyphe, he is already suggesting the necessity
of both courage and lucidity. Confronted with the beauty
of the Italian plain near Vicenza, shaken by it to a point
of "extreme conscience," he perceives in it a certain
grandeur: "Je la trouvais dans la confrontation de mon
déSespoir profond et de l'indifférence secrete d'un des
plus beaux paysages du monde. J'y puisais la force d'€tre
courageux et conscient a la fois" (EB, 39).

Occasionally two elements which appear to be
opposites are revealed as simply two aspects of the same
thing. In "L'Eté a Alger" after describing the beauties
of nature enjoyed by Algerians he refers to "ses autres
richesses: je veux dire ses silences et son ennui" (N, 70).
The gay and noisy mid-day on the beaches enjoyed by the

Young contrasts with and is balanced by the silence of

‘

13Hazel Barnes, "Balance and Tension in the Philoso-
PhY’Of Camus," The Personalist, XLI, NO- 4 (1960): 434-

41

mid-day in the public square where lemonade is sipped under
the trees that border it. Later, on the first pages of pg
Mythe de Sisyphe he will tell us that exploration of the
question of life's meaning requires "l'équilibre de
l'évidence et du lyrisme qui peut seul nous permettre
d'accéder en meme temps a l'émotion et a la clarté" (MS,
99-100). Evidence and lyricism, emotion and reason, must
coexist: each is equally necessary to the other.

More frequently, however, the two factors held in
balance are opposed. Ms. Barnes acknowledges in the above-
mentioned article that opposites coexist for Camus, and
that often his desirable mean is not a compromise between
two extremes but rather the simultaneous maintenance of
both. However, she forestalls those who would see traces
of Hegelian dialectic in Camus, balanced Oppositions:

. . . contrary to what we find in Hegel, the
thesis and antithesis--if we could even call
them that--cannot be considered as evanescent
moments of the synthesis, nor is there anything
which might be called a true reconciliation in
which the opposites are cancelled out by being
lifted 1x) a higher level or all-embracing whole.
Rather the Opposing principles are preserved,
never blended though one might say that they
color each other.‘“

The theme of equilibrium maintained between opposing

Eminciples pervades Camus' writing. In his earliest essay

(mllection, appropriately titled L'Envers et l'endroit, he

¥

“Ibid., p. 435.

42

is already expressing his awareness of the positive and
negative aspects of life's reality with the recollection
of his childhood of poverty and joy:

11 y a une solitude dans la pauvreté, mais une

solitude qui rend son prix a chaque chose. A

un certain degré de richesse, le ciel lui-méme

et la nuit pleine d'étoiles semblent des biens

naturels (EB, 24).
In one of the travel essays he recollects the contrasting
impressions left on him by the gloom of Prague and the
radiant beauty of the Italian plains, and concludes that
" ... les deux me sont cheres et je sépare mal mon amour
de la lumiére et de la vie d'avec mon secret attachment
pour l'expérience désespérée que j'ai voulu décrire" (BE,
39). The world will always present two faces to man, and
for Camus both must be embraced:

Je tiens au monde par tous mes gestes, aux

hommes par toute ma pitié et ma reconnaissance.

Entre cet endroit et cet envers du monde, je

ne veux pas choisir, je n'aime pas qu'on

choisisse (EB, 49).

The conclusion of "Le Désert," written after his travels

in Italy, prefigures the Absurd described in Le Mythe de

 

Sisyphe, an equilibrium between opposing forces:

C'est sur ce balancement qu'il faudrait s'arré-

ter: singulier instant ou la spiritualité répudie
la morale, ou le bonheur nait de l'absence d'espoir,
oh l'esprit trouve sa raison dans le corps. S'il
est vrai que toute vérité porte en elle son amertume,
il est aussi vrai que toute negation contient une
floraison de 'oui' (N, 87).

In 1954 the collection L'Eté shows no lessening in Camus'

affinity for such opposition, which often manifests itself

n),

43

in paradox or humour. Discussing the mediocre monuments of
Oran and the city itself, he states that they force one to
grant importance to the unimportant, thus having a salutary
effect on "l'esprit," which needs on occasion to be humbled
(E, 826). Near the beginning of "L'Enigme" appears the
somewhat paradoxical statement, "De nouveau, une énigme
heureuse m'aide a tout comprendre" (E, 861), and he goes
on to affirm his faithfulness to the lessons of his youth
in Algeria where beauty and misery are constantly juxtaposed:

Au plus noir de notre nihilisme, j'ai cherché

seulement des raisons de dépasser ce nihilisme.

Et non point d'ailleurs par vertu, ni par une

rare élévation de l'ame, mais par fidélité

instinctive a une lumiére oh je suis né et ou,

depuis des millénaires, les hommes ont appris

a saluer la vie jusque dans la souffrance

(E, 865).
Likewise, in "Retour a Tipasa," revisiting the scenes of
Noces, he reiterates his commitment to both aspects of
human life.

Puisque peu d'époques demandent autant que la

n6tre qu'on se fasse égal au meilleur comme an

pire, j'aimerais, justement, ne rien éluder et

garder exacte une double mémoire. Oui, 11 y

a la beauté et il y a les humiliés. Quelles

que soient 1es difficultés de l'entreprise, je

voudrais n'étre jamais infidele hi 5 l'une ni

aux autres (E, 875).

"L'équilibre," though one aspect of tension,

suggests a state of repose. The term tension on the other
hand implies not a static but a dynamic state, ready at any

moment to snap should the balance shift. "La mesure" says

 
 

.- ..ss. .

 

44

Camus, "est une pure tension," and "Elle sourit sans doute
et nos convulsionnaires, voués a de laborieuses apocalypses,
l'en méprisent. Mais ce sourire resplendit au sommet d'un
interminable effort: il est une force supplémentaire"

(HR, 704). It means the necessary maintenance of opposing
principles in precise balance, with the determination not
to permit the equilibrium to be destroyed at any cost.

With whatever aspect of tension he was dealing, Camus seems
always to have been keenly aware of the precariousness
implied in the term tension itself. It can be likened to
stretching a cord to its limits but never permitting it

to snap, or to walking a tight-rope in the knowledge that

a momentary lapse means destruction. It represents the
"interminable effort" which constitutes for Camus the
indispensable ingredient of any attempt to improve the

human condition, individually or collectively. It means
constant awareness of death while living life to the fullest:
implicit in it is refusal of fanaticism, the rejection of
ideologies based on absolutes; it means accepting principles
in defense of man, but never allowing them to outweigh in
importance the concrete living man they are designed to
defend; it requires embracing both happiness for oneself

and responsibility for the well-being of others; for the
artist particularly it necessitates a perpetual balance

between his responsibility to his art, his duty to use his

45

art for the good of others, and his own attachment to the
world.

Tension is at the heart of the Absurd, a major theme
of Camus which is treated in detail in Le Mythe de Sisyphe.
Man, seeking answers to the human condition and reasons to
give his life a meaning, is faced with an irrational cosmos.
Life itself as a value can be his only justification, and
to maintain this value he must maintain all factors of the
Absurd, evading neither life nor the consciousness of his
eventual death. Awareness of death, far from destroying
the value of life, makes it all the more precious. At the
same time, by the defiance of his fate, by finding joy in
the world in spite of his inevitable end, man himself gives
his life a nobility and a meaning that is refused by an
indifferent universe. Only through unceasing effort is
this achieved:

L'absurde est sa tension la plus extreme, celle

qu'il maintient constamment d'un effort soli-

taire, car il sait que, dans cette conscience

et dans cette révolte au jour 1e jour, i1 té-

moigne de sa seule vérité qui est le défi (M,

139).
This extreme tension manifests itself in pure awareness in
one of Camus' earliest essays, "Amour de Vivre," written
in 1936. It receives here what is surely one of its most
poetic expressions, and foreshadows the lucidity so essen-

tial to the absurd man of Le Mythe de Sisyphe. In Majorca,

visiting a cloister, contemplating its colonnades, its

46

peaceful garden, the roses, the well, the silence broken
only by the beating of pigeons' wings, he becomes suddenly
and acutely aware that for him none of this beauty can last:

J'étais lucide et souriant deyant ce jeu unique

des apparences. Ce cristal ou souriait le

visage du monde, il me semblait qu'un este

l'efit felé. Quelque chose allait se defaire,

1e vol des pigeons mourir et chacun d'eux

tomber lentement sur ses ailes déployees.

... Dans une heure, une minute, une seconde,

maintenant peut-étre, tout pouvait crouler

(EE, 43-44).

The tension so apparent in his work was an
experienced reality in Camus' life. During the collabora-
tionists' trials following World War II he declared himself
opposed, in the name of all those who had suffered and died
for France, to an attitude of clemency. Francois Mauriac,

writing in Le Figaro, took the contrary view and recommended

 

mercy instead of the death penalty. In October 1944 Camus
replied in a Combat article that " ... 1e probleme de la
justice consiste essentiellement a faire taire la miséri-
corde dont parle M. Mauriac lorsque la vérité de tous est

'5 The temptation to pursue an elusive absolute

en jeu."
justice to its logical end in the death sentence was a

serious one for Camus at this time. He felt a profound
sense of responsibility toward those who had died in the

struggle to the point that momentarily at least he felt

 

15Camus, Essais, p. 1535.

47

justified, in Emmett Parker's words, "in taking up the
weapons of the executioner and in using them against him."16
The tension inherent in guarding against such a lapse will

appear later in La Peste as Tarrou remarks that each one of

 

us carries within himself the germ of the plague, of murder,
and must be constantly alert against causing the death of
others:

... i1 faut se surveiller sans arrét pour ne

as étre amené, dans une minute de distraction,
a respirer dans la figure d'un autre et a lui
coller l'infection. Ce qui est naturel, c'est
1e microbe. Le reste, la santé, l'intégrité,

la pureté, si vous voulez, c'est un effet de

la volonté et d'une volonté qui ne doit jamais
s'arréter. L'honnéte homme, celui qui n'infecte
personne, c'est celui qui a le moins de distrac-
tion possible. Et il en faut de la volonté et
de la tension pour ne jamais étre distrait.17

For Camus this tension had slackened temporarily. On the
brink of falling, however, he resisted. He had discovered
in the course of the trials that the rapid and firm justice
he had wanted was "inégalement rapide et inégalement

"1° favoring those who were in higher positions. On

ferme,
December 6, 1946, in an address before the Garde des Sceaux
defending two journalists condemned to death for collabora-

tion, he said:

 

16Emmett Parker, Albert Camus: The Artist in the
Arena (Madison; Milwaukee; London: University of Wisconsin
Press, 1966): p0 68.

l7Camus, Théatre, Récits, Nouvelles, p. 1426.

 

1°Roger Quilliot in Essais, p. 1886.

48

J'ai longtemps cru que ce pays ne pouvait
pas se passer de justice. Mais je ne vous
offenserai pas, ni personne autour de vous
en disant que la justice depuis 1a Liberation
s'est révélée assez difficile pour que nous ne
sentions pas maintenant que toute justice humaine
a ses limites et que ce pays, finalement, peut
aussi avoir besoin de pitié.19
Emmett Parker writes that by November of 1946 "Camus had
decided that there was no truth in the name of which he
would ever again demand the life of another human being."2°
Finally in 1948 in another article Camus acknowledged that
Mauriac had been right and he himself wrong.
In the years that followed Camus was repeatedly
criticized for failure to take strong political stands and

for so—called inaction. The publication of L'Homme révolté

 

in 1951, in which he had warned against the consequences of
ideologies based on history and proposed moderation as a
moral value, was the catalyst for many such attacks and led
to the eventual break between Camus and Sartre. Recognizing
the dilemma of the writer who does not wish to commit him-
self wholly to any party, Wyndham Lewis wrote of the author

of L'Homme révolté:

 

In Camus we have a writer of great distinction
who declares himself as not of any party: or
at least desirous of being that. Yet there is
nothing in the world so difficult today as not
belonging to a party . . . . Remain outside of

 

19Camus, Essais, p. 1887.

20Parker, Artist in the Arena, p. 95.

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49

party, and you flout and affront all the beautiful

(and extremely touchy) groups who would like you

to succumb to their attractions.21
Serge Doubrovsky in his article "La Morale d'Albert Camus"
asks the question, "La morale de la mesure n'aboutira—t-elle
donc qu'a 1a politique de la modération?" and he appears
at first to side with Camus' detractors with the reminder
that the path of moderation as well as the one of extremes
can have fatal consequences. But he goes on to say "La
premiere offre, cependant, plus de chances de survie a notre
civilisation que la seconde, dont on sait trop ou elle con-
duit." Further, he sees in Camus' insistence on maintaining
a middle ground no lack of courage or strength but rather an
extreme tension necessitating both:

11 y a la une tension existentielle qu'aucune

formulation théorique, aucun procés dialectique

ne saurait résoudre, rien que les deux bouts de

la chaine qu'il nous faut tenir a toute force.

La "mesure" camusienne, dans ce qu'elle a d'au-

thentique, est a l'opposé de la moderation con-

fortable et médiocre. Elle est perpétuel et

douloureux effort.22
Camus himself, in an unpublished, undated defense of L'Homme

révolté, emphasizes the tension inherent in the solutions

proposed in his political essay:

 

21W'yndham Lewis, The Writer and the Absolute (London:
Methuen, 1952), p. 67.

 

aSerge Doubrovsky, "La Morale d'Albert Camus,"
Preuves, No. 116 (October, 1960), 48.

50

L'analyse de ces contradictions culmine en.tout

cas dans la tension beaucoup plus générale que

j'ai essayé de définir et qui oppose l'individu

a l'histoire. La encore, je n'ai pas procédé a

une condamnation de l'histoire au nom de l'indi-

vidu, ni soumis celui—oi a celle-la. J'ai suivi,

une fois de plus, 1e trace approximatif d'une

limite ou les deux s'affrontent dans leur tension

la plus grande, si grande au demeurant qu'elle

finira par projeter en avant a la fois l'individu

et l'histoire. 3
It would appear that the path Camus advocated in L'Homme
révolté, and to which he remained faithful, both in his
other works and in his life, was anything but an easy one
of evasion and inaction. He chose, I believe, the most
difficult of all--resistance to any form of action which
excluded alternatives. Such action, he realized, if carried
to a logical conclusion, would necessitate the destruction
of those opposed to it. The individual human life consti—
tuted a supreme value for him, and he believed that in the
recognition of human limitations lay the solutions best
calculated to avoid the taking of human lives. Holding a
relativistic philosophy he was, of course, continually
opposed by those who envisaged a perfection achieved through
absolute means. However, the constant vigilance and effort
required to withstand the attraction of extremes is, I
believe, a far more rigorous form of action than succumbing

to any of them, but one which is necessary for the survival

of human society in a nuclear age. It is repeatedly

 

23Camus, Essais, p. 1711.

51

portrayed by Camus as a precarious balance and he likens
his situation to that of a man on a tight-rope, "un fil
d'équilibre oh j'avance péniblement sans étre sflr
d'atteindre 1e but."2“

The writer faces another dilemma which is more
closely related to his art. He is forever torn between
his urge to create beauty and his responsibility to men,
and the two are interdependent. Jonas, in one of the

short-stories of L'Exil et le royaume, lives in precisely

 

this predicament. Camus describes it as tension in the

Discours de Suede, his acceptance speech on the occasion

 

of being awarded the Nobel Prize in 1957:

Pour finir, peut—étre touchons-nous ici la grandeur

de l'art, dans cette perpétuelle tension entre la

beauté et la douleur, l'amour des hommes et la

folie de la création, la solitude insupportable et

la foule harassante, le refus et la consentement.25

Limit, balance, tension, whatever form Camus'

dialectic takes, it cannot be termed pessimistic or nihil-
istic. As Ms. Barnes emphasizes, it is "life-giving, an
impetus to motion forward."26 Such tension, embracing
contradictions yet never yielding to extremes "finira par

projeter en avant a la fois l'individu et l'histoire."27

 

2"Camus, Essais, p. 6.
25Ibid., p. 1092.
26Barnes, "Balance and Tension," p. 435.

27Camus, Essais, p. 1711.

52

Nature and the life of the body is the rather broad
name I have given to the second major theme to be examined.
It encompasses various related subjects: the natural world
and man as a part of this world; beauty and poverty, youth
and old age, life and death, the concrete versus the
abstract.

Any discussion of Camus' relationship to nature
cannot fail to take into account the influence of his
birthplace, Algeria. "J'ai ainsi avec l'Algérie une longue
liaison qui sans doute n'en finira jamais, ... " (E, 848).
His youth was spent in its sunlight and sea, and he enjoyed
to the fullest the beauty and the Opportunities for physical
pleasure they afforded. As Georges Joyaux points out in his
article on Camus and North Africa, it led him "to an imme-
diate enjoyment of life, to a kind of voluptuous, never-
satiated epicureanism. . . ."28 The outdoor life it
encouraged placed Camus in constant direct contact with
the natural world outside of man, and at the same time
made him appreciate his own body as a means of rapport
with this natural world. The intellectual connotations of
this rapport, which for Camus were always posterior to the
emotional experience, are, as we shall see, of both a

positive and a negative nature.

 

28Georges Joyaux, "Albert Camus and North Africa,"
Yale French Studies, No, 25 (Spring, 1960), ll.

 

53

In accord with the Greeks and the Mediterranean
philosophy he promulgated, Camus believed profoundly that
the wedge driven between man and nature when Christianity
renounced its Mediterranean heritage could have only
destructive effects. Unlike the Greeks, who accepted
the natural world and felt themselves a part of it, "Nous
tournons le dos a la nature, nous avons honte de la beauté"
(E, 854). The results of this separation have been far-
reaching and disastrous:

... lorsque l'Eglise a dissipé son héritage

méditerranéen, elle a mis l'accent sur l'his-

toire au détriment de la nature, fait triompher

1e gothique sur le roman, et, détruisant une

limite en elle-meme, elle a revendiqué de plus

1a puissance temporelle et le dynamisme his-

torique (HR, 702).
One effect, as Malraux has indicated in his essay, pg
Tentation de 1'Occident, is that Western civilization has
tied its values and its goals to action. In contrast with
the Greeks, we perceive nature as something apart from us
which we are constantly impelled to change. "La nature qui
cesse d'étre objet de contemplation et d'admiration ne peut
plus etre ensuite que la matiere d'une action qui vise a la
transformer" (HR, 702).

Nature was very early an object of such contempla-
tion and admiration for Camus, and evidence of his awareness

and sensitivity toward it appears in one of his first

published essays, "La Mort dans l'ame":

54

... la flfite aigre et tendre des cigales, le
parfum d'eaux et d'étoiles qu'on rencontre dans
les nuits de septembre, 1es chemins odorants
parmi les lentisques et les roseaux, autant de
signes d'amour pour qui est forcé d'étre seul.
Ainsi, 1es journees passent. Apres l'éblouis-
sement des heures pleines de soleil, 1e soir
vient, dans le décor splendide qui lui font
l'or du couchant et le noir des cyprés (EB, 38).

However, it is in Noces that Camus' attitude toward
nature in all its aspects appears in its most concentrated
and lyrical form. In the first sentence of "Noces a Tipasa"
are gathered many of the major elements of Camus' natural
world as he found it in the land of his birth: the sun and
the sea, the sky, the stones, the earth and its growing
things. Finally, the author himself is present, natural
man attuned to this natural world:

Au printemps, Tipasa est habitée par les dieux
et les dieux parlent dans le soleil et l'odeur
des absinthes, la mer cuirassée d'argent, le
ciel bleu écru, 1es ruines couvertes de fleurs
et la lumiére a gros bouillons dans les amas
de pierres (N, 55).

The central theme of Noces is the harmony of nature
and the union of man with the natural world, and the imprint
of this theme, in one or another of its aspects, appears in
most of Camus' works. For the moment, however, let us
examine briefly the separate elements of this natural world.

The sun and its light and warmth are predominantly
beneficient elements, symbols of life and happiness for

Camus. This is especially true in the two earlier essay

collections which contain so many references to his own

55

youthful exuberance on the beaches of Algeria. "Sous 1e
soleil du matin, un grand bonheur se balance dans l'eSpace"
(N, 57). Michel Benamou has noted that Camus distinguishes
between the midday sun and other forms of light, and seems

to infer that the midday sun's intervention in human affairs
is both malefic and representative of the Absurd.29 However,
in "L'Eté a Alger" the young people who "tous les jours a
midi, se mettent nus au soleil" do so simply because "ils
sont 'bien au soleil'" (N, 68). The same Algerian sun
and light are in sharp contrast with the cold and gloom

of the northern climates that provide the settings for £2

Malentendu and La Chute. In "Noces a Tipasa" the sun is

 

 

viewed positively even when it is overpowering--it is a
vital force of nature and as such promotes fecundity.

Images of nature's superabundance are numerous in this essay.
The sun's light and warmth are themselves superabundant:

" ... j'ouvre les yeux et mon coeur a la grandeur insou—
tenable de ce ciel gorgé de chaleur" (N, 56). Flowers are
everywhere: "Partout, des bougainvillées rosats dépassent
1es murs des villas; dans les jardins, des hibiscus au rouge,

encore pale, une profusion de roses thé épaisses comme de la

creme, et de délicates bordures de longs iris blues" (N, 55).

 

”Michel Benamou, "Romantic Counterpoint: Nature
and Style," Yale French Studies, No. 25 (Spring, 1960), 47.

 

56

The perfume of growing things is almost suffocating:
"L'odeur volumineuse des plantes aromatiques racle la
gorge et suffoque dans la chaleur énorme" (N, 55). Con-
trasting the sun's aspect in Camus' work and Sartre's,
Serge Doubrovsky stresses its life-giving and unifying
qualities in Camus' perception of it:

... on ne saurait s'étonner de ne trouver chez

Sartre aucune analyse théorique du solaire,

puisque aussi bien, le soleil semble absent de

son univers personnel. Ou plus exactement, il

y joue un rdle négatif: ... [Chez Camus] C'est

la lumiére ... comme bain fécondant. C'est la

force unificatrice du cosmos.3o

However, the sun is not invariably beneficent. It

is in the blazing sun that Meursault fires on the Arab in

L'Etranger, and the renegade of L'Exil et le Royaume will

 

die under a "soleil inexorable." Both Kay Killingsworth
and Michel Benamou have accurately noted that in Camus'
imagery the physical qualities of thickness and density
in the world are those which are indifferent or hostile

to man, whereas "tout ce qui est transparent et fluide

u 31

représente l'union de l'homme avec les éléments. For

the most part when the sun's role is a destructive, malev-
olent one, it is portrayed as metallic or dense, giving

off heat and light that crushes or pierces. For Meursault

 

3°Doubrovsky, "La Morale d'Albert Camus," p. 41.

31Kay Killingsworth, "Au-dela du Déchirement:
l'héritage meridional dans l'oeuvre de William Faulkner
et de Camus," Esprit XXXI, No. 320 (1963), 228.

~vp .
l v‘

new.‘
.6

 

...-

”'ug.

 

\.

o.‘
n
‘.‘ :

 

57

approaching the Arab on the beach "1e soleil était
maintenant écrasant. 11 se brisait en morceaux sur le

sable et sur la mer."32

Its light is described as an
"épée" or "une longue lame étincelante," and moments
before he fires on the Arab, Meursault is conscious of
nothing but "1es cymbales du soleil” on his forehead.
In contrast to the life-giving sun of Tipasa which shines
down beneficently on men and promotes "un grand bonheur"
(N, 57), at Taghasa where the renegade is tortured it is
the ally of Evil that destroys men:

Maintenant, 1e soleil a un peu dépassé 1e milieu

du ciel. Entre 1es fentes du rocher, je vois 1e

trou qu'il fait dans le métal surchauffé du ciel,

bouche comme 1a mienne volubile, et qui vomit

sans tréve des fleuves de flammes au-dessus du

désert sans couleur.33

The mineral world itself, whose physical charac-

teristics of weight and density are sometimes attributed
to the sun or the sea, is a significant part of Camus'
natural universe, and, as Benamou observes, in the latter's
hierarchy of elements it "varies from neutrality to hostil-
ity."3“ In its neutral state it evokes the Absurd-~the

indifference and unhumanness of the world--and so plays

a part in the development of the lucidity so essential for

 

32Camus, Theatre, Récits, Nouvelles, p. 1165.

33Ibid., p. 1587.

3"Benamou, "Romantic Counterpoint, p. 47.

58

an authentic existence. It is at Djémila among the ruins
and the natural stones of the hills that Camus becomes most
poignantly aware of the finality of death, but side by side
with lucidity and its accompanying sadness, there is also
beauty:

Ce grand cri de pierre que Djémila jette entre

les montagnes, 1e ciel et 1e silence, j'en sais

bien la poésie: lucidité, indifference, les

vrais signes du désespoir ou de la beauté

(N, 65.66)-

The hostility of the mineral world toward man

takes several aSpects. Sometimes it is the stone and metal
of cities, isolating man from.what is natural and good.
Whether Prague, Amsterdam, Oran or New York, the artificial
world that man has constructed is not a happy one: it is
the scene of loneliness, of guilt, of "ennui" and of plague.
In addition, it is an ugly world in contrast with the world
of nature. In "Le Minotaure" Camus' description of Oran,
city where "1e caillou est roi," is heavy with irony:

Forcés de vivre devant un admirable paysage,

1es Oranais ont triomphé de cette redoubtable

épreuve en se couvrant de constructions bien

laides (E, 818).

Much more explicit is the hostility of the mineral

kingdom where the renegade is held prisoner, " ... [une]

ville stérile sculptée dans une montagne de sel, séparée

de la nature."35 This city, where he is subjected to every

 

asCamus, ThéétreL Récits, Nouvelles, p. 1589.

 

59

kind of cruelty and degradation, is also "la ville de
l'ordre enfin, angles droits, chambres carrées, hommes
roides," and its truth too is "carrée, lourde, dense,

"35 The mineral world of

elle ne supporte pas la nuance.
the unnatural, the inhuman, is also rigid and categorical.
It suggests the absolutism that goes hand-in-hand with
excess, the opposite of the relativism and moderation Camus

advocated so strongly in La Peste and L'Homme révolté. In

 

the city of salt only Evil can be absolute.

Both Kay Killingsworth and Michel Benamou, cited
earlier, have remarked that transparence and fluidity in
Camus' natural world are qualities which promote man's
union with the world. Camus, in his advocacy of pagan
harmony with nature, would, of course, find such union
highly desirable. One can also see in the unifying and
beneficent aspects of water as portrayed by Camus, a
relationship with the mother-image, an extension of the
prenatal unity and security of the womb which continues
later on an instinctual or intuitive level, and becomes
associated with what is natural, comforting, and loving.
Thus so often "la mer" takes on the characteristics for
Camus of ”la mere," whereas the sun, also an indispensable
element of the writer's poetic universe, tends at times to

be related to the father-image--to reason, law, abstraction,

 

asIbid., p. 1589.

60

and power. As such it sometimes oversteps the "limite" of
nature and reaches extremes, and so becomes destructive.37
Water, however, is a "symbole du bonheur" and
almost invariably the sea appears as a favorable and
supporting force in its rapport with man. Meursault,
swimming with Marie experiences a sense of pleasure that
recalls scenes described in Noces: "Toute 1a matinee s'est
passée en plongeons, en floraisons de rires parmi des gerbes
d'eau, en longs coups de pagaie autour des cargos rouges et

noires ... " (N, 69). In La Peste when Rieux and Tarrou

 

swim together the sea again brings a sense of well-being,

but of a different nature: primitive innocence will have

given way to spiritual awareness, and in the sea these two

men, each concerned with the plight of their fellow-men,

find not only physical respite and renewal, but a sense of

fraternity, of harmony with nature and with each other:

" ... ils avancerent avec la méme cadence et la meme vigueur,

solitaires, loin du monde, libérés enfin de la ville et de

la peste."38
Water is also protection and refuge from the sun's

force when the latter is destructive. Meursault, just

before firing the fatal shots on the beach, thinks longingly

 

37See infra, pp. 101-102 on mother-love; also p. 239
on maternal versus paternal values.

38Camus, Théatre, Récits, Nouvelles, p. 1429.

61

of the cool spring behind the rock: "J'avais envie
de retrouver le murmure de son eau, envie de fuir 1e
soleil. ... "39 On the rare occasions when water is not
associated with happiness and well-being it is interesting
to note that its fluidity is retarded and it takes on
density. For Meursault the sun on the day of the murder
has imposed itself on the sea, slowed the water's movement
and given it a metallic quality:

Le bruit des vagues était encore plus paresseux,

plus étale qu'a midi. C'était 1e meme soleil,

1a meme lumiére sur le méme sable qui se pro-

longeait ici. 11 y avait déja deux heures que

la journée n'avancait plus, deux heures qu'elle

avait jeté l'ancre dans un océan de métal

bouillant.W

References to all of these elements of the non-

human natural world permeate Camus' writing, but as already
suggested, man too is a part of this world, though differing
from it in his capacity to think and feel. The Algerian, as
a purely physical creature of nature experiences pleasure
and pain-~the pleasure afforded healthy young animals in a
favorable climate, and the pain of hunger, illness, old age
and death. The praise of the world's beauty that is sung

in Noces is also the expression of man's pleasure in it,

and it is purely a physical pleasure: "Il n'y a rien ici

 

3Ibid., p. 1167.

”Ibid.

62

pour qui voudrait apprendre, s'éduquer ou devenir meilleur"
(N, 67). Repeatedly, especially in Npggg, the primacy of
the body over the spirit is reiterated: in "L'Eté a Alger,"
"Cette race est indifférente a l'esprit. Elle a le culte
et l'admiration du corps" (N, 74); in the same essay, "I1
faut une rare vocation pour étre jouisseur. La vie d'un
homme s'accomplit sans le secours de son esprit, ... “

(N, 76); in "Le Désert," " ... l'esprit trouve sa raison
dans le corps" (N, 87).

Man too is both the recipient and the expression of
nature's vital force and the vehicle of his participation in
it is his body. Throughout Camus' work there appears to be
a close relationship between bodily health and human happi-
ness, and the rapport is clear if we recall Camus' predilec-
tion for the Greeks. Pierre Nguyen-Van-Huy in fact defines
Camus' concept of happiness as "l'unité," and divides it
into three kinds, the first of which is union with the
physical world."1 It is the young, healthy, active body
which is best able to achieve such unity. Serge Doubrovsky
also maintains both the importance of the body for Camus
and the idea of union: "Si le corps est le lieu privilégié

de la joie, c'est qu'il est celui de l'harmonie, c'est que

 

“Pierre Nguyen-Van-Huy, La Métaphysigue du bonheur
chez Albert Camus (Neuchatel: EditiOns de la Baconniére,
1962): PP- 8’10.

63

“2 The Camusian attitude

l'union est aussi bien un unisson."
toward life inclines strongly toward the Dionysian described
by Norman Brown--an attitude which upholds instinct and the
life-force over reason and its "god of sublimation, Apollo":

. . . Apollo is the god of formr-of plastic form

in art, of rational form in thought, of civilized

form in life. But the Apollonian form is form as

the negation of instinct. [It] is form negating

matter, immortal form; that is to say, by the

irony that overtakes all flight from death,

deathly form.

But the Greeks, who gave us Apollo, also

gave us the alternative, Nietzsche's Dionysus.

Dionysus is not dream but drunkenness; not life

kept at a distance and seen through a veil but

life complete and immediate."3
Even in the later evolution of Camus' thought and work the
instincts as expressions of the life-force are primarin
positive in their effects on human life. If Meursault's
life before the killing of the Arab is lived purely at an
instinctual level, these bodily values lose none of their
preciousness in the development of his awareness-—to the
contrary they become all the more valuable. In Camus'
own life physical health, precarious ever since his first.
encounter with tuberculosis, will remain always an important

factor, and in fact a support to his writing. In 1959,

 

”Doubrovsky, "La Morale d'Albert Camus," p. 41.

“Norman 0. Brown, Life Against Death: The Psycho-
analytical meaning of History (New York: Random House,
reprinted by arrangement with Wesleyan University Press,
1959), pp. 174-175.

64

questioned by Jean-Claude Brisville on the rapport between
the life of the body and the artist's creation he replied:

La vie du corps en plein air et au soleil, 1e
sport, l'équilibre physique sont pour moi 1es
conditions du meilleur travail intellectuel.
Avec (ce qui va ensemble) un bon emploi du
temps. Je me trouve rarement, a vrai dire, dans
ces conditions. Mais je sais en tout cas que la
création est une discipline intellectuelle et
corporelle, une école d'énergie. Je n'ai jamais
rien fait dans l'anarchie ou l'avachissement
physique.”‘

Moreover the body's well-being becomes more and more
associated with spiritual values. In "Le Vent a Djémila"
physical illness is attacked as an obstacle to lucidity:

Rien de plus méprisable a cet égard que la
maladie. C'est un remede contre la mort. Elle

y prepare. Elle crée un apprentissage dont 1e
premier stade est l'attendrissement sur sci-meme.
Elle appuie l'homme dans son grand effort qui est
de se dérober a la certitude de mourir tout
entier (N, 64).

In La Peste evil takes the form of plague against which good

 

men must struggle. In "Le Rénegat" evil attacks by physical
torture--the protagonist's tongue is torn out and at the end
he is crucified.

The beauty of the world and the joys of a healthy
body are all to be enjoyed, but with awareness of their
brevity, for in poverty men grow old quickly. Youth is
spent in a "precipitation a vivre qui touche au gaspillage"

(N, 72) and at thirty the laborer has exhausted himself.

 

t""Camus, Essais, p. 1921.

65

In this environment of contrasts where the focus is on
physical existence Camus became aware early in his life of
the double aspect of this existence. "Entre oui et non"
from his first essay collection describes his family life
of poverty in the years of his childhood and youth, and
the portrait of his mother that emerges from it is one of a
creature imprisoned within the physical limitations of her
human condition. She is deaf and poor, widowed by the death
of her young husband in World War I, and must work hard as
a charwoman. Her silence and "manque d'esprit" typify an
existence which must be lived almost at animal level, but
there is nevertheless unspoken love between mother and son,
and with it a longing to break out of the prison--the prison
which in the evolution of Camus' thought becomes the Absurd.
The prison, like happiness, is rooted in the physi-
cal elements of man's life. It is in his body that man is
first vulnerable, as Camus had discovered in 1930 with the
advent of tuberculosis. The body must die. Death is always
the ultimate victor. But if illness or accident do not
occur, old age intervenes, and it is a condition toward
which Camus was particularly sensitive. The first two

essays and the last in L'Envers et l'endroit are primarily

 

sketches of old people. In "Entre oui et non," recalling
his childhood, he considers how he perceived the future

then, that to be a man was the important thing. The youth

66

changes, however, confronted daily with the evidence of
bodily deterioration: "Il est maintenant un homme. N'est-
ce pas cela qui compte? Il faut bien croire que non,
puisque faire ses devoirs et accepter d'étre un homme
conduit seulement a étre vieux" (EB, 26). The seeds of

the awareness of mortality which will be the subject of

"Le Vent a Djémila" are already present.

Throughout Camus' work young, sun-bronzed characters
alternate with the old, for whom loneliness is but a prelude
to the ultimate isolation that is death. But death too has
its place in nature's pattern. Jérdme Carcopino has re-
marked on a formula that appears over and over, both in
Greek and in Latin, on third-century tombstones in Algeria--
a formula which is also typical of Camus' attitude toward
death as a natural and accepted part of the cycle of life:
"Non fui, fui, non sum, non desidero. Je n'étais pas; je
suis devenu; je ne suis plus; cela m'est égal." Carcopino
also characterizes this attitude as "une affirmation d'in-
différence a la mort et d'une sorte de désintéressement
total, qui est au fond de l'Epicurisme.“5

Nietzsche, whose influence on Camus the latter
acknowledged, affirmed all of life, and therefore also

death, proclaiming that what has become perfect wants to

 

I'sJ'érOme Carcopino, Aspects mystiques de la Rome
paiénne (Paris: L'Artisan du Livre,‘l942), p. 226.

67

die. Dying is part of the natural cycle, and in Norman
Brown's comments on Nietzsche's "perfection" one can see
analogies with Camus' thought.

Nietzsche's perfection, which is unrepressed
life (joy) wants eternity, but it also wants to
die. Eternity is therefore a way of envisaging
mankind's liberation from the neurotic obsession
with the past and the future; it is a way of
living in the present, but also a way of dying.
Hence the ultimate defect of all heavens with
immortality beyond the grave is that in them
there is no death; by this token such visions
betraxstheir connection with repression of
life.

The "unite" which Nguyen-Van-Huy associates with

Camus' "bonheur" seems also to be sought for in death as
a kind of blending into the Cosmos. Camus perceived the
impossibility of this longed-for union with the Cosmos for
man, who desires at the same time to retain his unique
personality:

... si, franchissant 1e gouffre qui sépare

le désir de la conquéte, nous affirmons avec

Parmenide 1a réalité de l'Un (quel qu'il soit),

nous tombons dans la ridicule contradiction d'un

esprit qui affirme l'unité totale et prouve par

son affirmation méme sa propre différence et la

diversité qu'il prétendait résoudre (M, 110).
Nonetheless a "nostalgie" for such union, even in the
annihilation of the personality, is frequently apparent

in the lyrical essays, bearing witness at the same time to

Camus' strong attraction to the natural world. In "La Mort

 

l“sBrown, Life Against Death, p. 108.

68

dans l'ame" it is a "gofit du néant" (EB, 38); in "Le Désert"
it appears as the abandonment of "la petite monnaie de sa
personnalité (N, 86); in "Le Vent a Djémila," "mon détache-
ment de moi-meme et ma présence au monde" (N, 62). In ELEEQ
he still recognizes the attraction of such loss of identity
in the universe: " ... 11 y a dans chaque homme un instinct
profond qui n'est ni celui de la destruction ni celui de la
création. I1 s'agit seulement de ne ressembler a rien"

(E, 830).

As death is accepted as a necessary part of the life
cycle, the awakening to the spiritual implications of human
mortality that takes place at Djémila will increasingly
change Camus' attitude toward death: it is the ultimate

enemy, with whom all complicity is forbidden. In Le Mythe

 

de Sisyphe and L'Homme révolté he will examine in detail the

 

question of such complicity and many of his narrative and
dramatic works will treat the same issue.

As for the attempt to evade this "aventure horrible
et sale" with hope of an after-life, it is in fact a sin
against life: " ... s'il y a un péché contre la vie, ce
n'est peut-étre pas tant d'en désespérer que d'espérer une
autre vie, et se dérober a l'implacable grandeur de celle-
ci" (N, 76). When the individual faces his own inevitable
end, however, despair need not follow. Awareness of death

fulfills and enriches life:

69

Mais qu'est—ce que le bonheur sinon 1e simple

accord entre en étre et l'existence qu'il mene?

Et quel accord plus légitime peut unir l'homme

a la vie sinon 1a double conscience de son désir

de durée et son destin de mort (N, 85)?
Life and death are inextricably bound together. André
Rousseaux, referring to death, says that Camus "fait face
an probléme dans toutes les pages de son oeuvre,“7 and
claims that his (Camus') whole philosophy of happiness is
based on the affirmation that death is the only ineluctable
evil, and once this fact is faced and accepted, all else can
be seen as happiness. Outside of "cette unique fatalité de
la mort, tout, joie ou bonheur, est liberté" (M, 192). Re-
inforcement of this idea comes from Dr. Norman Brown: "Only
if Eros--the life instinct--can affirm the life of the body
can the death instinct affirm death, and in affirming death

«‘08

magnify life. Likewise Louis Rossi, outlining the spir—

itual progress of Meursault in L'Etranger, sees the neces-

 

sity of lucidity before death for the enrichment of life:

The dread of annihilation is preliminary to the
final Freedom-toward-Death, which is won when all
illusions are abandoned before the "nothingness

of the possible impossibility of existence." As
such, death is disclosed as the extreme potential-
ity. Facing it, completely denuded of conventional
attitudes, man becomes his authentic self."g

 

I"’André Rousseaux, "Albert Camus et la philosophie
du bonheur," Symposium, II, No. l (1948), 1.

“Brown, Life Against Death, p. 109.

I‘eLouis Rossi, "Albert Camus: The Plague of
Absurdity," The Kenyon Review, No. 3 (Summer, 1958), 410.

