A Happy Death Read online

  A Happy Death, Albert Camus's previously unpublished first novel, written when he was in his early twenties, foreshadows his brilliant work, The Stranger. But in it Camus reveals much more of himself than he did in his later, more mythic fiction. Through young Patrice, the protagonist, the reader feels in touch with the young Camus-his joy in the sea, sun, his native Algeria, his relationships with women, his need of them and detachment from them, the intense alienation he experienced as a traveler in Central Europe. And it is from his early intimations of death, movingly evoked, that the novel draws its theme-how one is to live in order to have the right death.

  A Happy Death is the first of the "cahiers" that Camus left unpublished, whose publication will complete his literary oeuvre.

  "Cahier I"

  A

  Happy Death

  Albert Camus

  Translated from the French by Richard Howard

  Afterword and Notes by Jean Sarocchi

  Vintage Books

  A Division of Random House, New York

  Cover photo: F. Corbineau/"Realities"

  First Vintage Books Edition, May, 1973 Copyright © 1972 by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Random House, Inc., New York, a: simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Can Limited, Toronto. Originally published in France by Editions Gallimard, Paris. Copyright © 1971 by Editions Gallimard. This edition was originally published by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., in May 1972.

  Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

  Camus, Albert, 1913-1960. A happy death.

  (His Cahier 1)

  Translation of La mort heureuse.

  I. Title. [PZ3.C1574Hap4] [PQ2605.A3734] 843'.9'14 ISBN 0-394-71865-8 72-8028

  Manufactured in the United States of America B9876543

  The publication of the Cahiers Albert Camus has been decided upon by the writer's family and publishers, in answer to the wishes of many scholars and, more generally, of all those interested in his life and thought.

  It is not without some scruple that this publication has been undertaken. A severe critic of his own work, Albert Camus published nothing heedlessly. Why, then, offer the public an abandoned novel, lectures, uncollected articles, notebooks, drafts?

  Simply because, when we love a writer or study him closely, we often want to know everything he has written. Those responsible for Camus* unpublished writings consider it would be a mistake not to respond to these legitimate wishes and not to satisfy those who desire to read A Happy Death, for example, or the travel diaries.

  Scholars whose research has led them—on occasion during Camus' lifetime—to consult his youthful writings or later texts which remain unfamiliar or even unpublished, believe that the writer's image can only be clarified and enriched by making them accessible.

  The publication of the Cahiers Albert Camus is under the editorship of Jean-Claude Brisville, Roger Grenier, Roger Quilliot and Paul Viallaneix.

  Contents

  1 Part One Natural Death

  55 Part Two

  Conscious Death

  153 Afterword

  169 Notes and Variants

  Part One

  Natural Death

  1

  It was ten in the morning, and Patrice Mersault was walking steadily toward Zagreus' villa. By now the housekeeper had left for the market, and the villa was deserted. It was a beautiful April morning, chilly and bright; the sky was radiant, but there was no warmth in the glistening sunshine. The empty road sloped up toward the villa, and a pure light streamed between the pines covering the hillside. Patrice Mersault was carrying a suitcase, and as he walked on through that primal morning, the only sounds he heard were the click of his own footsteps on the cold road and the regular creak of the suitcase handle.

  Not far from the villa, the road crossed a little square decorated with flowerbeds and benches. The effect of the early red geraniums among gray aloes, the blue sky, and the whitewashed walls was so fresh, so childlike that Mersault stopped a moment before walking on through the square. Then the road sloped down again toward Zagreus' villa. On the doorstep he paused and put on his gloves. He opened the door which the cripple never locked and carefully closed it behind him. He walked down the hall to the third door on the left, knocked and went in. Zagreus was there, of course, a blanket over the stumps of his legs, sitting in an armchair by the fire exactly where Mersault had sat two days ago. He

  was reading, and his book lay open on the blanket; there was no surprise in his round eyes as he stared up at Mersault, who was standing in front of the closed door. The curtains were drawn back, and patches of sunshine lay on the floor, the furniture, making objects glitter in the room. Beyond the window, the morning rejoiced over the cold, golden earth. A great icy joy, the birds' shrill, tentative outcry, the flood of pitiless light gave the day an aspect of innocence and truth. Mersault stood motionless, the room's stifling heat filling his throat, his ears. Despite the change in the weather, there was a blazing fire in the grate. And Mersault felt his blood rising to his temples, pounding at the tips of his ears. Zagreus' eyes followed his movements, though he did not say a word. Patrice walked toward the chest on the other side of the fireplace and put his suitcase down on a table without looking at the cripple. He felt a faint tremor in his ankles now. He took out a cigarette and lit it—clumsily, for he was wearing gloves. A faint noise behind him made him turn around, the cigarette between his lips. Cagreus was still staring at him, but had just closed the book. Mersault—the fire was painfully hot against his knees now—could read the title upside down: The Courtier by Baltasar Gracian. Then he bent over the chest and opened it. The revolver was still there, its lustrous black, almost feline curves on the white letter. Mersault picked up the envelope with his left hand and the revolver with his right. After an in-

  stant's hesitation, he thrust the gun under his left arm and opened the envelope. It contained one large sheet of paper, with only a few lines of Za-greus' tall, angular handwriting across the top:

  "I am doing away with only half a man. It need cause no problem—there is more than enough here to pay off those who have taken care of me till now. Please use what is left over to improve conditions of the men in death row. But I know it's asking a lot."