70

Yet another basic theme in Camus' work can be
related to nature and the life of the body: his concern
for the concrete living man as opposed to abstract prin-
ciples. This opposition, constantly stressed in L'Homme
révolté, is rooted in Camus' sensuality--in his perception
of the world and man in their physical dimensions. This is
nowhere more apparent than in his lyrical essays. Of his
fellow Algerians, for example, he writes:

Entre ce ciel et ces visages tournés vers lui,

rien ou accrocher une mythologie, une littéra-

ture, une éthique ou une religion, mais des

pierres, 1a chair, des étoiles et ces vérités

que la main peut toucher (N, 74-75).
Death itself is described in terms of a decomposed human
body--"un liquide noir" (N, 73). In "Les Amandiers," brief
essay written in 1940 and included in ELEEé, he is careful
to point out that the blossoms are not mere symbols of
renewal: "Nous ne gagnerons pas notre bonheur avec des
symboles" (E, 836). Rather they too are part of the

physical life of the world that we must ever keep in mind

if we are to improve the human condition. In Ni Victimes

 

ni bourreaux (1946) under the sub-heading "Sauver 1es corps"

 

he criticizes those who maintain that the death penalty can
never be eliminated, and lays the blame to the increasing
abstraction of our era:

Cet argument était présenté avec force. Mais

je crois d'abord qu'on n'y mettait tant de

force que parce que les gens qui 1e présentaient
n'avaient pas d'imagination pour la mort des

71

autres. C'est un travers de notre siecle. De
meme qu'on s'y aime par téléphone et qu'on tra-
vaille non plus sur la matiere, mais sur la
machine, on y tue et on y est tué aujourd'hui
par procuration.so

Over and over Camus calls attention to the danger of
abstraction in concealing the ugly reality of taking human

life. Tarrou in La Peste tells of witnessing an execution

 

and its effect on him--an actual experience of Camus' father

which the writer recounts at the beginning of Réflexions sur

 

lapguillotine.51 Also in La Peste the journalist Rambert,

 

 

separated from his mistress because of the plague, accuses
Tarrou and Dr. Rieux of fighting for an abstraction:

Et vous étes capable de mourir pour une idée,

c'est visible 5 l'oeil nu. Eh bien, moi, j'en

ai assez des gens qui meurent pour une idée.

Je ne crois pas a l'héroisme, je sais que c'est

facile et j'ai appris que c'était meurtrier.

Ce qui m'intéresse, c'est qu'on vive et qu'on

meure de ce qu'on aime.52
Dr. Rieux himself had told Tarrou earlier he had begun his
work as a physician "abstraitement" but then "il a fallu

voir mourir." He adds that he has never been able to

accustom himself to seeing people die.53

 

soCamus, Essais, p. 334.
5111616., p. 1021.

aCamus, Theatre, Récits, Nouvelles, p. 1351.

 

53Ibid., p. 1323.

72

In the political essay, L'Homme révolté, where
he attacks history-based ideologies, Camus warns again
against the dangers of abstraction:

La révolution sans honneur, 1a revolution du
calcul qui, préferant un homme abstrait a l'homme
de chair, nie l'étre autant de fois qu'il est
nécessaire, ... (HR, 707).

115 oublient le présent pour l'avenir, la proie
des étres pour la fumée de la puissance, la
misére des banlieues pour une cité radieuse,

la justice quotidienne pour une vaine terre
promise (HR, 708).

It is the reality of the physical world and the flesh that
must be constantly kept in sight, and Camus will never cease
to believe that evil in the world is commensurate with the
degree of man's separation from the natural, physical world:

Nous vivons dans la terreur parce que la per-

suasion n'est plus possible, parce que l'homme

a été livré tout entier a l'histoire et qu'il

ne peut plus se tourner vers cette part de lui-

méme, aussi vraie que la part historique, et

qu'il retrouve devant 1a beauté du monde et

des visages; parce que nous vivons dans le

monde de l'abstraction, celui des bureaux et

des machines, des idées absolues et du messia-

nisme sans nuances.5“

With fuller awareness of human mortality Camus'
thought will move to a broader concept of human solidarity.
Human attachments, responsibility to others and to himself,
were constantly at war in Camus--yet another tension in his

life and work. Even as a youth in Algeria his joy in the

natural beauty of his milieu was counterbalanced by his

 

5"Camus, Essais, p. 332.

73

feelings of compassion and love for others. Germaine Brée
writes:

What differentiates Camus is that his need for

happiness was associated with another need as

strong, as urgent, that is, a feeling of respon-

sibility for the suffering of humanity, a suffer-

ing all the more intolerable because, in his eyes

it had no compensation, no meaning.55
He was well aware, however, of his natural penchant for
pleasure which could lead to selfishness: " ... j'aime
trop la vie pour ne pas étre égoiste" (N, 65). As a man
he will constantly feel this pull in two directions. He
will also experience it as an artist, and the controversy
with Sartre on the subject of "engagement" must have derived
not only from Camus' reluctance to be bound by too-rigid
stands and his devotion to relativism, but also to a basic
difference of opinion as to the ratio of responsibility owed
by an artist to his art and to others. In the Discours de
Suede, in acceptance of the Nobel Prize in 1957 he speaks
of this dilemma:

... devant son siecle, l'artiste ne peut ni s'en

détourner ni s'y perdre. S'il s'en détourne, il

parle dans le vide. Mais, inversement, dans la

mesure oh i1 1e prend comme objet, il affirme sa

propre existence en tant que sujet et ne peut s'y

soumettre tout entier. Autrement dit, c'est au

moment meme ou l'artiste choisit de partager 1e

sort de tous qu'il affirme l'individu qu'il est.
Et i1 ne pourra sortir de cette ambiguité.56

 

55Germaine Brée, Camus (New York: Harcourt, Brace &
World, Inc., Harbinger Books edition, 1964), pp. 86-87.

sCamus, Essais, p. 1091.

74

Jonas, the artist in L'Exil et le royaume, reaches a point
of artistic sterility as a result of the same dilemma.

Just before his fall he writes a single word, but it is
impossible to distinguish whether this word is "solitaire"
or "solidaire." In his book on Camus' dramatic works
Raymond Gay-Crosier has noted the writer's "mutisme" between
1952 and 1960.57 No doubt Camus' silence in the face of

the Algerian crisis was the outcome of the "ambiguité" he
described in the Discours de Suede, and like Jonas he found
himself unable to create.

Love of nature and life here on earth, capacity for
pleasure, compassion for the poor, the old and all men, who
must undergo the ultimate "injustice" of death, lucidity,
dedication to art, and through all of these constant ten-
sion, necessitating a perpetual vigilance--all of these
basic themes developed in Camus' lyrical essays will

reappear in his other works.

 

57Raymond Gay-Crosier, Les Envers d'un échec (Paris:
Lettres modernes, 1967).

 

CHAPTER III

L'ENVERS ET L'ENDROIT: THE WELLSPRING

"Chaque artiste garde ainsi, au fond de lui,
une source unique qui alimente pendant sa
vie ce qu'il est et ce qu'il dit ... pour
moi je sais que ma source est dans L'Envers
et l'endroit.
Camus
Préface, L'Envers et l'endroit (1958)
Camus' first collection, published in Algeria in
1937 when he was twenty-four, consists of five brief essays
written in 1935 and 1936: "L'Ironie," "Entre oui et non,"
"La Mort dans l'ame," "Amour de vivre," and "L'Envers et
l'endroit." The author did not permit its republication
until 1958, and in his preface to the new edition he gives
two related bases for this reluctance: artistic reserva-
tions concerning the form of the work, written as it was at
the debut of his career (" ... e vingt—deux ans, sauf génie,
on sait a peine écrire")1 and the fundamental importance
to him of its content as a testimonial to certain profound

influences on his life as a man and as a writer. The

frequently-quoted lines under the chapter heading above

 

1Camus, Essais, p. 5.

75

76

make it clear that this slender book of essays held enormous
personal significance for Camus, and this very significance
made him all the more sensitive to its formal shortcomings.
Near the end of his preface these combined feelings are
summed up:

Les secrets qui nous sont les plus chers,

nous 1es livrons trop dans la maladresse et le

désordre; nous 1es trahissons, aussi bien, sous

un déguisement trOp apprété. Mieux vaut attendre

d'étre expert a leur donner une forme, sans

cesser de faire entendre leur voix, de savoir

unir 5 doses a pen pres égales 1e naturel et

l'art; d'étre enfin.2
He explains his eventual decision to permit republication
first, as a result of arguments from readers, that the book
had already been published once but in such limited numbers
that only the rich could afford them. His second reason
refers to the element of art: he has reached that point
which occurs in the life of each artist when he must pause
and take stock, draw nearer the true center of his inspira-

tion and henceforth try to maintain himself there. L'Envers

et l'endroit is for him this center, the source from which

 

emanate all the basic elements that nourish his subsequent
work. His deepest wish is to once more express "les deux
ou trois images simples et grandes sur 1esquelles 1e coeur,
une premiere fois, s'est ouvert,"3 but with the craft of

the mature artist:

 

2Ibid., p. 12.

3Ibid., p. 13.

77

Si, malgré tant d'efforts pour édifier un
langage et faire vivre des mythes, je ne
parviens pas un jour e récrire L'Envers et
l'endroit, je ne serai jamais parvenu a rien,
voila ma conviction obscure. Rien ne m'empéche
en tout cas de réver que j'y réussirai, d'imagi-
ner que je mettrai encore au centre de cette
oeuvre l'admirable silence d'une mere et
l'effort d'un homme pour retrouver une justice
on un amour qui équilibre ce silence.“

 

 

Already in 1937 on the occasion of the first publication of
these essays the youthful Camus seems to have been aware of
the permanent significance of their content to his future
work. In a letter dated July 8, 1937 to Jean de Maisonseul,
a friend who had written to him about the book, he writes:

Plus tard j'écrirai un livre qui sera une oeuvre

d'art. Je veux dire bien sfir une création, mais

ce seront 1es mémes choses que je dirai et tout

mon progrés, je le crains, sera dans la forme--

que je voudrai plus extérieure. Le reste, ce

sera une course de moi-meme a moi-meme.5
In the same letter there is further evidence that Camus was
conscious of the spontaneous affective quality of the essays,
that they were first and foremost an outpouring of feeling.
Maisonseul, while praising the book had criticized Camus'
lack of objectivity. The author, admitting that it was
his youth and love of life which prevented him from.heing

objective, added:

... l'oeuvre d'art ne compte pas aujourd'hui
pour moi. Meme si certaines pages sont bien

 

“Ibid., p. 13.

5Ibid., p. 1219.

78

écrites, c'est mon coeur et ma chair qui ont
bien écrit et pas mon intelligence.6

With maturity and the practice of his craft the intelligence
will indeed play a larger role in Camus' work, but "1e coeur"
and "la chair" will continue as dominant forces, reinforcing,
at least on the grounds of emotional content, the projection
of Camus as a lyrical writer. Adele King writes that
already in "L'Envers et l'endroit," the final essay in this
collection of the same title, Camus had chosen his kingdom,
and "it is a kingdom of the individual and the immediate, a
kingdom of persons rather than of ideologies, a kingdom of

7 Camus makes

sensations rather than of abstract knowledge."
the choice explicit in "L'Envers et l'endroit," " ... mon
royaume est de ce monde" (EB, 49), but it is also implicit
in the four preceding essays, and it is a choice to which
he will remain faithful in all of his subsequent works.

The content of L'Envers et l'endroit also proposes
a rule for living that will persist through all of Camus'
work and which he suggests for the first time in the titles
of this, his first book: there is inherent contradiction in
the "hic et nunc" human condition, with its dual quality as

source of both joy and despair, and we must learn to live

with the contradiction. Camus' emphasis on the balance

 

‘Ibid., p. 1219.

7Adele King, Camus (Edinburgh and London: Oliver
and BOYd, 1964)] p0 17.

79

between the contradictory aspects of human life appears not
only in the title of this work, but is reiterated in his

preface to the 1958 edition. The world of L'Envers et

 

l'endroit is a world "de pauvreté et de lumiére" (EE, 6);

 

"Je vivais dans 1a gene mais aussi dans une sorte de
jouissance" (EE, 6). He perceives in retrOSpect that
even his illness had its positive side since it favored
a certain "liberté du coeur" which delivered him from the
corrosive effects of envy, bitterness and resentment.

However, throughout L'Envers et l'endroit there is

 

a thirst for life which goes beyond mere acceptance of its
contradictory facets. It is rather an "ardeur affamée," an

"aPPétit désordonné de vivre"8

which, as the author points
out in his preface, finds its way to the surface even in

the most somber passages. One cannot stress too much this
aspect of Camus' thought. The "ardeur" is not inextricably
bound to joy or happiness in living, but is in fact life
itself, "la vie dans ce qu'elle a de pire et de meilleur."9
The thirst for life assumes its true role as a manifestation
of life itself, and the seeker and the sought are insepara-
bly blended. This life-force is reflected in Camus' essays

in a variety of ways, but in L'Envers et l'endroit, the most

explicitly autobiographical of the three collections with

 

8Camus, Essais, p. 11.

9Ibid.

80

which this study is concerned, the tone is predominantly
somber. The "appétit désordonné de vivre" appears chiefly
as a stubborn refusal of death, in spite of all the limita-
tions and misery of human existence. "La était tout mon
amour de vivre: une passion silencieuse pour ce qui allait
peut-étre m'échapper, une amertume sous une flamme" (BE, 44).
It is in L'Envers et l'endroit that the Absurd makes its
first tentative appearance in Camus' work, though not yet
with complete lucidity, and not as yet so named.

Three of the essays in this collection ("L'Ironie,"
"Entre oui et non," and "L'Envers et l'endroit") deal with
characters drawn from the milieu of Camus' youth in Belcourt,.
Algeria, a world of poverty. Two of them ("L'Ironie" and
"Entre oui et non") are prefigured in an incomplete manu-
script entitled "Voix du quartier pauvre" on which Camus
was working in 1934. His sensitivity to poverty and misery,
heightened by his childhood environment, appears indirectly
even earlier in an article published in May, 1932 in the
review §p§, and Roger Quilliot selected it for inclusion
in the Pléiade edition of the Essais as a forecast of a
concern that will grow and develop in this writer. The
§pd article is a brief commentary on the Soliloques du
pauvre of Jehan Rictus, pseudonym of Gabriel Random de
Saint-Amand (1867-1933), a municipal employee in Paris

known for his poems in the tradition of Villon, which he

81

read aloud in Parisian bars. Camus' article is entitled
"Le poete de la misere" and he sees Jehan Rictus as the
spokesman for the silent poor: "Pauvre dont tout 1e monde
parle, Pauvre que tout le monde plaint, Pauvre répugnant
dont 1es ames 'charitables' s'écartent, il n'a encore rien
dit."1° In his own way Camus too will become a "poete de
la misere," and nowhere is this more apparent than in the
three essays from L'Envers et l'endroit.

The two remaining essays from this collection,

"La Mort dans l'ame" and "L'Amour de vivre," concern Camus'
travels in 1937 and 1936, respectively, to Prague, Italy,
and the Balearic Islands, and portray the greater awareness
and anguish that result from alien surroundings. Away from
the familiar the writer cannot evade the truth of human
destiny and his own impermanence.

If a common theme can be said to unite all five
essays in L'Envers et l'endroit, it is the essential absurd-
ity of human existence. But another common bond which
creates a kind of unity is, as Germaine Brée points out,
the voice of the author, "which speaks throughout the work
and gives it its tone, a highly distinctive, clearly recog-

n11

nizable tone. In his Carnets, in a planned preface for

the collection dated May, 1936, Camus suggests rather

 

1°Camus, Essais, p. 1194.

nBrée, Camus, p. 76.

82

vaguely a certain progression: "De la premiere a la
derniére, peut-étre y sentira—t-on une démarche sourde qui
en fait l'unité."12 It is true that there is a gradual
progression from objective reporting to more subjective
expression which culminates in the final essay, "L'Envers
et l'endroit," in a summary and statement of the writer's
personal philOSOphy of life: "Je tiens au monde par tous
mes gestes, aux hommes par toute ma pitié et ma reconnais-
sance. Entre cet endroit et cet envers du monde, je ne
veux pas choisir, je n'aime pas qu'on choisisse" (EB, 49).
Although these lines were first written in January of 1936,13
before Prague, the author placed them in his published col-
lection near the end of the final essay, signifying its
importance. Moreover, Camus, whose kingdom and exile are
both rooted in the physical world, does not perceive his
attitude as despairing or pessimistic. Like Sisyphus, of
whom he will write later, he must be imagined as happy, and
there is evidence that he wished this first collection to
conform structurally to this VieWpoint. "Amour de vivre"
written in 1936 after his trip to Palma, actually preceded
"La Mort dans l'ame," permeated with the gloom of Prague

which he visited in 1937. But in the published collection

 

12Camus, Carnets I (Paris: Gallimard, 1962),
pp. 48-49.

 

13Ibid., p. 30.

83

the order is reversed, so that "Amour de vivre" follows
the other essay. If, in spite of the author's youthful
efforts the structural unity of the collection remains
weak, one feels no real lack. The essential bond--the
absurdity of the human condition, its combined joy and
despair--rests intact and speaks clearly through the voice

of the narrator in each of the individual essays.

"L'Ironie"

Three encounters with loneliness and old age are
the subject-matter of the first essay, and its characters
are drawn from the circle of Camus' own experience in
Belcourt. The first depicts one evening in the life of
an old woman cut off from the mainstream of life by age
and infirmity. She finds briefly a sympathetic ear in a
young man who is visiting the family, until once more she
is left alone when the others leave to attend a movie.

Human misery appears in this brief episode as
poverty, but although it takes place in the economically
deprived milieu of Camus' boyhood, its preoccupation is not
overtly with material poverty, but with the physical poverty
of old age and illness, the social poverty of loneliness and
isolation, the spiritual and intellectual poverty of insen-
sitivity and ignorance, and finally the universal poverty
of human existence, powerless to extend itself and overcome

death. The theme is developed through three characters:

84

the old woman, the sympathetic young visitor, and the
collective "others," family and guests. The old woman's
existence has become nothing more than anticipation of
death. The causes of her gradual and involuntary separation
from life are interrelated, but the primary factor is the
purely physical one of old age and ill health. No longer
able to function as an active member of the family her
communication with the others diminishes, and the poignancy
of her dilemma is further emphasized by the contrast between
her past and her present: "Petite vieille remuante et
bavarde, on l'avait réduite au silence et a l'immobilité"
(EB, 15). In her increasing isolation and loneliness there
is nothing to distract her from the contemplation of ap-
proaching death: " ... livrée tout entiere a la pensée de
sa mort, elle ne savait pas exactement ce qui l'effrayait,
mais sentait qu'elle ne voulait pas étre seule" (BE, 17).
She does not intellectualize about her fate, but "illettrée,
peu sensible" she reacts viscerally with fear and horror.
Even her religious faith is a poor and limited one, and the
author's irony is heavy when he refers to it. She believed
in God, he says, "Et 1a preuve est qu'elle avait un chapelet,
un christ de plomb et, en stuc, un saint Joseph portant
l'Enfant" (BE, 15). She has simply reached the time of life
when one by one the other shields against death-~health,

love, work--have been withdrawn. This kind of spiritual

85

poverty is well summed—up by Roger Quilliot in La Mer et

 

1es prisons:

 

C'est une pauvre religion que Camus a connue
dans son entourage, tout entiere liée a la peur
de la mort. Les jeunes, 1es adultes ne croient
guere: ils vivent, ils ont le présent, l'avenir.
Sans doute, la vieille infirme avait-elle pensé
de meme: la foi, c'est l'affaire des malades,
des vieillards, des veuves; on verra plus tard.
Le temps de croire est venu. ... Dieu n'est ici
que la conscience angoissée de la mort pro-
chaine, ... 1“

Limited on all sides, physically, socially,
spiritually, and intellectually, the stubborn desire to
live is all that remains to combat, even though vainly,
the ultimate limitation of death. Her poor faith in God
and an afterlife are not sufficient to make her resigned
to it: "Mais que l'espoir de vie renaisse et Dieu n'est
pas de force contre 1es intéréts de l'homme" (BE, 16). Left
alone without human society her communication with God will
be "décevant" (EB, 17). When she is finally abandoned as
the others leave, her tight grasp of her rosary is a gesture
of desperation rather than fervor, and she sees with horror
the disappearance of "la seule certitude en laquelle elle
eflt pu reposer" (BE, 17). Like the author, her kingdom is

of this world and if she cannot reason about it, "1e coeur

et la chair" tell her it is so.

 

1"Roger Quilliot, La Mer et les_prisons: essai sur
Albert Camus (Paris: Gallimard, 1956), pp. 31-32.

 

 

86

The "others" differ little from the old woman except
in their age and state of health. Still active, they are
engrossed in their own lives and the old woman is tolerated,
sometimes with annoyance, but for the most part with indif-
ference, as if she had already departed from the world of
the living. They are insensitive to her need for human
warmth and communication, just as she herself can only feel
it vaguely, without giving it formulation or definition.

"On ne lui parlait pas,‘ and as for the movies, "11 n'était
pas question, évidemment, que la vieille femme vint aussi"
(EE, 16). They embrace her when they leave, but it is a
surface gesture, without awareness of her feelings.

The young man, through whom Camus speaks, enters
as a visitor, an objective observer who differs from the
others in that he is genuinely interested in the old woman.
He listens to her complaints and though her voice becomes
quarrelsome, "Ce jeune homme comprenait" (EE, 15). Unlike
the others, or the old lady herself, he is possessed of a
sensitivity which causes him to participate in her suffering.
As she describes her daughter's impatience with her frequent
prayers he listens "avec une immense peine inconnue qui 1e
génait dans la poitrine" (EE, 16). The old woman, who does
join the others for dinner, sits alone in a corner behind

the young visitor and "de se sentir observé, celui-c1

mangeait mal" (EE, 16). However, he too is one of those

I.

...:

‘F

adv.
.. \V

87

"others" who have not yet crossed the invisible line between
actitne life and the general descent toward death, and when
they leave he prepares to accompany them. The old woman's
reluctance to let him go annoys him--it is both a reminder
ofcolxi age and death which he like the others would prefer
to ignore, and a vague reason to feel guilty. He finally
expelfliences a feeling of such hatred that he thinks of
striJeing her. Later, on the street, seeing the light
extisiguished in the lonely apartment, he senses yet another
emotion, one of remorse.

The mixed feelings experienced by the young visitor

Will-Ibe aroused by other subjects in the author's life as
he “natures as a man and a writer, but the basic conflict
“1131 remain the same--how to maintain the precarious equi—
libI‘ium between one's own freedom and the discharging of
responsibility toward others. More and more as he became
an established writer Camus was preoccupied with this
Problem, and his concern, which he expressed in many of his
writings, particularly those concerning art, is a testimony
to his basic integrity and compassion.

The second encounter describes an old man's efforts
to evade the reality of impending death through the inces-
sant recounting of his past experiences. Like the old
woman, he clings desperately to human society, and his

listeners represent his only link to life. When he can

88

no longer hold their attention he wanders the streets in
a hopeless flight from the dreaded solitude of his room,
where he must face his illness and the nearness of death.

In this vignette Camus does not speak through a
character and the old man's anguish, like the old woman's,
is seen chiefly in his relationship with the collective
"others," those still young enough to be wholly occupied
in the daily affairs of family, work, and "divertissement."

There is a feverish tension in the old man's efforts
to keep his audience. He allows himself no pause, no break
in the continuous stream of talk that might permit their
attention to wander; he deliberately omits mention of his
misfortunes, believing "Ca fait mieux de paraitre heureux"
(EB, 18); he refuses to see their ironic looks. But for all
his striving, the world of the living recedes from him, and
he senses his growing exclusion. Life itself is like the
gayety of the younger "others," "une gaité a laquelle il
n'avait pas le droit de participer" (EE, 18).

Among the "others" there is no pity for the old man,
only a "brusquerie moqueuse" or, when they finally tire of
his endless anecdotes, "des visages indifférents" (EE, 18).
Consciously or not, the living reject this concrete embod-
iment of their own future fate: " ... un vieil homme qui
va mourir est inutile, meme génant et insidieux" (BE, 18).

But there is a brief flash of sympathy from the author for

89

these "others" who will all too soon grow old in their turn,
and be forced to relinquish the few poor pleasures that a
hard life affords them. Why should they not turn away from
the old man and enjoy while they can "1e billard et les
cartes qui ne ressemblent pas au travail imbecile de chaque
jour" (EE, 18).

When the old man leaves the café he is feeling ill,
and doesn't want to go home, preferring rather to roam the
sidewalks "chargés d'hommes." Ordinarily he is comfortable
returning to join his elderly wife in the accustomed routine
of supper, but there, when the signs of physical deteriora-
tion cannot be ignored "la fievre lui masque la vieille et
l'isole dans sa chambre" (EE, l9) and he feels himself
defenseless against death. He can only lie helpless, "horri-
fié, avec, dans le ventre sa peur acide et douloureuse"

(EE, 19). Much better to walk the streets, however ill he
may feel.

In the last episode it is a domineering old grand-
mother through whom the misery of sickness and old age is
portrayed. The household she rules consists of her son,
her daughter, and the two sons of the latter. It is the
household in which Camus grew up, and for the first time
the figure of his mother appears in his work. His relation-
ship with her will be more fully explored in the subsequent

essay, "Entre oui et non," and it will continue to influence

90

his later writings. The grandmother, like the old people
in the two previous vignettes, seeks to maintain her grip
on life through the attention of the younger "others," but
her methods are more aggressive. She refuses to relinquish
the dominant role she had been forced to play in the past,
when as a widow she had full responsibility for her family
of nine children. To maintain this role now, in the face
of failing physical powers, she must pretend to herself
as well as to the others that she is indispensable. Her
attacks of illness are exploited to the fullest to emphasize
this idea, for when the others show concern and would have
her rest she can respond, "Qu'est-ce que vous deviendriez
si je disparaissais" (EE, 21). The children become accus-
tomed to these attacks and pay little attention to them.
When finally she takes to her bed and calls the doctor the
younger grandson, Camus, perceives it only as "une nouvelle
comédie, une simulation plus raffinée" (EE, 21), and he
finds it difficult to believe in her subsequent death.
Intellectual and spiritual poverty are again appar-
ent in this brief anecdote: the old woman's son, Camus'
uncle, "était presque muet"; her daughter thinks with dif-
ficulty. However, physical deterioration plays a more
obvious role than in the two previous accounts, and it is
all the more poignant as the old woman uses it to build up

the myth of her indispensability, and by implication, the

91

necessity of her immortality. Sometimes there is pretense
about her physical symptoms, as when she faints with
"beaucoup de facilité" after family arguments, and even
when she suffers genuine attacks she does it as conspicu-
ously as possible, "avec fracas" (BE, 21). But for all the
fact that she uses her illness as a tool to maintain her
foothold in life, death is a reality she must eventually
accept.

"L'Ironie" concludes with a brief paragraph in
which Camus addresses his readers directly, posing tentative
questions concerning the relationship and the significance
of the three vignettes. He is not yet ready to formulate
an answer, but two phrases are present which already con-
tain the seeds of his definitive response near the end of
the final essay in the collection: the double aspect of
the human condition, with on the one hand old age, misery,
and death, and on the other, "toute la lumiere du monde";
and the acceptance of both, "Qu'est-ce qua ca fait, si on
accepte tout?" (EB, 22).

In Camus' Carnets II there is a note dated March,

 

1950 in which he states, "Toute mon oeuvre est ironique,"15

and it is true that this trait appears again and again in

his works, perhaps most notably in L'Eté and La Chute.

 

lsCamus, Carnets II (Paris: Gallimard, 1964),
p. 317.

 

92

The major theme of this early essay, so appropriately named,

is profoundly ironic, dwelling as it does on the wide gap

between human hopes and their inevitable destruction. But

an ironic tone is also apparent in the author's treatment

of particular situations. His comments on the old woman's

religious faith have already been noted. When the others

leave her alone to face the thought of her coming death,

it is to see "un film gai" (EB, 16). In the meditative

remarks at the close of the episode of the old man we are

reminded of the stupidity of human plans: "Les hommes

batissent sur la vieillesse a venir. A cette vieillesse

assaillie d'irrémédiables, ils veulent donner l'oisiveté

qui 1es laisse sans défense" (EB, 20). In the third vi-

gnette when the grandmother dies her death is perceived

by her grandson as only "une nouvelle comédie, une simu-

lation plus raffinée" (BE, 21) . At the beginning of his

career, as well as in his maturity, Camus will often express

his most profound feelings in terms of wry humor.
All three episodes of "L'Ironie" contain charac-

teris tics Camusian themes. The sadness, futility and

incomprehensibility of human life, as facets of the Absurd,

are associated here primarily with old age. The life of the

130(1)! is fundamental. The "quartier pauvre" which forms the

baCkground does not encourage a spiritual or intellectual

life, and when physical strength wanes it is a gradual

93

relinquishment of life itself, since this is the only level
can which it has been lived. As Roger Quilliot has observed:

Les intellectuels peuvent affronter l'age,

pour autant qu'ils gardent l'esprit valide;

1es politiciens, si usés soient-ils, ont des

réserves d'influence; 1es industriels, de

l'argent: ils vieillissent dans le respect

et la puissance. Mais tous ceux qui n'avaient

pour richesse que leurs bras et leurs jambes,

quand 1e corps s'est une fois engourdi, i1 ne

leur reste que la silencieuse rumination des
humbies.16

Iicnvever, for Camus there is no disparagement of human
Jrirnitation, only an immense sadness and compassion for
tjaee shared fate of all human beings which is death. Some
ch’ his most notable characters in later works will be old
pxec>ple, and Roger Quilliot has stated that Camus' interest
iri (Old age is basically an attention to death, as the ulti-
Imatxe human limitation. In this light he perceives this
writer as an essentialist: "La notion de nature humaine
Prendra pour Camus une certaine consistance, dans la
décnslaverte des limites que le temps et la chair nous
imposent."17 However, at the same time his sensitivity

to tile dilemma of old age makes him aware of the solitude
0f each individual death: "La mort pour tous, mais a

chacrui sa mort" (EE, 22)-

Camus' preoccupation with the reality of physical

life manifests itself in other ways. Physical senses are

g.

16Quilliot, La Mer, p. 31.

1711616., p. 39.

94

the means by which psychological effects are shown. The
old woman does not eat with the family at night because

"1es aliments sont lourds 1e soir" (EE, 16). Her physical
For

infirmity thus contributes further to her isolation.
the old man, “Tout aboutit a ne plus etre écoute" (EE, 19).
As he lies alone and feverish in his bed, his fear is

described in physical terms: it is "dans le ventre, . ..

(BE, 19). When death comes to the

acide et douloureuse"
grandmother it is accompanied by all its concrete and

revolting physical effects: an hour before her death

"elle se dé'livrait de ses fermentations d'intestin." She

tells her grandson, "Tu vois, je pete comme un petit cochon"

(EE, 22).

If the tone of is somber, the forces of

"L'Ironie"

life persist there against all odds. The three aging pro-

t"I”:EIOnists fight death to the end, each in his own way.

In Spite of her unhappiness the old woman "ne voulait pas

quitter 1es hommes" (EE, 1?). The old man, almost too ill

to Walk ("11 marche, bute et, presque, tombe") (EE, 19),

n
e"ertheless postpones as long as possible going home to

1:)
ed a where, in the darkness, he cannot escape the thought

0
15 death. The old grandmother even uses her physical dete-

ri

QJ:~ation to keep the attention of the living. In all of
th

QS.e struggles there is inherent tension between the forces

(>15
life and death, but "L'Ironie" devotes little space to

95

the positive aspects of human life, to "l'endroit." They

appear only indirectly as the effort to postpone death.

Like the other essays in L'Envers et l'endroit,
"I.'Ironie" is to a large degree autobiographical, and

undoubtedly the fact that Camus was an observer or partic-
ipant in these scenes adds a great deal to their emotional

As author, however, his personal vieWpoint is not

force.
In the first episode

presented consistently in the text.
it is plainly Camus who is the sympathetic visitor to the

01d woman, but the character's reactions are sometimes
Presented objectively and merely reported, and at other
times related in so personal a tone that the author all

The transition

bUt appears openly in the first person.
The

between varied attitudes is not always a smooth one.

narration is begun by an undefined "je" who does not re-

appear but who is also obviously the author. A little

further along the young man's interest in the old woman
18 enlarged upon in an "aside" placed in parentheses: (" Il

cE'TCDAIait qu'il y avait une vérité et savait par ailleurs que

Ce I a o o I
‘11:e femme allait mourir, sans s'1nqu1éter de resoudre

c
ette contradiction") (EE, 15). When the old lady remarks

t
ha“: she would rather die than be a burden, two short sen-

ta
ths express the attitude of the young visitor who is also

th. ’
S author: "11 etait d'avis cependant qu'il valait mieux

at): . .
a a la charge des autres que mourir. Mais cela ne

96

prouvait qu'une chose: que, sans doute, i1 n'avait jamais

été a la charge de personne" (EE, 15). Indirect discourse

adds uncomfortably to the feeling of confusion over which

vieWpoint the writer means to pursue, and distracts

momentarily from the content.
In the second episode there is a clearer separation

between the action of the text and the author's personal

comments on it. Near the conclusion there is a long para-

graph in which Camus generalizes about the dilemma of old

and then relates it smoothly to the old man as he

age ,
In the

returns to the particular situation of the latter.
same account, however, after having employed objective

reporting through more than half of it, he suddenly speaks

out in the first person. When the old man staggers and
all‘l‘lost falls, the author remarks, "Je l'ai vu" (EE, 19).

Futther along he injects himself only a little less obvi-

ous 1y after referring to the old man's growing consciousness

that nothing is going to change his situation: "Ce sont de

pali‘eilles idées qui vous font mourir. Pour ne pouvoir les

3 . . .
upporter, on se tue--ou SJ. l'on est jeune, on en fait des

phrases" (EE, 19). In the third episode, of the domineering

gt‘e-ridmother, the problem of the writer's presence is more

Go A .
l'l‘l:rolled. Camus, the younger grandson, thinks and speaks

c
thistently as a character within the anecdote.

Whatever the minor formal deficiencies of this

f u
l:t‘st essay, they are outweighed by the depth of feeling

97

Indeed they can almost be said to add to it by

it conveys .
One can only be grateful

their impression of spontaneity.
that the youthful author did not dissipate its emotional

power in too-strenuous efforts to perfect his style.

"Entre oui et non"

"Entre oui et non," Camus

In the second essay,

develops more fully the portrait of his mother and his

relationship with her, touched on only briefly in "L'Ironie."

 

Near the end of his preface to the reedition of L'Envers et

Lendroit he had affirmed his continuing desire to recreate

 

One day this early work, and to once more place at its cen-

ter " .l'admirable silence d'une mere et l'effort d'un homme
pour retrouver un justice on un amour qui équilibre ce
Silence." 1" At the outset, in the title of the essay, one

can discern again the author's preoccupation with the equi-

librium of opposing forces, and the tension and anguish of

n‘aintaining this equilibrium. Its full implications will

e O
aJrCJe after a closer examination of this brief autobio-

graplaical work which recounts Camus' thoughts and feelings

\
18Camus, Essais, p. 13. In his Carnets I under

th __
(Sate of May, 1935, Camus had written Une certaine somme

tiles
liées vécues misérablement suffisent e construire une
Dans ce cas particulier, 1e sentiment bizarre

911:8 ibilité.

Les le fils porte a sa mere constitue toute sa sensibilité.

1es Imanifestations de cette sensibilité dans les domaines
1: Dlus divers s'expliquent suffisamment par le souvenir

l' aght, materiel de son enfance (une glu qui s'accroche a

111%) ," p. 15.

 

98

during a return visit to the neighborhood of his boyhood.
The mother—figure which will play such an important role
in his subsequent works--L'Etranger, Le Malentendu, and

La Peste--dominates "Entre oui et non" in the person of

 

Camus' own mother, and through it can be perceived rela-

the natural world, in both

tionships with other themes:
its positive and negative aspects, the Absurd and the
importance of lucidity, and finally "une certaine forme

d'amour" (EE, 12) to which he had referred in his preface.

The events of the essay occur at three different levels of

time : Camus' childhood, the occasion of one of his visits

to his mother as a grown man, and finally the present-time

0f the narrator during a later visit, as he pauses in a
Moorish café and begins the recollections and meditations
whi ch will make up the essay.

In the Opening paragraph the author refers to the
atI“Osphere of his childhood as a lost paradise, but it is a
paradise of double aspect, of nature's beauty and of human
pc)Verty and misery, of "1es étoiles" and "un couloir puant"

(RE . 24). Awareness of the double aspect of life, product

0

f his childhood, will have lasting influence on Camus' work.
H .

~13 preface is replete with references to it: " je

s .
elle que ma source est . .. dans ce monde de pauvreté et de

0.. je

99

fus placé a mi-distance de la misere et du soleil"; "Je

vivais dans la gene, mais aussi dans une sorte de jouis-

sance" (EE, 6).
To perceive fully the beauty of the world, poverty

is necessary, for "a un certain degré de richesse, 1e ciel
lui-meme et la nuit pleine d'étoiles semblent des biens

naturels," whereas "an bas de l'échelle, 1e ciel reprend

tout son sens: une grace sans prix" (EE, 24). He draws

from the past a "lecon d'amour et de pauvreté" (BE, 28)

and all that he has found most authentic in life and in

himself. Later during a contemplative pause in his recol-

1ef-Ztions, he feels himself momentarily suspended in time,

SeParated from the ordinary current of life with its choices

and decisions: "Puisque cette heure est comme un intervalle

entire oui et non, je laisse pour d'autres heures l'espoir ou

le dégofit de vivre. Oui, recueillir seulement la trans-

p"firence et la simplicité des paradis dans une image" (EB:

28) . The image is that of his mother.
For the moment, however, seated in the bar and
hearing in the distance the sound of the sea, it is not "un
bonheur passé" that he recalls, but a strange awareness of
thQ natural world and its indifference toward perishable man.
"Lg monde soupire vers moi dans un rythme long et m'apporte

l' ..
q~2t1différence et la tranquillité de ce qui ne meurt pas"

(
E13: , 24). Sensing "ce grand soupir du monde" he feels

100

himself repatriated, and beings to remember his boyhood.
Typically, it is the physical world to which Camus reacts

first. The catalyst of this recollection had been the sound

of the sea. Other physical elements play a similar Proust-

ian role: "une odeur de chambre trop longtemps fennée, 1e

son singulier d'un pas sur la route" (EB, 22). Recalling
the house of his childhood, it is certain physical reactions

that come to mind first, and he is sure, were he to return

there now after so many years, that even in total darkness

he would be able to make his way up the stairs without

StuInbling because ,

Son corps meme est imprégné de cette maison.
jambes conservent en elles la mesure exacte de
la hauteur des marches. Sa'main, l'horreur in-
stinctive, jamais vaincue, de la rampe d'escalier.
Et c'était a cause des cafards (EB, 24).

Ses

From boyhood to manhood his relationship with his

mother remains basically unchanged, except that as a grown

man he reflects on it as well as experiences it. For the

most part it is a relationship without words: "La mere de

1' elifant restait silencieuse" (EE, 25)- Entering the

room where she sits in the semi-darkness after a day of hard

or): as a charwoman, the Chlld experiences vague feelings

w .
l1:'~<:h he is not yet ready to define. Pity? Love? He

w
a‘tehes the silent figure, and "ce silence marque un temps

(1 D
é-Irét, un instant démesuré" (EE, 26). As he grows up,

3%. mere toujours aura ces silences" (EE, 26).

101

The grown man, looking back, recalls "ce mutisme
d'une irrémédiable désolation" (BE, 25). When he returns to
visit his mother, once more "Ils sont assis face a face, en
silence" (EE, 28), but love has no need for words and the
son, like the mother, has never been talkative:

--Alors, maman.
--Tu t'ennuies? Je ne parle pas beaucoup?
--Oh, tu n'as jamais beaucoup parlé.
Et un beau sourire sans levres se fond sur son
visage. C'est vrai, i1 ne lui a jamais parlé.
Mais quel besoin, en vérité? A se taire, la
situation s'éclaircit. Il est son fils, elle
est sa mere. Elle peut lui dire: 'Tu sais'
(EE, 28-29).
In silence their rapport becomes clearer, more evident, as
if words are not only unnecessary, but in fact disturb the
natural harmony between them.

The content of this "natural harmony" is complex,
and explains to a large degree the lasting importance and
influence of "l'amour maternel" on Camus' life and work.
Ngulfeh-Van-Huy defines Camusian happiness as unity with the
natural world, with other men, and with transcendent values,
and States that Camus' solution for the problem of disunity
or Separation is "1a révolte unitaire."19 Some of the

Characters in his works attempt a different kind of revolt,

ll
1a révolte pour faire régner la quantité, la diversité et
\

19Nguyen-Van-Huy, La Métaphysique du bonheur, p. 84.

102

donc la séparation"2°--Sisyphus, Martha, Caligula, and
Clamence--and they are doomed by it. ”La révolte unitaire"
on the other hand, is based on love, exemplified in Rieux,
tflie physician in La Peste, and in L'Homme révolté. But
Camusian man requires "une certaine forme d'amour," one
which fulfills all three conditions of unity mentioned above:
unity with "le monde physique, le monde social, et le monde
métaphysique." 2‘ Mother—love alone meets these requirements.

The child, and the man, in "Entre oui et non” feel
an attachment to the mother that is first of all instinctive
and biological, as is her love for him. Even in the strange
silences when the boy suffers vaguely from their inability
to communicate, he does not feel unloved. This woman, who
thinks and Speaks with difficulty, speaks up firmly enough
when the grandmother strikes the children: "'Ne frappe pas
sur la téte.‘ Parce que ce sont ses enfants, elle les aime
bien" (EE, 25). If she never caresses the child, it is
because "elle ne saurait pas" (EE, 25).

The Pléiade edition of Camus' Essais includes a
m"”luscript note originally intended for "Entre oui et non"
in which the author speaks of his mother's strange indif-
fer_ehce upon learning that he had tuberculosis, although

he never seems to have doubted her love for him. Aware of

\

2'Ibid., p. 58.

21Ibid., p. 86.

103

the gravity of his illness nevertheless "elle promenait
... sa surprenante indifference,"22 and he remarks that

surprisingly it never occurred to him to reproach her for

it. Later in the same piece he explains both her indiffer-
‘ence and his own by the very depth of the attachment between

He has never been able really to believe in his own

tfliem.
pflnysical death nor in hers, and he senses the same convic-

tion in his mother:

Elle portait inconsciemment en elle l'idée d'une
commune pérennité. Elle doutait que rien 1es
séparat jamais. Elle ne doutait meme pas. Elle
n'y pensait pas.23

Ifliis mutual conviction does not stem from a thought process

latrt rather from a common primordial and intuitive source of

knowledge .
In the published version of "Entre oui et non"

5‘ Ipétrticular episode illustrates dramatically this close

attachment. The mother is beaten by a street thug, and when
tflmea boy arrives home she is in bed, on the doctor's orders.

ITIEE boy sleeps with her this night and they experience

't‘DEleether the aftermath of the frightening encounter:

La peur du drame récent trainait dans la chambre
surchauffée. Des pas bruissaient et des portes
Dans l'air lourd, flottait l'odeur

grincaient.
du vinaigre dont on avait rafraTchi 1a malade.
Elle, de son cOté, s'agitait, geignait, sursautait

\

 

aCamus, Essais, p. 1214.

2311616., p. 1215.

104

brusquement parfois. Elle 1e tirait alors de courtes
somnolences d'ou i1 surgissait trempé de sueur, déja
alerté--et Oh il retombait, pesamment, aprés un re-
gard a la montre ou dansait, trois fois répétée, la
flamme de la veilleuse. Ce n'est que plus tard qu'il
éprouva combien ils avaient été seuls en cette nuit.
Seuls contre tous (EE, 26-27).

When at last he falls asleep, it is with "l'image déses-

pérante et tendre d'une solitude a deux" (EE, 27).

If natural ties bind the author to his mother, there
is also a common sharing of human misery, poverty, and mor—
tality. It is through her that he learns the "lecon d'amour
et de pauvreté." The compassion so apparent in Camus' work
has its beginnings in his relationship with his mother. As
a very young child, awareness of her "maigre silhouette aux
éPaules osseuses" and "ce silence animal" (EE, 25) moves him
to pity before he is even able to define that emotion. When
he recalls many years later the night spent in her room, it

is "Comme si elle était l'immense pitié de son coeur,
répandue autour de lui, devenue corporelle et jouant avec
application, sans souci de l'imposture, le rOle d'une
vie:‘Llle femme pauvre a l'émouvante destinée" (EE, 27). This
iruthense pity will eventually encompass all of the world's
"humiliés," and finally all men, who must share the ultimate
fate of death. At the time of the publication of L'Envers

“endroit Camus was already involved with political

 

SI . . . . . .
roups in Algeria concerned with soc1al and economic in-

e .
(111.1 ties, and as a youthful reporter for the leftist Alger-

R“ . .

W, many of his early articles were written on

105

behalf of the poor and the oppressed. Emmett Parker, whose

excellent book, Albert Camus: The Artist in the Arena,
gives a detailed account of Camus' journalistic work, has

this to say of the writer during the period closely follow-

.ing publication of L'Envers et l'endroit:

His views on the political events of those years
reveal a young man of great courage and integrity

who felt that political action was not an end in
itself but a means to attaining and safeguarding

freedom and justice for those who suffer from
flagrant inequities in the social system. His
youthful enthusiasm may have sometimes resulted
in overconfidence on his part, but his genuine
compassion for afflicted human beings more than

compensated for this failing.2“

It is probable that much of Camus' acceptance of

"113 pauvreté" as well as "la lumiere" is due to unconscious

ilnitation of his mother's attitudes. Much has been written

CNE (Zamus' Epicurianism, particularly regarding his enjoyment

(?f? E>hysical life. Robert Champigny, however, in his study

(Di? bdeursault in L'Etranger reminds us that Epicurian happi-
ness is not only "1e plaisir" but also, negatively, "ne pas
SCJUliffrir physiquement et de n'etre pas trouble phychiquement:
apc>11ie et ataraxie.”5 Meursault's attitude, he states, is

n O I 0
0t so much one of indifference as of atarax1e, "une absence

de trouble," because he has rid himself of "1es désirs non

~.~‘-‘_¥

 

2"Parker, Artist in the Arena, p. 24.

(3611_ 25Robert Champigny, Sur un Héros paien (Paris:
limard, 1959), p. 58.

 

106

nécessaires."26 Camus' lack of concern for worldly goods and

artificial values can perhaps be traced to his memory of
childhood poverty, in the midst of which his mother's image
remains in silent dignity untouched by her sordid surround-

.ings. His preface plainly expresses his discomfort with

possessions :

Bien que je vive maintenant sans le souci du
lendemain, donc en privilégié, je ne sais pas
posséder. Ce que j'ai, et qui m'est toujours
offert sans que je l'aie recherché, je ne puis
rien en garder. Moins par prodigalité, il me
semble, que par une autre sorte de parcimonie:
je suis avare de cette liberté qui disparait
dés que commence l'excés des biens. Le plus
grand des luxes n'a jamais cessé de coincider
pour moi avec un certain dénuement. J'aime la
maison nue des Arabes ou des Espagnols. Le lieu
oh je préfére vivre et travailler (et, chose
plus rare, ou il me serait égal de mourir) est

la chambre d'h6tel.27

His mother is also associated with nature in a

Incrrta impersonal sense. Nguyen-Van-Huy relates Camus' own

naturalistic attitude to the unconscious influence of his
"K31:11er: "C'est en regardant vivre et mourir sa mere qu'il
. .
S J~r1itie a une sorte de mysticisme naturaliste dont la con-
t£3nQE>lation est la seule méthode d'initiation."28 But it is
Ilcrtl only the surrounding natural world of which Camus
(Ines aware through obserVing her long periods of con-

‘t . . .
emp lative Silence, but of his mother as an integral part

\

 

25Ibid., p. 59.
”Camus, Essais, p. 7.

28Nguyen-Van-Huy, La Métaphysigue du bonheur, p. 96.

 

107

of it. In her "contemplation sans but" (BE, 26), her

silence and her indifference, she is like nature itself:

étrange! Il n'y a que cette

(BE, 26).

”L'indifférence de cette mere
immense solitude du monde qui m'en donne la mesure"

The natural world's silence and indifference is a source of
.anguish that Camus will later associate with the Absurd.

Sometimes when the child observes his mother's silent sil-

ruouette "il a peur" (BE, 25). A brief passage in the essay

cxoncerns the author's recollection of another mother, a cat

“duo cannot nurse her kittens. One by one the latter die and

Ire returns one evening to find one of the dead kittens half

eaten by the mother:

Je m'assis alors au milieu de toute cette misére
et, les mains dans l'ordure, respirant cette odeur
de pourriture, je regardai longtemps la flamme
démente qui brillait dans les yeux verts de la
chatte, immobile dans un coin (EB, 28).
Meciitating on that past episode, he perceives that the

natural world outside man is simple: "Ainsi, chaque fois

(311' fiJ.nUa.semblé éprouver le sens profond du monde, c'est
’" (BE, 28). There

Sa simplicité qui m'a toujours bouleverse

18 something of this simple natural world in his mother, in

11631? strange indifference, her impassiveness, and the author

pea:li‘dzzeives its presence in himself as well. But there is

(iairlsger in this simplicity, in the temptation to blend

tc>1léilly with the non-human natural world and become like

lvt;, indifferent to everything:

108

11 y a une vertu dangereuse dans le mot simplicité.
Et cette nuit, je comprends qu'on puisse vouloir
mourir parce que, au regard d'une certaine transpa-
rence de la vie, plus rien n'a d'importance. ...

... A un certain degré de dénuement, plus rien ne
conduit 3 plus rien, ni l'espoir ni le désespoir
ne paraissent fondés ... (EE, 27-28).

.At.the conclusion of the essay the narrator reiterates the
(danger of this temptation to join with the non-human world.

285 the Arab proprietor informs him the bar is closing and

he rises to leave, he feels its tug:

Il est vrai que je regarde une derniere fois la
baie et ses lumiéres, que ce qui monte alors vers
moi n'est pas l'espoir de jours meilleurs, mais
une indifférence sereine et primitive a tout et

a moi—meme (EE, 30).
Ehlt he resists, and maintains his precarious balance between

the pull of non-human nature and the world of men: "Je ne

Veux plus descendre cette pente si dangereuse," and "il faut
bri ser cette courbe trop molle et trOp facile. Et j'ai
b‘ESoin de ma lucidité" (EB, 30). The world is simple, it is
men who complicate it, but he is a man and must not forsake
:HK311., even as he retains his ties with nature.

"Entre oui et non" marks further progression in the
atl‘tll.'ior's awakening to the Absurd, and this important theme
tlc><> is linked with his childhood and his mother. During the
Si:‘Lence of the night alone with his mother, the boy senses
himself "dépaysé," separated from other men and from "toute

J.' , . . .
£3Esperance qui nous Vient des hommes, toutes les certitudes

QIIlea nous donne 1e bruit des villes" (EE, 27), a theme that

109

will be expanded in "La Mort dans l'ame." Day-to—day
concerns fade into the background as if they no longer
exist, and nothing remains, "Rien que la maladie et la mort
of). 11 se sentait plongé" (EE, 27). Yet, in the face of the
absurdity of human destiny, life retains its force and its
value: "Et pourtant, a l'heure méme ou le monde croulait,
lui vivait. Et méme il avait fini par s'endormir. Non
cependant sans emporter l'image désespe’rante et tendre d'une
SOlitude a deux" (BE, 27) . Inseparably bound to life is the
image of his mother in their "solitude a deux."
Near the end of the essay the author, wondering
What brings the young man back to this place, what keeps
him in his mother's room making idle conversation, answers:
" - - . la certitude que ca vaut toujours mieux, 1e sentiment

que toute l'absurde simplicité du monde s'est réfugiée dans

 

cette piece" (BE, 30). Everything is here, "l'envers et

1 ' e1'1<iroit," all that will make up the center of his work.
His closing words stress the necessity for lucidity-equality
so necessary for "l'Homme absurde"29 --more explicitly than
in " L'Ironie." At the same time they demonstrate again the
primacy of the concrete individual man over abstractions,

s
O fundamental in Camus' thought:

\

rév ”"Sisyphe, prolétaire des dieux, impuissant et

Q. CDlté, connai‘t toute l'étendue de sa misérable condition:

voest a elle qu'il pense pendant sa descente. La clair-
yance qui devait faire son tourment consomme du méme coup

S
'3 Victoire" (ms, 196).

 

110

Qu'on ne nous raconte pas d'histoires. Qu'on ne
nous dise pas du condamné a mort: 'Il va payer
sa dette a'la société, mais: 'On va lui couper
le cou.’ Ca n'a l'air de rien. Mais ca fait une
petite différence. Et puis, il y a des gens qui
préférent regarder leur destin dans les yeux

(EE, 30).

"Entre oui et non" makes only a brief reference to

Canus' father, who was killed in World War I when the writer

was only a year old. It occurs in a brief exchange with his

mother concerning the physical resemblance between father

and son, and the narrator adds: "C'est sans conviction

qu'il a parlé de son pere. Aucun souvenir, aucune émotion"

(EE, 29). The father-character is almost completely absent

in his work. Nonetheless the final lines of the essay cited

labove have a connection with an experience his father had

tfliat was later told to Camus by his mother. It made a

Jxasting impression on the writer, and he recounts it in

EEéflexions sur la guillotine, which gives his views on
Capital punishment. The incident also appears in La Peste
35‘ an experience of Tarrou's father. The elder Camus, like
11153 neighbors, had been shocked and angered by the cold-
bJ-Ooded murder of an entire family, including the children,

alni decided to go to the murderer's execution. His wife

recalled that he never spoke of what happened there but

<lank3 bursting into the house, flung himself on the bed, and

shoIi‘tly afterwards was violently sick. The first paragraph

(3f lfléflexions sur la guillotine (1957) recalls the final

lines of "Entre oui et non":

111

11 venait de découvrir la réalité qui se cachait
sous 1es grandes formules dont on la masquait.

Au lieu de penser aux enfants massacres, il ne
pouvait plus penser qu'a ce corps pantelant qu'on
venait de jeter sur une planche pour lui couper

le cou.3o

In "Entre oui et non" as in "L'Ironie," emotions

are triggered and an atmosphere is revealed through physical
senses. In "Entre oui et non" it is primarily the sense of

smell. The instant-recall produced by "une odeur de chambre
trop longtemps fermée" has already been mentioned. .In the
café the writer's recollection is sharpened by "une odeur de
café grillé" (BE, 26); later the memory of the night spent
in his mother's room will be associated with "cette odeur
.mélée de sueur et de vinaigre." In the episode of the cat
‘vho devours her dead kitten, "l'odeur de mort se mélangeait
a l'odeur d'urine" (EB, 28) and in the latest visit to his
RKDther, the familiar everyday life of his old neighborhood
Ikaaches him through the window, in both sound and smell:
Toute l'odeur du quartier remonte par la fenétre.
L'accordéon du café voisin, la circulation qui se
presse au soir, l'odeur des brochettes de viande
grillée qu'on mange entre des petits pains élas-
tiques, un enfant qui pleure dans la rue (EB, 29).
The lyricism of Egggg is prefigured in "Entre oui
et non" as the author recalls, or experiences with emotion,

the natural beauty of his country:

\

30Camus, Essais, p. 1021.

112

Nuits d'été, mystéres ou crépitaient des étoiles!
(EE, 24).

Le triangle de ciel que je vois de ma place est
dépouillé des nuages du jour. Gorgé d'étoiles,

il frémit sous un souffle pur et les ailes feu-
trées de la nuit battent lentement autour de moi

(EE, 27).

For the most part, however, the emotions expressed in "Entre
oui et non" are closely allied to the somber side of this
world of "pauvreté et lumiére."
Written during the same period as "L'Ironie,"
1935-36, "Entre oui et non" shows none of the former's some-
what awkward handling of vieWpoint in the narration. It is
a first-person account in the present, with flashbacks to
two different times in the past, developed smoothly through
:intervals of meditation. The writer states his situation
aJJnost at once: "Un émigrant revient dans sa patrie" (EE,
23) . At the moment he is "Dans ce café maure, tout au bout
dE! la ville arabe" (EE, 23). The first flashback occurs as
«he: sits listening to the familiar sounds of the sea and
Senses again nature's indifference: "Et me voici rapatrié"
CEE:: 24). He recalls his childhood, his mother and his
falluily life, and then briefly, through an occurrence in
this past, we are brought back to the present: the child
ina<iVertently startles his mother and is told "Qu'il aille
faire ses devoirs" (BE, 26), and the author goes on "L'en-
fant a fait ses devoirs. Il est aujourd'hui dans un café

sordide. Il est maintenant un homme" (EE, 26). He remains

113

in the bar as the evening advances, and the world now seems
to hold a promise of peace while his recollections turn
again toward the past and his childhood. The next return-
to-the-present is signalled by the passage of time as marked
in the sky, which is now "gorgé d'étoiles," and the narrator
wonders ”jusqu'a ou ira cette nuit ou je ne m'appartiens
plus" (EE, 27)? In the brief meditation that follows he
refers again to the “paradis perdu" of his boyhood, expe-
rienced through the image of his mother, and leads us easily
to the time of another visit with her: "Et c'est ainsi
qu'il n'y a pas longtemps, dans une maison d'un vieux
quartier, un fils est allé voir sa mere" (EE, 28). The
lnother's words to him as he prepares to leave trail off:
'“Tu reviendras? dit-elle. Je sais bien que tu as du travail.
seulement, de temps en temps " (BE, 30). Once more we
are back in the present, in the café, and perhaps, like the
Writer, experiencing emotions that go beyond particular
tiInes or events:

Mais a cette heure, oh suis je? Et comment
séparer ce café désert de cette chambre du passé.
Je ne sais plus si je vis on Si je me souviens.
Les lumieres des phares sont 1:. Et l'Arabe qui
se dresse devant moi me dit qu'il va fermer. Il

faut sortir (BE, 30).

" 19£§lort dans l ' ame"

The "dépaysement" of the child in "Entre oui et non"

during the long, restless night with his injured mother, is

114

experienced more directly and with deeper spiritual
awareness by the author as a man in "La Mort dans l'ame.”

In 1936 Camus made a trip to Czechoslovakia, Austria, and
Italy, and its psychological and emotional effects on him"
are related in this essay. He had gone, with very little
money, to Prague where he was to be joined by friends.
During the week he spends there alone he feels completely
alienated from his surroundings and is left vulnerable to
thoughts of his own ultimate destiny. In Italy, although

he rejoices in the warmth and natural beauty of the country-
side, he is more poignantly aware than ever of human mortal-
ity. Here, however,‘the grandeur of nature produces not
only awareness but along with it " ... la force d'étre
«courageux et conscient a la fois" (EE, 39).

"La Mort dans l'ame" begins, in a tone of straight
reporting, with Camus' arrival in Prague at six o'clock in
tflne evening. Almost at once a sense of alienation makes
jvtself felt. There are a million people living in this city
whose lives have never touched his; they speak a strange
language; everyone is walking rapidly, "Et me dépassant,
133113 se détachaient de moi. Je perdis pied" (EB, 31). His
depression is aggravated by concern about money, and he
starts out at once to find an inexpensive hotel with already
‘a ‘Iague sense of fleeing something indefinable: "Quelque

chose dans ma course précipitée ressemblait déja a une

115

fuite" (EE, 31). The room he finally takes in a modest-

appearing hotel turns out to be double the rate he had
expected, and he is aware now that he will have to watch

his expenditures even more closely. It is a depressing

thought, and his general despondency increases.

A cheap restaurant is his next objective, but when
he finds one he is reluctant to enter and passes back and

forth in front of it until this strange behavior attracts

attention and he feels he must enter. Inside, his discom-

fort continues as he is unable to read the menu or communi-

cate with the waiter. He finally orders, with the help of

a prostitute called over from another table by the waiter,
.and is served an unpalatable dish excessively seasoned with

(rumin. He pretends interest in the girl's conversation,
“fliich in fact he is unable to follow, and the feeling of
eStrangement persists: " je ne suis pas ici. Tout
m'exzaspére, je vacille, je n'ai pas faim" (BE, 32). After-
Wards he has no desire to accompany the prostitute, who, he
reflects later, had she been pretty, might have distracted
llihn. But there is no escape--the world outside him is a

foreign, unfamiliar one with which he is unable to establish

auIY' meaningful rapport: his thoughts have nowhere to turn

except inward, upon himself, and he finds this most fright-

ening of all: " d'étre seul dans ma chambre d'h6tel

1z'éduit a moi-meme et a mes misérables pensées" (EE, 32)-

116

Walking gives him no relief: "Je marchai dans la vieille
ville, mais incapable de rester plus longtemps en face de
moi-meme, je courus jusqu'a mon h6tel ... " (EE, 32). He
tries desperately to fill his remaining days with sight-
seeing to make the time pass as quickly as possible until
his friends arrive: "Je me perdais dans 1es somptueuses
églises baroques, essayant d'y retrouver une patrie, mais
sortant plus vide et plus désespéré de ce téte-a-téte
décevant avec moi-meme (EE, 33).

As previously noted, Nguyen-Van-Huy has suggested
that Camusian happiness is synonymous with unity--unity with
the natural world, with man, and with transcendent values.
.At the opposite pole is separation, isolation, and solitude,
rand their by-product, anguish, all of which are experienced
vvith excruciating intensity by the narrator of "La Mort dans
1-‘fime." Growing awareness of his solitude brings all the
accoutrements of anguish: depression and discomfort--he is
"Inal a l'aise ... creux et vide" (BE, 31); physical illness--

"CT'avais peur d'étre malade, 13 au milieu de ces gens préts
arire" (EE, 32); fear—-" ... a l'heure ou le soleil dé-
clinait, mon pas solitaire faisait résonner 1es rues. Et
In'ean apercevant, la panique me reprenait" (EE, 33).

Near the end of his stay in Prague the narrator is

brought face to face with the ultimate separation, death.

He learns upon returning to his hotel one afternoon that a

117

Inexn in the adjacent room has died, and the solitude of human
Iberings is brought sharply home to him: "la vie avait con-
tzinué dans l'h6tel, jusqu'a ce que le garcon ait eu l'idée
de l'appeler il était mort seul Moi, pendant ce
temps, je lisais la réclame de ma pate a raser" (EE, 35).
IDeath is always a solitary experience, but its loneliness is
11nderlined in this case by the impersonality of the setting-—
ii hotel, where human contact reaches only a superficial
Zlevel. Men live and die separated in space only by inches,
)ret isolated from each other. Death is also thrown into
:relief in the contrast with life going on unconcernedly
aaround it, and the writer, glancing through the open door

<3f the dead man's room, becomes more poignantly aware of
Iboth life and death as the light from the window casts the
dead man's shadow on the wall: "Cette lumiére me bouleversa.
.Elle était authentique, une vraie lumiere de vie, d'aprés-
nudi de vie, une lumiére qui fait qu'on s'apercoit qu'on vit.
Lui était mort. Seul dans sa chambre" (BE, 35). All of the
absurdity of human destiny is summed up in one brief sen-
tence: "Il était arrivé 1a sans se douter de rien et i1

était mort seul" (EB, 35).
The experience is very nearly the last straw for the
writer. His anguish reaches a point where it can no longer

be borne: " ... je ne pouvais aller plus loin" (EE, 36).

Fortunately at that moment his friends arrive and he manages

118

tn: greet them in the normal way. He is aware of the trauma
the has undergone, but in their eyes he is still "l'homme
qu'ils avaient quitté" (EE, 36).

There are specific echoes in Camus' other works of
'the signs of alienation and anguish that appear in "La Mort
<dans l'éme." Jan, in Le Malentendu, is uncomfortable in
'the home of his mother: "Je ne suis pas a men aise ici,"
«and " ... j'ai l'impression pénible que cette maison n'est
pas la mienne."31 He likens it to "toutes les chambres
«d'hdtel de ces villes étrangéres ou des hommes seuls
arrivent chaque nuit."32 He is finally able to define the
anguish he feels there: "je connais son nom. Elle est peur
de la solitude éternelle, crainte qu'il n'y ait pas de
réponse. Et qui répondrait dans une chambre d'hdtel?"33
In Le Mythe de Sisyphe "l'Homme absurde" seeks in vain a
feeling of belonging, of being part of a unified and har-
monious universe. The narrator's alienation in "La Mort
dans l'ame," expressed in the words, "J'étais un étranger,"

will be reflected in his 1942 novel, L'Etranger. Physical

 

sickness, joined to isolation, becomes a dominant theme in

 

31Camus, Theatre! Récits, Nouvelles, p. 156.
32Ibid., p. 152.

33Ibid.

”___

119

Ima.Peste, and Clamence in La Chute, associates "l'angoisse"

with "1e malconfort."3'*
In the comfort of familiar surroundings and the

Inoutine of daily life it is possible to evade awareness of
(one's solitude. The traveler, in "La Mort dans l'ame" is
(even willing to suffer the sickening food of the restaurant
‘vhere he had eaten his first meal in order not to sacrifice
:its precious, if slight, familiarity: "La du moins, j'étais
'reconnu.‘ On me souriait si on ne m'y parlait pas" (EE,
33). However, once away from the known milieu no evasion
is possible. Sightseeing one day in a cloister the narrator
loegins to perceive the rapport between his presence in a
strange environment and his suffering. He returns to the
hotel to write in one stroke the thoughts that elucidate
this anguish and affirm the importance of lucidity--travel

has brought him both:

Et quel autre profit vouloir tirer du voyage? Me
voici sans parure. Ville dont je ne sais pas lire
les enseignes, caracteres étranges ou rien de fami-
lier ne s'accroche, sans amis a qui parler, sans
divertissement enfin. De cette chambre ou arrivent
les bruits d'une ville étrangére, je sais bien que
rien ne peut me tirer pour m'amener vers la lumiére
plus délicate d'un foyer ou d'un lieu aimé ... Vais-
je appeler, crier? Ce sont des visages étrangers
qui paraitront. Eglises, or et encens, tout me
rejette dans une vie quotidienne ou mon angoisse
donne son prix a chaque chose. Et voici que le
rideau des habitudes, le tissage confortable des
paroles ou le coeur s'assoupit, se releve lentement

 

“Ibid., p. 1531.

120

et dévoile enfin la face bléme de l'inquiétude.

L'homme est face a face avec lui-meme: je le

défie d'étre heureux ... (EE, 33-34).
" Le rideau des habitudes" serves as a veil which when broken
exposes the Absurd. In Le Mythe de Sisyphe a similar image
appears:

Il arrive que les décors s'écroulent. Lever,
tramway, quatre heures de bureau ou d'usine, repas,
tramway, quatre heures de travail, repas, sommeil
et lundi mardi mercredi jeudi vendredi et samedi
sur le meme rythme, cette route se suit aisément
la plupart du temps. Un jour seulement, 1e 'pour—
quoi' s'éléve et tout commence ... (MS, 106-07).

The characteristic Camusian duality and tension is
sstill apparent, however, in the necessary "équilibre"
loetween positive and negative qualities. If the lucidity
awakened by travel brings anguish, it also enhances the
‘precious quality of things hitherto taken for granted. The
traveler in Prague, even in his anguish, feels a new kinship

‘with the world:

Et c'est pourtant par la que le voyage l'illumine.
Un grand désaccord se fait entre lui et les choses.
Dans ce coeur moins solide, la musique du monde
entre plus aisément. Dans ce grand dénuement enfin,
1e moindre arbre isolé devient la plus tendre et la
plus fragile des images (EE, 34).

During the journey south through Austria the trav-
eler is unable to shake off the effects of his experience in
Prague: " ... je gardais au fond de moi l'étourdissement de
ceux qui ont trOp regardé dans une crevasse sans fond" (BE,

36). However as he approaches the warmer climate of Italy

there is a gradual change. The sickness of Prague is now

121

behind him, and he feels like a convalescent "qu'on a nourri
de bouillons et qui pense a ce que sera la premiere crofite
de pain qu'il mangera" (BE, 36). Italy does not disappoint
him, and it is with quiet happiness that he finds himself
under a warm and sunny sky where he can resume the close
contact with nature that was so much a part of his life in
Algeria. There is still loneliness, but now there are
"appuis pour qui ne sait plus étre seul" (EB, 37), and
"signes d'amour pour qui est forcé d'étre seul" (EE, 38).
Here too, far from home, he begins to perceive the

other half of the lesson of his native land, "ce monde de
pauvreté et de lumiére." The sun, while it illuminates the
beauty of the natural world, also brings lucidity to the
human who is not a part of it, and makes him sharply con-
scious of his own impermanence:

Certes, devant cette plaine italienne, peuplée

d'arbres, de soleil et de sourires, j'ai saisi

mieux qu'ailleurs l'odeur de mort et d'inhumanité

qui me poursuivait depuis un mois (EE, 39).
Here where there is such riches to be enjoyed by the senses
there is all the more poignancy in the knowledge that the
body must die:

Pour moi, aucune promesse d'immortalité dans ce

pays. Que me faisait de revivre en mon ame, et

sans yeux pour voir Vicence, sans mains pour

toucher les raisins de Vincence, sans peau pour

sentir la caresse de la nuit sur la route du

Monte Berico a la villa Valmarana? (EE, 39).

Camus' preface to the 1959 reedition of Jean Grenier's Les

Iles contains lines which recall these feelings of despair

122

before the beauty of the Italian landscape on the 1936
journey:
Celui qui, entre une terre ingrate et un ciel sombre
besogne durement, peut réver d'une autre terre ou le
ciel et le pain seraient légers. Il espére. Mais
ceux que la lumiére et les collines comblent a tout
heure du jour, ils n'espérent plus.35
Nevertheless the lucidity that comes from nature differs
from that of Prague. Its extreme beauty brings not only
despair but exaltation and the courage to bear human
mortality:
J'avais besoin d'une grandeur. Je la trouvais dans
la confrontation de mon désespoir profond et de
l'indifférence secrete d'un des plus beaux paysages
du monde. J'y puisais la force d'étre courageux et
conscient a la fois (EE, 39).
This is a courage that had been lacking in Prague ("Je ne
pouvais aller plus loin") and one is reminded again of
George Joyaux' words concerning the degree to which Camus
was influenced by his physical environment: "His emotional
reactions to the physical milieu and the kind of life it
suggests, from the start gave direction to his intellectual
develOpment. . . ."36
Camusian "équilibre," noted earlier, permeates "La

Mort dans l'ame." There is life and death, a sky from.which

falls both "l'indifférence et la beauté" (EE, 38). The

 

35Camus, preface to Les Isles, p. 11.

 

35Joyaux, "Albert Camus and North Africa," p. 11.

123

traveler will sometimes recall Prague, and with the odor of
cucumbers and vinegar uneasiness will return; then he turns
his thoughts to the plains of Vicenza:

Mais les deux me sont chéres et je sépare mal mon

amour de la lumiére et de la vie d'avec mon secret

attachement pour l'expérience désespérée que j'ai

voulu décrire. On l'a compris déja, et moi, je ne

veux pas me résoudre a choisir (EE, 39).
It is apparent here, as well as elsewhere in Camus' works,
that the writer has at times felt the attraction of death
as well as of life, as another kind of union. The above-
quoted "secret attachement" is one such reference. Earlier
in this essay, describing his feelings before the Italian
landscape, he remarks that "ce que je touchais du doigt,
c'était une forme dépouillée et sans attraits de ce gout du
néant que je portais en moi" (EB, 38). At times this attrac-
tion is expressed as a desire to blend into nature, to lose
.identity in it, a desire that will become explicit in Noces,
It is already suggested in "La Mort dans l'ame" as he
recalls the days spent near Vicence: "J'ai tout le ciel sur
{la face et ce tournoiement des journées, i1 me semble que je
Ipourrais 1e suivre sans cesse, immobile, tournoyant avec
elles" (EE, 37).

The influence of nature on Camus' thought and work

Imas already been noted. Its role as poetic Muse is presaged

if! "La Mort dans l'ame." Except for the short, intensely

lyrical passage dashed off by the traveler upon his return

124

:from the cloister, the early part of the trip in Prague

:is related in straightforward prose. However, after his

aarrival in Italy, an abundance of "singing lines"37 tran-

sacribe the experience of nature through the senses:

... la flfite aigre et tendre des cigales, le parfum
d'eaux et d'étoiles qu'on rencontre dans les nuits de
septembre, les chemins odorants parmi les lentisques
et les roseaux, autant de signes d'amour pour qui est
forcé d'étre seul (EE, 37-38).

Une a une, derriére moi, les cigales enflent leur voix
puis chantent: un mystére dans ce ciel d'ou tombent
l'indifférence et la beauté (EE, 38).

Ainsi, les journées passent. Aprés l'éblouissement
des heures pleines de soleil, le soir vient, dans le
décor splendide que lui font l'or du couchant et le

noir des cyprés (EE, 38).

Le soleil était presque au zénith, le ciel d'un bleu

intense et aéré. Toute la lumiere qui en tombait

dévalait la pente des collines, habillait les cyprés

et les oliviers, les maisons blanches et les toits

rouges, de la plus chaleureuse des robes, puis allait

se perdre dans la plaine qui fumait au soleil (EB, 38).
DV- Dd. Frohock, in an article concerning Camus' use of meta-
FflICer, has remarked that in passages of great emotional
'irrteansity the writer found himself forced "to go beyond the
Ordinary resources of his language, to abandon the ordinary
EitJSEitegies of prose in favor of a strategy more closely
asSociated with poetry." 38 In Noces nature will inspire
some of Camus' most poetic lines, traces of which appear
\

37Lewis, The Lyric Impulse, p. 19.

Sea . ”W. M. Frohock, "Camus: Image, Influence and
l'1-E=‘»:I.bility," Yale French Studies, II, No. 2 (1949), 99.

125

already in "La Mort dans l'ame." The plenitude of Noces
is also forecast in lines which merit equally the descrip-
tion "lyrical":

Chaque étre rencontré, chaque odeur de cette

rue, tout m‘est prétexte pour aimer sans mesure

(EB, 37).

... la trompette des marchands de glaces, les

etalages de fruits, pastéques rouges aux graines

noires, raisins translucides et gluants--autant

d'appuis pour qui ne sait plus étre seul (EE, 37).

The lesson on "La Mort dans l'ame" is human mortal-
ity and the necessity of awareness in the face of it. The
writer cherishes his bitter prize, lucidity. At the end of
the essay he recalls crossing a little cemetery in Algeria
and finding at the end of it a View of the valley with the
sea beyond--it is the kind of grandeur that lends courage
to face the truth, that nothing lasts except the world of
nature outside of man. But, retracing his steps and per—
ceiving a gravestone carved with the words "regrets éternels,"

he concludes on a note of ironic humour: "Heureusement, i1

y a les idéalistes pour arranger les choses" (EE, 39).

"Amour de vivre"

 

In the summer of 1935 Camus travelled to the Spanish
Balearic Islands, and “Amour de vivre," written the follow-
ing year, treats the same theme as "La Mort dans l'ame"--
the psychological and emotional effects of travel, which

deprive us of familiar routine, sharpen our awareness, and

126

so force us to confront our ultimate destiny which is death.
There is the same fear and loneliness: "Car ce qui fait le
prix du voyage, c'est la peur. Il brise en nous une sorte
de décor intérieur"; the same resulting lucidity:

Il n'est plus possible de tricher--de se masquer

derriére des heures de bureau et de chantier (ces

heures contre 1esquelles nous protestons si fort

et qui nous défendent si sflrement contre la

souffrance d'étre seul) (EB, 42).
However, the equilibrium between life and death that is
depicted in both "La Mort dans l'ame" and "Amour de vivre"
has a different emphasis in the two essays. Death, or
"l'envers" had dominated the atmosphere of "La Mort dans
l'ame," whereas in "Amour de vivre," inspired by the Med-
iterranean sun of the Balearics, it is life, "l'endroit,"
which plays the major role.

In Camus' Carnets I, notes made in the winter of

1936 prior to the writing of "Amour de vivre" give a list
of sites visited during the trip. The finished essay
concentrates on two of these: a "café chantant" and "le
petit cloitre gothique de San Francisco." A sharp contrast,
these two, the first hot, noisy, and pulsating with humanity,
the second quiet, almost deserted; yet each in its own way
increasing the writer's hunger for a life which he knows
must inevitably end. In both places he perceives through

a sharpened sensitivity, brought about by "le dépaysement,"

the precious quality of the things of this world:

127

Loin des ndtres, de notre langue, arrachés a tous
nos appuis, privés de nos masques (on ne connait
pas le tarif des tramways et tout est comme ca),
nous sommes tout entiers a la surface de nous-
mémes. Mais aussi, a nous sentir l'ame malade,
nous rendons a chaque étre, a chaque objet, sa
valeur de miracle (EE, 42-43).

Life as it is depicted in the café in Palma is human
and earthy. Its physical quality is at once apparent in the
description which begins the essay: The crowd of customers
is "serré a mourir, épaules contre épaules"; "tous hurlaient";
"une sorte d'officier de marine m'éructait dans la figure
des politesses chargées d'alcool"; the orchestra plays tunes
of which only the rhythm can be heard "parce que tous les
pieds en donnaient la mesure" (EE, 41). A clash of cymbals
announces the entrance of the entertainer, "un visage de
jeune fille, mais sculpté dans une montagne de chair" (EE,
41). She wears a garment of net through which swells "un
damier de chair blanche"; when she smiles the corners of her
mouth set in motion "une série de petites ondulations de
chair"; she dances and "Dans ce mouvement monotone et
passionné, de vraies vagues de chair naissaient sur ses
hanches et venaient mourir sur ses épaules; she sings and
”tenant ses seins a pleines mains, ouvrant sa bouche rouge
et mouillée, reprit la mélodie en choeur avec la salle,
jusqu'a ce que tout le monde soit levé dans le tumulte"

(EE, 42). Life manifests itself in the flesh, as a prim-

itive, vital force, incarnated in the girl, who is "Comme

128

une déesse immonde sortant de l'eau," and “comme l'image
ignoble et exaltante de la vie, avec le désespoir de ses
yeux vides et la sueur épaisse de son ventre ... " (EE, 42).
For a moment she too has a "valeur de miracle," and in the
noisy scene the writer sees the reflection of all of life:
"La vie nous semble s'y refléter tout entiére" (EE, 43).
The mind has no part to play amidst this "joie trépignante":
the woman's eyes are "vides," she dances "sans penser"
(EE, 43), and "pas un étre ici n'était conscient" (EE, 41).
Yet, if "immonde" and "ignoble" describe the life-
force, it is also "exaltante," and Camus maintained this
attitude toward it throughout his life. It is significant
that Nietzsche had a profound influence on the youthful
Camus39 and though he had already rejected the superman
and the power principle,as evidenced in his early play,
Caligula, Nietzsche's vitalism struck a chord which found
ready response in Camus' Mediterranean temperament. Serge
Doubrovsky, in tracing the revolution of Camus' ethics, has
effectively noted the early and lasting significance of the
vital for the writer, and its connection with his childhood
and youth:
Enfant et enfant d'illettrés, Camus, a l'heure

des expériences fondamentales, était en deca de
la culture. 11 s'agit bien plut6t d'un effort

 

as"Nietzsche était alors pour lui la loi et les
prophétes." Paul Mathieu, cited in Essais, p. 1172.

129

conscient et parfois maladroit pour retrouver
les sources vives, prééculturelles de l'exis-
tence."0

 

He notes later in the same article that for Camus "La
participation vitale est a la fois un fait et une valeur.""1
In "Amour de vivre" the vital and the intuitive predominate.
With maturity moral and intellectual values will become
increasingly important in Camus' work, but the role of the
vital will not diminish.

At the cloister of San Francisco the writer again
experiences an extreme lucidity, but the catalysts are dif-
ferent. The cloister is in the rather deserted quarter of
the cathedral, and here, in contrast to the crowd and noise
of the café, the traveler moves in silence and solitude. He
feels himself blending with the world, losing his identity:
"Je me fondais dans cette odeur de silence, je perdais mes
limites, n'étais plus que le son de mes pas, ou ce vol d'oi-
seaux ... " (EE, 43). It is not a gentle peace that these
surroundings impart, but sharp awareness and tension. The
beauty of the scene seems a precariously-poised reflection
in a glass, ready to shatter at any moment: "Dans une heure,
une minute, une seconde, maintenant peut-étre, tout pouvait
crouler" (EE, 44). The visitor permits himself to enter

into the illusion, but with full consciousness: "J'entrais

 

I“Doubrovsky, "La Morale d'Albert Camus," p. 40.

“Ibid, p. 42.

130

dans le jeu. Sans étre dupe, je me prétais aux apparences"
(BE, 44). In this moment of lucidity he perceives the
reflection of his own final dissolution and at the same time
his love of life: "La était tout mon amour de vivre: une
passion silencieuse pour ce qui allait peut-étre m'échapper,
une amertume sous une flamme" (EE, 44). The time of revolt
has not yet come for the writer. For the moment there is
simply love of life, and a simultaneous urge to become part
of the beauty and permanence of the non-human world, to lose
separate identity and become part of the whole. Each day at
the cloister the experience is repeated: "Chaque jour, je
quittais ce cloitre comme enlevé a moi-meme, inscrit pour

un court instant dans la durée du monde" (BE, 44).

As in the café, the Spirit is irrelevant here. The
primitive and the vital, which there manifested itself in
human bodies, shows itself here in the world of nature. The
writer also makes another discovery--comprehension of his
affinity for the Mediterranean countries and those which
resemble them: while he may admire their gifts to civi-
lization of reason and philosophy, they have a stronger
attraction for him in their reduction of man to only another
manifestation of nature: in their environment his spirit,
his intellect, all that make him an individual, become non-
entities. Significantly Camus makes a distinction between

primitive Greek and Hellenic Greek art, and between Gothic

131

and Renaissance in Italy: " ... je sais bien pourquoi je
pensais alors aux yeux sans regard des Apollons doriques ou
aux personnages brfilants et figés de Giotto" (EE, 44). A
footnote on the same page adds: "C'est avec l'apparition
du sourire et du regard que commencent la décadence de la
sculpture grecque et la dispersion de l'art italien. Comme
si la beauté cessait ou commencait l'esprit." The gift to
him of these lands is rooted further back in time, when the
world was not made to man's measure but he was simply a part
of it: " ... ce n'était pas un monde fait a la mesure de
l'homme--mais qui se refermait sur l'homme" (EE, 44). If
they attract him, it is an attraction toward loss-of-self
and fusion with the non-human world, the same "gofit du
néant" he had felt in Italy (EE, 38).

... si le langage de ces pays s'accordait a ce

qui résonnait profondément en moi, ce n'est pas

parce qu'il répondait a mes questions, mais parce

qu'il les rendait inutiles. Ce n'était pas des

actions de graces qui pouvaient me monter aux

lévres, mais ce Nada qui n'a pu naitre que devant

des paysages écrasés de soleil (EE, 44).
The unity which Nguyen-Van-Huy posits as essential to
Camusian happiness may also be consummated in loss of self.

Appropriately enough, considering the setting of

this essay, the author uses the Spanish word for nothingness.
It is also a reminder that Camus' mother was of Spanish

descent. Brief references to his inclination toward the

Spanish appear in the preface to L'Envers et l'endroit:

 

132

his pride, "J'avais 1a toutes les occasions de développer
une 'castillanerie' qui m'a fait bien du tort"; his taste
for the lack of clutter in Spanish and Arab dwellings,
"J'aime la maison nue des Arabes ou des Espagnols.""2
A similar reference to Spanish décor appears in La Peste.
There have been many comments by Camus and others concerning
his ability to wholeheartedly enjoy himself, a trait he also
finds typical of the Spanish and which he praises as the
mark of the truly civilized in a brief footnote to the scene
in the "café chantant" of Palma: "11 y a une certaine
aisance dans la joie qui définit la vraie civilisation.
Et le peuple espagnol est un des rares en Europe qui soit
civilisé" (EE, 41).
There is yet another trait of the Spanish people

described by Ernest Hemingway which Camus shared:

They know death is the unescapable reality, the

one thing any man may be sure of; the only secu-

rity. . . . They think a great deal about death

and when they have a religion they have one which

believes that life is much shorter than death.

Having this feeling they take an intelligent

interest in death. . . .
(Zamus too seems to have taken an interest in death and much
le his thought centers around it. André Rousseaux sees

deaath as the foundation of Camus' "philosophie du bonheur."““

 

 

L“Camus, Essais, pp. 6-7.

“Ernest Hemingway, Death in the Afternoon (New York,
Lollcion: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1954), p. 266.

 

I“’Supra, p. 67.

133

Roger Quilliot states that Camus' numerous portrayals of
old people, beginning with L'Envers et l'endroit, indicate
an interest in death as a common human experience: "L'in—

térét que porte Camus a la vieillesse est aussi attention

u #5

a la mort, et pour finir, il l'est essentiellement. For

Robert de Luppé it is at the heart of his work: "Toute
expérience véritable débouche dans la mort, voila 1a pensée
fondamentale de Camus."“5

Repeatedly in Camus' novels and plays death brings
about an awakening: when Meursault pulls the trigger and
kills the Arab, "c'est la, dans le bruit a la fois sec at
assourdissant, que tout a commencé";“7 for Caligula the
death of Drusilla brings the realization that "les hommes
meurent et ils ne sont pas heureux,""8 and starts him on the
vain attempt to usurp the role of destiny; in La Peste the
slow and painful death of Othon's child marks the beginning
of doubts concerning his faith for Father Paneloux--"a
Ipartir de ce jour ou i1 avait longtemps regardé un enfant

Incurir, il parut change’.“9 When the priest dies his card

“Quilliot, La Mer, p. 39.

“Robert de Luppé, Albert Camus (Paris: Editions
Urliversitaires, 1963), p. 117.

I”Camus, Theatre, Récits, Nouvelles, p. 1168.
“Ibid., p. 16.

”Ibid., p. 1399.

134

is inscribed "cas douteux,"so

and the author implies that
this doubtful aspect is applicable to more than his physical
disease. In La Chute too, death is a catalyst. The dis-
ruption of Clamence's complacency originates in his aware-
ness of guilt for the death of the woman in the Seine, and
that of his fellow internee in the prison camp:

11 faut que quelque chose arrive, voila l'expli-

cation de la plupart des engagements humains. Il

faut que quelque chose arrive, méme la servitude

sans amour, méme la guerre, ou la mort. Vivent

donc les enterrements!51

Camus' preoccupation with death also demonstrates a

close rapport with other facets of his thought: his love of
life coupled with the "gofit du neant," his attitude toward
nature, his affinity for the Greeks, and finally the desire
for unity pointed out by Nguyen-Van-Huy. All of these fac-
tors can be viewed in clearer perspective when they are
juxtaposed with the statements of Dr. Norman Brown in Life
Against Death. Dr. Brown argues for the acceptance of death
as a step toward its reunification—in-consciousness-with-
life which would eliminate man's horror of death. He, as
Camus has done at various points in his work, points out
the elaborate means Western man has developed to evade

awareness of death, in contrast to pagan man and to Eastern

philosophy. He quotes the poet Rilke as stating that the

#—

soIbid., p. 1410.

51Ibid., p. 1494.

135

horror of death is really the horror of dying with unlived
lives in our bodies. The crippled Zagreus in Camus' first

novel, La Mort heureuse, indeed remarks that " ... ce qui

 

m'effraie dans la mort c'est la certitude qu'elle m'appor-
tera que ma vie a été consommée sans moi. En marge, vous
comprenez?"52

In a statement with which the writer of "Amour de
vivre" would most certainly have agreed Dr. Brown defends
the life force, says that we must affirm the life of the
body along with the necessity of death, and that only in
this way can life be lived fully: "Only if Eros--the life
instinct--can affirm the life of the body can the death
instinct affirm death, and in affirming death magnify
1ife."53

"Amour de vivre" concludes with a passionate cry
of hunger for life. The author feels an "immense élan qui
voulait mettre le monde entre mes mains" (EB, 45) and he
begrudges even the moments he must sleep as time lost from
living: "Il me semblait que chaque heure de mon sommeil
serait désormais volée a la vie ... " (EE, 45). Here too
is prefigured the ethic of quantity of the Absurd Man in
Le Mythe de Sisyphe for whom "ce qui compte n'est pas de

vivre 1e mieux mais de vivre le plus" (MS, 143): " ...

$2Camus, La Mort heureuse (Paris: Gallimard, 1971),

 

p. 79.

53Brown, Life Against Death, p. 109.

 

136

que m'importe de mal étreindre si je peux tout embrasser"
(EE, 45). As for "la mesure" and "les limites," the
narrator acknowledges that they are necessary for one who
would create, but there are no limits for the pure love of

life which he experiences as a surge of intense emotion.

"L'Envers et l'endroit"

 

The final essay in L'Envers et l'endroit, which

 

bears the same title, is scarcely three pages long. It
begins with the description of an eccentric old woman who
uses her small inheritance to purchase a tomb for herself,
and concludes with personal meditations of the author which
serve both as commentary on this particular situation and
as a summary of thoughts which relate this final essay to
those which preceded it.

Death predominates once more in this concluding
essay, but touches of ironic humour relieve the heavy
atmosphere of gloom that was so prevalent in "La Mort dans
l'ame." The old woman, more concerned with the world of the
dead than that of the living, communes with the spirits, and
"refusait de voir certaines personnes de sa famille mal con-
sidérées dans 1e monde ou elle se réfugiait" (EE, 48). She
receives a small legacy, uses it to purchase at a bargain
Price an elaborate unclaimed tomb, and spends her Sunday
afternoons visiting it. On one of these visits she finds

0n the steps of the tomb a bunch of violets: "des inconnus

137

compatissants, devant cette tombe laissée sans fleurs,
avaient partagé les leurs et honoré la mémoire de ce mort
abandonné a lui-meme (EE, 48). Near the end of the essay
her daughter dresses her for the tomb while she is still
living because it is easier to do before rigor mortis sets
in. Commenting on this, the author, who in his meditations
had spoken seriously and passionately of life and death,
concludes with wry humour: " ... c'est curieux tout de
méme comme nous vivons parmi des gens pressés" (EE, 50).

In the Sunday visits to her tomb the old woman
on her prie-Dieu, like the traveler in Prague or at the
cloister of San Francisco, is face to face with herself and
her destiny, "confrontant ce qu'elle était et ce qu'elle
devait étre" (EE, 47). Here the author's preoccupation
with life and death as a totality--a desired reunification--
appears in the image of a broken chain. Alive, kneeling on
the prie-Dieu, the old woman perceives her coming death in
the symbol of the tomb, and thus finds the link which will
join the divergent ends of her destiny, "l'anneau d'une
chaine toujours rompue" (EB, 47).

The author senses himself part of a larger totality.
He speaks of the natural world and there is present the idea
of fusion with it:

Qui suis-je et que puis-je faire, sinon entrer

dans le jeu des feuillages at da la lumiére?
Etre ce rayon ou ma cigarette se consume, cette

138

douceur et cette passion discrete qui reSpire

dans l'air. Si j'essaie de m'atteindre, c'est

tout au fond de cette lumiere. Et si je tente

de comprendre et de savourer cette délicate

saveur qui livre 1e secret du monde, c'est moi—

méme que je trouve au fond de l'univers (EB, 48).
In a while, he tells us, he will speak of men and their
suffering, but now it is this moment of harmony with the
non-human world that he wishes to preserve. Others may
guard the memory of moments shared with a lover, his come
munion is with the world of nature: "D'autres laissent une
fleur entre des pages, y enferment une promenade ou l'amour
1es a effleurés. Moi aussi, je me proméne, mais c'est un
dieu qui me caresse" (EE, 48). In "Entre oui et non" he
had spoken of the dangerous "simplicité" of the world. In
"L'Envers et l'endroit" the apprehension has disappeared.
In the authenticity of the confrontation all is reconciled:
" ... ce qui compte, c'est d'étre vrai et alors tout s'y
inscrit, l'humanité et la simplicité" (BE, 49).

As in "Amour de vivre" consciousness of death
sharpens awareness of the precious quality of human life:
"La vie est courte et c'est péché de perdre son temps" (EB,
48). This world is his only kingdom and all is contained in
.it, both "l'envers et l'endroit":

Ce soleil et ces ombres, cette chaleur et ce
froid qui Vient du fond de l'air: vais-je me
demander si quelque chose meurt et si les hommes
souffrent puisque tout est écrit dans cette

fenétre ou le ciel déverse sa plénitude a la
rencontre de ma pitié (EB, 49).

139

He desires now not happiness but full awareness. Pulled
in two directions, toward "l'endroit" and the beauty of
the world, and "l'envers" of suffering men, he will refuse

neither:

Les hommes et leur absurdité? Mais voici 1e

sourire du ciel. La lumiére se gonfle et c'est

bient6t l'été? Mais voici les yeux et la voix

de ceux qu'il faut aimer. Je tiens au monde par

tous mes gestes, aux hommes par toute ma pitié

et ma reconnaissance. Entre cet endroit et cet

envers du monde, je ne veux pas choisir, je

n'aime pas qu'on choisisse (EE, 49).

The virtues exalted in "L'Envers et l'endroit"

are of stern quality--authenticity, honesty, lucidity.
The writer, like his as yet unborn protagonist, Sisyphe,
"n'aime pas qu'on triche. Le grand courage, c'est encore
de tenir les yeux ouverts sur la lumiere comme sur la mort"
(EE, 49). The positive and negative factors of human exist-

ence are maintained with all their paradox and contradiction,

in the tension which characterizes Camus' universe.

As has been noted earlier, for twenty years Camus
refused to permit the reedition of L'Envers et l'endroit
because of his dissatisfaction with the form. Although some
.English critics have also found fault with the essays on
‘that ground, they have not always been in agreement nor have
tflhey always been precise in their criticism. Earlier in
tflnis study I remarked that Camus' friend, Jean de Maisonseul,

'iltmough praising the book had criticized the author's lack

140

of objectivity; Camus, in his reply to Maisonseul, admitted
that he would like its style to be "plus extérieur." It is
interesting to note that Philip Thody, who has written one
of the best studies on Camus in English, sees not a lack of
objectivity, but a "stilted tone" which he perceives as a
result of Camus' possible attempt to imitate his mentor,
Jean Grenier. He sees a similarity in "the refusal of both
authors to involve themselves emotionally with what they
describe," and remarks that Nggg§_is more aesthetically
satisfying "because he [Camus] does allow himself to write
in a more directly sensuous style"5“ that is natural to him.
While I agree that the style of N22§§_is the one in which
Camus writes best, I believe it would be more accurate to
define it as "lyrical," since this would encompass not only
the sensuous poetry typical of Noces, but also the very per-
sonal "cri du coeur" which appears there as well as in parts
of L'Envers et l'endroit and other works. The latter is in
fact the very quality which Camus, at least in his letter to
Maisonseul, would seem to want to correct. In the case of
"L'Ironie" I would agree too that there is an apparent
eaffort toward objectivity, perhaps the "laconic approach"55

Of Grenier but I find this is not so great a source of

5"’Philip Thody, Albert Camus: 1913-1960 (London:
Hanush Hamilton Ltd., 1961). P. 18.

55Ibid., p. 18.

«Q
C L

5?;

rd
”5

C.s
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\

141

dissatisfaction as the inconsistency in the situation of
the narrator's voice in this essay. If, as I believe,
lyricism is Camus' forte, he has proven in other works
that he is also capable of a controlled objectivity. If
"L'Ironie" does not yet demonstrate it in perfected form,
and if on the other hand the four essays which follow it in
L'Envers et l'endroit do not attain the lyrical heights of
Noces, all five essays are nevertheless outstanding examples
of the genre in both their literary and emotive qualities.
John Cruickshank, another respected English critic,
faults L'Envers et l'endroit in other areas--lack of unity
and vagueness:
. . the book contains no really unified argument.
In each of the five essays emotional attitudes are
vividly expressed but there is little attempt to
justify them adequately in the light of further
thought. There is a great deal of vagueness, too,
in the way Camus arrives at his conclusions, and
these conclusions themselves do not form a coherent
whole but alternate uncertainly between the positive
and negative poles of carpe diem and stoic with-
drawal. . . 6
The statement that the book contains no unified argument is
scarcely a legitimate criticism of a collection of essays,
vvhich by its very nature may present separate reflections

Eind need in fact present no argument at all. True, some

anmmon thread should connect essays which are published

55John Cruickshank, Albert Camus and the Literature
9: Revolt (New York: Oxford UnIVersity Press, 1960), p. 30.

142

under one cover, but the connection need not be either
close-knit or precise. L'Envers et l'endroit nevertheless
does possess a unifying theme in the Absurd and the tension
present in the maintenance of two opposing factors. Roger
Quilliot notes that the thread present in this first col-
lection will remain in all his subsequent works: " ...
l'absurde reste présent toujours, contrebattu par le désir
d'en guérir ou, du moins, de lui faire équilibre."57 Ger-
maine Brée also recognizes the common theme of the Absurd
shared by these five essays, and in addition perceives
others:

This theme of the essential futility or absurdity
of human existence--including human suffering--as
revealed in certain stark situations familiar to
the young man brought up in Belcourt is not the
only link between the five essays. There is the
presence of the narrator, who describes the people
he observes so pitilessly and yet so compassion-
ately. . . . The essays are also connected by the
common, graceless decor of mediocre lives that
know no embellishment, by the inner poverty and
silence so gently yet so penetratingly portrayed.58

Finally Camus' own words are perhaps the best defense
against Mr. Cruickshank's criticism:
Pour ceux qui prendront ces pages pour ce qu'elles
sont vraiment: des essais, la seule chose qu'on
puisse leur demander, c'est d'en suivre la pro-

gression. De la premiere a la derniere, peut—étre
y sentira—t-on une démarche sourde qui en fait

57Quilliot, Essais, p. 1179.

58Brée, Camus, p. 76.

143

l'unité, j'aurais envie de dire qui les légitime,
si lgijustification ne me paraissait pas vaine.

To the charge of vagueness I would respond that as
vehicles for personal reflection, a legitimate function of
the genre, these five essays with the possible exception of
"L'Ironie" are transcribing emotions of the writer, one of
the characteristics which justifies their being called lyr-
ical. Neither their style nor their "raison d'étre" are

those of Le Mythe de Sisyphe or L'Homme révolté, leaving

 

 

aside the youth and inexperience of the writer. As for the
"uncertainty between the positive and negative poles," while
Camus has not as yet formulated the elements of the absurd

as he will later in Le Mythe de Sisyphe, there is little

 

that is uncertain about such statements in L'Envers et

l'endroit as "Je tiens au monde par tous mes gestes, aux

 

hommes par toute ma pitié. Entre cet endroit et cet envers
du monde, je ne veux pas choisir, je n'aime pas qu'on
choisisse" (EE, 49), or the constant insistence on lucidity.
The "uncertainty" is in fact not uncertainty but the mainte-
nance in perpetual tension of both opposing poles, a theme
and characteristic which prevails throughout his work and
is clearly delineated already in L'Envers et l'endroit.
Camus undeniably improved as a writer subsequent

to the publication of his first published book. However,

*

SBCamus, Carnets I, pp. 48—49.

 

144

in the process of praising his later and better-known works
I believe some usually acute critics have been too hasty in
their assessment of this early effort and have exaggerated
its minor "maladresses" while failing to recognize passages
which equal if they do not excel his more mature creations.
As noted in the comments on style the common theme
which connects the five essays of L'Envers et l'endroit, is
the Absurd. It is the author's first attempt to set down
his thoughts before the absurdity of the human condition
as he had observed and experienced it. Philip Thody has

remarked that "in many ways L'Envers et l'endroit is the

 

most depressing of Camus' early works, for it holds out no
possibility of escaping from loneliness and frustration."
He adds "Man's loneliness is particularly tragic in L'Envers

et l'endroit because all possibility of a religious solution

 

is denied, and because man is shown as unable to find any

w The rejection

kind of happiness in his own thoughts."
of religious solutions to man's dilemma, the denial of an
afterlife, and the necessity of lucidity will remain per—-
manent elements in Camus' thought, and the heroes of his

novels will repeat in their own ways the words of the nar-

rator in "L'Envers et l'endroit": " ... tout mon royaume

est de ce monde" (EE, 49). Happiness plays a very small

¥

6°Thody, Albert Camus, p. 19.

145

role in Camus' first collection, and even in "Amour de
vivre" it is linked with despair. But along with the
compassion he feels for the poor and the old, and for all
men who must die, there is an urge to forget everything
except the sheer enjoyment of life. As Germaine Brée points
out: "The irony Camus detected lurking behind all things
was also lurking within him, questioning the meaning of his
effort. He found himself strongly tempted to yield, to
throw himself into a rapturous enjoyment of the beauty of
the earth."61 In Ngggg, the subject of the next chapter,
the lyric poet comes into his own as he describes this

temptation in detail.

 

61Brée, Camus, p. 79.

A“

(11’

CHAPTER IV

NOCES: LIFE AND DEATH

 

"Je pense alors: fleurs, sourires, désirs
de femmes, et je comprends que toute mon
horreur de mourir tient dans ma jalousie
de vivre."
Camus
"Le Vent a Djémila" (1936-37)
Camus' second collection, Noces, was published in
May of 1939. Its four essaySw-"Noces a Tipasa," "Le Vent
a Djémila," "L'Eté a Alger," and "Le Désert"--were written

during 1937 and 1938, although a few scattered lines dated

1936 from the writer's Carnets I appear in "Noces a Tipasa"

 

and "Le Vent a Djémila." Louis Faucon, who provides the
chronological data and commentary on Noces in the Pléiade
edition of the essays, calls attention to the fact that two

years separated L'Envers et l'endroit and Noces, and he also

 

reminds us of the changes in the life of the author that
occurred between 1935 and 1939 which may account to some
degree for the difference in tone of the two collections,
1937 marking the center of this time-span:

La premiere période accumule les déceptions en

divers domaines: politique, universitaire, con-
jugal; la seconde suscite ... la conquéte de

146

147

l'indépendance matérielle et morale, l'exercice
effectif du métier d'écrivain, l'adoption rai-
sonnée d'une vision philos0phique du monde.1

If L'Envers et l'endroit had insisted on the misery and

 

solitude of the human condition, Noces responds that the
very hopelessness of our situation magnifies and enhances
the value of our simplest pleasures. The dualism of human

destiny brought out in L'Envers et l'endroit is still pres-

 

int in Ngggg but its positive side is the focus of attention.
In the earlier work happiness is persistently linked to
despair, whereas in Nggg§_Camus writes, in Philip Thody's
words, "with less irony and more enthusiasm of the full
satisfaction to be gained in the physical joys of life."2
Most of the Camusian themes appear in these essays:
nature, the life of the body with its inevitable end, a
paganism.which rejects any afterlife, the Absurd, the impor-
tance of lucidity, and as always, the tension of opposed
factors. The relationship of Ngggs with later works is
clearly apparent in many of these. It is the most lyrical
of his writings, with the possible exception of "La Mer au
plus pres" in Ligté, and it is interesting to note the terms
employed by various critics when referring to it: Roger

Quilliot calls it "un long cri d'amour";3 Germaine Brée

 

1Faucon, Essais, p. 1334.

2Thody, Albert Camus, p. 21.

 

3Quilliot, La Mer, p. 45.

148

likens its vocabulary to the "lyrical language of the ode

or hymn";“ John Cruickshank describes it as "a remarkably

sustained paean of praise to immediate physical existence";5

Robert de Luppé, who has stated that "la poésie est au
commencement et a la fin de l'oeuvre de Camus," repeatedly
uses the words "poéte" and "poésie" when writing of Noces?
Nature's role as poetic Muse for Camus was already

noted earlier in this study. However he cannot be classi-
fied as a "poet of nature" in the Romantic tradition. Roger
Quilliot has seized on the essential quality of the differ-
ence by stressing the strongly physical and "naive" approach
of Camus, quite in keeping with the latter's emphasis on the
concrete:

Le romantique ... recherche des terres inconnues,

des foréts vierges, des espaces infinis--le dé-

paysement pour tout dire. Il aime les couleurs

exotiques; i1 se complait aussi dans le diaphane

qui laisse entrevoir un coin des cieux. L'univers

sensuel de Camus, au contraire, est épais et charnu;

i1 éclate de partout comme un fruit mur. ... L'aven—

ture est a rechercher dans la violence des sensa-

tions, dans l'ivresse plus que dans l'enchantement.

Camus aborde le monde sensible avec une gourmandise

insolente et naive.7

Camus' rapport, he says, is rather with the Renaissance,

when "une sorte de fiévre, héritée des siecles chrétiens

 

“Brée, Camus, p. 81.

5Cruickshank, Camus and the Literature of Revolt,

 

p. 32.
6Luppé, Camus, p; 113.

7Quilliot, La Mer, pp. 48-49.

149

'e . .
et des danses macabres du XV , exaspérait les déSirs et
avivait la jouissance par la conscience de leur fragilité."°

The poet of "Noces a Tipasa," as in L'Envers et

 

l'endroit, draws again from personal experience. Tipasa

 

and its ruins, about forty-two miles west of Algiers, were
visited by him several times in 1935 and 1936, and a visit
fifteen years later will inspire another essay in his last
collection--"Retour a Tipasa" in ngté. The ruins of Djé-
mila, which aroused quite different emotions, were visited
in 1936. "L'Eté a Alger" concerns the human inhabitants of
the Algerian landscape, the men and women with whom Camus
spent his youth. "Le Désert" relates themes in the first
three essays to his experience on another trip to Italy in
1937. Here, as in "L'Eté a Alger," the focus is on man, but
a different sort of man than the Algerians of the preceding
essay. While the latter burn quickly their brief span of
life, in complete harmony with nature, wagering everything
on the flesh, the artists and the monks of Italy seek inten-
sification of life by other means.

All four essays take the form of personal meditation.
They reiterate the importance of life here and now which was
for Camus "la seule vérité" (N, 80), and the necessity for

lucidity. They also reject more eXplicitly and emphatically

 

°Ibid., p. 47.

150

than L'Envers et l'endroit any hope for an afterlife, in

 

an attitude which Camus will maintain to the end of his

life. John Cruickshank has noted this consistency in his
comments on Ngggg: "In fact what he presents in Nggg§_is
an early form of that 'passionate disbelief' which he was
to describe ten years later as the distinguishing feature

"9

of contemporary atheism. Professor Cruickshank's corre-

sponding footnote refers to Camus' article in La Vie in-

 

tellectuelle of 1949, but the statement first appeared in

 

an earlier article of April, 1943 in Cahiers du Sud, in

which Camus reviewed Jean Guitton's Portrait de M. Pouget.lo

 

The fact that he repeated it in 1949, and in the years that
followed consistently asserted his own unbelief, would seem
to lend no support to those Christian admirers of Camus who
choose to see in his later writings signs of a "rapproche-

ment" with Christianity.

"Noces a Tipasa"

 

The narrator begins his reflections with the words,
"Au printemps, Tipasa est habitée par les dieux ... " (N,
55), and the next lines leave no doubt as to their identit --
they are the gods of nature who speak "dans le soleil et

l'odeur des absinthes, la mer cuirassée d'argent, 1e ciel

 

9Cruickshank, Camus and the Literature.of Revolt,
pp. 37-38.

1°Essais, p. 1596.

151

bleu écru, les ruines couvertes de fleurs et la lumiere

a gros bouillons dans les amas de pierres" (N, 55). No

solitary romantic, the narrator is with friends: "Pour

moi, je ne cherche pas a y étre seul. J'y suis souvent

allé avec ceux que j'aimais et je lisais sur leurs traits

1e clair sourire qu'y prenait le visage de l'amour" (N, 56).
They arrive first in the village itself, which opens

on the bay, and it is a world of warmth and vivid colors

which Robert de Luppé remarks "font penser a certaines

toiles du fauvisme."11

Already the dominant atmosphere of
Ngggs makes itself felt--the vitality and fecundity, to the
point of satiety, of nature. Sunlight and flowers are
everywhere, all the stones are warm, the scent of the Alge-
rian earth greets them. Mounting the stone steps leading
to the ruins, this atmosphere augments: " ... de grosses
plantes grasses aux fleurs violettes, jaunes et rouges,
descendent vers les premiers rochers que la mer suce avec
un bruit de baisers" (N, 55). Finally, entering "1e royaume
des ruines," the writer is present at a wild and joyous bac-
chanal in which restraint has no place:

... 1es absinthes nous prennent a la gorge. ...

Leur essence fermente sous la chaleur, et de la

terre au soleil monte sur toute l'étendue du

monde un alcool généreux qui fait vaciller le

ciel. ... Hors du soleil, des baisers et des
parfums sauvages, tout nous parait futile (N, 56).

 

11Luppé, Camus, p. 116.

152

It is first a celebration of the union of natural elements,
"le grand libertinage de la nature et de la mer" (N, 56).
The stones of the ruins--taken from nature and polished by
man--have now returned to nature, in a "mariage des ruines
et du printemps" (N, 56), and to celebrate the return of her
"filles prodigues" (N, 56), nature has scattered an abun-
dance of flowers. Gradually as the spectator becomes a
participant and himself enters into harmony with the world,
it is again a vital union, without restraint:

Que d'heures passées a écraser les absinthes, a

caresser les ruines, a tenter d'accorder ma respi-

ration aux soupirs tumultueux du monde! Enfoncé

parmi les odeurs sauvages et les concerts d'insectes

somnolents, j'ouvre les yeux et mon coeur a la

grandeur insoutenable de ce ciel gorgé de chaleur

(N, 56).
At last he feels himself a part of the world of nature:
"J'apprenais a respirer, je m'intégrais et je m'accom—
plissais" (N, 56).

The wedding of nature's elements, and of man with
nature, is depicted with images of sexual love, already
implicit in the repeated evocations of fecundity. The
flowers grow down to the water, "vers les premiers rochers
que la mer suce avec un bruit de baisers" (N, 55); the
wanderers go "a la rencontre de l'amour et du désir" (N,
56); the earth and the sea "soupirent levres a lévres"

(N, 57); "Etreindre un corps de femme, c'est aussi retenir

contre soi cette joie étrange qui descend du ciel vers 1a

153

mer" (N, 58). Later, back with his friends in the village,
"Le visage mouillé de sueur, mais le corps frais dans la
légere toile qui nous habille, nous étalons tous l'heureuse
lassitude d'une jour de noces avec le monde" (N, 58). Alone
in the evening his "corps d'étendu gofltait le silence
intérieur qui nait de l'amour satisfait" (N, 59).

Union with the world is portrayed with similar
images elsewhere in Camus' work. "L'Eté a Alger," third
essay in Noces, describes the earth in the evening, or after
a rain as follows:

... la terre entiere, son ventre mouillé d'une
semence au parfum d'amande amére, repose pour
s'étre donnée tout l'été au soleil. Et voici
qu'a nouveau cette odeur consacre les noces de
l'homme et de la terre, et fait lever en nous
le seul amour vraiment viril en ce monde; pé-
rissable et généreux (N, 76).
The union with the natural world of Janine, middle-class
housewife of "La Femme adultére" is described as a sexual
\
consummation:
Alors, avec une douceur insupportable, l'eau de
la nuit commenca d'emplir Janine, submergea le
froid, monta pen a peu du centre obscur de son
étra et déborda en flots ininterrompus jusqu'a
sa bouche pleine de gémissements.
The vital forces of Tipasa are positive and benevo-

lent, and if they sweep man briefly into the non-human world

it is in a natural harmony, a cosmic happiness which rejects

 

12Camus, Théétre, Récits, Nouvelles, p. 1575.

154

anything beyond it: "Sous 1e soleil du matin, un grand
bonheur se balance dans l'espace" (N, 57). Out of this
harmony surges an immense feeling of love and the narrator
senses a glory and a truth attained only in the physical
world of nature:

Je comprends ici ce qu'on appelle gloire: le

droit d'aimer sans mesure. I1 n'y a qu'un seul

amour dans ce monde. ... Tout a l'heure, quand

je me jetterai dans les absinthes pour me faire

entrer leur parfum dans le corps, j'aurai con-

science, contre tous les préjugeeé, d'accomplir

une vérité qui est celle du soleil et sera aussi

celle de ma mort (N, 57-58).
There is also in the joy of this harmony a feeling of
accomplishment, "d'étre entrés en quelque sorte dans un
dessin fait a l'avance" (N, 60), and at the end of his day
at Tipasa the writer feels fulfilled:

... j'avais bien joué mon r61e. J'avais fait mon

métier d'homme et d'avoir connu la joie tout un

long jour ne me semblait pas une réussite excep-

tionnelle, mais l'accomplissement ému d'une condi-

tion qui, en certaines circonstances nous fait un

devoir d'étre heureux (N, 60).
As Roger Quilliot has written, the unrestrained liberty of
Tipasa is not that of the human world, "l'ubris meurtriere
et nietzschéenne d'un Caligula," which Camus had exposed
in his 1944 play: "mais une démesure naturelle, cosmique,
soumise en definitive a l'ordre du monde, accordée a sa

respiration et a ses soupirs."13

 

13Quilliot, La Mer, p. 51.

155

In harmony with the world the writer feels not

only joy but pride:

J'aime cette vie avec abandon et veux en parler

avec liberté: elle me donne l'orgueil de ma

condition d'homme. Pourtant, on me l'a souvent

dit: i1 n'y a pas de quoi étre fier. Si, il

y a de quoi: ce soleil, cette mer, mon coeur

bondissant de jeunesse, mon corps au goflt de

sel et l'immense décor ou la tendresse et la

gloire se rencontrent dans le jaune et le bleu

(N, 58).
Pride here is dissociated with moral ideas of merit. All
that is beautiful feels pride, and the world itself is no
exception: "Tout étre beau a l'orgueil naturel de sa beauté
et le monde aujourd'hui laisse son orgueil suinter de toutes
parts" (N, 58).

Does the world really "feel" pride? One might be
tempted, in the reading of Noces, to attribute anthrOpo-
morphism to the writer. Certainly in "Noces a Tipasa"
there are numerous examples of personification or of images
closely approximating it. In addition to those previously
mentioned in connection with sexual imagery, the sea is
described with "1e sourire de ses dents éclatantes" (N, 55);
the geraniums "versent leur sang ... " (N, 56); the stones
of the ruins are "filles prodigues" (N, 56) who are welcomed
with flowers upon their return to "la maison de leur mere"
(N, 56); the blossoms of a pomegranate tree are "clos et

c6telés comme de petits poings fermés" (N, 59); "La terre

soupirait lentement" (N, 60); the smile of the Algerians is

156

a "sourire complice" turned toward the "sourire éclatant

de ses ciels" (N, 60). W. M. Frohock in his article com-
paring Camus' imagery with that of Giono, likens the met-
aphors at the end of the first part of L'Etranger with those
of Noses and states that "their mechanism is again the per-

sonification of a natural element, and again involves an

n 1|:

unusual application of the pathetic fallacy. He makes

an important distinction, however: for Giono the metaphors

are correlative to his message, whereas what Camus has done

"is to overlook the idea and seize upon its correlative."ls

Henry Bonnier, writing on "Noces a Tipasa" cautions bluntly
against perceiving anthropomorphism in it:

Les lieux sont ce qu'ils sont, ... ce serait
commettre une grossiére erreur que de céder a la
tentation de l'anthropomorphisme. Affirmer que
Tipasa est imperative ou qu'elle est généreuse
ne prouve rien. En tant que tels, 1es lieux ne
possedent aucune personnalité prOpre. Toute l'har-
monie existentielle dont nous 1es croyons dotés
nait seulement du rapport souvent parfait que nous
établissons, de facon parfois inconsciente, entre
eux et nous.

11 y aurait également quelque vanité a les
doter d'un statut moral, ainsi que J.-J. Rousseau
s'y essaya.16

Again one is struck by the "aspect charnel" of Camus' style
which has little in common with Romanticism. Both Henry

Bonnier and John Cruickshank also deny the presence of

 

1"Frohock, "Camus: Image, Influence, Sensibility,"
p. 95.

15Ibid., p. 97.

16Bonnier, Albert Camus, pp. 38-39.

 

157

pantheism in Noces. The former reminds us of the troubled
state of Europe, as well as Camus' own poor health, at the
time the essay was written, and says the writer made no
effort to rise above sensation to a superior domain:

Plus par impossibilité que par inclination,

i1 laissera donc le philosophe en chemin et

Tipasa, avant tout, constituera pour lui

l'expérience d'une force dont i1 veut s'ad-

ministrer la preuve avec éclat.17
Cruickshank likewise rejects the possibility of pantheism,
and sees the language of Noces simply as a poetic expression
of the correspondence between the writer's mood and the
natural landscape.18

The celebration of "Noces a Tipasa" is a purely

physical one--the narrator feasts on life as he feasts on
the fresh peaches in the café:

... on mange en y mordant de sorte que le jus

en coule sur le menton. Les dents refermées

sur la péche, j'écoute les grands coups de mon

sang monter jusqu'éux oreilles, je regarde de

tous mes yeux (N, 58).
He swims with abandonment: "11 me faut étre nu et puis
plonger dans la mer, encore tout parfumé des essences de
la terre" (N, 57); for the moment his world is entirely of
the senses: " ... je ne m'obstine pas a nier ce que ma main

peut toucher et mes lévres caresser, ... I1 me suffit de

vivre de tout mon corps" (N, 59). He wants no part of the

 

l7Ibid., pp. 42-43.

18Cruickshank, Camus and the Literature of Revolt,

 

p. 33.

 

ni

no

Li
it
jc
de
ML‘

Dr

Se

de
li
8a
be
Ia

ha

158

spirit or the intellect--"Nous ne cherchons pas de lecons
ni l'amere philosophie qu'on demande a la grandeur" (N, 56),
nor is this the time for the creation of art:

Il y a un temps pour vivre et un temps pour témoigner

de vivre. 11 y a aussi un temps pour créer, ce qui

est moins naturel. 11 me suffit de vivre de tout

mon corps et de témoigner de tout mon coeur. Vivre

Tipasa, témoigner et l'oeuvre d'art viendra ensuite

(N, 59).
Life is to be lived and only imbeciles are afraid to enjoy
it, nor is there shame in it: " ... pourquoi nierais-je la
joie de vivre, si je sais ne pas tout renfermer dans la joie
de vivre. Il n'y a pas de honte a étre heureux" (N, 58).
Much later, in La Peste, when the journalist Rambert informs
Dr. Rieux that he means to stay and help fight the plague
instead of rejoining his mistress, the doctor tells him
there is no shame in preferring happiness. Rambert replies:
"Oui, mais i1 peut y avoir de la honte a étre heureux tout
seul."19

In the narrator's joy of life he is not unaware of

death, but for the moment it doesn't concern him. At Tipasa
life has the ascendance over death. Seeing the ruins of old
sarcophagi he reflects that once they had contained the
bodies of dead men, but now "i1 y pousse des sauges et des

ravenelles" (N, 57), and through the ruins of the Christian

basilica it is "la mélodie du monde qui parvient jusqu'a

 

19Camus, Théatrengécits, Nouvelles, p. 1389.

 

159

nous" (N, 57). The truth of the natural world is also that
of his death, but since it is part of the cosmic harmony he
will not reject it. As the sun sets the gods of the day
depart, "Mais d'autres dieux viendront. Et pour‘étre plus
sombres, leurs faces ravagées seront nées cependant dans le
coeur de la terre" (N, 60). It is not death which is the
final message of "Noces a Tipasa," but union with the world:
"Non, ce n'était pas moi qui comptais, ni le monde, mais
seulement l'accord et le silence qui de lui a moi faisait
naitre l'amour" (N, 60).

In "Noces a Tipasa" Eros and Dionysus rule, and
the beauty and vitality of nature are described in a
vocabulary and imagery filled with all the perfume and
vivid colors of spring in Algeria, season of rebirth.
Its richness and fertility are mirrored in the writer's
language, not only in its content and associations, but
also in its quantity, all contributing to an atmosphere
of satiety.20 In an interview with Jeanine Delpech for
Les Nouvelles littéraires in 1945 Camus responded to the
remark that he was known as "un écrivain révolutionaire":
"Je ne connais qu'une révolution en art, elle est de tous
les temps. C'est l'exacte appropriation de la forme et du
sujet."21 In "Noces a Tipasa" he amply demonstrates the

principle.

 

”See supra, p. 17 and p. 55.

21Camus, Essais, p. 1427.

 

"LE

160

"Le Vent a Djémila"

 

Djémila, like Tipasa, is the site of Roman ruins,
and here too, as at Tipasa, the author will experience the
truth of the world which is also that of his death. How-
ever, Djémila will be a turning point, the full awakening
to awareness of death after the intermittent reflections on

it in L'Envers et l'endroit, and its postponement in the

 

exaltation of Tipasa. Its significance in the totality of
Camus' work cannot be overemphasized. In the words of
Henry Bonnier, "De trés loin, elle est la plus grave de
toute son oeuvre, puisqu'elle la déterminera, du moins

jusqu'a L'Homme révolté inclus."22

 

From the beginning it is the contrast between the
two sites which makes itself felt, rather than their super-
ficial similarities. At Tipasa it was life which was cele-
brated, and living, growing plants forced their way between
the stones of its ruins. Djémila is repeatedly referred to
as "la ville morte" and her stones are portrayed with meta-
phors of death: " ... son squelette jaunatre" is "comme une
forét d'ossements, ... " (N, 61). Instead of the profusion
of colors and odors that assaulted the senses of the visitor
at Tipasa, the dominant sense perception here is a negative

one--silence: ... il y régnait un grand silence lourd et

L

22BonnierLCamus, p. 64.

161

sans félure" (N, 61). The faint sounds that reach the
listener are small and frail, making all the more evident
the immensity of the silence. There is ”1e son feutré de
la flute a trois trous,“ ”un piétinement de chévres," the
sounds of birds--"un claquement sec, un cri aigu," but they
are only "autant de bruits qui faisaient 1e silence et la
désolation de ces lieux" (N, 61).

Djémila has all the characteristics of the Absurd:
"Ce n'est pas une ville ou l'on s'arréte et que l'on dé-
passe. Elle ne méne nulle part et n'ouvre sur aucun pays"
(N, 61). It is situated on a plateau surrounded by ravines
and exposed to the full force of sun and wind, and in the
concurrence of its ruins with these natural elements the
writer begins to sense his own connection with the silence
and solitude.

He becomes more and more conscious of the wind
as it augments, and the relentlessness of its force is
transmitted through a long series of verbs: ”soufflait,"
"accourait," “venait bondir en cascades," "sifflait,"
"tournait," "baignait 1es amas de blocs gréles," "entourait
chaque colonne de son souffle," "venait se répandre en cris
incessants” (N, 62). Gradually through his senses, he is
drawn into the landscape, and once more for Camus the body
becomes the vehicle through which emotion and thought, in

that order, are generated. At Djémila it is the sense of

162

touch which is most immediately involved. The writer feels
himself whipped by the wind like the mast of a ship: "Creusé
par le milieu, les yeux brfiles, les levres craquantes, ma
peau se desséchait jusqu'a ne plus étre mienne" (N, 62).

In the past, separated from the world, it was through his
skin that he deciphered its moods: "11 y tracait les signes
de sa tendresse ou de sa colére, la réchauffant de son
souffle d'été ou la mordant de ses dents de givre" (N, 62).
Now, however, under the incessant assault of the wind he
loses consciousness of the "otherness" of his own body and
gradually of his own identity:

Mais si longuement frotté du vent, secoué depuis
plus d'une heure, étourdi de résistance, je per-
dais conscience du dessin que traoait. mon corps.
Comme 1e galet verni par les marées, j'étais poli
par le vent, usé jusqu' a 1' ame. J' étais un peu de
cette force selon laquelle je flottais, puis beau-
coup, puis elle enfin, confondant 1es battements
de mon sang et les grands coups sonores de ce coeur
artout présent de la nature. Le vent me faconnait
a l'image de l'ardente nudité qui m'entourait. Et
sa fugitive étreinte me donnait, pierre parmi les
pierres, 1a solitude d'une colonne ou d'un olivier
dans le ciel d'été.
... Bientét, répandu aux quatre coins du monde,
oublieux, oublié de moi-meme, je suis ce vent et
dans le vent, ces colonnes et cet arc, ces dalles
qui sentent chaud et ces montagnes pales autour de
la ville déserte. Et jamais je n'ai senti, si avant
a la fois mon détachement de moi-méme et ma présence
au monde (N, 62).

Michel Benamou has admirably analyzed the experience of
Djémila in his article concerning Camus' attitude toward
nature. He comments on the importance of touch for this

writer as the privileged sense through which he both

163

interprets and joins with the world. He points out,

alluding to Merleau-Ponty"s Phénoménologie de lagper-

 

ception, that "a predominantly epidermic experience of
integration cannot dissociate body-consciousness from

"22 In epidermic experience man remains

world-consciousness.
conscious of his own body, his individuality. In "Le Vent

a Djémila," on the other hand, epidermic perception is

almost erased by the force of the wind, and with it con-
sciousness of self. For a brief moment the writer becomes

a part of the non-human world and the "faible révolte de
l'esprit" (N, 62) is stifled. As part of the world he finds
himself sharing its characteristics. There is no past, no
future, only the eternal present. It is as if he were
”emprisonné a perpétuité" (N, 62), and tomorrow and all the
days to come will be the same. But "pour un homme, prendre
conscience de son présent, c'est ne plus rien attendre" (N,
63). It is the awakening of lucidity. The world, after

all, remains separate, apart from man, who must die. It has
nothing in common with human feeling: "S'il est des paysages
qui sont des états d'ame, ce sont les plus vulgaires. Et je
suivais tout le long de ce pays quelque chose qui n'était

pas a moi, mais de lui ... " (N, 63). The writer at Djémila,
unsentimental, is already aware of the world's role in the

Absurd which he Will formulate in Le Mythe de Sisyphe:

23Benamou, "Romantic Counterpoint," p. 45.

164

... et voici l'étrangeté: s'apercevoir que 1e

monde est ”épais,“ entrevoir a quel point une

pierre est étrangére, nous est irréductible,

avec quelle intensité 1a nature, un paysage

peut nous nier. Au fond de toute beauté git

quelque chose d'inhumain ... " (MS, 107).
But the deisre for some kind of unity, even if it be through
loss of self, cannot be fulfilled.

Louis Faucon has called lucidity "1e maitre-mot de

"2“ and it is at Djémila that the point of climax is

mess:
reached. In his moment of rapport with the world the writer
senses a change within himself--his fears and worries dis-
solve and are replaced by a new kind of vision, a "lucidité
aride" (N, 63). He has been, and after Djémila will forever
remain, both inside and outside the world of men, with a
kind of double vision of both eternity and his own mortality.
"L'inquiétude nait du coeur des vivants. Mais le calme
recouvrira ce coeur vivant: voici toute ma clairvoyance"
(N, 63). Like all men he too yearns to deny death, but at
Djémila, he tells us, "je me sentais sans défense contre les
forces lentes qui en moi disaient non" (N, 63). For there
can be no evasion and the writer, like Djémila itself, re-
jects the lie of human immortality:

Djémila dit vrai ce soir, et avec quelle triste

et.insistante beauté! Pour moi, devant ce monde,

je ne veux pas mentir ni qu'on me mente. Je veux

porter ma lucidité jusqu'au bout et regarder ma

fin avec toute la profusion de ma jalousie et de
mon horreur (N, 65).

2"Faucon, Essais, p. 1332.

165

If he rejects the hope of an afterlife he does not
deny his horror of death: it is for him "une aventure
horrible et sale" (N, 63). The horror is primitive and
physical, akin to disgust: "J'ai vu des gens mourir.
Surtout, j'ai vu des chiens mourir. C'est de les toucher
qui me bouleversait" (N, 64). When he must face it he will
react viscerally, "sa peur aux entrailles et un regard idiot"
(N, 65). But above all his horror of death stems from the
thought of what he must leave behind, all the plenitude of
life celebrated at Tipasa to be lost:

Je pense alors: fleurs, sourires, désirs de femmes,
et je comprends que toute mon horreur de mourir
tient dans ma jalousie de vivre. Je suis jaloux de
ceux qui vivront et pour qui fleurs et désirs de
femmes auront tout leur sens de chair et de sang.

Je suis envieux, parce que j'aime trop la vie pour
ne pas étre égoiste (N, 64—65).

The absurd hero of Le Mythe de Sisyphe is already prefigured:
On a compris déja que Sisyphe est le héros absurde.
I1 l'est autant par ses passions que par son tour-
ment. Son mépris des dieux, sa haine de la mort
et sa passion de la vie, lui ont valu ce supplice
indicible ou tout l'étre s'emploie a ne rien achever.
C'est 1e prix qu'il faut payer pour les passions de
cette terre (MS, 196).

Refusal of hope does not mean renouncement of these
precious joys: "Si je refuse obstinément tous les 'plus
tard' du monde, c'est qu'il s'agit aussi bien de ne pas
renoncer a ma richesse présente" (N, 63). Life is all the

more to be valued in the face of death. Repeatedly hope is

rejected as the enemy of lucidity and of life itself. It is

166

an evasion which would discharge him from the burden of his
own mortal life-—a weight that he has no wish to relinquish.
Like Djémila he will defend himself against "les jeux de
l'espoir“ (N, 62).

Briefly he meditates on the build-up of hope and
illusions regarding death, of man's great effort, "qui est
de se dérober a la certitude de mourir tout entier (N, 64).
The young have no such illusions since these take time to
develop, and consequently they confront death head-on with
all the fear it merits: "Ce doit étre 1a jeunesse, ce dur
téte-a-téte avec la mort, cette peur physique de l'animal
qui aime le soleil" (N, 64). The writer was not yet seven-
teen when he first learned that he had tuberculosis.

In this head—on confrontation there are three qual-
ities present which strongly attracted Camus: instinctual
reaction, innocence, and pagan accord with the natural world.
Those older men worthy of the name, reaching the end of
their lives, will cast off the illusions they have accu-
mulated and return to this primitive reunion:

... arrivés a la fin d'une vie, les hommes dignes
de ce nom doivent retrouver ce téte-a-téte, renier
les quelques idées qui furent les leurs et re-
couvrer l'innocence et la vérité qui luisent dans
1e regard des hommes antiques en face de leur
destin" (N, 64).

The only real progress of civilization lies in the creation

of "morts conscientes" (N, 64).

167

With all of man's desperate efforts to hide from

the reality of death through myths and illusions, there is
nevertheless an astonishing paucity of ideas about it: "De
la mort et des couleurs, nous ne savons pas discuter" (N,
64). They are simple, and once again it is the simplicity
of the non-human world which blocks understanding, as it had
for the young man in "Entre oui et non" (EE, 28): " ...
cela prouve aussi que tout ce qui est simple nous dépasse"
(N, 64). And how is one to form ideas about what has not
been experienced? "Je me dis: je dois mourir, mais ceci
ne veut rien dire, puisque je n'arrive pas a le croire et
que je ne puis avoir que l'expérience de la mort des autres"
(N, 64). The primacy of bodily experience as prerequisite
to consciousness so fundamental with Camus is explicit here
and appears later in Le Mythe de Sisyphe:

C'est qu'en réalité,il n'y a pas d'expérience de

la mort. Au sens propre, n'est expérimenté que

ce qui a été vécu et rendu conscient. Ici, c'est

tout juste s'il est possible de parler de l'expé-

rience de la mort des autres (MS, 108).

It is through separation from the world, from the

cosmic order of things, that man comes to fear death:
"C'est dans la mesure ou je me sépare du monde que j'ai peur
de la mort, dans la mesure ou je m'attache au sort des hommes
qui vivent, au lieu de contempler le ciel qui dure" (N, 65).

Lucidity diminishes this separation, and if our entry into

the natural order is "sans joie" it is at least epicurean

168

ataraxie.25 "Créer des morts conscientes, c'est diminuer
1a distance qui nous sépare du monde, et entrer sans joie
dans l'accomplissement, conscient des images exaltantes
d'un monde a jamais perdu" (N, 65).

When Camus visited Djémila in 1936 it was by charter-
plane, and it is apparent that his aerial view of the dead
city as he departed from it reinforced his thoughts on man's
impermanence in a world that is eternal. Like Shelly's
"Ozymandias," the men of Djémila proclaim ”Look on my works,
ye Mighty, and despair!"26 Only ruins remain. The world
of nature makes derisible the transitory accomplishments of
men:

... cette ville squelette, vue de 31 haut dans 1e
soir finissant et dans les vols blancs des pigeons
autour de l'arc de triomphe, n'inscrivait pas sur
le ciel les signes de la conquéte et de l'ambition.
2:)monde finit toujours par vaincre l'histoire (N,
The ruins of Djémila, like those in Malraux' novels, speak
only of man's transience beside the non-human world:
... quelque chose d'inhumain faisait peser sur

les décombres et les plantes voraces fixées comme
des étres terrifiés une angoisse qui protégeait

25See supra, p. 105.

25Percy Bysshe Shelly, "Ozymandias" in Bernbaum,
Po 869.

"Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away."

169

avec une force de cadavre ces figures dont 1e
geste séculaire régnait sur une cour de mille-
pattes et de bétes des ruines.27

In the poet's last glimpse of Djémila he perceives
the riches of its gift of lucidity--the double aspect of
the world, the paradox of despair and beauty:

Ce grand cri de pierre que Djémila jette entre
les montagnes, 1e ciel et le silence, j'en sais
bien la poésie: lucidité, indifférence, les
vrais signes du désespoir ou de la beauté (N,
66).

"Noces a Tipasa" had begun with the words "Au prin-
temps, Tipasa est habitée par les dieux. ... " Djémila too
has its god, and again it is not that of Christianity, con—
cerned with men, but the pagan god of nature; the essay's
final image is of "le visage vivant d'un dieu a cornes au
fronton d'un autel" (N, 66).

Noces, which sings of life and the harmony of man
with the world, brings also the awakening to awareness of
mortality. "Le Vent a Djémila" opts for lucidity before
the "aventure horrible et sale" that is death, and the sole
progress of civilization is the creation of "conscious
deaths." During the time in which the essays of Noces were

written Camus suffered recurrent severe attacks of tubercu—

losis and undoubtedly this contributed to the hunger for

 

27Andre Malraux, La Voie royale (Paris: Grassett,
1930), p. 77.

170

life expressed so vividly in "Noces a Tipasa" as well as
the lucidity and "horreur de mourir" so evident in "Le Vent
a Djémila." Roger Quilliot writes that with Ngggg comes
"1e passage de la vie du corps a celle de l'esprit, du
végétal a l'humain: 1e corps a perdu 'son avance' en

découvrant la mort."28

The influence of the experience of
Djémila will be particularly far-reaching, affecting the
development of all of Camus' subsequent thought and work.
That this is not an exaggeration becomes clear in the
analysis of Henry Bonnier. At Djémila the writer had for
a moment become a part of the eternal order-~he had stepped
out of his human individuality:

Sans 1e secours de Dieu ni de la foi, il a goflté

a l' éternel. Cet instant privilégié lui laissera

sur 1' ame une sorte de brfilure qu 'il ne pourra

jamais guérir, qui s 'étendra peu a pen sur son

ame entiere et la rendra sensible a un point

difficilement imaginable.

Et le regard qu 'il posera désormais sur tous
et sur tout sera tout a la fois du dehors et du
dedans, quotidien et éternel, un regard double,

partagé entre 1' amour et 1' ironie, selon qu 'il
5' agit de ce qui passe ou de ce qui dure. ...

29

The effects of this double vision will extend into every
area of his life, including the ethical, and will broaden
the scope of his sense of responsibility toward other men.

At the same time it will cause him to continually reéxamine

his revolt and his actions:

 

”Quilliot, La Mer, p. 109.

2SBonnier, Camus, pp. 69-70.

171

... un regard double, en vérité, devant lequel
chaque probléme--fflt-il le plus humble, le plus
immédiat--se gonflera d'universel, deviendra le
probléme unique, solitaire, 1e probléme humain par
excellence, celui de l'homme. Grace a cette bru-
lure rayonnante, douloureuse et bienfaisante,--il
n'y aura pas une goutte de sang versée, une larme
répandu, un geste de peur fait, une injustice
commise, qui ne fasse basculer le ciel infini,

... tout de méme qu'il n'y aura pas un sourire,

un port de téte feminin, un parfum de fleur, une
action noble, qui ne remette en question sa ré-
volte. Tout Camus se trouve dans cette alter-
nance de passion et de consentement, meme Si l'une
l'emporte parfois sur l'autre. Tout s'est fait a
Djémila.30

This, I believe, is the key to the significance of Djémila:
it is an awakening, but in a broader sense than the sudden

awareness of human destiny. It is rather the beginning of

an expanded view of the universe, and man's relationship to
it and his fellow-men, brought about by the author's brief

step outside of the normal confines of time and Space. The
"double vision" of Djémila will henceforth affect all of

Camus' life and work.

"L'Eté a Alger"

Notes in Camus' Carnets I indicate that "L'Eté a

 

Alger" was written between mid-1937 and mid-1938. It is
longer than the two previous essays, and consists of five
parts which the author separates Simply by wide spacing.

A.common theme, the physical and psychological life of the

 

”Ibid., pp. 70-71.

172

people of Algiers, connects all five. The first three
concern various aspects of this life, the fourth is a
summary of the thoughts aroused in the author by contem—
plating it, and the fifth is a word-for-word reproduction
of a street-fight.

The essay begins with a brief meditation on cities
and the author compares those of western Europe, closed up
in themselves, with Algiers and other "lieux privilégiés
comme les villes sur la mer" (N, 67), which are open to the
world. Characteristically, this opening is described in
dual terms, both of a physical nature--"une bouche ou une
blessure" (N, 67). The positive aspects of life in Algiers--
"Ce qu'on peut aimer a Alger"--are then enumerated, and they
are, as might be expected, its physical, natural elements:
"la mer au tournant de chaque rue, un certain poids de
soleil, la beauté de la race" (N, 67). Here man's emotional
energy need not be expended in yearning for the beauties of
nature, as in Paris: since all is already given he is free
to Simply be aware of his wealth.

But we come quickly to the other side of the coin,
the by-products of an "excés de biens naturels" (N, 67).
Life here is one-dimensional, of the senses only, and lived
entirely in the present. The beautiful landscape "tout
entier livré aux yeux" (N, 67), is a fitting one for the

young:

173

A Alger, pour qui est jeune et vivant, tout est
refuge et prétexte a triomphes: la baie, le
soleil, leS jeux en rouge et blanc deS terrasses
vers la mer, les fleurs et leS stades, les filles
aux jambes fraiches (N, 68).

The same landscape, however, offers no solace for the old,
whose physical powers have waned:

... pour qui a perdu sa jeunesse, rien ou s'accro-
cher et pas un lieu ou la mélancolie puisse se
sauver d'elle-méme. Ailleurs, les terrasses
d'Italie, les cloitres d'Europe ou le dessin des
collines provencales, autant de places oh l'homme
peut fuir son humanité et se délivrer avec douceur
de lui—méme (N, 68).

The Sign of youth here is "une précipitation a vivre qui
touche au gaspillage" (N, 72), for its Span of time is brief:

A Belcourt, comme a Bab-el-Oued, on se marie

jeune. On travaille trés t6t et on épuise en

dix ans l'expérience d'une vie d'homme. Un ou-

vrier de trente ans a déja joué toutes ses cartes.

Il attend 1a fin entre sa femme et ses enfants.

Ses bonheurs ont été brusques et sans merci. De

meme sa vie (N, 72).

Bathing in the sea plays a large role in the joy of

being young in Algiers, and when Camus describes it his tone
lightens, and colloquialisms or gentle humour alternate with

more serious reflections:

A Alger, on ne dit pas ’prendre un bain,” mais
"se taper un bain." N'insistons pas. On se
baigne dans le port ... Quand on passe pres d'une
bouée ou se trouve déja une jolie fille, on crie
aux camarades: "Je te dis que c'est une mouette"
(N, 68) .

The body, like the Spirit, he tells us, evolves and thus
it too has a history. However, whereas the Spirit has many

nuances and gradations, the body has only one, "la couleur":

174

... on prend conscience d'un passage Simultané de
toutes les peaux du blanc au doré, puis au brun,
et pour finir a une couleur tabac qui est a la
limite extreme de l'effort de transformation dont
1e corps est capable (N, 69).
This slightly tongue-in-cheek account then becomes more
profound as he notes in these changes a cyclic harmony
between men and nature:
Et, 5 mesure qu'on avance dans le mois d'aofit et
que le soleil grandit, 1e blanc deS maisons se fait
plus aveuglant et les peaux prennent une chaleur
plus sombre. Comment alors ne pas s'identifier a
ce dialogue de la pierre et de la chair a la mesure
du soleil et des saisonS? (N, 69).

There is happiness in the rapport of youth with
nature: "Toute la matinée s'est passée en plongeons, en
floraisons de rireS parmi des gerbes d'eau, en longs coups
de pagaie autour des cargos rouges et noirs ... " (N, 69).
Their sun-bathing, which continues even in winter, has no
object other than pleasure--and the writer shows his impa-
tience for those who would force on this pleasure a utili-
tarian purpose, "les naturistes, ces protestants de la
chair" who have "une systématique du corps qui est aussi
exaspérante que celle de l'esprit" (N, 68). A quality of
innocence pervades these "joies saines" of Algerian youth
and in it they Share a pagan bond with the Greeks. With
characteristic irony the author wraps the knuckles of

Christianity, as he applauds the appearance of nude bodies

on the beaches:

175

Pour la premiere fois depuis deux mille ans, le

corps a été mis nu sur des plages. Depuis vingt

Siécles, les hommes se sont attaches a rendre

décents l'insolence et la naiveté grecques, a

diminuer la chair et compliquer l'habit (N, 69).
Other lines also indicate that Camus saw the youth of
Algiers as modern-day Greeks: " ... la course des jeunes
gens sur les plages de la Méditerranée rejoint les gestes
deS athletes de Délos" (N, 69); seen from the level of the
water against the white background of the Arab dwellings
"les corps déroulent une frise cuivrée" (N, 69).

If the reader Should fail to perceive by himself
the simplicity and naiveté of Camus' "cult of the body,"
the author makes it explicit in a footnote in which he
expresses disfavor with the intellectual manipulation of
Gide's attitude:

Puis-je me donner 1e ridicule de dire que je
n'aime pas la facon dont Gide exalte 1e corps?
Il lui demande de retenir son désir pour 1e
rendre plus aigu. Ainsi se rapproche-t-il de
ceux que, dans l'argot des maisons publiques,
on appelle les compliqués ou les cérébraux

(N, 69).

Amusements other than bathing occupy the young.
There is public dancing on a floor open to the beach,
protected from the heat of the sun by wooden blinds which
are raised when the sun sets. Here "la jeunesse pauvre du
quartier danse jusqu'au soir" (N, 71), and from the simr

plicity of this pleasure, remembered by the writer, has

developed his idea of innocence: "L'idée que je me fais

176

de l'innocence, c'est a des soirs semblables que je la
dois" (N, 71).
The childlike quality of these people, old and young

alike, has other extensions as well. Their morality is a
Simple one, befitting a life which "n'est pas a construire,
mais a brfller" (N, 72):

Il ne s'agit pas alors de réfléchir et de devenir

meilleur. La notion d'enfer, par exemple, n'est

ici qu'une aimable plaisanterie. De pareilles

imaginations ne sont permises qu'aux trés vertueux.

Et je crois bien que la vertu est un mot sans

signification dans toute l'Algérie" (N, 72).
A few rules suffice: one doesn't fail one's mother, one
sees that one's wife is respected, pregnant women are
treated with consideration, fights must be fair, never two
against one. (A colorful illustration of the latter is
provided in the "Note" appearing at the end of "L'Eté a
Alger.") It is not a bourgeois morality--"law and order"
are distrusted and sympathy is always with the arrested,
who is either "le pauvre," or, with admiration, "un pirate"
(N, 72).

There is also a Simplicity of mind and Spirit.

Their amusements are devoid of any intellectual or refined
content: "Une société de boulomanes et les banquets des
'amicales,‘ le cinéma a trois francs et les fétes communales

suffisent depuis des années a la récréation des plus de

trente ans" (N, 72-73). Nor is there any profundity in

their attitude toward death:

 

177

Comment ce peuple sans esprit saurait—i1 alors

habiller de mythes l'horreur profonde de sa vie?

Tout ce qui touche a la mort est ici ridicule ou

odieux. Ce peuple sans religion et sans idoles

meurt seul aprés avoir vécu en foule (N, 73).
Their bad taste in tombstones is the appropriate expression
for death's ugliness, "une tristesse affreuse de ces lieux
ou la mort découvre son vrai visage" (N, 73); the clichés
carved on them are only "phrases qui servent a tous les
déseSpoirS,” "feinte sinistre par quoi on préte un corps
et des désirs a ce qui au mieux est un liquide noir" (N,
73). With ironic humour the writer comments on one in-
scription:

"Jamais ta tombe ne restera sans fleurs." Mais

on est vite rassuré: l'inscription entoure un

bouquet de stuc doré, bien économique pour le

temps des vivants ... " (N, 73).
On another he notes with amusement that an airplane has

replaced the traditional warbler.

Death, however, is inextricably bound to life. The

young have rendezvous in the cemetery. The favorite joke of

the hearse—drivers when their vehicle is empty is to call to

the girls they pass, "Tu montes, chérie?" (N, 73). The
writer approves of the flippant responses that are made at
the news of a death, for death, being fearsome and ugly,
does not merit respect.

In this Simple world of the physical there are no

Spiritual or intellectual blocks to impede a clear view of

the human condition: life followed by a final and permanent

 

178

death. The landscape of Algiers requires of its people
"des ames clairvoyantes, c'est-a-dire sans consolation" and
"qu'on fasse un acte de lucidité comme on fait un acte de
foi" (N, 67). Here men have bet on the flesh, "mais ils
savaient qu'ils devaient perdre" (N, 68). In the last pages
of "L'Eté a Alger" Camus reiterates his passionate attach-
ment to life here and now rather than to a hypothetical
eternity. The much longed-for unity exalted in "Noces a
Tipasa" can indeed be found here on earth in nature, but
for man it is provisional since he must die and the world
will remain: "Je sais seulement que ce ciel durera plus
que moi. Et qu'appellerais-je éternité sinon ce qui con-
tinuera aprés ma mort?" (N, 75).

As at Djémila, and later in Le Mythe de Sisyphe,

 

the writer rejects hope as the enemy of life, and turns to
his beloved Greeks for confirmation:

De la boite de Pandore ou grouillaient les maux

de l'humanité, les Grecs firent sortir l'espoir

aprés tous les autres, comme le plus terrible de

tous. Je ne connais pas de symbole plus émouvant.

Car l'espoir, au contraire de ce qu'on croit,

équivaut a la résignation. Et vivre, c'est ne

pas se résigner (N, 76).
The "imbécile" of "Noces a Tipasa"”who was afraid to enjoy
life becomes in "L'Eté a Alger" a Sinner against life on
earth because of his hope for an afterlife--it turns him
from the beauty of the here-and—now: "Car S'il y a un péché

contra la vie, ce n'est peut—étre pas tant d'en désespérer

179

que d'espérer une autre vie, et se dérober a l'implacable
grandeur de celle-Ci" (N, 76). If men may not have eternity
there are still the riches of this world, "ces biens dé-
risoires et essentiels, ces vérités relatives" that the
hand can touch, and

sentir ses liens avec une terre, son amour pour

quelques hommes, savoir qu'il est toujours un

lieu ou le coeur trouvera son accord, voici déja

beaucoup de certitudes pour une seule vie d'homme

(N, 75) .

The final section of the essay, headed simply

"Note," is a one-page account of a street-fight "reproduit,
mot a mot" according to the author. Its style, that of

"l'homme du peuple," is clearly one with which Camus was

familiar. In his Carnets I a note dated April, 1939 gives

 

a similar passage, parts of which will be used in L'Etranger
to describe Raymond's first fight with the brother of his
mistress.

In "L'Eté a.Alger" the theme of nature is more
closely related to the lives of men, and the inherent para-
dox and tension of human existence is repeatedly expressed
by the juxtaposition of opposed factors:

Tout ce qui exalte la vie, accroit en meme temps
son absurdité (N, 75).

... une seule chose est plus tragique que la
souffrance et c'est la vie d'un homme heureux
(N, 75).

Singulier pays qui donne a l'homme qu'il nourrit
a la fois sa splendeur et sa misere! (N, 67).

180

La richesse sensuelle dont un homme sensible de
ces pays est pourvu, il n'est pas étonnant qu'elle
coincide avec le dénuement le plus extréme (N, 67).

... ce pays oh tout est donné pour étre retiré
(N, 67) .

From the men of Algeria, "ces barbares qui se
prélassent sur des plages" (N, 74) the writer dares to hope
for the emergence of a new culture, lucid and in harmony
with nature, which will finally permit full expression of
human dignity. John Cruickshank believes this View
approaches "the myth of the happy savage in which sophis-

"31 and he points out

ticated minds occasionally indulge,
that Camus himself, although born among these people, dif-
fered from them by virtue of his education, his travel, his
reading and the fact of his own reflective mind. Philip
Thody too feels that "Camus is romanticising his compatriots
and seeing them as more harmoniously adjusted to the world
than they actually are" and that "it is doubtful whether so
culturally and politically carefree a race ever really
existed."32 It is just possible that Camus himself belat-
edly sensed he had exaggerated their qualities, but if so
he permits himself only a few lines near the end of the

essay to correct the misapprehension: "Sans doute, je ne

me fais pas d'illusions. Il n'y a pas beaucoup d'amour

 

31Cruickshank, Camus and the Literature of Revolt,
p. 36.

32Thody, Albert Camus, pp. 25-26.

 

181

dans les vies dont je parle. Je devrais dire qu'il n'y
en a plus beaucoup. Mais, du moins, elles n'ont rien
élUdé" (N, 76) e

In the description of the Algerians one perceives
other men of Camus' world, both real and fictional. Meur-
sault, living in the present, in his hum-drum job, his
afternoons on the beach, is one of them. Roger Quilliot,
comparing the protagonists of Camus with those of Sartre,
writes of him:

Intelligent, mais rien moins qu'intellectuel,
Meursault est un étre rudimentaire, une conscience
brute, libre de toute hiérarchie de valeurs. Le
choix de Camus est significatif. Tandis que Sartre
découvrait l'existence a travers Roquentin, personnage
cosmopolite, cultivé et formé de longue date a l'in-
trospection, Camus l'exprime au travers d'une condi-
tion nue et quasiment prolétarienne.33

The workers in "L'Eté a Alger" who at thirty have exhausted
themselves are the dwellers of the "quartiers pauvres" with

whom Camus had lived and of whom he had written in L'Envers

et l'endroit and later in "Les Muets" in L'Exil et le

 

royaume. When he writes of the Algerian landscape in
"L'Eté a Alger" he adds: "Comment S'étonner alors Si le
visage de ce pays, je ne l'aime jamais plus qu'au milieu

de ses hommes les plus pauvres (N, 68).

 

33Quilliot, La Mer, p. 90.

182

"Le Désert"

 

In 1937 Camus' state of health was critical and on
the advice of his doctor he spent a period of time resting
in the French Alps in Savoy. He returned through Tuscany
in Italy and "Le Désert" consists of his reflections in the
wake of that trip. According to Louis Faucon the title may

be traced to lines from Nietzsche's Genealogy of Morals:

 

. . . that "desert" into which strong, indepen-
dent minds like to withdraw. . . . A deliberate
obscurity; a sidestepping of fame; a backing
away from noise, adulation, accolades, influ-
ence; a modest position, a quotidian existence,
something which hides more than it reveals;
occasional intercourse with harmless and gay
birds and beasts, the sight of which refreshes;
a mountainside for company, not a blind one but
one with lakes for eyes; sometimes even a room
at a crowded inn where one is sure of being
mistaken for somebody else and may securely
Speak to anyone: such is our desert, and
believe me, it is lonely enough.

In "Le Désert" Camus deals again with the theme of
human mortality and the impossibility of eternity, but from
a different perspective. Lucidity is still the watchword
but the "nostalgie d'union, d'absolu" which Nguyen-Van-Huy
posits as an integral part of Camusian man‘"5 emerges more
strongly. The earlier emphasis on the beauty of nature

and the joys of physical life has diminished: they are

 

3"Friedrich Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy and The
Genealogy of Morals, trans. by_ Francis .Golffing (Garden— City,

 

35Nguyen-Van—Huy, La Métaphysique du bonheggp p. 50.

183

present, but chiefly as an "initiation" which prepares for
"deS illuminations plus hautes" (N, 82). In contast to the
naive "barbares“ of "L'Eté a Alger," the men who inspire the
meditations of "Le Désert" are artists, "les grands maitres
toscans" (N, 79).

The preoccupation with the eternal manifests itself
almost immediately as the traveler in Italy remarks on the
similarities between the faces in the paintings of the
masters and the passers-by in the streets: we no longer
know how to perceive the 5231 faces of the people around
us--(later the author remarks, "Et j'appelle vérité tout
ce qui continue" (N, 79)--but only their transitory emotions
insofar as they may affect us. The Tuscan masters, however,
were aware of the difference between this "poésie" of the
transitory, and "la vérité"--they recognized that a man's
true face arises from his innermost being, from "1es grands
sentiments simples et éternels autour desquels gravite
l'amour de vivre, haine, amour, larmes et joies, ... "
(N, 79). Possessing this knowledge "seuls 1es peintres
peuvent apaiser notre faim" (N, 79), our hunger for eternity.

Although he explicitly denied the connection on more

than one occasion“; Camus' name is often associated with

 

35For example, in the 1945 interview with Jeanine
Delpech: "Non, je ne suis pas existentialiste. Sartre
et moi nous nous étonnons toujours de voir nos deux noms
associés." Camus, Essais, p. 1424.

184

existentialism. His consistent espousal of the relative
over any absolute, and of the concrete particular over
abstractions, would seem to preclude labelling him essen-
tialist. There are, however, indications that the writer
did presume a common human nature, thus giving man an
essence. As noted earlier, Roger Quilliot perceived such
essentialism in Camus' attitude toward old age and death.37
In the fourth of his "Lettres a un ami allemand? Camus
remarks: "Je continue a croire que ce monde n'a pas de sens
supérieur. Mais je sais que quelque chose en lui a du sens
et c'est l'homme, parce qu'il est le seul étre a exiger d'en

u 38

avoir. In L'Homme révolté the indications are even more

 

explicit:

L'analyse de la révolte conduit au moins au

soupcon qu'il y a une nature humaine, comme

1e pensaient 1es Grecs, et contrairement aux

postulats de la pensée contemporainei Pour-

quoi se révolter s'il n'y a, en soi, rien de

permanent a préserver?39
In "Le Désert" again there is clearly the suggestion of a
fundamental human nature based on certain essential and
universal qualities--"grands sentiments simples et éternels,"

as well as on human mortality.

 

wSee supra, p. 93.

”Camus, Essais, p. 241.

”Ibid., p. 425.

185

To capture eternity the great masters employ the
stuff of the present, "cette matiere magnifique et futile"
(N, 79), but it is not the present of states-of-mind, but
rather that of physical gestures, of flesh and blood, for
these artists have chased away "la malédiction de l'esprit"
(N, 80). Camus' predilection for the physical is again
evident here. In the present context, focussing as it does
on art, one is irresistibly drawn to recall lines of another
poet of the senses, John Keats, who writes of the figures
on a Grecian urn, their movements caught and immortalized:

Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave
Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare;
Bold Lover, never, never canst thou kiss,
Though winning near the goal--yet, do not grieve;
She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss,
For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair!“
There are other parallels to be drawn. '”Ode on a Grecian
Urn" was written in 1819, two years before Keats died of
tuberculosis in Italy. He, like Camus recuperating in 1937
from an attack of the same disease, must have been acutely
sensitive to the evanescence of human life.

If the Italian masters have captured a bit of the
eternal, it is in the very locus of man's transience, the
perishable body, yet it is interesting to note how doggedly

the writer clings to this perishability as of the essence

of humanness. In contrast the Spirit is a "malédiction,"

 

1"’John Keats, "Ode on a Grecian Urn, in Bernbaum,
p. 820.

186

and we see very quickly why--it conducts to hope, that worst
evil to escape from Pandora's box. If certain "bons esprits"
concern themselves with immortality it is because they re-
fuse the "seule vérité qui leur soit donnée et qui est le
corps" (N, 80). They cannot face a truth which must decay
and prefer in its stead "1a poésie" of illusion. The writer
chooses the higher poetry of lucidity:

... la flamme noire que de Cimabué a Francesca

les peintres italiens ont élevée parmi les

paysages toscans comme la protestation lucide

de l'homme jeté sur une terre dont la splendeur

et la lumiere lui parlent sans relache d'un

Dieu qui n'existe pas (N, 80).
The eternal quality in the "captured present" is best
expressed by "indifference," "détachement," "impassibilité"
(N, 80), and theologians alert to the threat to faith posed
in these attitudes, have named them "hell":

Cette impassibilité et cette grandeur de l'homme

sans espoir, cet éternel présent, c'est cela pré-

cisément que deS théologiens avisés ont appelé

l'enfer (N, 80).
Further reflections on indifference pick up this theme as
it appeared in "Entre oui et non" in the figure of Camus'
mother, symbol of nature, and also in the union with nature
expressed in "Noces a Tipasa" and "Le Vent a Djémila":

A force d'indifférence et d'insensibilité,

i1 arrive qu'un visage rejoigne la grandeur

minérale d'un paysage. Comme certains paysans

d'Espagne arrivent a ressembler aux oliviers

de leurs terres, ainsi les visages de Giotto,

dépouillés des ombres dérisoires ou l'ame se
manifeste, finissent par rejoindre la Toscane

187

elle-meme dans la seule lecon dont elle est
prodigue: un exercice de la passion au détri-
ment de l'émotion, un melange d'ascése et de
jouissances, une résonance commune a la terre
et a l'homme, par quoi l'homme, comme la terre,
se définit a mi-chemin entre la misere et
l'amour (N, 80-81).

The lesson of Giotto's faces, "double vérité du
corps et de l'instant" (N, 82), that man is both part of
and separate from the non-human world, gives rise to both
sadness and happiness. The same lesson is projected from
the Italian landscape. However it is not immediately
apparent in the profusion of surface beauty that dazzles
the traveler-~part of his "initiation"--first in the
countryside viewed from the train and later in the enchant—
ment of Pisa with its fountains and smiling women: "C'est
dans la joie que l'homme prépare ses lecons ... " (N, 82).

The somber part of this lesson is brought more
sharply home to the writer in Florence as he wanders about
the cloister of the dead of the Santissima Annunziata, and
reads the inscriptions on the tombstones, all Signs of
resignation to death. A distinct change of tone takes
place at this point in the essay. The writer senses the
awakening of what he first believes is distress and then
finally recognizes as anger:

Tout en moi protestant contre une semblable
resignation. "Il faut," disaient les inscrip-
tions. Mais non, et ma révolte avait raison.
Cette joie qui allait, indifférente et absorbée
comme un pélerin sur la terre, il me fallait

la suivre pas a pas. Et, pour le reste, je

disais non. Je disais non de toutes mes forces
(N, 83).

188

L'Homme révolté is forecast here, but the figure of Sisyphus
looms larger. Like Sisyphus the writer is without hope,
lucid, in "la double conscience de son désir de durée et
son destin de mort" (N, 85). Aware of the uselessness of
his revolt, nevertheless he will not relinquish it.

Futility is an essential element of the Absurd.
Man's grandeur lies not only in his efforts, but in his

awareness that they are vain. Later in Le Mythe de Sisyphus

 

Camus will write:

Travailler et créer "pour rien," sculpter

dans l'argile, savoir que sa création n'a pas

d'avenir, voir son oeuvre détruite en un jour

en étant conscient que, profondément, cela

n'a pas plus d'importance que de batir pour

des siécles, c'est la sagesse difficile que

la pensée absurde autorise (MS, 189-190).
In "Le Désert" this aspect of the Absurd is stressed again
and again: the present, depicted by the Tuscan masters, is
"cette matiere magnifique et futile" (N, 79); the entrance
into lucid communion with the world brings "un bonheur plus
haut ou le bonheur parait futile (N, 86). The visitor in
the cloister of the dead knows that his revolt is useless,
but senses that this very uselessness adds to its value:
" ... je ne vois pas ce que l'inutilité 6te a ma révolte
et je sens bien ce qu'elle lui ajoute" (N, 83). The final
lines of the essay emphasize the vanity of human hopes for

permanence: "La terre! Dans ce grand temple déserté par

les dieux, toutes mes idoles ont des pieds d'argile" (N, 88).

189

If the visitor to the tombs in Florence revolts, it
is in the name of the concrete and the physical, however
impermanent it may be. For him the most repulsive mate-
rialism is

celui qui veut nous faire passer des idées

mortes pour des réalités vivantes et détourner

sur des mythes stériles l'attention obstinée et

lucide que nous portions 5 ce qui en nous doit

mourir pour toujours" (N, 82-83).
The reality at the heart of his revolt is that of the
world's beauty--all the more poignant because he must lose
it. In the Franciscan monastery at Fiesole overlooking
Florence he finds concrete expression of this paradox. The
monks live surrounded by flowers, with the vista of Florence
before them, and each of them has on the table in his cell a
Skull:

Les memes hommes qui, a Fiesole, vivent devant

les fleurs rouges ont dans leur cellule le crane

qui nourrit leurs meditations. Florence a leurs

fenétres et la mort sur leur table (N, 84).
Demonstrating again his almost obsessive emphasis on the
physical, Camus makes an ironical and bizarre analogy
between the monks--who have discarded worldly possessions
for a life of the Spirit--and the youth of Algiers—~who have
Shed their clothes to enjoy the sun and the water. "S'ils
se dépouillent, c'est pour une plus grande vie (et non pour

une autre vie). C'est du moins le seul emploi valable du

mot 'dénuement'" (N, 84).

190

Other elements recall "L'Eté a Alger." Conventional
morality finds few supporters in the midst of beauty:
" ... 1e chemin qui va de la beauté a l'immoralité est
tortueux, mais certain"; "Quoi d'étonnant Si des esprits
élévés devant 1e spectacle de la noblesse, dans l'air
raréfié de la beauté restent mal persuadés que la grandeur
puisse s'unir a la bonté?"_(N, 85).

Intermittently the theme of harmony with nature,
so dominant in "Noces a Tipasa" appears, but it is closely
tied to the Absurd, and in its celebration tears are mixed
with the sunlight: "Florence! ... Dans son ciel mélé de
larmes et de soleil, j'apprenais a consentir a la terre
et a brfller dans la flamme sombre de ses fétes" (N, 88).

Tension continues to be a basic theme underlying
all of the others and again it is reflected stylistically
in a balancing of opposing terms: " ... j'ai compris
qu'au coeur de ma révolte dormait un consentement" (N, 88);
" ... toute négation contient une floraison de 'oui'" (N,
87); for the monks at Fiesole, "Une certaine continuité
dans le désespoir peut engendrer la joie" (N, 84). It is
most evident, of course, in the theme of the Absurd, which
Camus has brought to a fuller development since the awaken-
ing at Djémila.

The lyricism of "Le Désert" does not have the pas-

sionate, exciting quality of "Noces a Tipasa" or "Le Vent

191

a Djémila" but the writer's emotion is nonetheless very
apparent, particularly when he declares his attachment to
the world: " ... cette entente amoureuse de la terre et
de l'homme délivré de l'humain--ah! je m'y convertirais
bien Si elle n'était déja ma religion" (N, 85); "Le monde
est beau, et hors de lui, point de salut" (N, 87). The
poetic images in the essay are too numerous to cite them
all. One passage, however, deserves special mention. In
an extended metaphor which at its climax divides into two,
Camus describes one manifestation of the world of nature
and its effect on him (N, 86). From the garden of Boboli
overlooking Mount Oliveto he regards the hills of Florence
that extend to the horizon. Each one is covered with the
pale foliage of olive trees and the darker, thicker stands
of cypress. In the sky are huge clouds which cover the
hilltops, and as the afternoon advances a silvery light
falls in the silence.

Then suddenly a breeze Springs up and the clouds
part "comme un rideau qui s'ouvre"; at the same moment the
cypresses at the summit seem to grow up all at once, and
gradually the rest of the landscape, with its olive trees
and stones, appears to rise Slowly. Other clouds come, the
curtain closes, and the entire hill "redescends." The same
thing is now happening alternately to all of the other hills

off in the distance--"la méme brise qui ouvrait ici les plis

192

épais des nuages les refermait la-bas," until at last the
watcher senses in it the rhythm of the "grande respiration
du monde." As the "breathing" reverberates in the distance
it picks up "1e theme de pierre et d'air d'une fugue a
l'échelle du monde" and the writer grows calm as the tone
of this music lowers. The passage concludes in the joining
of both poetic images--the breath and the song of the world:

Et parvenu au terme de cette perspective sensible

au coeur, j'embrassais d'un coup d'oeil cette

fuite de collines toutes ensemble respirant et

avec elle comme 1e chant de la terre entiere

(N, 86).

"Le Désert," while developing further the theme of

the Absurd, adds other facets to the human dimension of
Noces. At the same time it gives evidence of the writer's

continued attachment to the natural world and the intense

feeling it arouses in him.

If the theme of Ngggg can be summed up in one
sentence from the essays it is "Le monde est beau, et hors
de lui, point de salut" (N, 86). Their motto, says Henri
Peyre, is "a vehement denial of any longing for another
life,“1 and its logical corollary is a rejection of tran-
scendence. John Cruickshank correctly describes Camus' own

"passionate unbelief" as an arbitrary choice on his part

 

“Henri Peyre, "Camus the Pagan," Yale French Studies

 

No. 25 (Spring, 1960), 21.

193

rather than the naive atheism he depicts in the men of
Algiers."2 Philip Thody remarks that in Noces "Camus'
humanism takes on for the first time something of the

defiant quality of Le Mythe de Sisyphe and L'Etranger.”a

 

 

Certainly the "Que m'importe l'éternité" (N, 65) of Djémila,
and the words of the traveler in "Le Désert"-- " ... qu'ai-
je i faire d'une vérité qui ne doive pas pourrir?" (N, 87)--
will be echoed by the Absurd Man: " ... je n'ai rien a

faire des idées ou de l'éternel" (MS, 167), and also by the

angry and defiant Meursault near the end of L'Etranger.

 

Behind the defiance, however, may lie the "nostalgie d'ab—
solu" which haunts the pages of "Le Désert." If this cannot
be satisfied by eternal life, there remains the pull of its
opposite. Germaine Brée suggests that in the celebration of
Npggg there iS a kind of exorcism, "for could the No opposed
to death have been so insistent if the attraction of death
had not been so strong?"““

Some examples of themes from Npg§§_reappearing in
Camus' later works have already been cited; however, one
that is essential in the evolution of his work has so far

not been stressed: love. In Noces love manifests itself

 

I“Cruickshank, Camus and the Literature of Revolt,

 

“Thody, Albert Camus, p. 25.

 

l“‘Brée, Camus, p. 83.

194

in an attitude toward nature which inspires the writer
with intense feelings of both desire and satisfaction, the
sexual associations of which were previously noted. Like
his protagonist, Meursault, Camus' first love seems to have
been the natural world. At Tipasa he learns to love "sans
mesure" (N, 57), and it is nature which activates feelings
in him that will expand the early compassion of L'Envers

et l'endroit even further into human society. In his 1958

 

preface to the latter he wrote that some day he hoped to
create a work which would Speak of "une certaine forme
d'amour" and to find "une justice on un amour" to balance
the Silence of human existence."5 His journalistic and
later literary works are a part of his personal effort to
bring love and justice to his fellow human beings. In 22
ngpg it is love which wages war against the common enemy,
the plague. Writing of the swim of Rieux and Tarrou in this
novel, Kay Killingsworth recalls "1e bain a Tipasa, ou
l'homme atteignait l'union avec les éléments," and She adds,
"La communion entre les hommes ... ne s'accomplit défini-

"“5 In summing up

tivement que dans le cadre de la nature.
Camus' morality and ethics Serge Doubrovsky notes the role

of nature in its development:

 

“Camus, Essais, pp. 12-13.

“Killingsworth, "Faulkner et Camus," p. 223.

195

ll retrouve les valeurs de vie et de bonheur,
perdues dans le tumulte et les terreurs de ce
temps. Dans le méme mouvement, il met donc

1e bonheur, c'est-a'dire 1a reconciliation de
l'homme et de la nature, au—dessus de la morale,
et puis il corrige l'indifférence de la nature
[et] de sa nature, par la morale, c'est-a-dire
l'éclatement de la solitude vers autrui."7

The development will be gradual. First will come further
cognizance of the Absurd. However, it is in Noces, through
nature, that love, for Camus, receives the vital force and

the impetus to envelop all men in its fraternal communion.

 

l”Doubrovsky, "La Morale d'Albert Camus," p. 48.

CHAPTER V

L'ETE: REAFFIRMATION

"Vingt ans aprés, ces nouvelles Noces
témoignent donc, a leur maniére, d'une
longue fidélité."

Priere d'insérer, 1954

‘£;§E§, published in 1954, consists of eight essays,
the earliest dating from 1939 and the latest 1953. A note
from Carnets II dated February, 1950 gives tentative titles
for the projected collection: "Titre essais solaires:
L'Eté. Midi. La fate."1 In February, 1951 appears the
note, "Réunir livre d'essais: la'Féte."2 Widely separated
in the dates of their composition, dissimilar, at least
superficially, in their subject matter, the essays derive
from a common source of inspiration which gives the collec-
tion its unity. In his "priére d'insérer" the author makes
this explicit:

Ils reprennent tous, quoique avec des perspec-
tives différentes, un theme qu'on pourrait

 

1Camus, Carnets II, p. 311.

 

2Ibid., p. 343.

196

197

appeler solaire, et qui fut déja celui d'un des
premiers ouvrages de l'auteur, Noces. ... 3

In the 1954 interview given to Frank Jotterand Camus was
asked whether there was any order other than chronological
in L'gpé and in his reply he again alluded to Npggg:

Non. La seule évolution que l'on puisse y

trouver est celle que suit normalement un homme

entre vingt-cinq et quarante ans. Ces essais se

rattachent naturellement a Noces, par une sorte

de fil d'or. ... “ ___—_-
The common "theme solaire" shared by the essays demonstrates
the author's reaffirmation, in his maturity, of values which
had their source in the Mediterranean land of his birth.
In three of them Algeria is the setting: "Le Minotaure,"
"Petit Guide pour les villes sans passé," and "Retour a
Tipasa." Certain of their lines betray the weariness that
has come with age and experience, and nostalgia for a time
of youth and innocence--that of the author as well as the
world. In addition, as Roger Quilliot has remarked, they
reveal to us "1a permanence d'une vie intérieure, ... un

"5 They also reveal that resistance to

havre du souvenir.
history which Camus had expounded in L'Homme révolté, and
finally, offer a hope for return to balance and repose for

both the world and the writer.

 

3Camus, Essais, p. 1829.
“Ibid., pp. 1836-1837.

SQuilliot, La Mer, p. 250.

198

"Le Minotaure ou la halte d'Oran"

 

The first essay of L'Eté was written between 1939

and 1941. Notes in Camus' Carnets I6 during two trips to

 

Oran in 1939 were later used in the essay, as were several
paragraphs written in 1940 and 1941. There are also indi-
cations that in 1941 he was already considering Oran as the

locale for La Peste. "Le Minotaure" was ready for publica-

 

tion in 1942, but according to a letter in the fall of that
year to his friend, Emmanuel Robles, the censors would not
permit it. The allied landings in North Africa caused a
further delay and it was not until February of 1946 that
the essay finally appeared in the review, L'Arche. With
the publication of ELEE§ in 1954 Camus attached to "Le
Minotaure" a brief epigraph noting the date the essay was
written and explaining the objections of the Oranese. After
informing the reader that he has now been assured of the
protection of Oran's beauties as well as the correction of
its defects, he ends on a humorous, but conciliatory note:
" ... Oran désormais n'a plus besoin d'écrivains: elle
attend des touristes" (E, 811).

Certainly in "Le Minotaure" Camus has aimed the

full force of his gift for ironic humour at Oran and the

 

6Carnets I: The notations from the April trip
appear on pp. 148-49, those for the trip in November on
pp. 188-90. Other notes from 1940 can be found on pp. 197-99
and several from 1941 on pp. 226, 228. The notations for
La Peste are dated April 1941 and are on pp. 229-31-

 

199

Oranese, and Roger Quilliot quite rightly places this essay

«7

"dans la lignée des oeuvres ironiques. However, it is not

the bitter-as-gall irony of La Chute, but rather the chuckle

 

of friendship and brotherhood mentioned at the end of "Petit
Guide pour des villes sans passé": " ... je reconnais ses
fils et mes fréres a ce rire d'amitié qui me prend devant
eux" (E, 850). In an interview given to Jean-Claude Bris-
ville in 1959 Camus was asked if he believed there were any
important facets of his work which had been neglected by his

"8 Nowhere does he

commentators, and he replied, "L'humour.
give it freer rein than in "Le Minotaure."

The essay, which is divided into five parts with
a brief introduction, begins with reflections on solitude,
on a time for withdrawal and recuperation. What he seeks
resembles both Nietzsche's "desert" and the "Iles fortunees"
of Jean Grenier9 but today, he tells us, "11 n'y a plus de
déserts. Il n'y a plus d'iles" (E, 813). Of the possible
alternatives he rejects the cities of Europe with their
history, art, and tradition, those "rumeurs du passé" (E,

813). They can offer him no quiet: "On y sent 1e vertige

des siécles, des revolutions, de la gloire. On s'y souvient

 

7Quilliot, La Mer, p. 249.

8Jean-Claude Brisville, Camus (Paris: Gallimard,
1959), p. 259.

9Grenier, Les Isles (see supra, pp. 28-29).

 

200

que l'Occident s'est forgé dans les clameurs. Cela ne fait
pas assez de Silence" (E, 813).

Of course there are those who seek precisely the
"solitude peuplée" offered by such cities as Paris--those
independent souls who revel in the company of the voices
from the past that make up this city. However, a moment
comes when such voices are importune. Rastignac had shouted
to Paris, "A nous deux!" but, says Camus, at times even two
is too many! Even the deserts of the world cannot fully
satisfy him, Since, as refuges from sorrow, they are filled
with "poésie" and he seeks a peace in which there is neither
thought nor feeling--“la paix deS pierres" (E, 814). Martha

in Le Malentendu hopes to find the same kind of peace in the

 

heat of a climate where "le soleil dévorait tout." She
tells her mother,

J'ai lu dans un livre qu'il mangeait jusqu'aux

ames et qu'il faisait des corps resplendissants,

mais vidés par l'intérieur ... Oui, j'en ai assez

de porter toujours mon ame, j'ai hate de trouver

ce pays ou»le soleil tue les questions.lo
Oran, "sans ame et sans recours" (E, 814), offers such peace.

In his first sketch of Oran as a place in which the

spirit and the intellect are conspicuously absent, Camus

turns to "La Rue." The Oranese themselves complain from

time to time that their city is dull, and consequently some

 

1°Camus, Theatre, Récits, Nouvelles, p. 120.

 

201

"1’ have tried to force upon it a culture

"bons esprits.
foreign to its elemental way of life—-"les moeurs d'un
autre monde" (E, 814). AS a result, says the writer,
tongue-in-cheek, the only really instructive places are
those of the poker-players, amateur boxers, bowlers, and
the regional clubs: these are at least natural! For "il
existe une certaine grandeur qui ne préte pas a l'élévation.
Elle est inféconde par état" (E, 814-15).

Physically the streets of Oran are hot, dusty,
and when it rains, muddy; spiritually they are absurd,
extravagant, and filled with examples of bad taste. Never-
theless there is a certain baroque quality in this "appli-
cation dans le mauvais gout" which makes it pardonable. The
writer then makes an inventory of what Oran has to offer:
little cafés, their counters liberally sprinkled with wings
and legs of dead flies; photographers' studios "ou la tech-
nique n'a pas progressé depuis l'invention du paper sensible,"
and where can be seen such unlikely subjects as the "pseudo-
marin qui s'appui du coude sur une console" and the "jeune

fille a marier, taille fagotée, bras ballants devant un fond

sylvestre." With ironic humour he adds: "On peut supposer

 

nIn "Le Desert" of Noces, p. 80, it was the "bonS
esprits" who opted for the i'myths" of religion--the reverse
of Pascal's "bons esprits." In "Le Minotaure" Camus uses
the term to describe those who try to foist a false culture
on the Oranese.

202

qu'il ne s'agit pas de portraits d'aprés nature; ce sont
des créations" (E, 815). There is also "une édifiante
abondance" of shops selling funeral supplies--"Ce n'est
pas qu'a Oran on meure plus qu'ailleurs, mais j'imagine
seulement qu'on en fait plus d'histoires" (E, 815).

Other evidence of the "naiveté sympathique" of
the Oranese appears in the movie advertisements, where
such inflated adjectives as "fastueux," "extraordinaire,"
and "prestigieux" are used to describe third-rate films.
He hastens to point out, however, that this is not mere
exaggeration but rather proof of the advertisers' knowledge
of psychology: it takes a great deal of pressure to force
a choice on these people whose indifference and profound
apathy make it an effort for them to decide "entre deux
spectacles, deux métiers, et, souvent méme, deux femmes"
(E, 816). The author perceives in it an uncomplimentary
parallel to America: advertising in Oran "prendra des
proportions américaines, ayant les mémes raisons, ici et
la-bas, de s'exaspérer" (E, 816).

The two essential pleasures of Oranese youth are
having their shoes shined and then displaying these "mer-
veilles" while strolling on the boulevards. Camus' ironic
humour finds ample material as he depicts the paradoxical
importance of trivialities. Matching his style to the

paradox, he approaches the business of Shoe-Shining in

203

oratorical tones: "Juché sur de hauts fauteuils, on pourra
gofiter alors cette satisfaction particuliere que donne, méme
a un profane, le spectacle d'hommes amoureux de leur métier
... " (E, 816). His description of the prolonged and metic-
ulous effort put into the shoe-Shine derives much of its
humour from the same kind of effort in the description:

Tout est travaillé dans le détail. Plusieurs

brosses, trois variétés de chiffons, le cirage

combiné a l'essence: on peut croire que

l'opération est terminée devant 1e parfait éclat

qui nait sous la brosse douce. Mais la méme main

acharnée repasse du cirage sur la surface brillante,

la frotte, la ternit, conduit 1a creme jusqu'au

coeur des peaux et fait alors jaillir, sous la meme

brosse, un double et vraiment définitif éclat sorti

des profondeurs du cuir (E, 816).
In their daily strolls the young men of Oran try to imitate
their current idol, Clark Gable, and in the afternoon the
boulevards are invaded by "une armée de sympathiques ado-
lescents qui se donnent le plus grand mal pour paraitre
de mauvais garcons" (E, 817). The girls on their part,
feeling themselves promised to these "gangsters au coeur
tendre" also model themselves after American film stars.
Both boys and girls provoke sarcastic comments from the
over-thirty crowd who, says the author, fail to understand
this confluence of youth and romance. His own tone of
affectionate mockery discloses the attitude of an adult
who remembers with a smile his own adolescence.

To all those who view Oran as too commonplace,

and say "11 faudra S'occuper de quelque chose d'élevé,"

204

he retorts scornfully that this would be irrelevant and
unnecessary--in Oran it is sufficient Simply to see, "Voyez
plutdt,"--for Oran has its own peculiar value, not only in
its physical surroundings, both natural and man-made, but
"dans la ville elle-meme ces jeux et cet ennui, ce tumulte
et cette solitude" (E, 818). In this environment the
traveler finds respite.

The topography and plan of Oran occupy the author in
the next section, "Le Désert a Oran," and again the Oranese
become the butt of his irony. Compelled to live before a
beautiful landscape, he says, they have somehow managed to
triumph over it with the construction of ugly buildings.
Instead of remaining Open to the sea Oran turns back upon
itself in circles, like a snail, or a labyrinth. The wan-
derer through it seeks the sea as if it were the Sign of
Ariadne, but the search is vain, and finally the Minotaur--
"l'Ennui"--devours him. Camus adds cynically, "Depuis long-
temps, les Oranais n'errent plus. Ils ont accepté d'étre
mangés" (E, 818).

In this dusty city "1e caillou est roi"--one sees
stones everywhere: in piles in the streets, as paperweights
in shop-windows, in the cemeteries. Even the trees appear
petrified, and "Vue des Planteurs, l'épaisseur des falaises
qui l'enserrent est telle que le paysage devient irréel a

force d'étre minéral" (E, 819). The association of the

205

mineral world and its physical characteristics with the
Absurd mentioned earlier in this study12 is apparent here.
It is a world of weight and thickness from which man is

excluded:

L'homme en est proscrit. Tant de beauté pesante
semble venir d'un autre monde (E, 819).

... Le désert a quelque chose d'implacable. Le

ciel minéral d'Oran, ses rues et ses arbres dans

leur enduit de poussiere, tout contribue a créer

cet univers épais et impassible ou le coeur et

l'esprit ne sont jamais distraits d'eux-mémes, ni

de leur seul objet qui est l'homme (E, 819-20).

If Oran offers a certain kind of respite and

recuperation, it is nonetheless a "retraite difficile."
The cultured cities of Europe may nourish men's souls with
momories of past grandeur,

Mais comment s'attendrir sur une ville ou rien

ne sollicite l'esprit, ou la laideur meme est

anonyme, ou le passé est réduit a rien? Le vide,

l'ennui, un ciel indifférent, quelles sont les

séductions de ces lieux? (E, 820).
Oran's gifts are two in number: "la solitude et, peut-étre,
la créature" (E, 820).

"Les Jeux," which follows, offers a marked contrast

of tone with the somber, thoughtful ending of "Le Désert a
Oran." It describes a boxing-match, in one of the "milieux

instructifs" mentioned earlier in the essay, and except for

the final paragraph it is an extremely funny account, in

 

22See supra, pp. 57—59.

206

which the gradations of humour rise and fall with the
action. If Camus pokes fun at the primitive naiveté of
the Oranese, however, the laughter is never contemptuous.
The sights and sounds of the scene are faithfully

reproduced in a breezy and picturesque style which might
give the impression that the writer is wholly caught up
with the crowd. However, amused and observant as he is,
he remains on the Sidelines, a spectator not only of the
fight but of the other spectators. Roger Quilliot writes
of the episode as follows:

... 1e duel homérique des boxeurs Pérez et Amar,

nous vaut, au temps du "minotaure," une scene

pittoresque, aux limites du burlesque. On devine

l'auteur séduit mais lointain pourtant. Un temps

de recul, une marge d'indifférence lui révélent

les contradictions de la foule, les mécanismes et

les naivetés du spectacle.13

The Central Sporting Club, sponsor of the match,

has advertised it as one that will be appreciated by "les
vrais amateurs," and Camus will continue to repeat this term
as a comic device when referring to the spectators. The
physical details of the scene are described in exaggerated
and mocking terms, but never with malice: the "vrais
amateurs" do not expect to be comfortable-~the ring is

"au fond d'une sorte de garage crépi a la chaux, couvert

de t61e ondulée et violemment éclairé," and the seats are

 

13Quilliot, La Mer, p. 251.

207

folding chairs so tightly packed that "pas une des cinq
cent personnes qui s'y trouvent ne saurait tirer son
mouchoir sans provoquer de graves accidents" (E, 820). The
crowd is an earthy, joyous one, reminiscent of the Spanish
Spectators at the café in Palma in "Amour de vivre." It is
warm, the men are in shirt-sleeves, their animated discus-
sions interrupted by gulps of lemonade or the voice of the
popular Singer coming from the loud-speaker, "la romance
avant le meurtre" (E, 821). Even as the writer observes
and describes, his own enjoyment and rapport with the
working-class audience is apparent.

Yet another type of comedy is used to describe the
preliminaries--they appear as the burlesque of a religious
ceremony:

La foule s'est un peu animée, mais c'est encore

une politesse. Elle respire avec gravité l'odeur
sacrée de l'embrocation. Elle contemple ces suc-
cessions de rites lents et de sacrifices désordonnés,
rendus plus authentiques encore par les dessins pro-
pitiatoires, sur la blancheur du mur, des ombres
combattantes. Ce sont 1es prologues cérémonieux
d'une religion sauvage et calculée. La transe ne
viendra que plus tard (E, 821).

At the announcement of the next event the crowd goes
wild, which might lead "un profane" to think that the two
combatants are going to settle some personal grudge. But
the real battle is between Oran and Algiers, in a rivalry

that has lasted a hundred years. Their respective champions

are Amar, "1e coriace Oranais" and Pérez, "1e puncheur

208

algérois" (E, 821). Camus' mockery is perhaps directed not
only at the Algerians, but men in general when he writes
"Leur rivalité est d'autant plus forte qu'elle ne tient sans
doute a rien. Ayant toutes les raisons de S'aimer, elles se
détestent en proportion" (E, 821).

The author then returns to the mock-epic tone
employed earlier:

Cest donc une page d'histoire qui se déroule
sur le ring. Et 1e coriace Oranais, soutenu par
un millier de voix hurlantes, défend contre Pérez
une maniére de vivre et l'orgueil d'une province.
La vérité oblige a dire qu'Amar méne mal sa dis-
cussion. Son plaidoyer a un vice de forme: i1
manque d'allonge. Celui du puncheur algérois, au
contraire, a la longueur voulue. Il porte avec
persuasion sur l'arcade sourciliére de son con-
tradicteur. L'Oranais pavoise magnifiquement, au
milieu des vociférations d'un public déchainé (E,
822).

In spite of shouts of encouragement from the crowd--and
Camus reproduces a colorful series of theme-the Oranese
loses the match on points. But the real fights are only
beginning. The scene that follows is a wild and joyous
mélée in which the spectators engage in their own defense
of their respective cities, and from the author's portrayal
of it arises not only a vivid mental picture of all this
exuberant action, but the laughter of the writer observing
it, a laughter that is contagious:

... dans la salle, des combats que le programme

ne comportait pas ont déja éclaté. Des chaises

sont brandies, 1a police se fraye un chemin,
l'exaltation est a son comble. Pour calmer ces

209

bons esprits et contribuer au retour du silence,
la "direction," sans perdre un instant, charge

1e pick;up de vociférer Sambre-et-Meuse. Pen-
dant quelques minutes, 1a salle a grande allure.
Des grappes confuses de combattants et d'arbitres
bénévoles oscillent sous des poignes d'agents, 1a
galerie exulte et réclame la suite par le moyen
de cris sauvages, de cocoricos, ou de miaulements
farceurs noyés dans le fleuve irresistible de la
musique militaire (E, 822).

The change that takes place at the announcement of
the main event is rendered all the more comic through the
contrast to what preceded it and the rapidity of the change
itself. The effect is one of an electric switch being
turned off:

... i1 suffit de l'annonce du grand combat pour
que 1e calme revienne. Cela se fait brusquement,
sans fioritures, comme des acteurs quittent le
plateau, une fois 1a piece finie. Avec le plus
grand naturel, les chapeaux sont époussetés, les
chaises rangées, et tous les visages revétent
sans transition l'expression bienveillante du
Spectateur honnéte qui a payé sa place pour
assister a un concert de famille (E, 822-23).

The portrait of the Oranese that emerges is one of
child-like simplicity, expressing its excitement elementally
but responding obediently to a call-to—order that promises
a reward.

In the final match, which pits a French sailor
against an Oranese, there is little excitement until the
seventh round when the Frenchman is floored, gets to his
feet, and rushes the Oranese. "Ca y est, ca va étre la

corrida," says the writer's neighbor, and what happens next

is a total unloosing of animal passions both in and out of

210

the ring, in a kind of contagion of violence, physical for
the fighters, vicarious for the spectators: " ... dans ce
temple de chaux, de tale et de ciment, une salle tout
entiere livrée a des dieux au front bas" (E, 823). The
brief trace of a serious tone perceptible here on the
subject of violence is resumed by the writer at the end

of the episode, as the spectators disperse and depart for
home in the darkness: "C'est que la force et la violence
sont des dieux solitaires. Ils ne donnent rien au souvenir"
(E, 824). If the author sees in the fights one form of
expression of a simple and natural people, he is at the
same time aware of the nature of violence itself, and its
potential for destruction, a theme he will treat seriously
and in greater detail in L'Homme révolté.

As a winner is declared in the final match one more
facet of the simplistic Oranese temperament manifests it-
self. At the beginning of the fight each Spectator had
chosen a favorite, according to "la bonne régle." A deci-
sion has now been made and in their "sensibilité toute
manichéenne" the spectators recognize no shades of gray:

11 y a 1e bien et le mal, 1e vainqueur et le
vaincu. Il faut avoir raison si l'on n'a pas
tort. La conclusion de cette logique impeccable
est immédiatement fournie par deux mille poumons
énergiques qui accusent 1es juges d'étre vendus,
ou achetés (E, 824).

The author himself, whose thought and work constantly demon-

strate sensitivity to nuances and to the tension necessary

211

to resist simplistic divisions into black and white, finds
himself at the end reconciled with the crowd, for when the
boxers embrace each other the spectators forget their
differences and break into applause. "Ce ne sont pas
des sauvages" (E, 824).
Camus now turns his attention to another aspect

of Oran, "Les Monuments." Many of these are not local
products, he remarks blandly, but "les marques regrettables
de la civilisation" (E, 824), whereas the Maison du Colon,
a structure built to house various agricultural offices,
is a true creation of the Oranese themselves, and as such
mirrors their three outstanding virtues: bad taste, love
of violence, and an affinity for "des syntheses historiques"
(E, 825):

L'Egypte, Byzance et Munich ont collaboré a la

délicate construction d'une patisserie figurant

une énorme coupe renversée. Des pierres multi-

colores, du plus vigoureux effet, sont venues

encadrer 1e toit ... (E, 825).
These questionable aesthetic qualities are further enhanced
by the location of the building in the center of an inter-
section crossed by tramways whose “saleté est un des charmes
de la ville" (E, 825).

The Oranese are also very proud of the two sculp-

tured lions adorning their Place d'Armes, of whom a charming

local legend has it that at night they descend from their

‘pedestals, walk silently around the square and urinate

212

copiously under the dusty trees. A brief thought about the
artist, Cain, leads Camus to a meditation on the relative
importance of works of art, and the bantering tone used to
describe the lions is abandoned briefly. Artists may create
a masterpiece, like Michelangelo's David, or the "deux
mufles hilares“ of Cain, but only fate determines which
will last.

The lions possess two qualities, insignificance and
solidity: "L'esprit n'y est pour rien et la matiere pour
beaucoup" (E, 826). But nonetheless they, and Oran, have a
lesson for men--they force us to pay attention to what has
no importance.‘“ In this regard their lesson resembles that
of Sisyphus, whose efforts were forever futile: it too
calls for lucidity. The writer states: "Tout ce qui est
périssable désire durer ... et, a cet égard, les lions de
Cain ont les mémes chances que les ruines d'Angkor. Cela
incline a la modestie" (E, 826). The implication, I believe,
is that men too must face their own insignificance in an
indifferent universe and recognize realistically, and "avec
modestie," their perishability and their limitations. Later

in La Peste the author's concern with what is human and

 

therefore perishable, will give rise to another call to

 

1"Of "insignificance" Camus noted in his Carnets II,
p. 86, "Elle décrit ... notre avenir commun." An article
by him in Cahiers des saisons, No. 15, in 1959 was entitled
"De l'Insignificance.1r

 

 

213

modesty. Tarrou in a conversation with Dr. Rieux says,

"ce qui m'intéresse, c'est de savoir comment on devient

un saint." The doctor replies, "Je n'ai pas le gout, je
crois, pour l'héroisme et la sainteté. Ce qui m'intéresse,
c'est d'étre un homme." Tarrou then Speaks for Camus,
stressing the difficulty and the dignity of being a man,

in spite of perishability, insignificance, and the futility
of human actions: "Oui, nous cherchons la meme chose, mais

je suis moins ambitieux."15

To be a man may be no more
important in the grand scheme of the universe than Cain's
lions in the hierarchy of art. But a man may perceive
through lucidity, through "paying attention," that this
very "unimportance" endows him with dignity if he persists
in his efforts in Spite of it.

One last group of "monuments" is discussed: Oran's
enormous work-project to enlarge her port. The author's
regret at the mutilation of nature is barely concealed when
he writes "il s'agit de transformer la plus lumineuse des
baies en un port gigantesque" (E, 826). Here again man is
confronted with an inhuman world of stone and his insignif-
icance is stressed by comparison. The workers are likened

to insects, and their locomotives to toys. Yet man attacks

the stone with machines, and both stone and machinery take

 

15Camus, Théétre, Récits, Nouvelles, p. 1427.

 

214

on human characteristics: " ... d'énormes machoires d'acier
fouillent 1e ventre de la falaise" (E, 827). The stones
themselves serve man's purposes. Slowly, as they are dumped
into the water, they accumulate and form the foundations on
which he can advance farther into the bay: "A mesure que
le front de la corniche S'abaisse, la cote entiere gagne
irrésistiblement sur la mer" (E, 827). The obsession of
the Occident with action and the transformation of nature
described by Malraux16 is here put into practice.

If man can move the stones, he cannot outlast them:
"Mais changer 1es choses de place, c'est 1e travail des
hommes: il faut choisir de faire cela ou rien." Camus adds
the following footnote: "Cet essai traite d'une certaine
tentation. Il faut l'avoir connue. On peut ensuite agir,
on non, mais en connaissance de cause" (E, 827). Both
Sisyphus and the Rebel are forecast, as well as the Plague.
In the face of the Absurd, man has a choice--to act knowing
his acts are futile, or succumb to nothingness--"cela ou
rien" (E, 827). The true monuments of Oran are still its
stones.

The last section of "Le Minotaure" is entitled "La
Pierre d'Ariane," and in it the light-hearted irony of the

earlier parts is discarded for the more elevated and lyrical

 

16André Malraux, La Tentation de l'Occident (Paris:
Bernard Grasset, 1926).

 

215

tones that Camus inevitably adapts when speaking of nature's
beauty. For beauty is here, though the Oranese have turned
their backs on it, and beyond Oran's yellow walls the sea
and the earth pursue their dialogue, indifferent to man yet
having a double effect on him: "Cette permanence dans le
monde a toujours eu pour l'homme des prestiges opposés.
Elle 1e désespére et l'exalte" (E, 828).
Overlooking the city is the mountain of Santa Cruz.

Old carriage-roads cling to the Sides of the surrounding
hills and in certain seasons they are covered with flowers:
"Paquerettes et boutons d'or en font des allées fastueuses,
brodées de jaune et de blanc" (E, 828). The beaches of Oran
are deserted in winter and Spring except by the flowers and
the sea, but nature's colors are a forecast of the youth of
Oran who will soon cover the sand, the girls as bright as
the flowers that preceded them:

Déja pourtant, 1e soleil, 1e vent léger, la

blancheur des asphodéles, 1e bleu cru du ciel,

tout laisse imaginer l'été, la jeunesse dorée

qui couvre alors la plage, 1es longues heures

sur le sable et la douceur subite des soirs.

Chaque année, sur ces rivages, c'est une nouvelle

moisson de filles fleurs. Apparemment, elles

n'ont qu'une saison. L'année suivante, d'autres

corolles chaleureuses les remplacent qui, l'été

d'avant, étaient encore des petites filles aux

corps durs comme des bourgeons (E, 829).
Not far from the city is a landscape without traces of man.

The poet traces the evolution of a summer day there. Morn-

ings are like the first of the world, and with the darkening

216

of nature's colors come the twilights, which are like the
last:

Sur ces plages d'Oranie, tous les matins d'été

ont l'air d'étre les premiers du monde. Tous

les crépuscules semblent étre les derniers,

agonies solennelles annoncées au coucher du

soleil par une derniére lumiere qui fonce toutes

les teintes. La mer est outremer, la route

couleur de sang caillé, la plage jaune (E, 829).
With the setting of the sun everything disappears and soon
moonlight streams over the dunes: "Ce sont alors des nuits
sans mesure sous une pluie d'étoiles" (E, 829).

A very different tone from that of "Noces a Tipasa"
pervades these lines. The same bright colors are present,
but the atmosphere of ardor has gone, to be replaced by
stillness. Nature in "Noces a Tipasa" was active, throbbing
with life. Colors were piled one on top of the other, and
the writer used active verbs with figures of nature: the
odor of the plants "scraped" the throat, the sea "sucked"
the rocks, the geraniums "poured" their blood. In addition
other senses came into play--touch, and especially smell--
which contributed to the feeling of richness. In "Le
Minotaure" the sensual experience is primarily visual and
the quantitative build-up so evident in "Noces a Tipasa" is
conspicuously absent. Nature is passive, observed rather
than participating. In the light of the setting sun the

road appears red as blood, the color of the geraniums in

"Noces," but now it is "sang caillé" (E, 829).

217

The writer's experience of solitude, of grandeur,
of pure joys, are preserved in his memory:

Apres tant d'années, elles durent encore, quelque
part dans ce coeur aux fidélités pourtant difficiles.
Et je sais qu'aujourd'hui, sur la dune déserte, si

je veux m'y rendre, le méme ciel déversera encore

sa cargaison de souffles et d'étoiles. Ce sont ici
les terres de l'innocence (E, 829).

But this beauty and innocence has need of sand and stones.
Like an enemy army they besiege Oran, the capital of
"l'Ennui" where man—-who no longer knows how to live
in innocence--has barricaded himself. The author adds,
"quelle tentation de passer a l'ennemi!" (E, 830). Once
more arises Camus' old temptation, a passionate longing to
end his separation from the world in a complete abandonment
of self. The anguish of this longing is unmistakable:

... quelle tentation de s'identifier a ces

pierres, de se confondre avec cet univers brfl-

lant et impassible qui défie l'histoire et ses

agitations! Cela est vain sans doute. Mais il

y a dans chaque homme un instinct profond qui

n'est ni celui de la destruction ni celui de la

création. Il s'agit seulement de ne ressembler

a rien (E, 830).
Only in such union can there be deliverance from despair:

"N'étre rien!" Pendant deS millénaires,/ce grand

cri a soulevé des millions d'hommes en revolte

contre le désir et la douleur. Ses échos sont

venus mourir jusqu'ici, a travers les siecles et

les océans, sur la mer la plus vieille du monde.

Ils rebondissent encore sourdement contre les

falaises compactes d'Oran (E, 831).

Should one succumb to the temptation? The writer

ponders the question and recalls the story of Cakia-Mouni

218

in the desert. Seeking wisdom in this "destin de pierre"
he remained many years motionless, eyes turned to the sky,
and the swallows came to nest in his outstretched hands:

Mais, un jour, elles s'envolerent a l'appel de

terres lointaines. Et celui qui avait tué en

lui désir et volonté, gloire et douleur, se mit

a pleurer. Il arrive ainsi que des fleurs

poussent sur 1e rocher (E, 830).
His answer finally is yes, "consentons a la pierre quand i1
1e faut," and let uS accept "les rares invitations au
sommeil que nous dispense la terre" (E, 831). It cannot
be a permanent consent in any case, for "1e néant ne
s'atteint pas plus que l'absolu" (E, 831).

This then is the thread of Ariadne, the lesson of

Oran. If we are to survive being torn between "1es roses"
and "la souffrance humaine" there is need for pause and
rest. Germaine Brée perceives in the call of the Minotaur
the temptation to abandon the life of the mind, "that attri-
bute (in Camus' idiom) of EurOpe as opposed to Africa."17
and this is true, but the abandonment is not meant to be
permanent--only a period of respite and recuperation before
resuming all the joys and burdens of human existence: "Les
fleurs, les larmes ... , 1es départs et les luttes sont pour

demain" (E, 831). This brief moment of precarious balance

finds concrete expression in a panoramic view of Oran:

 

17Brée, Camus, p. 214.

219

Au-dessus de la mer, silencieuse au pied des

falaises rouges, il suffit de se tenir dans un

juste équilibre, a mi-distance deS deux caps

massifs qui, a droite et a gauche, baignent dans

l'eau Claire (E, 831).

"Le Minotaure," longest of all the essays treated
in this study, contains passages of sober reflection as well
as lyrical beauty, in which much of Camus' basic thought is
reiterated from a new perspective. Another element is pres-
ent, of which only glimpses appeared before--his humour. In
"Le Minotaure" it runs the gamut from Sharp to gentle irony,
through outright laughter and shows clearly that, in Philip
Thody's words, Camus had nothing of the rigorous and austere
attitude which was sometimes attributed to him."l° His
humour too is made the vehicle of his own feelings in
experienced situations, making it all the more effective.
Written only a few years later than £2323, the

inclusion of this essay in ELEEé fifteen years later is
proof of the author's continuing adherence in his maturity
to the thoughts it expresses. Looking backwards from the
perspective of its composition date, it indicates at the
same time a considerable increase in SOphistication since
Npggg in his attitude toward Algeria and its people, who

appeared in the earlier essays almost completely devoid of

faults. Only two of the essays in L'Eté were written during

 

18Thody, Albert Camus, p. 167.

 

220

the period of World War II, "Le Minotaure" and "Les
Amandiers" and while there is no trace of the war in the

first, the second essay has a direct connection with it.

"Les Amandiers"

 

This brief essay was composed in 1940 after the

fall of France and first published in La Tunisie frangaise

 

of January, 1941 under the title, "Pour préparer les Fruits."
Addressed to the French people, it upholds the spirit
against force, cautions against the debilitating effects

of gloomy defeatism, and calls for courage and action. Less
than a year after its publication Camus was himself working
actively in the Resistance.

He begins by recalling the words of a famous con-
queror, Napoleon, to the effect that of the two powers
present in the world, the sword and the Spirit, the spirit;
will always emerge victorious. In the twentieth century,
however, the tank has replaced the sword and the Spirit has
lost ground; it further exhausts itself in impotent curses:
"L'esprit a perdu cette royale assurance qu'un conquérant
savait lui reconnaitre; il S'épuise maintenant a maudire
1a force, faute de savoir 1a maitriser" (E, 835). His
counsel is first of all to make clear the objective--to
never again permit the ascendancy of any force which does
not serve the spirit. At the same time he recognizes the

impossibility of any permanent victory in this direction:

221

it is rather "une tache ... qui n'a pas de fin," "une tache
surhumaine," (E, 835-36, words that will be echoed in £3
ngpg. Dr. Rieux knew that the chronicle of the plague "ne
pouvait pas étre celle de la victoire définitive."19 The
germ of evil neither dies nor disappears.

However, the fact that there can be no end in sight
for our efforts must not deter us. The lesson of Sisyphus
is explicit in "Les Amandiers": "Nous savons que nous
sommes dans la contradiction ... ", but in the balance of
the sentence it is the Rebel who speaks: " ... mais que
nous devons refuser la contradiction et faire ce qu'il faut
pour la réduire" (E, 835).

If the resigned acceptance exemplified by the Vichy
government is rejected, so is despair: "La premiere chose
est de ne pas désespérer. N'écoutons pas trop ceux qui
crient a la fin du monde. Les civilisations ne meurent pas
si aisément ... " (E, 836).

The situation is indeed tragic, but instead of
ineffective lamentation, he would oppose to it a more
energetic attitude:

"Le tragique, disait Lawrence, devrait étre comme
un grand coup de pied donné au malheur." Voila
une pensée saine et immédiatement applicable. Il

y a beaucoup de choses aujourd'hui qui méritent
ce coup de pied (E, 836).

 

19Camus, Theatre, Récits, Nouvelles, pp. 1473-74.

 

222

Vigor, not tears, is required to save the life of the
spirit:

... si l'on veut sauver l'esprit, i1 faut ignorer

ses vertus gémissantes et exalter sa force et ses

prestiges. ... Il est vain de pleurer sur l'esprit,

il suffit de travailler pour lui (E, 836-37).

The writer finds inspiration for renewed strength in

a recollection of Algeria: during the winter he patiently
awaited the one cool, pure night when the almond trees in
the valley would all at once be covered with white blossoms,
and it seemed a miracle that they could withstand the wind
and the rain:

Je m'émerveillais de voir ensuite cette neige fra-

gile résister a toutes les pluies et au vent de la

mer. Chaque année, pourtant, elle persistait, juste

ce qu'il fallait pour préparer le fruit (E, 836).
With typical impatience toward the abstract, Camus insists
that he is not employing a symbol but drawing strength from
the memory of a place where natural, physical forces are
still plentiful: "Nous ne gagnerons pas notre bonheur avec
des symboles. 11 y faut plus de sérieux" (E, 836). In such
places "ou tant de forces sont encore intactes ... la contem-
plation et le courage peuvent équilibrer" (E, 836).

We Should, I believe, take him at his word and

recall the real, concrete value of the outdoor life of
Algeria for this writer who suffered intermittently with

tuberculosis all of his life. With the outbreak of war he

had tried to enlist and was rejected for health reasons.

223

In March of 1940, out of favor with the government in
Algeria for his articles concerning the poverty of the
Moslem population of Kabylia, Camus left Oran for Paris

to work for Paris-Soir. The German invasion took place

 

while he was there and he departed with the other newspaper
personnel for Clermont—Ferrand. While still in Paris he had

completed L'Etranger. In Lyon after leaving the newspaper,

 

he married Francine Faure, a young Frenchwoman who had been
born in Oran, and early in 1941 they left Lyon for Algeria.

Le Mythe de Sisyphe was finished in February of that year.

 

In the meantime Camus' health had worsened and the doctor
advised a stay in the mountains of central France, but he
was unable to leave until the middle of 1942. At that time
his wife accompanied him there but had to return to Oran for
the opening of school while he remained. When he attempted
to return to Algeria in November the allied landings pre-
vented it, and he was to be separated from his wife until
the Liberation. In the light of the many pressures of
health, work, and political turmoil that he was undergoing
during this period it is not strange that the physical
hardiness of the almond trees in Algeria had concrete
significance for him.

There is nonetheless a poetic analogy implied in
the budding of the trees--it is part of a natural cycle of

renewal which France too can anticipate. In April, 1944,

224

in the third "Lettre a un ami allemand" Camus employs a
Similar image as a warning rather than an encouragement--
German force will not succeed in destroying the free spirit
of the French:

... tous ces paysages, ces fleurs et ces labours,

la plus vieille des terres, vous démontrent a

chaque printemps qu'il est des choses que vous

ne pouvez étouffer dans le sang. C'est sur cette

image que je puis finir. ... La lutte que nous

menons a la certitude de la victoire puisqu'elle

a l'obstination des printemps"20

The final paragraph of "Les Amandiers" enumerates

"les vertus conquérantes de l'esprit," of which the most
important is "la force de caractére." He adds:

Je ne parle pas de celle qui s'accompagne sur les

estrades électorales de froncements de sourcils

et de menaces. Mais de celle qui résiste a tous

les vents de la mer par la vertu de la blancheur

et de la SéVe. C'est elle qui, dans l'hiver du

monde, prépara 1e fruit (E, 837).

According to Rober Quilliot's editorial notes,

Camus' manuscripts indicate that some changes were made
in the text before its republication in L'Eté. One such
alteration was the replacement of "theatre" in the earlier
edition with "estrades électorales" cited above, relating
it to the post-war situation. It is clear that for Camus
the attitudes he expressed in 1940 concerning the impossi-

bility of definitive progress are equally valid in post-war

France of 1954 when L'Eté was published. They manifest the

 

2°Camus, Essais, p. 236.

225

same rejection of historically-oriented ideologies that

Camus had expounded in L'Homme révolté in 1951.

 

"Les Amandiers" indicates plainly that already
in 1940 Camus' thought was evolving from its focus on the
Absurd in the direction of Revolt. Georges Hourdin says
in this connection, "11 faut relire ce texte. Il est

capital." Forecasting L' Homme révolté, he adds, "Plus

 

tard, ... Camus mettra de l'ordre dans ses idées et

rattachera ses positions nouvelles a celles qu'il avait

"21 Roger Quilliot also notes the his-

tenueS autrefois.
torical importance of the essay: "'Les Amandiers' nous
confirment qu'en 1940 Camus n'était nullement l'homme de

l'absurde mais déja celui d'un combat prochain.“2

"Prométhée aux enfers"

 

This essay was written in 1946, in the aftermath of
the war, and published in 1947. Philip Thody refers to it
and to "L'Exil d'Héléne" as the only two "moralizing" essays
in Elgpé, where Camus uses the example of classical Greece
"as a stick with which to beat the modern world."23 The two
essays share other common ground in that both prefigure

L'Homme révolté. The Spirit of revolt in the person of

 

 

21Georges Hourdin, Camus le juste (Paris: Editions

 

”Quilliot, La Mer, p. 249.

23Thody, Albert Camus, p. 170.

 

226

Prometheus figures in Camus' Carnets I as early as February,

 

1938: "Une révolution s'accomplit toujours contre les

"2“ There are

Dieux—-a commencer par celle de Prométhée.
several other references between that date and 1950, when

in Carnets II appears the notation: "I. Le Mythe de Sisyphe
(absurde).-—II. Le Mythe de Prométhée (révolte).--III. Le
Mythe de Némésis."25 It is evident that at that time, a

year before the completion of L'Homme révolté, Camus was

 

already considering treatment of a third Greek myth to

complete the sequence of thought elaborated in Le Mythe de

 

Sisyphe and L'Homme révolté--the Absurd and revolt--that of

 

the goddess of justice and "1a mesure." The essay on the
Absurd was concerned primarily with individual man in his
condition; with revolt the struggle became a collective
one-—"Je me révolte, donc nous sommes" (HR, 432).
Socioeconomic justice was Camus' hope for post-war
France. In Emmett Parker's words, "His primary aim in 1944
was to see that all Frenchmen shared in the benefits to be
derived from the political and economic institutions of the
new nation that he hoped would rise from the ashes of World

War II."26 However, he became increasingly disillusioned

L.

2"Camus, Carnets I, p. 106.

 

25Camus, Carnets II, p. 328.

 

26Parker, Artist in the Arena, p. 90.

 

227

with post-war politics which he felt were making no sincere
attempts in that direction. The essay on Nemesis never

materialized and after the publication of L'Homme révolté

 

in 1951 he tended to isolate himself from controversy. In
1946, at the time of the composition of "Prométhée aux
enfers" Camus was still very much concerned with the direc-
tion of the new politics and he was not alone in his dissat-
isfaction with what he saw. More and more, however, there
was disagreement within the ranks of this opposition. Camus
found Marxist solutions unacceptable, and eventually found
himself attacked by both the Right and the intellectual Left
with which he had close ties, among them Sartre. L'Homme
révolté, denouncing the history-oriented ideology of come
munism, was to quote Dr. Parker, "to explode like a bomb-
shell over the rocky terrain of the Parisian political and
intellectual battleground, and make the break irreparable."27
The 1946 essay sets forth plainly two of Camus
fundamental objections to communismr-objections entirely
consistent with values he had expressed repeatedly in his
work: first, it does not concern itself with the whole man
but only with his material needs; second, it is directed
toward a hypothetical future and if necessary will sacrifice
the concrete living individual of today in order to achieve

it. Camus' play, Les Justes, treats the same issues. The

 

 

27Ibid., p. 118.

228

essay also rebukes modern man of Western Europe for being
amenable to this betrayal of the original Prometheus.

He begins by conceding that there are indeed many
in the world who are not only without liberty but without
the barest necessities of life. While their material
suffering continues, their liberty diminishes at the same
time. The original Rebel was concerned that man should
have both: "Prométhée, lui, est ce héros qui aima assez
les hommes pour leur donner en méme temps 1e feu et la
liberté, les techniques et les arts" (E, 841). But today
man is only interested in "les techniques"--in the new
stress on efficacy, art and the things of the Spirit are
Simply obstacles or "un Signe de servitude" (E, 841).
Prometheus would free man's body and spirit simultaneously,
while modern (Marxist) man thinks the body must be liberated
first, even at the cost of the temporary death of the spirit.
But, asks Camus, is it possible for the spirit to die only
"provisoirement"? He adds, were Prometheus to return today
men themselves would nail him again to his rock--and in the
name of that very humanism of which he was the first symbol.
The voices that taunted him there would be those of Force
and Violence.

In the following lines there is a more personal
cry--one of nostalgia: "Est-ce que je cede au temps avare,
aux arbres nus, a l'hiver du monde? (E, 841). Roger Quil-

liot believes that Camus was thinking of his work--he had

229

been forced, living through this time, to put in abeyance
the world's beauty in order to point out men's defects:
"Son oeuvre meme, il lui a fallu tolérer qu'elle se des-
seche au contact de la morale, rongée par le cancer des
villes et des civilisations."28
However, Camus goes on, it is his very nostalgia for

this beauty which makes him know he is right to continue the
struggle. A personal reference to the war follows, and it
is depicted as a hell from which France and Europe have not
yet emerged. The strong feeling and concrete imagery give
this passage unusual impact:

J'ai pris ma place dans la file qui piétinait

devant la porte ouverte de l'enfer. Peu 5 peu,

nous y sommes entrés. Et au premier cri de

l'innocence assassinée, la porte a claqué

derriere nous. Nous étions dans l'enfer, nous

n'en sommes plus jamais sortis (E, 842).

For six years, from 1940 to 1946, men have tried to

come to terms with this hell, but now, after the war, a
better society is far from realization. Communism proposes
such amelioration in a future even further removed in time:
"Les fantdmes chaleureux des ileS fortunées ne nous apparai-
ssent plus qu'au fond d'autres longues années, encore a
venir, sans feu ni soleil" (E, 842). The ideologies of

history are soon attacked more directly. "L'histoire est

une terre stérile ou la bruyere ne pousse pas," but western

 

28Quilliot, La Mer, p. 254.

230

man has chosen it and betrayed Prometheus. In satisfying
his material wants, he will have to put off until later "1a
liberté et ses vendanges, 1e pain de l'ame." But the man
of here-and-now cries out in anguished protest: "Ils ne
seront plus jamais ou ils seront pour d'autres" (E, 842-43).

Is there hope of bringing back a world where the
needs of the Spirit as well as of the body can be fulfilled?
Prometheus answers yes, providing that men reject history
and its blind justice, in favor of a justice conceived by
the spirit. The author concludes with an exhortation to
act. "Les mythes n'ont pas de vie par eux-memes. Ils
attendent que nous les incarnions" (E, 843). If it should
prove impossible to save today's men at least there is hope
for their children, but they must be saved in their totality--
"dans leur corps et danS leur esprit" (E, 843): " ... on ne
sert rien de l'homme Si on ne 1e sert pas tout entier"

(E, 843).

"Promethée aux enfers" is a Short essay, and suffers
in places from being overly rhetorical as well as from the
moralizing tone mentioned by Professor Thody. However, in
its content it sustains Camus' concern for the concrete and
the present, his love for beauty, and his idea of "la
totalité harmonieuse de l'homme." In a later essay, "L'Exil
de'Héléne," the writer turned again to the Greeks for his

inspiration but in the interim he wanted to give himself

231

what Roger Quilliot calls "un divertissement qui le raméne
aux plaisirs naturels de "L'Eté a Alger."29 In the course
of that trip he composed the next essay, a playful guide to

the cities of Algeria.

"Petit Guideypour des villes sans passé"

In "Le Minotaure" Camus had referred to cities
without a past, that is to say, cities without a heritage
of history, tradition and art. The "Petit Guide," written
in 1947, is for three such cities in Algeria-—Algiers, Oran
and Constantine. Algiers, he tells us, has something of the
"douceur italienne" while Oran and Constantine possess
more the "éclat cruel" of Spain in her aspect of a "beau
désert" (E, 848). However, while Italy and Spain have much
to offer the spirit, the Algerian cities "ne sont faites ni
pour la sagesse ni pour les nuances du goflt" (E, 847). For
this reason he is reluctant to recommend them to his Euro-
pean friends.

At the same time he acknowledges Algeria's "Sly
power" which seduces the visitor who lingers there too long:
" ... i1 les immobilise, 1es prive d'abord de questions et
les endort pour finir dans la vie de tous les jours" (E,
847). It offers a life-style bound up with the brilliant

sunlight, totally physical. If the European feels this

 

8Quilliot, in Essais, p. 1817.

 

232

lack, however, the Algerians do not: " ... c'est 1a leur
force" (E, 847). Here Camus appears at first to over—extend
himself in order to make a relationship: the Algerians'
stress on the physical and their indifference to the Spirit,
is associated with their having "plus de coeur" (E, 847).
However, if one recalls this writer's enormous admiration
for nature and a physical life in harmony with it, it is
not difficult to understand their close association in
his thought with what is good--in this case love. Serge
Doubrovsky in his article, "La Morale d'Albert Camus,"
had remarked on the importance of the vital force as a
value for Camus, and associated it with "une morale de
l'ouverture au monde et a autrui, de la participation."3°
His article concludes, referring to Camus' thought:
Ce soleil, ce savoir, ce n'est pas grand-chose
pour leS batisseurs d'empires ou de systémes.
Pourtant, si elle les néglige, l'époque court
a sa perte, et c'en est fait de l'homme 1e jour
ou il desapprend d'aimer, malgré le mal et la
souffrance, cette création sans créateur.31
The Algerians possess heart: "Ils peuvent étre
vos amis (et alors quels amis!)." However, "ils ne seront
pas vos confidents" (E, 847). Theirs is a Simple, primitive

affection in which any Spiritual exchange of confidences is

out of place, in contrast with Paris "ou se fait une Si

 

3°Doubrovsky, "La Morale d'Albert Camus," p. 43.

31Ibid., p. 47.

233

grande dépense d'ame et ou l'eau des confidences coule a
petit bruit, interminablement, parmi les fontaines, les
statues et les jardins" (E, 848).

Camus explains the difficulty for him in naming
Algeria's attractions by likening it to a beloved woman:
"Est-ce qu'on fait 1a nomenclature des charmes d'une femme
trés aimée? Non, on l'aime en bloc, ... " (E, 848). One
is struck at once by the importance of physical beauty to
this writer, and as Claudine Gothot comments, the beauty he
admires "n'a rien d'apprété. C'est, avant tout, le naturel,
1a perfection--on l'a dit--de l'animal qui est exactement ce

qu'il est."32

In Algeria "la jeunesse ... est belle"--and
Camus calls attention to the fine wrists of the young boys
and girls in contrast with those one sees in the Paris Metro
(E, 848); "les femmes y sont belles"--he names particular
vantage points in Algiers and Oran for watching them; in
summer all this beauty is all the more apparent on the
beaches, which in Oran are the most beautiful of all, "la
nature et les femmes étant plus sauvages" (E, 849).

For the traveler seeking the picturesque he gives

specific directions for each of the three cities and goes

on to recommend things to see and do, to eat and drink.

 

3“Claudine Gothot, "Les essais méditerranéens
d'Albert Camus: études de themes," Marche Romane, IX,
NO. 2 (1959), 59-74, and IX, NO. 3 (1959), 113-132.

234

This part of the essay is written in a casual, familiar
style, with occasional touches of light humour: "Oran a
pen d'arbres, mais les plus belles pierres du monde" (E,
849). Bits of homely advice are inserted from time to time:
In the Kasbah be sure to smoke a cigarette: "(1a cigarette
est nécessaire, ce moyen age ayant l'odeur forte)" (E, 849);
when in Algiers remember to speak against Oran "(accepter
sans réserves l'idée que les Oranais 'ne savent pas vivre'),"
and when in Oran stress her commercial superiority to
Algiers. Finally, the French traveler should "en toutes
occasions, reconnaitre humblement la supériorité de l'Al-
gérie sur la France métropolitaine" (E, 849).

In concluding Camus changes his tone and justifies
his earlier light banter by the very depth of his feeling
for Algeria: "Apres tout, la meilleure facon de parler de ce
qu'on aime est d'en parler légérement" (E, 850). His’love
for his country is inextricably bound up with its pe0ple:
"Oui, ce que j'aime dans les villes algériennes ne se sépare
pas des hommes qui les peuplent" (E, 850). It is still for
him the center of natural beauty and human love of which he

wrote in L'Envers et l'endroit and Noces.

 

The final paragraph contains a series of those
opposed terms which are a permanent part of Camus' style.
At the same time it is a lyrical expression of love and

pride in his native land:

235

Non, décidément, n'allez pas la-bas Si vous vous
sentez 1e coeur tiéde, et Si votre ame est une
béte pauvre! Mais, pour ceux qui connaissent

les déchirements du oui et du non, du midi et

des minuits, de la révolte et de l'amour, pour
ceux enfin qui aiment les bfichers devant la mer,
i1 y a la-bas, une flamme qui les attend (E, 850).

"L'Exil d'Héléne"

 

Claudine Gothot, writing on Hellenism in Camus'
work, notes his use of Greek myths as one aspect of it.

(Camus himself had written in his Carnets II, "Le monde ou

 

je suis le plus a l'aise: 1e mythe grec."33) The myth pre-
sents a poetic value which awakens in the reader a wealth of
images that enrich the thought expressed. Miss Gothot,
quite correctly I believe, has also perceived in the
writer's use of myths an expression of his love for the
concrete and hatred of abstraction: " ... le mythe peut
étre une representation imagée de la réalité."3“ At times
Camus has even employed a myth to represent a reality having
little to do with it, as in the case of "Le Minotaure," as
the image of "l'ennui."

In "L'Exil d'Héléne," however, he makes use of yet
another Greek myth to represent more profound elements of
Hellenism—-Greek love of beauty and respect for limits, "la

mesure." The essay was written in 1948 and published that

 

33Camus, Carnets II, p. 317.

 

3"Gothot, "Les Essais méditerranéens," p. 128.

236

year in Cahiers du sud. It is basically a comparison

 

between the civilizations of Greece and Western Europe,

in which the latter comes off very badly. A moralizing

tone is present but its quality is more biting and sarcastic
than that of "Prométhée aux enfers" as the author attacks
History, Hegel, the United States, Christianity, modern
philosophers, and pure reason.

The essay begins with reflections on the presence
and value of beauty in the Greek culture. We have already
seen its importance for the writer himself as recently as
the "Petit Guide." Twentieth-century Europe on the other
hand "a nourri son désespoir dans la laideur ...-Elle nie
la beauté, ... " (E, 853). Greek civilization is based on
the idea of limits, of permitting no extremes and seeking
no absolutes: "La pensée grecque s'est toujours retranchée
sur l'idée de limite" (E. 853). Europe today, however,
"lancée a la conquéte de la totalité, est fille de la
démesure" (E, 853).

In the ensuing scathing indictment of modern Western
society it is to the enthronement of pure reason in the wake
of Hegel--"l'empire futur de la raison" (E, 853)--that most
of the blame is laid. In "Prométhée aux enfers" he had
spoken of western man's predilection for "1es techniques."
In "L'Exil d'Héléne" there are several specific allusions

to such products of pure reason as nuclear power: we of

237

Western civilization "avons désorbité l'univers" (E, 854);
"Nous allumons dans un ciel ivre les soleils que nous
voulons" (E, 854). Nature remains and will oppose her calm
skies to man's madness, "Jusqu'a ce que l'atome prenne feu
lui aussi et que l'histoire S'acheve dans le triomphe de la
raison et l'agonie de l'espece" (E, 855). Though not
directly named, there is also reference to the United
States--the absurdity of Europe's assumption that it can
regain its balance after so many errors merits "que des
peuples enfants, héritiers de nos folies, conduisent au-
jourd'hui notre histoire" (E, 854).

With the enshrinement of History, man has been cut
off from nature, with which the Greeks had lived in harmony:
life has become increasingly urbanized and in the process
more abstract, further removed from what were for Camus the
inevitably beneficent effects of nature. He then cites
Hegel's remarks on the modern city as the only terrain in
which the Spirit becomes fully conscious, and he notes
sarcastically how one false theory is made to support
another: "11 n'y a plus de conscience que dans les rues,
parce qu'il n'y a d'histoire que dans les rues, tel est le
décret" (E, 855).

The separation of man from nature is a serious
charge: "Délibérément, le monde a été amputé de ce qui

fait sa permanence: la nature, la mer, la colline, 1a

238

meditation des soirs" (E, 854-55). Camus touches briefly
on the negative role of Christianity in this regard, but
adds that at least with God a spiritual nature was at its
center which gave it a certain fixity (E, 855). With the
death of God History and power reign, and the philosophers
of reason and their descendants continually try to Shift
values from "la nature humaine" to "situation"; in place
of "l'harmonie ancienne" we have now "l'élan désordonné du
hasard ou le mouvement impitoyable de la raison" (E, 855).
The Greeks had preéxistent values which governed their
actions, but modern Europe gives the priority to action
and its values depend on the outcome of that action.
Instead of the modest wisdom of Socrates, the West

has esteemed the conquerors of history, "la puissance qui
Singe la grandeur" (E, 854). They are the heros that the
authors of our manuals, "par une incomparable bassesse
d'ame" (E, 854) teach us to admire. Camus' thought here
again recalls lines from Malraux:35

Malgré sa puissance précise, le soir européen

est lamentable et vide, vide comme une ame de

conquérant. Parmi les gestes les plus tragiques

et les plus vains des hommes, aucun, jamais, ne
m'a paru plus tragique et plus vain que celui

 

asMalraux is mentioned several times in Camus'
Carnets I and IE; and in the 1959 interview with Jean-Claude
BrisVIlle in response to the question, "Quels écrivains vous
ont formé--ou du moins vous ont aidé a prendre conscience de
ce que vous aviez a dire?" he replied, "Parmi les modernes:
Grenier, Malraux, Montherlant ... "

239

par lequel vous interrogez toutes vos ombres
illustres, race vouée a la puissance, race
désespérée ...

Inevitably there will be retribution. Nemesis,
the goddess of limit, watches and the Furies will destroy
those guilty of "la démesure." Nguyen-Van-Huy has called
attention to the fact that in addition to Nemesis, these
punishers, "les Errineyes," are female, and relates it to
the conflict of maternal and paternal values as it appears
in Camus' work and in Greek tradition. He finds Camus'
yearning for unity centered in the maternal--his own mother,
for example, and nature itself, "la Terre-Mére." One of
the dominant paternal values, however, is reason:

Le patriarcat, au contraire, se caractérise par
1e respect de la loi qu'édicte l'homme, par la
predominance de la pensée rationnelle et par
l'effort de l'homme pour modifier et dépasser
les phénoménes de la nature.37

The ferocity of the Furies is almost equalled in
this essay by the author's. The contemporary Spirit of the
West is everywhere associated with chaos and madness, by
use of such words as "démences," "convulsions," "ivre,"
"folie." Very concrete imagery adds to the impression of

the writer's contempt: Western philosophers are likened

to "la taupe"; even our tragedies are "misérables"--they

 

36Malraux, La Tentation de 1'Occident, p. 114.

 

37Nguyen-Van-Huy, La Métaphysique du bonheur,
pp. 107-08.

 

240

"trainent une odeur de bureau et le sang dont elles
ruissellent a couleur d'encre grasse" (E, 854). Camus is
indignant: " ... il est indécent de proclamer aujourd'hui
que nous sommes les fils de la Gréce" (E, 854), and the
verbs that portray the actions of Western man today are
typical of his violent Spirit: man is "amputé" from nature
(E, 854); friendship is "assassinée" (E, 857).

How does the artist fit into today's Western civ-
ilization? Like History, the artist wants to remake the
world, but the fundamental difference between them is that
the artist, like the Greeks, recognizes limits, while His-
tory does not. Camus opposes their aims in a typically
balanced sentence: "C'est pourquoi la fin de ce dernier
est la tyrannie tandis que la passion du premier est la
liberté" (E, 854). In the struggle for liberty the artist
at the same time fights for the beauty so important to the
Greeks, so scorned by the twentieth-century West: " ...
l'homme ne peut se passer de la beauté et c'est ce que notre
époque fait mine de vouloir ignorer" (E, 856). In "RéVolte

et art" in L'Homme révolté he will reiterate this thought:

 

"Peut-on, éternellement, refuser l'injustice sans cesser de
saluer la nature de l'homme et la beauté du monde? Notre

réponse est oui ... " (HR, 679).

Near the end of "L'Exil d'Héléne" Camus' own bitter

disillusionment makes itself felt. He cites Saint-Exupéry's

241

words, "Je hais mon époque," although he says he will not
succumb to the same feelings: "Quelle tentation, pourtant,
a certaines heures, de se détourner de ce monde morne et
décharné! Mais cette époque est la n6tre et nous ne pouvons
vivre en nous haissant" (E, 856). Love rather than hate is
the best cure for the problems that beset France and the
world.
The conclusion of the essay contains a phrase,
"pensee de midi," which Camus will use as title to the final
section of L'Homme révolté. Embodying the Greek concept of
"la mesure," accord with nature, and love of beauty, its
bright light Shines in contrast with "la philosophie des
ténébres":
O pensée de midi, 1a guerre de Troie se livre
loin des champs de bataille! Cette fois encore,
les murs terribles de la cité moderne tomberont
pour livrer, l'ame sereine comme 1e calme deS
merS, la beauté d'Héléne (E, 857).
Many of the ideas in "L'Exil d'Héléne" had appeared

in Camus' "dipldme."38

In 1937 he gave a speech at the
dedication of the "Maison de la Culture" in Algiers39 in
which he posited the existence of a "vérité méditerranéenne"
which links together all men who share this geographical

bond. He opposes to it northern European philosophy and

asks the question of whether a new Mediterranean culture

 

38See.supra, p. 34.

asCamus, Essais, p. 1321.

242

in accord with liberal, humanistic social goals is feasible.
In Noces (N, 74) he had expressed a Similar hope."o L'Homme
révolté further develops this idea in the concept of ”la
pensée solaire." Opposed to historic absolutism and "la
pensée autoritaire" is "une exigence invincible de la nature
humaine dont la Méditerranée, ou l'intelligence est soeur de
la dure lumiére, garde le secret" (HR, 702-03). Europe con-
tinues to be the battleground for the struggle between the
two:

L'Europe n'a jamais été que dans cette lutte

entre midi et minuit. Elle ne s'est dégradée

qu'en désertant cette lutte, en éclipsant 1e

jour par la nuit. La destruction de cet équi-

libre donne aujourd'hui ses plus beaux fruits.

Privés de nos médiations, exilés de la beauté

naturelle, nous sommes a nouveau dans le monde

de l'Ancien Testament ... (HR, 703).
In the midst of the strife, however, Mediterranean men will
remain faithful to the light of beauty, nature, and limit:

Jetés dans l'ignoble Europe ou meurt, privée

de beauté et d'amitié, la plus orgueilleuse

des races, nous autres méditerranéens vivons

toujours de la meme lumiére. Au coeur de la

nuit européenne, la pensée solaire, 1a civi-

lisation au double visage, attend son aurore

(HR, 703).
"L'Exil d'Hélene," written three years before publication
of L'Homme révolté, treats some of the same issues appearing
in the latter, but is more emotional in tone, and in spite

of its final lines, conveys a message of disillusionment and

anger rather than hope.

”See supra, p. 180.

243

L'Enigme"

In 1950 when "L'Enigme" was composed Camus had
achieved recognition as a major writer. In the process
he had become identified with his heroes, Meursault and
Sisyphus, and had acquired a reputation for pessimism and
nihilism. That this was already a source of annoyance to

him in 1944 is apparent from a note in his Carnets II in

 

that year:
J'ai mis dix ans 5 conquérir ce qui me parait
sans prix: un coeur sans amertume. Et comme i1
arrive souvent, l'amertume une fois dépassée, je
l'ai enfermée dans un ou deux livres. Ainsi je
serai toujours jugé sur cette amertume qui ne
m'est plus rien. Mais cela est juste. C'est la
prix qu'il faut payer."l
"L'Enigme" concerns the problem of the successful
writer around whom a false legend develops, due to the joint
efforts of journalists, who perceive him as a rich source of
material, and a public which prefers to accept second-hand
information rather than to read for themselves and form
their own opinions. Camus' treatment of the problem,
although ironically humourous, does not conceal his irri-
tation at being categorized "prophet of the Absurd."
The essay opens with a burst of sunlight, and the

author speaks of "une énigme heureuse" which helps him to

understand when faced with such questions as:

 

“Camus, Carnets II, p. 124.

 

244

Oh est l'absurdité du monde? Est-ce ce re-

splendissement ou le souvenir de son absence?

Avec tant de soleil dans la mémoire, comment

ai-je pu parier sur le non-sens? (E, 861).
His reply is that the sunlight itself aids him to this
conclusion and that "sa lumiére, a force d'épaisseur,
coagule l'univers et ses formes dans un éblouissement
obscur" (E, 861). It is noteworthy that here, in its role
as clarifier and ally of the Absurd, the sun has attributes
of thickness."2 In the light of the Algerian sunlight,
which is like truth in its dual quality--"cette clarté
blanche et noire" (E, 86l)--the writer wishes to clarify
his position on the Absurd, which can be discussed, he
knows all too well, only in nuances.

In Claudine Gothot's article in Marche Romane there
is a serious misunderstanding of the question above--"Avec
tant de soleil danS la mémoire, comment ai-je pu parier sur
le non-sens?" Miss Gothot states that for Camus the beauty
of the Mediterranean world ends by triumphing completely
over the Absurd:

Il ne s'agit plus d'affirmer que l'idée de la
mort augmente 1a saveur de la vie: Camus supprime
purement et simplement 1a contradiction, lui qui
voulait au'on y prétat une attention obstinée.“3

The misunderstanding results from the common error of

extracting a statement from context. Camus' question is

 

”See supra, pp. 56-57.

l“’Gothot, "Les Essais méditerranéens," p. 123.

245

not an exclamation on his part, but a question posed by
others about him, in astonishment. He admits that sometimes

he too is surprised by it. However, he does not withdraw

 

this bet "sur le non-sens" for all his surprise. The sun
too is part of the Absurd, and the beauty of the world
renders all the more tragic its absurdity.

Camus goes on to comment that a man cannot say what
he is, only from time to time what he is not; yet while he
himself is still searching for the answer, others already
have him defined--"Mille voix lui annoncent déja ce qu'il
a trouvé ... " (E, 861). And yet:

Je ne sais pas ce que je cherche, je 1e nomme avec

prudence, je me dédis, je me répéte, j'avance et

je recule. On m'enjoint pourtant de donner les

noms, ou le nom, une fois pour toutes. Je me

cabre alors; ce qui est nommé, n'est-i1 pas déja

perdu? (E, 861).
These lines, according to Hazel Barnes, reflect a point of
view which Camus never lost sight of: " . . . that man
overflows all logical categories and that those who would
try to put him into a system (political or philosophical)
can do so only by partially depriving him of what is most
truly his."““

After his brief introduction Camus comes to the

point. A writer may develop a formula or an idea which

is in fact just one projection, at a given moment, of his

 

“Barnes, "Balance and Tension," p. 436.

246

total sensibility, this latter being complex and constantly
evolving: ("Ce qui est nommé, n'est-i1 pas déja perdu?")
The formula is isolated, fixed, henceforth forever attached
to its living, changing creator, who may now have "1e désir
de parler d'autre chose" (E, 862). He cites as an example
Nerval, who in effect, he says, hung himself twice: " ...
pour lui d'abord qui était dans le malheur, et puis pour sa
légende, qui aide quelques-uns a vivre" (E, 862). The heavy
sarcasm of the last clause betrays the degree of Camus'
irritation against the critics and over-zealous journalists
who were the source of his own problem.

He announces then his intention to describe and,
hopefully, dispel his personal legend. Writers for the most
part write in order to have their works read, but more and
more in France they write in order to achieve "cette con-
sécration derniere qui consiste a ne pas étre lu" (E, 862):

A partir du moment, en effet, ou il peut fournir

la matiére d'un article pittoresque dans notre

presse a grand tirage, il a toutes les chances

d'étre connu par un assez grand nombre de per-

sonnes qui ne 1e liront jamais parce qu'elles

se suffiront de connaitre son nom et de lire ce

qu'on écrira sur lui (E, 862).
His first conclusion, therefore, is: "Pour se faire un nom
dans les lettres, i1 n'est donc plus indispensable d'écrire
deS livres. Il suffit de passer pour en avoir fait un dont
la presse du soir aura parlé ... " (E, 862).

Granted, the writer who achieves such journalistic

success will soon be forgotten as new stars appear on the

247

horizon. He remarks, however, in a comic analogy, that
this apparently unfortunate state of affairs can in fact

be beneficial, in the same way that certain minor physical
disorders may forestall a more serious illness: "11 y a
ainsi de bienheureuses constipations et des arthritismes
providentiels" (E, 862). Thus, in the flood of publicity
and premature judgments that characterizes contemporary
literary criticism the writer cannot help but learn mod-
esty--a virtue he sorely needs in a society which does in
fact attribute too much importance to his profession. Here
and there in this humourous recital one detects a gibe aimed
at a specific target: "Voir son nom dans deux ou trois
journaux que nous connaissons est une Si dure épreuve
qu'elle comporte forcément quelques bénéfices pour l"&me"
(E, 865).

In referring to the passing fame of the lionized
author, Camus employs an image which appears elsewhere in
his writings--the "feu d'étoupes," burned before Alexander
Borgia when he became pope to symbolize, by its rapid come
bustion and brightness the evanescence of glory. A note

on it appears in Carnets I of November, 1939,"5 and in May,

 

1941 it provides the introduction for an article that

appeared in La Tunisie francaise, under the title, "Comme

 

“Camus, Carnets I, p. 191.

 

248

"“5 The latter was written in the same

un Feu d'étoupes.
period as "Les Amandiers" and contains much of the same
exhortation to confront the nation's problems with vigor
and courage. The image of the "feu d'étoupes" is used in
it not so much to signify the transience of glory, but the
rapid passage of time and the importance of not wasting it.
In "L'Enigme," with humour and mock-resignation,

Camus comments that the writer must accept the projection
of a false image of himself and his work, in the wake of his
"fame." A very funny passage follows in which he cites the
example of a well-known author, possibly Jean-Paul Sartre,
who in Spite of his self-disciplined and rather austere
life, is imagined by the public as an unwashed Bohemian
type who Spends his nights in drunken orgies:

J'ai connu ainsi un écrivain a la mode qui

passait pour présider chaque nuit de fumeuses

bacchanales ou les nymphes S'habillaient de

leurs cheveux et ou les faunes avaient l'ongle

funébre. On aurait pu se demander sans doute

ou i1 trouvait le temps de rédiger une oeuvre

qui occupait plusieurs rayons de bibliothéque.

Cet écrivain, en réalité, comme beaucoup de

ses confréres, dort la nuit pour travailler

chaque jour de longues heures a sa table, et

boit de l'eau minérale pour épargner son foie

(E, 863).
In the lines that follow he uses irony to poke fun at the

average Frenchman, but here the mockery is gentle. In spite

of the aforementioned writer's ordered life:

 

“Camus, Essais, p. 1465.

249

I1 n'empéche que le Francais moyen, dont on
connait la sobriété saharienne et l'ombrageuse
propreté, s'indigne a l'idée qu'un de nos écri-
vains enseigne qu'il faut s'enivrer et ne point
se laver (E, 863).
As another example, he refers to his easily acquired
reputation for austerity, because he declined to have
dinner with a newspaper manager he didn't like. It is
easier for the public to infer complex motives than to

accept the simple truth:

Personne n'ira d'ailleurs jusqu'a penser que

Si vous refusez 1e diner de ce directeur, cela
peut étre parce qu'en effet vous ne l'estimez
pas, mais aussi parce que vous craignez plus

que tout au monde de vous ennuyer ... " (E, 865).

Resignation appears the only attitude possible in
the face of all this misunderstanding. However, from time
to time one can try to rectify the error. At this point he
arrives at the crux of his complaint and denies that the
Absurd is his only subject. In his rejection of the notion
that an author is necessarily writing about himself there is
both irony and indignation:

... il est toujours possible d'écrire, ou d'avoir
écrit, un essai sur la notion d'absurde. Mais
enfin, on peut aussi écrire sur l'inceste sans
pour autant S'étre précipité sur sa malheureuse
soeur et je n'ai lu nulle part que Sophocle eflt
jamais supprimé son pére et déshonoré sa mere

(E, 864).

Gradually the author has dropped his humourous tone
and become more direct. He discloses one of his private

aspirations regarding his writing: ... j'aurais aimé

250

étre ... un écrivain objectif" (E, 864). However, the
current rage to perceive the author in everything he writes
does not allow him this freedom: he is instead named
"prophet of the Absurd," although he has in fact Simply
analyzed an idea which preoccupies his whole generation.

It is understandable, in view of the success of

L'Etranger and Le Mythe de Sisyphe, that Camus should be

 

 

closely associated with the idea of the Absurd. However,

the introduction to Le Mythe de Sisyphe had already stated

 

clearly that "l'absurde, pris jusqu'ici comme conclusion,
est considéré dans cet essai comme un point de départ" and:
On trouvera seulement ici la description a
l'état pur, d'un mal de l'esprit. Aucune
métaphysique, aucune croyance n'y sont mélées
pour le moment. Ce sont les limites et le
seul parti pris de ce livre (MS, 97).
In "L'Enigme" he repeats this statement: " ... l'absurde
ne peut étre considéré que comme une position de départ,
méme Si son souvenir et son émotion accompagnent les dé-
marches ultérieures" (E, 864).

The idea of the Absurd never disappears from Camus'
universe, but the manner of confronting it evolves and
expands as the author's priorities change. Thus the early
works stop with the definition and exposition of the Absurd,
counseling lucidity in the face of it, and their main con-

cern is the individual's confrontation with his destiny.

With La Peste and L'Homme révolté men join hands in the

251

struggle against the Absurd, confrontation becomes revolt,
still with lucidity and in the full knowledge that any
victory can be only "provisoire." Camus' later works main-
tain the presence of the Absurd, and to a certain extent
they indicate some disillusionment concerning man's capacity
to care about his fellow—men. However, even at this point
in his career he does not merit the name "pessimist." There
is always a "royaume" to balance "l'exil." Concerning the
Absurd, what happened in the course of his career is that he
did indeed progress from this "point de depart," but only up
to a central position between two extremes, which he tried
to maintain throughout the balance of his life. There were
no "happy endings" in his world, only a precarious balance
and a perpetual tension. This central position is reiter-
ated near the end of "L'Enigme" as the writer objects stren-
uously to the charge of nihilism. That this charge was
unfair was already clear to those who had read his works.

In Caligula particularly he had demonstrated dramatically
the disastrous results of such a course.

In "L'Enigme" he also rejects the label of exponent
of despair. If one really despairs one is silent: "Une
littérature désespérée est une contradiction dans les
termes" (E, 865). On the other hand, he adds, "un certain
optimisme n'est pas mon fait," (E, 865)--he knows very well

that the struggle against injustice and cruelty is endless.

 

252

He chooses struggle rather than despair, and "au plus noir
de notre nihilisme, j'ai cherché seulement des raisons de
dépasser ce nihilisme" (E, 865). He attributes his attitude
not to virtue, but to a "fidélite instinctive a une lumiére
ou je suis né" (E, 865). The lesson of his youth, of pov-
erty and light, has continued to be his guide and his safe—
guard. Aeschylus' work, often full of despair, had at its
center not a "maigre non-sens" but rather "l'énigme, c'est-
a-dire un sens qu'on déchiffre mal parce qu'il éblouit"
(E, 865). Likewise those unworthy sons of Greece who still
survive in the twentieth century have at the center of their
work, gloomy as it may seem, "un soleil inépuisable” (E,
865).
The essay ends with another reference to the "feu

d'étoupeS"--let it burn:

... qu'importe ce que nous pouvons paraitre et

ce que nous usurpons? Ce que nous sommes, ce

que nous avons a étre suffit a remplir nos vies

et occuper notre effort (E, 866).
Recalling Plato's Republic, he remarks that "Paris est une
admirable caverne, et ses hommes, voyant leurs propres
ombres s'agiter sur la paroi du fond, les prennent pour
la seule réalité" (E, 866). But Camus, Algerian, knows
that there is a light at his back and that he must face
it and seek its meaning.

The images of nature which contribute so much to

Camus' lyricism are absent from "L'Enigme," concerned as

253

it is with a problem essentially urban and intellectual.
The repeated references to the sun and its light, however,
attest to the fact that Camus' thought consistently main-
tained a rapport with this aspect of his youth.

An English version of the essay, which except for
the beginning closely follows the French text, appeared in

the Atlantic Monthly of June, 1953 under the title, "What

 

a Writer Seeks."

The final lines of "L'Enigme" ring with yearning
and forecast a later creation of Camus: "Qui, tout ce
bruit ... quand la paix serait d'aimer et de créer en
silence! Mais il faut savoir patienter. Encore un moment,
le soleil scelle les bouches" (E, 866). Jonas, the "artiste
au travail" in L'Exil et le royaume, was also plagued by a
thousand and one critics and friends who did not understand
either his work or his need for peace in which to create it.
In the Discours de Suede of 1957 Camus again treats with
ironic humour the subject of misconceptions concerning
writers discussed earlier in "L'Enigme":

Des millions d'hommes auront ... 1e sentiment
de connaitre tel on tel grand artiste de notre
temps parce qu'ils ont appris par les journaux
qu'il éléve des canaris ou qu'il ne se marie
jamais que pour six mois. La plus grande célé-
brité, aujourd'hui, consiste a étre admiré ou
détesté sans avoir été lu. Tout artiste qui

se méle de vouloir étre célébre dans notre
société doit savoir que ce n'est pas lui qui

1e sera, mais quelqu'un d'autre sous son nom,

qui finira par lui échapper et, peut-étre, un
jour, par tuer en lui le véritable artiste."7

 

l”Camus, Essais, p. 1083.

254

"Retour a Tipasa"

 

"Depuis cinq jours que la pluie coulait sans tréve
sur Alger, elle avait fini par mouiller la mer elle-meme"
(E, 869). The opening lines of "Retour a Tipasa," written
in 1953, contrast sharply with those of "Noces a Tipasa";
"Au printemps, Tipasa est habitée par les dieux et les
dieux parlent dans 1e soleil et l'odeur des absinthes,
la mer cuirassée d'argent, ... " (N, 55). They reflect
the melancholy and Spiritual fatigue of the man of forty
who has returned to a scene of his youth in the hope of
finding Spiritual renewal.

The atmosphere of gloom is unrelieved. He has
fled "la nuit d'Europe, l'hiver des visages" but though
Algiers has remained in his thoughts "la ville des étés,"
he encounters no smiles, only the rounded and glistening
backs of people hurrying in the rain. In the cafés, seeing
vaguely familiar faces after this long absence, he is aware
that these were the companions of his youth, and they are
no longer young. Stubbornly, though, he persists in his
intention of going to Tipasa, knowing very well the folly
of returning to the scenes of one's youth--he had returned
once before after the war to find the ruins of Tipasa sur-
rounded by barbed wire. On that day too it was raining.

He tries to define the object of his search--"J'espérais,
je crois, y retrouver une liberté que je ne pouvais oublier"

(E, 869)--and he recalls the time of his harmony with nature

255

there, mornings Spent wandering among the flowers and the
stones, the hot sun at mid-day, and later sleeping under
the stars: "Je vivais, alors" (E, 870).

His search that time had been vain: " ... je ne
pouvais, en effet, remonter 1e courS du temps, redonner au
monde 1e visage que j'avais aimé et qui avait disparu en
un jour, longtemps auparavant" (E, 870). For the war had
come and suddenly the world was old:

11 avait fallu se mettre en régle avec la nuit:
la beauté du jour n'était qu'un souvenir. Et
dans cette Tipasa boueuse, le souvenir lui-meme
s'estompait. I1 s'agissait bien de beauté, de
plénitude ou de jeunesse! Sous la lumiére des
incendies, le monde avait soudain montré ses
rides et ses plaies, anciennes et nouvelles.

Il avait vieilli d'un seul coup, et nous avec,
lui (E, 870).

The immense distance separating past beauty from
the barbed wire was also within the spirit of the writer.
As he speaks of the end of innocence, the tone is one of
bitter helplessness, and one is reminded of the sun-bronzed
young "barbares" on the beaches of Algiers, for whom the
word "Sin" had no meaning:

D'abord innocents sans 1e savoir, nouS étions
maintenant coupables sans 1e vouloir: 1e mystére
grandissait avec notre Science. C'est pourquoi
nous nous occupions, o derision, de morale. In-
firme, je révais de vertu! Au temps de l'lnno-
cence, j'ignorais que la morale existat. Je 1e
savais maintenant, et je n'étais pas capable de
vivre a sa hauteur (E, 871).

Disappointed, he had gone back to Paris to remain there

five years, before returning once more to Tipasa. Vaguely

256

during the five-year absence feelings of disappointment
and frustration had continued to plague him. He attempts
to explain these feelings, and in the process a great deal
of what might be called his philosophy of life emerges.
Typically, it is a call for equilibrium and the rejection
of absolutes which exclude:
Le renoncement a la beauté et au bonheur sensuel
... , 1e service exclusif du malheur, demande une
grandeur qui me manque. Mais, aprés tout, rien
n'est vrai qui force a exclure. La beauté isolée
finit par grimacer, la justice solitaire finit
par opprimer. Qui veut servir l'une a l'exclu—
sion de l'autre ne sert personne, ni lui-meme,
et, finalement, sert deux fois l'injustice (E,
871).
He had remained too long in Paris--his life was out
of balance. "C'est le temps de l'exil, de la vie séche, des
ames mortes. Pour revivre, i1 faut une grace, l'oubli de
soi ou une patrie" (E, 871). And so once more he returns
to Algiers and in Spite of "cette immense mélancolie qui
sentait 1a pluie et la mer," he allows himself to hope that
this time he will find what he is seeking. An image from
nature encourages this hope:
Ne savais—je pas d'ailleurs que les pluies d'Alger,
avec cet air qu'elles ont de ne jamais devoir finir,
S'arrétent pourtant en un instant, comme ces riviéres
de mon pays qui se gonflent en deux heures, dévastent
des hectares de terre et tarissent d'un seul coup?
(E, 872).

Soon the rain stops and he awakens to find the sky washed

clean and filled with vibrant light: "La terre, au matin.

du monde, a d0 surgir dans une lumiére semblable" (E, 872).

257

The drive to Tipasa is filled with memories of the
past, but the writer hurries, anxious to see Chenoua, the
mountain to the west which descends to the sea. At a dis-
tance it appears to blend with the sky, but as he approaches
it assumes the color of the sea and becomes, in a startling
metaphor, a "grande vague immobile dont 1e prodigieux élan
aurait été brutalement figé au-dessus de la mer calmée d'un
seul coup" (E, 872). Closer yet: " ... voici sa masse
sourcilleuse, brune et verte, voici 1e vieux dieu moussu
que rien n'ébranlera, refuge et port pour ses fils ... "
(E, 872).
At Tipasa the narrator crosses the barbed wire and
enters the ruins. There, in the beauty of the morning the
climax of the essay is reached. His search ended, there is
a momentary pause:
Il semblait que la matinée se fut fixée, 1e soleil
arrété pour un instant incalculable. Dans cette
lumiére et ce silence, des années de fureur et de
nuit fondaient lentement. J'écoutais en moi unr
bruit presque oublié, comme Si mon coeur, arrété
depuis longtemps, se remettait doucement a battre
(E, 873).

The flood of happiness that fills him is reflected in the

augmented tempo of the day:
... peu apres 1e soleil monta visiblement d'un
degré dans 1e ciel. Un merle préluda briévement
et aussit6t, de toutes parts, des chants d'oiseaux
explosérent avec une force, une jubilation, une

joyeuse discordance, un ravissement infini. La
journée se remit en marche (E, 873).

258

The closing theme of the essay is love, and as
always for Camus it is associated with nature. Looking out
at the sea from the sandy, flower-covered Slopes of Tipasa
the writer is aware of two thirsts which must be satisfied
in man: to love and to admire: "Car il y a seulement de
la malchance a n'étre pas aimé: il y a du malheur a ne
point aimer. Nous tous, aujourd'hui, mourons de ce malheur"
(E, 873). Love is exhausted in the battle for justice, even
though it was love which first motivated the struggle. In
the blood and clamor of today love is impossible and justice
alone does not suffice. How to renew the capacity to love?
At Tipasa he rediscovers the answer:

... il fallait garder intactes en soi une frai-

cheur, une source de joie, aimer 1e jour qui

échappe a l'injustice, et retourner au combat

avec cette lumiere conquise (E, 874).
The writer realizes then that in the darkest days of the war
the memory of this beauty had never left himr-it had kept
him from despairing: "Au milieu de l'hiver, j'apprenais
enfin qu'il y avait en moi un été invincible" (E, 874).
From this line derives the title of the last essay col-
lection.

The essay's conclusion sums up once more Camus' rule
for living. The writer returns to Europe and the struggles
of men, but the memory of Tipasa will remain with him and

help him maintain the equilibrium between love of men and

need for the beauty of nature without men. It means

259

refusing neither and recognizing the tension involved in
this acceptance. The contradiction is maintained over and
over:

Oui, il y a la beauté et il y a les humiliés.
Quelles que soient les difficultés de l'entre-
prise, je voudrais n'étre jamais infidele ni a
l'une ni aux autres (E, 875).

A l'heure difficile ou nous sommes, que puis-
je désirer d'autre que de ne rien exclure et
d'apprendre a tresser de fil blanc et de fil
noir une meme corde tendue a se rompre (E, 874).

11 y a pour les hommes d'aujourd'hui un chemin'
intérieur que je connais bien pour l'avoir par-
couru dans les deux sens et qui va des collines
de l'esprit aux capitales du crime (E, 874).

Perhaps in the last quotation the author was thinking of
his own temptation to act with the executioners in the
collaborationists' trials in 1944 and 1945. But now his
inner voice tells him he can never separate himself from
the family of men though he knows how strong is the desire
at times to leave it for the peace and beauty of nature:

Parfois, a l'heure de la premiere étoile dans

le ciel encore clair, sous une pluie de lumiere
fine, j'ai cru savoir. Je savais en vérité. Je
sais toujours, peut-étre. Mais personne ne veut
de ce secret, je n'en veux pas moi-méme sans doute,
et je ne peux me Séparer des miens. Je vis dans
ma famille qui croit régner sur deS villes riches
et hideuses, baties de pierres et de brumes ...
Sa puissance qui me porte m'ennuie pourtant et i1
arrive que ses cris me lassent. Mais son malheur
est le mien, nous sommes du méme sang (E, 875).

260

Roger Quilliot has written of "Retour a Tipasa,"
"On ne recrée pas Tipasa; on 1e regrette."“8 The 1953
essay, in spite of the equilibrium reached at its conclu-
sion, is filled with nostalgia, melancholy, and a certain
disillusionment, all the more apparent when compared with
"Noces a Tipasa." In the latter the sea smiles, while in
"Retour" it is "grise et molle"; the sun's warmth and light
permeates "Noces" while in "Retour" a constant rain con-
tributes to the general air of sadness. In "Noces" nature
has overcome the ancient Roman city and flowers push between
its stones, whereas in "Retour" it is the cities that domi-
nate, "riches et hideuses"; the narrator in "Noces" is proud
of his "coeur bondissant de jeunesse," while in "Retour,"
"[le monde] avait vieilli d'un seul coup, and nous avec
lui"; the innocence of "Noces" is replaced by guilt in
"Retour"; finally, it is in "Noces" that the writer learns
the true definition of glory--"le droit d'aimer sans mesure,"
while in "Retour" "l'amour est impossible."

"Retour a Tipasa" is the mirror of Camus' mood
in 1953. He had reached forty and was still feeling the

effects of the controversy aroused by L'Homme révolté; the

 

situation of Algeria was a source of grave concern, and

always there was the recurring problem of his health.

 

”Quilliot, La Mar, p. 254.

261

Between 1951 and 1956 he produced no major work except

L'Eté.

"La‘Mer au plus pres: journal de bord"

 

A two-months voyage to South America in the summer
of 1949 left the writer thoroughly exhausted and he suffered
a severe relapse into his old illness which was to last two

years. Notes in his Carnets II from this period, between

 

the end of 1949 and 1951, make reference to "l'essai sur la
mer," and contain some of the lines incorporated later in
"La Mer au plus pres." There is also a note headed "Fin
octobre 49. Rechute," concerning his illness:
Aprés une Si longue certitude de guérison,

ce retour devrait m'accabler. Il m'accable en

effet. Mais succédant a une suite ininterrompue

d'accablements, i1 me porte a rire. A la fin, me

voila libére. La folie aussi est liberation.“

"La Mer au plus pres" was first published in January,

1954 in La Nouvelle Revue francaise before appearing in

 

£L§£§. Though it derives mainly from the South American
voyage there are also references to his trip to the United
States in 1946. As the title indicates, the essay takes the
form of a Ship's diary or logbook, and it is divided into
two parts. In the first, the writer's voice is that of an
exile who awaits the end of separation and a return to a

happier time. In the second he is the traveler-by-sea,

 

l8Camus, Carnets II, p. 283.

 

262

recounting his voyage in a series of brief prose-poems,
relatively independent but each reflecting the interplay
between the sea and the writer's emotions.

With the exception of Noces, "La Mer au plus pres"
is the most poetic of Camus' works. Nature and its person-
ification, which we have come to expect of this writer in
his most lyrical moments, are again present, but the poetic
atmosphere has altered to one in which real and unreal blend
through the medium of bizarre images. AS Germaine Brée
notes, "the natural décor which incarnates Camus' own
Spiritual décor greatly expands, ... "w

The writer has lost the sea of his youth and now he
waits. Outwardly he performs all the actions that are
expected of him, but his innermost being exists only at the
level of his waiting:

Je patiente, je suis poli de toutes mes forces.
On me voir passer dans de belles rues savantes,
j'admire les paysages, j'applaudis comme tout
le monde, je donne la main, ce n'est pas moi qui
parle. On me loue, je réve un peu, on m'offense,
je m'étonne a peine. Puis j'oublie et souris a
qui m'outrage, ou je salue trop courtoisement
celui que j'aime. Que faire Si je n'ai de
mémoire que pour une seule image? (E, 879).
The next lines recall Clamence in La Chute. They are ironic

but without Clamence's hypocrisy--are simply another example

of the surface gestures carried on while waiting: "C'est

 

soBrée, Camus, p. 233.

263

aux enterrements que je me surpasse. J'excelle, vraiment"

(E:

(E:

879). And the waiting goes on-—"J'attends longtemps"

879). Sometimes he dreams of the sea, and the awakening

to reality leaves him sick and distressed. At other times

the memory of it is a support when he would give way to

panic. He recalls his feeling of suffocation in New York:

A New York, certains jourS, perdu au fond de ces
puits de pierre et d'acier ou errent des millions
d'hommes, je courais de l'un a l'autre, sans en
voir la fin, épuisé, jusqu'a ce que je ne fusse
plus soutenu que par la masse humaine qui cher-
chait son issue. J'étouffais alors, ma panique
allait crier (E, 879).

But he remembers in time that Manhattan is an island and

the sea is not far; even though here where it touches the

Battery it is black and rotten, it is still the water of

his baptism. It is enough to sustain him and he does not

despair:

Ainsi, moi qui ne possede rien, qui ai donné ma
fortune, qui campe aupres de toutes mes maisons, je
suis pourtant comblé quand je 1e veux, j'appareille
a toute heure, le désespoir m'ignore. Point de
patrie pour le désespéré et moi, je sais que la

mer me precede et me suit, j'ai une folie toute
préte. Ceux qui s'aiment et qui sont séparés
peuvent vivre dans la douleur, mais ce n'est

pas le désespoir: ils savent que l'amour existe.
Voila pourquoi je souffre, les yeux secs, de l'exil.
J'attends encore. Un jour vient, enfin ... (E, 880).

The tempo of the essay accelerates as the ship

departs, and the author's voice becomes that of the traveler.

His notes on each day passed at sea will reflect movement--

the cycle of the days and the motion of the sea--as well as

264

the rich play of his imagination and feelings. Land is
still in Sight as the first in a series of remarkable images
transmits to us the movement of the foam churned up by the
passage of the Ship. "Salive des dieux," it drifts back in
the wake of the ship like the hide of a weary blue and white
cow:

une écume amére et onctueuse, salive des dieux

coule 1e long du bois jusque dans l'eau ou elle

S'éparpille en dessins mourants et renaissants,

pelage de quelque vache bleue et blanche, béte

fourbue, qui dérive encore longtemps derriére

notre sillage (E, 880).
Gulls follow the Ship until a splash of refuse from the
galley "jette une alarme gourmande parmi les oiseaux,
saccage leur beau vol et enflamme un brasier d'ailes
blanches" (E, 880).

The day advances--it is noon--and through strong

verbal imagery we sense the movement of the sea:

... la mer se souleve a peine, exténuée. Quand

elle retombe sur elle-méme, elle fait siffler le

Silence. Une heure de cuisson et l'eau p31e,v

grande plaque de téle portée au blanc, grésille.

Elle grésille, elle fume, brfile enfin. Dans un

moment, elle va se retourner pour offrir au

soleil sa face humide, maintenant dans les

vagues et les ténébres (E, 880-81).
Swiftly then landmarks vanish in the distance until one
morning the gulls too have disappeared and the traveller
is alone with the sea. As the waves approach and then

withdraw he compares the sea with rivers: the latter pass

by, while the sea passes and yet remains. It is a time of

265

“noces” with the sea: "C'est ainsi qu'il faudrait aimer,
fidéle et fugitif. J'épouse la mer" (E, 881).

The next next passage begins, in the abbreviated
style of a Ship's diary, with two words: "Pleines eaux"

(E, 881). The sun descends as porpoises play about the ship
and then flee toward the horizon. With their departure the
vast emptiness of the open sea seems part of an earlier age:
" ... c'est 1e Silence et l'angoisse des eaux primitives"
(E, 881). An iceberg drifts by. More and more the traveler,
and the reader, feel they are entering a strange world, out-
side of time and all human experience. The approach of
darkness is described in a strange reversal of the procedure
on land:

La nuit ne tombe pas sur la mer. Du fond des

eaux, qu'un soleil déja noyé noircit pen a peu

de ses cendres épaisses, elle monte au contraire

vers 1e ciel encore pale (E, 882).

Soon the sky is filled with stars, and the moon
lights up a corridor of the sea, "riche fleuve de lait"
(E, 882).

The passing of another Ship brings a brief trace of
communication with other human beings--but it is a vain and
pathetic effort:

... les Signaux deS passagers perdus sur la mer
et alertés par la présence d'autres hommes, la
distance qui grandit pen a peu entre les deux
navires, la séparation enfin sur les eaux mal-

veillantes, tout cela, et le coeur se serre
(E, 883).

266

But the separation itself, the inability to communicate,
arouses feelings of pity and love in the traveler, reflect-
ing Camus' own feelings toward all men, who Share the same
common destiny but find it difficult to reach each other.
Camus, like the traveler, sees them objectively, as from a
distance, but rather than detracting from his love the
separation adds to it the quality of compassion--the same
reaction the writer had had as a child before his mother
in "Entre oui et non":

Ces déments obstinés, accrochés a des planches,

jetés sur la criniére des oceans immenses a la

poursuite d'iles en dérive, qui, chérissant 1a

solitude et la mer, s'empéchera jamais de les

aimer? (E, 883).

The same theme of separation appears in the next
brief prose-poem. AS savage winds lash the ship, "Chaque
cri que nous poussons se perd, s'envole dans des espaces
sans limites" (E, 883). But there is hope that one day
the cry will continue to echo until far off, "un homme,
quelque part, perdu dans sa coquille de neige, l'entende
et, content, veuille sourire" (E, 883). 1

One day the traveler awakens to a universe turned
upside-down. His vision takes on a quality of hallucina-
tion—-of a mad world where men, in spite of love, cannot
understand each other:

Je vis 1e soleil au fond de la mer, les vagues

régnaient dans 1e ciel houleux. Soudain, la
mer brfllait, le soleil coulait a longs traits

 

267

glacés dans ma gorge. Autour de moi, les marins

riaient et pleuraient. Ils s'aimaient les uns

les autres mais ne pouvaient se pardonner (E, 883).
But the vision has its lesson:

Ce jour-la, je reconnus le monde pour ce qu'il

était, je décidai d'accepter que son bien fut

en meme temps malfaisant et salutaires ses for-

faits. Ce jour-la, je compris qu'il y avait deux

verités dont l'une ne devait jamais etre dite

(E, 883).

The movement of time, sea and voyage continues.
In a curious image, the moon slips from the sky into the
water, which swallows it. For a while all is still, in a
peaceful and benevolent calm: " ... 1e vent tombe tout a
fait"; the masts are "immobiles. ... voilure en panne";
"les machines se taisent"; the sea jostles the ship
amicablement" (E, 883-84). With an emotion vaguely
reminiscent of Rousseau's Fifth Promenade the traveler
abandons himself to a state in which thought is suspended:
"Nous sommes comblés, une muette folie, invinciblement nous
endort. Un jour vient ainsi qui accomplit tout; il faut se
laisser couler alors, ... " (E, 884). For a moment we per-
ceive the traveler's, and Camus', desire for the supreme
peace of death: "0 lit amer, couche princiere, la couronne
est au fond des eaux!" (E, 884).
Other fantastic images appear. In the morning

a herd of elk, "venus de lointains continents" swims by

toward the north. Multicolored birds rest on their antlers,

until finally "Cette forét bruissante disparait peu a pen a

268

l'horizon" (E, 884). Later the sea is covered with strange
yellow flowers.

The Ship now moves in a brisk breeze on a sea that
is "claire et musclée" (E, 884). The experience leads the
author to a personal digression of a concrete nature: he
compares his sea voyage to an earlier trip by plane, in an
explicit description of the claustrophobia from which he
was known to suffer in the latter method of travel, un-
doubtedly also related to his illness:

Je mourais alors danS ma cellule métallique, je

révais de carnages, d'orgies. Sans espace, point

d'innocence ni de liberté! La prison pour qui ne

peut respirer est mort ou folie; qu'y faire sinon

tuer et posséder? Aujourd'hui, au contraire, je

suis gorgé de souffles, toutes nos ailes claquent

dans l'air bleu, je vais crier de vitesse, nous

jetons a l'eau nos sextants et nos boussoles

(E, 885).
Here once more appears the close association of the physical
with both psychological and moral states for Camus: inno-
cence and liberty are opposed to prison, death, and madness,
and the whole is bound up with the restricted air and space
of a plane's cabin.

The voyage draws to a close as the Ship moves along
the coast of South America. The essay's tone becomes one
of repose that is also a contemplation of death. It is once

more Camus' "gofit de néant," and the role of the sea is a

benevolent one, a means to this fulfillment:

269

Que dit 1a vague? Si je devais mourir, entouré

de montagnes froideS, ignoré du monde, renié par

les miens, a bout de forces enfin, la mer, au

dernier moment, emplirait ma cellule, viendrait

me soutenir au-dessus de moi-méme et m'aider a

mourir sans haine (E, 886).
Alone on the Shore at midnight the traveler becomes briefly
the exile: "Attendre encore, et je partirai" (E, 886). For
life is not repose but an "intolerable anxiété, doublée d'un
attrait irrésistible:

Délicieuse angoisse d'étre, proximité exquise

d'un danger dont nous ne connaissons pas le

nom, vivre, alors, est-ce courir a sa perte?

A nouveau, sans répit, courons a notre perte

(E, 886).
The final lines of the essay are a poignant expression of
emotion from a man who walked most of his life with death
as a companion, but who, because of it, found life a royal
happiness: "J'ai toujours eu l'impression de vivre en haute
mer, menacé au coeur d'un bonheur royal" (E, 886).

"La Mer au plus pres" expresses both the sadness of
the exile, and the general theme of separation that had
taken the form, in "Retour a Tipasa," of barbed wire and
time. Roger Quilliot also perceives it as a kind of "vision,
fiévreuse" somewhat analogous to Rimbaud's "Bateau ivre."$1
AS mentioned earlier, a hallucinatory quality is developed

in the essay through imagery outside the norm: the voyagers

on the passing liner are "déments obstinés"; the ships'

 

51Quilliot, La Mer, p. 257.

270

Sirens are like the "grands cris d'animaux preehistoriques"
(E, 883); natural laws no longer operate, and fantastic
sights appear among the waves. It is possible that Camus'
serious illness during this period contributed in some
degree to the dreamlike, unreal quality of the essay, but
even more, there is evidence of deep emotion on his part,
resulting, as in Npggg, in lines of intense lyrical beauty.
In the first chapter of this study mention was

made of Les Isles of Jean Grenier, as decisively influencing

 

Camus to become a writer. Two meditations from this book
may well have come to the mind of the traveler to South
America twenty years later. The first is from Grenier's
chapter on "L'Attrait du vide":
Le caractére illusoire des choses fut encore con-
firmé en moi par le voisinage et la fréquentation
assidue de la mer. Une mer qui avait un flux et
un reflux, toujours mobile comme elle l'est en
Bretagne. ... 2
The second concludes his chapter on "Les Iles fortunées":
Fleurs qui flottez sur la mer et qu'on apercoit
au moment ou on y pense le moins, algues, cadavres,
mouettes endormies, vous que l'on fend de l'étrave,
ah, mes iles fortunées!53
S. Beynon John, in discussing the importance of

the sea in Camus' work, sees it as a positive, benevolent

element. AS examples he cites Meursault's enjoyment of

 

aGrenier, Les Iles, p. 26.

$Ibid., p. 93.

271

it in L'Etragger--it becomes the symbol of freedom; in

 

La Peste it is "an act of purification, . . . a rite of

u 54

friendship, and a means of recovering freedom. In Camus'

play of 1948, L'Etat de Siege, it becomes again a symbol of

 

freedom as the chorus calls the people to the sea to escape
the tyranny of the Plague: "A la mer! La mer enfin, la mer
libre, l'eau qui lave, 1e vent qui affranchit!55 Professor
John adds that Camus turns so often to the sea "because it

"55 In "La Mer an

is for him an intensely lived experience.
plus pres" the writer created from this experience what is
perhaps his most poetic work.

Camus had written in "Retour a Tipasa" that ces
années de guerre ... marquérent pour moi la fin de la
jeunesse" (E, 869). L'Eté is evidence of this end of youth,
in contrast with Noces. The writer's work had taken him to
the urban centers of the world, away from the landscape of
his youth, and images of nature are now superseded more and
more by descriptions of cities and a preoccupation with the

problems of twentieth-century man in conflict with social

and political institutions. With the exception of "La Mer

 

SI‘S. Beynon John, "Image and Symbol in the Work of
Albert Camus," in Camus: A Collection of Critical Essayg,
ed. by Germaine Brée (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-
Hall, Inc., 1962), p. 142.

SSCamus, Theatre, Récits, Nouvelles, p. 224.

 

SEJohn, "Image and Symbol in the Work of Albert
Camus," p. 141.

272

an plus pres" there is less lyricism and more commentary in
L'Eté, although personal feeling is evident throughout.
L'Eté Shows no deviation from the fundamental themes
of Camus' earlier work. If it is true as Roger Quilliot
remarks, that "Npggg était un présent; L'Eté n'est qu'un

"57 at least the basic elements of

espoir ou un souvenir,
his thought are preserved in that hope and memory. Algeria
is still very much present, although now he regards it with
nostalgia as a place of rest and renewal that can be only
temporary. The naiveté of L'Envers et l'endroit and the
Sheer joy of Npggg are replaced by sophistication, sadness,
and traces of disillusionment and cynicism, but the belief
in love and happiness has not disappeared: "Ceux qui
s'aiment et qui sont Séparés peuvent vivre dans la douleur,
mais ce n'est pas le désespoir: ils savent que l'amour
existe" (E, 880).

In 1955 Camus was finally able to make the voyage
to Greece that he was forced to postpone in 1939. The
publication of Ligié the year before made it very evident
that Hellenism was still a dominant element in his thought.
The Greek ideals of "limite" and love of beauty are sus-

tained there. Like the Greeks, Camus will renounce nothing

of life, but continually maintain its double aspect in a

 

57Quilliot, La Mer, p. 252.

273

precarious equilibrium, striving always for their
reconciliation:

Mieux que la révolte contre les dieux, c'est

cette longue obstination qui a du sens pour

nous. Et cette admirable volonté de ne rien

Séparer ni exclure qui a toujours réconcilié

et réconciliera encore le coeur douloureux

deS hommes et les printemps du monde (E, 844).
His continuing affinity for Greek myth appears prominently
in L'Eté, with the Minotaur, Prometheus and Helen, as well
as Nemesis and the Furies. Franz Hellens writes that "1e
chemin tout entier de l'écrivain est jalonné de ces mythes,"58
and he adds "Cela est d'autant plus ... étonnant, que la
pensée de l'écrivain ne quitte jamais 1a terre et se con-
centre sur l'homme dans ce que celui-ci a de plus hautaine-

n 59

ment et volontairement humain. Claudine Gothot's expla-

nation60

is a valid one, that they provided a physical
embodiment of the abstractions Camus detested. At the same
time it is to be expected that Camus' great interest and
admiration for the Greeks would lead him quite naturally to
turn to Greek myths as a literary device.

Life and death are still a preoccupation of the

author, but while death still appears in the form of loss-

of-self, life has lost most of the exuberance of the earlier

 

56Franz Hellens, "Le Mythe chez Albert Camus,‘ in
Hommage a‘Albert Camus: 1913-1960 (Paris: Gillimard, 1967),
p. 86.

 

59Ibid., p. 89.

60See supra, p. 235.

274

essays and has taken on the passive attributes of

recuperation, or the active ones of struggle. He con—

tinues to maintain the primacy of the concrete over the

abstract, the living man over his hypothetical descendant.
ELEEé provides a wealth of material helpful to

an understanding of his total work from the standpoint

of enlarged perspective and development of thought. "Les

Amandiers,‘ as mentioned earlier, shows for example that
in 1940 Camus was already turning in the direction of
revolt. The description of Oran in "Le Minotaure" will
provide much of the material for the opening pages of pa
Eggpg. The resistance to history of "Prométhée aux enfers"

and "L'Exil d'Héléne" will be developed more fully and

logically in L'Homme révolté, and the theme of exile in

 

"La Mer au plus pres" will be renewed in the collection of

short stories, L'Exil et le royaume, in 1957. L'Eté marks

 

an evolution in Camus' work, but as he himself had replied

to Frank Jotterand, it is only "celle que suit normalement

un homme entre vingt—cinq et quarante ans."61

 

61Camus, Essais, pp. 1836-37.

CONCLUSION

Moralist, champion of justice, lover-of-life, Camus
was all of these, but above all he was an artist, and his
numerous writings and comments on the subject of art bear
witness to the fact that it was his continual preoccupation.
In Le Mythe de Sisyphe he had written "Créer, c'est vivre
deux fois," and that the work of art "marque a la fois la
mort d'une expérience et sa multiplication" (MS, 173-74).
Thus for the absurd artist, his art is a means of "increas-
ing" life by multiplying it. In addition, the absurd artist
creates knowing his work will not endure. Concrete reality
will be his material, and Camus praises novelists like
Balzac, Stendhal, Proust, Malraux for "1e choix qu'ils ont
fait d'écrire en images plutdt qu'en raisonnements ... "

(MS, 178).

In L'Homme révolté he writes that art, like all
great human endeavor, is motivated by a "fiévre de l'unité,"
a desire to give order and form to a world without coherence.
Through style the artist "corrects" the world:

Cette correction, que l'artiste opére par son
langage et par une redistribution d'éléments
puisés dans le réel, s'appelle le style at

donne a l'univers recréé son unité et ses
limites (HR, 672).

275

276

Art is also a vindication of nature and of beauty against
history:

L'art, du moinS, nous apprend que l'homme ne se
résume pas seulement a l'histoire et qu'il trouve
aussi une raison d'étre dans l'ordre de la nature.
Le grand Pan, pour lui, n'est pas mort ... On
peut refuser toute l'histoire et s'accorder pour-
tant au monde des étoiles et de la mer ... La
beauté sans doute, ne fait pas les révolutions.
Mais un jour vient ou les révolutions ont besoin
d'elle (HR, 679).

In a Speech before an international meeting of

writers in 1948, later included in Actuelles I, he wrote

 

that the artist is on the Side of life, and consequently
is never a successful politician or conqueror:
Les vrais artistes ne font pas de bonS vainqueurs
politiques, car ils sont incapables d'accepter
legérément, ah, je le sais bien, la mort de
l'adversaire. Ils sont du c6té de la vie, non
de la mort. IlS sont les témoins de la chair,
non de la loi.1
The Discours de Suede, of 1957, repeatedly stresses the
perpetual tension in which the artist must live in order
to fulfill his responsibilities to both his art and his
fellow-men: "L'artiste se forge dans cet aller-retour
perpétuel de lui aux autres, a mi-chemin de la beauté dont
i1 ne peut se passer et de la communauté a laquelle i1 ne

"2

peut S'arracher and:

 

1Camus, Essais, p. 406.

2Ibid., p. 1072.

277

ll chemine entre deux abimes, qui sont 1a
frivolité et la propagande. Sur cette ligne

de créte ou avance le grand artiste, chaque pas
est une aventure, un risque extréme. Dans ce
risque pourtant, et dans lui seul, se trouve

la liberté de l'art.3

Camus also expressed himself frequently on the dilemma of
the artist torn between conflicting responsibilities, or
harassed by distraction and misunderstanding. The story

of Jonas in L'Exil et le royaume and the essay "L'Enigme"

 

fall into this category.

In the previously mentioned interview with Jeanine
Delpech, as well as elsewhere, Camus expressed his great
admiration for "la grande littérature classique francaise."
His friend and teacher, Jean Grenier alludes to both
Corneille and the Greeks to illustrate two opposing ten-
dencies in Camus' style. At the same time he mentions "1e
génie déclamatoire" of the Spanish as analogous to one of
these tendencies and associates it with Camus' theatrical
viewpoint.

Albert Camus, par ses origines, était au

moinS aussi proche de l'Espagne que de la France
et son langage était castillan d'allure. Ce qui
efit été emphatique chez un autre ne l'était pas

plus chez lui que 1e Cid chez Corneille.

Et puis i1 faut tenir compte de l'optique de

l'auteur: celle d'Albert Camus était théétrale.
Il calculait en vue de l'effet a produire, comme
doit le faire tout artiste puisque l'oeuvre est

destinée a celui qui voit et qui entend de sorte
que sa voix doit porter et son geste doit

 

31bid., pp. 1092-1093.

278

signifier. D'ailleurs, il usait du minimum de
moyens et il les choisissait pour leur maximum
d'efficacité.

Dans son effort pour définir et pour préciser
il était 1e fidéle disciple des Grecs et la recti-
tude qui en résultait corrigeait les écarts que
pour un gout francais (toujours timoré) lui aurait
fait commettre le génie déclamatoire de l'Espagne
(et de la Russie).

At certain points in L'Eté, most notably "L'Exil
d'Hélene" and "Prométhée aux enfers," this declamatory
tendency is very apparent, though not to the extent it is

noticeable in Caligula and L'Etat de siege, his dramas of

 

 

1944 and 1948. Gay-Crosier, writing on Camus' dramatic
works, gives as one reason for dissatisfaction with the
latter play the fact that its characters are too deperson—

alized and "cornelian."5

An elevated heroic style does not

perhaps suit theatrical tastes today. However, I believe

that more than this, some of Camus' failure in the drama

in comparison with other genres is due to lack of the very

personal voice that is so effective in the lyrical essays.
In some of his other works where lyrical passages

occur, such as "La Femme adultére," "Lettres a un ami

allemand," portions of L'Etranger, Le Mythe of Sisyphe,

 

L'Homme révolté, notably "La Pensee de midi," the writer

is again expressing feelings related to his own experience--

 

l'Jean Grenier, Albert Camus: Souvenirs (Paris:
Gallimard, 1968), pp. 150-51.

5Gay—Crosier, Les Envers d'un échec, p. 151.

279

the close attachment to nature, the war years, a constant
and intense awareness of death, associated with his illness.
The portrayal of these experiences joins the writer's emo-
tions to his art and in Camus' case the marriage was a
happy one.

In 1952 he stated in an interview: "Je ne crois
pas, en ce qui me concerne, aux livres isolés. Chez cer-
tains écrivains, i1 me semble que leurs oeuvres forment un
tout ou chacune S'éclaire par les autres, et ou toutes se
regardent."6 The lyrical essays support this conclusion.
There is no major theme in his work which is not expressed
in them, both in style and content. Some of the important
relationships between the themes in the essays and in other
works have already been mentioned. Others worth citing
occur in his plays. Without giving resumés, an obvious
rapport can be noted in the following: Caligula demon-
strates the disastrous results of pursuing an impossible

absolute; Le Malentendu dramatizes lack of communication

 

between people, the theme of exile, and the absurdity of

human destiny; L'Etat de Siege denounces abstraction and

 

defeats the evil of the Plague by means of love; Les Justes

 

concerns the taking of human life, of human beings weighed
against abstract ideologies, the consequences of a philos-

ophy which declares the end justifies the means, however

 

6Brisville, Camus, p. 255.

280

murderous; the stories in L'Exil et 1e royaume all treat

one side or the other of the dual human existence.
Duality, paradox, contradiction, maintained in

a perpetual tension, are at the heart of all of Camus'

thought and work. Roger Quilliot writes that "Camus ne

parle que de lui-meme,"7

and tension too is a lived expe-
rience for this writer. It is born of a double exigency
leading to a philosophy of openness: to live one's life
to the fullest Since it is brief and must end permanently;
to admit, in the responsibility toward others, all possi-
bilties that do not destroy human life. His own words
from "Retour a Tipasa" best sum it up:

... que puis-je désirer d'autre que de ne rien

exclure et d'apprendre a tresser de fil blanc

et de fil noir une méme corde tendue 5 se

rompre ... (E, 874).
In the maintenance of this tension, from his first published
work through Elggéj and the Six years that remained to him
before the accident that took his life in 1960, all of
Camus' work represents "une longue fidélité" to "les deux

"8

cu trois images simples et grandes which, as he pointed

out in the 1958 reedition of L'Envers et l'endroit, were

 

at the heart of his earliest essays.

 

7Quilliot, La Mer, p. 266.

°Camus, Preface to L'Envers et l'endroit in Essais,

 

p. 13.

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francais." La Nouvelle Revue francaise, XXV (July-
December, 1925), 417-446 and 555-573.

 

Cruickshank, John. "Tribute to Albert Camus." Twentieth
Century, CLXVII, No. 998 (April, 1960), 316-322.

 

Doubrovsky, Serge. "La Morale d'Albert Camus." Preuves,
No. 116 (October, 1960), pp. 39-49.

 

Frohock, W. M. "Camus: Image, Influence and Sensibility."
Yale French Studies, II, No. 2 (Fall-Winter, 1949),
91-990

Gay-Crosier, Raymond. "Camus et le Donjuanisme." French

Review, XII, No. 6 (May, 1968), 818-30.

Girard, René. "Camus's Stranger Retried." PMLA, LXXIX,
No..5 (1964), 519—33.

Gothot, Claudine. "Les Essais méditerranéens d'Albert
Camus: études de themes." Marche Romane, IX, No. 2
(avril-juin, 1959), 59-74 and IX, No. 3 (juillet-sept.,
1959), 113-132.

 

 

swig

286

Hartman, Geoffrey H. "Camus and Malraux: The Common
Ground." Yale French Studies, No. 25 (Spring, 1960),
pp. 104-110.

 

Hell, Henri. ""L'Exil et le royaume." La Table Ronde,
No. 114 (juin, 1957), pp. 202-205.

 

. "Gide et Camus." La Table Ronde, No. 146
(fevrier, 1960), pp. 22-25.

 

Horia, Vintila. "Albert Camus o la lucha contra 1a
abstraccion." Cuadernos Hispanoamericanos, No. 122
(February, 1960), pp. 230-234.

 

John, S. Beynon. "Image and Symbol in the Work of Albert
Camus." French Studies, IX, No. 1 (January, 1955),
42-53.

 

Joyaux, Georges J. "Albert Camus and North Africa." Yale
French Studies, No. 25 (Spring, 1960), pp. 10-19.

 

Killingsworth, Kay. "Au-dela du déchirement: l'héritage
méridional danS l'oeuvre de William Faulkner et de
Camus." ESprit, XXXI, No. 320 (September, 1963),
209-234.

Moeller, Charles. "L'Eté d'Albert Camus." La Revue
Nouvelle, XX, Nos. 7-8 (1954), pp. 127-130.

 

Mounier, Emmanuel. "L'Appel des humiliés." Esprit, XVIII,
No. 163 (January, 1950), 27—66.

Peyre, Henri. "Camus the Pagan." Yale French Studies,
No. 25 (Spring, 1960), pp. 20-25.

 

Robbe-Grillet, Alain. "Old 'Values' and the New Novel."
Evergreen Review, III, No. 9 (Summer, 1959), 98-118.

 

Rossi, Louis R. "Albert Camus: The Plague of Absurdity."
The Kenyon Review, XX, No. 3 (1958), 399-422.

 

Rousseaux, André. "Albert Camus et la philosophie du
bonheur." Symposium, II, No. 1 (May, 1948), l-18.

 

Routh, H. V. "The Origins of the Essay Compared in French
and English Literatures." Modern Language Review, XV,
Nos. 1 and 2 (1920), pp. 28-40 and 143-151.

 

Simpson, Lurline. "Tensions in the Works of Albert Camus."
Modern Language Journal, XXXVIII, No. 4 (1954), 186-190.

 

287

deegard, Osten. "Un aspect de la prose de Camus: 1e
rythme ternaire." Studia Neophilologica, XXXI (1959),
pp. 128-148.

Thiébaut, Marcel. "L'Envers et l'endroit." La Revue de
Paris, va, No. 6 (1958), pp. 139-142.

Tillion, Germaine. "Albert Camus et l'Algérie." Preuves,
No. 91 (September, 1958), pp. 69-72.

Viggiani, Carl A. "The Beginnings of a Career." Symposium,
XII, Nos. 1-2 (1958), 7-18.

The following special editions devoted to Camus contain many
articles useful to this study:

La Nouvelle Revue francaise, XV (jan.-mars, 1960).

 

Symposium, XII, Nos. 1 and 2 (1958).

 

La Table ngde, No. 146 (février, 1960).

 

Yale French Studies, No. 25 (Spring, 1960).

 

    

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