  Expressionless, Mersault folded the sheet and put it back in the envelope. As he did so the smoke from his cigarette stung his eyes, and a tiny chunk of ash fell on the envelope. He shook it off, set the envelope on the table where it was sure to be noticed, and turned toward Zagreus, who was staring at the envelope now, his stubby powerful fingers still holding the book. Mersault bent down, turned the key of the little strongbox inside the chest, and took out the packets of bills, only their ends visible in the newspaper wrappings. Holding the gun under one arm, with the other hand he methodically filled up the suitcase. There were fewer than twenty packets of hundreds, and Mersault realized he had brought too large a suitcase. He left one packet in the safe. Then he closed the suitcase, flicked the half-smoked cigarette into the fire and, taking the revolver in his right hand, walked toward the cripple.

  Zagreus was staring at the window now. A car drove slowly past, making a faint chewing sound. Motionless, Zagreus seemed to be contemplating all

  the inhuman beauty of this April morning. When he felt the barrel against his right temple, he did not turn away. But Patrice, watching him, saw his eyes fill with tears. It was Patrice who closed his eyes, He stepped back and fired. Leaning against the wall for a moment, his eyes still closed, he felt his blood throbbing in his ears. Then he opened his eyes. The head had fallen over onto the left shoulder, the body only slightly tilted. But it was no longer Zagreus he saw now, only a huge, bulging wound of brain
, blood, and bone. Mersault began to tremble. He walked around to the other side of the armchair, groped for Zagreus' right hand, thrust the revolver into it, raised it to the temple, and let it fall back. The revolver dropped onto the arm of the chair and then into Zagreus' lap. Now Mersault noticed the cripple's mouth and chin—he had the same serious and sad expression as when he was staring at the window. Just then a shrill horn sounded in front of the door. A second time. Mersault, still leaning over the armchair, did not move. The sound of tires meant that the butcher had driven away. Mersault picked up his suitcase, turned the doorknob gleaming suddenly in a sunbeam, and left the room, his head throbbing, his mouth parched. He opened the outer door and walked away quickly. There was no one in sight except a group of children at one end of the little square. He walked on. Past the square, he was suddenly aware of the cold, and shivered under his light jacket. He sneezed twice, and the valley

  filled with shrill mocking echoes that the crystal sky carried higher and higher. Staggering slightly, he stopped and took a deep breath. Millions of tiny white smiles thronged down from the blue sky. They played over the leaves still cupping the rain, over the damp earth of the paths, soared to the blood-red tile roofs, then back into the lakes of air and light from which they had just overflowed. A tiny plane hummed its way across the sky. In this flowering of air, this fertility of the heavens, it seemed as if a man's one duty was to live and be happy. Everything in Mersault fell silent. He sneezed a third time, and shivered feverishly. Then he hurried away without glancing around him, the suitcase creaking, his footsteps loud on the road. Once he was back in his room, and had put the suitcase in a corner, he lay down on his bed and slept until the middle of the afternoon.

  2

  Summer crammed the habor with noise and sunlight. It was eleven thirty. The day split open down the middle, crushing the docks under the burden of its heat. Moored at the sheds of the Algiers Municipal Depot, black-hulled, red-chimneyed freighters were loading sacks of wheat. Their dusty fragrance mingled with the powerful smell of tar melting under a hot sun. Men were drinking at a little stall that reeked of creosote and anisette, while some Arab acrobats in red shirts somersaulted on the scorching flagstones in front of the sea in the leaping light. Without so much as a glance at them, the stevedores carrying the sacks walked up the two sagging planks that slanted from the dock to the freighter decks. When they reached the top, their silhouettes were suddenly divided between the sea and the sky among the winches and masts. They stopped for an instant, dazzled by the light, eyes gleaming in the whitish crust of dust and sweat that covered their faces, before they plunged blindly into the hold stinking of hot blood. In the fiery air, a siren blew without stopping.

  Suddenly the men on the plank stopped in confusion. One of them had fallen, and was caught between the planks, his arm pinned under his body, crushed under the tremendous weight of the sack, and he screamed with pain. Just at this moment, Pa-

  trice Mersault emerged from his office, and on the doorstep, the summer heat took his breath away. He opened his mouth, inhaled the tar vapors, which stung his throat, and then he went over to the stevedores. They had moved the man who had been hurt, and he was lying in the dust, his lips white with pain, his arm dangling, broken above the elbow. A sliver of bone had pierced the flesh, making an ugly wound from which blood was dripping. The drops rolled down his arm and fell, one by one, onto the scorching stones with a tiny hiss, and turned to steam. Mersault was staring, motionless, at the blood when someone took his arm. It was Emmanuel, one of the clerks. He pointed to a truck heading toward them with a salvo of backfires. "That one?" Patrice began to run as the truck drove past them, chains rattling. They dashed after it, swallowed up by dust and noise, panting and blind, just conscious enough to feel themselves swept on by the frenzied effort of running, in a wild rhythm of winches and machines, accompanied by the dancing masts on the horizon and the pitching of the leprous hulls they passed. Mersault was the first to grab hold, confident of his strength and skill, and he jumped onto the moving truck. He helped Emmanuel up, and the two men sat with their legs dangling in the chalk-white dust, while a luminous suffocation poured out of the sky over the circle of the harbor crowded with masts and black cranes, the uneven cobbles of the dock jarring Emmanuel and Mersault as the truck

  gained speed, making them laugh until they were breathless, dizzied by the jolting movement, the searing sky, their own boiling blood.

  When they reached Belcourt, Mersault slid off with Emmanuel, who was singing now, loud and out of tune. "You know," he told Mersault, "it comes up in your chest. It comes when you feel good. When you're in the water." It was true: Emmanuel sang when he swam, and his voice, hoarse from shouting, inaudible against the sea, marked time for the gestures of his short, muscular arms. They were walking down the rue de Lyon, Mersault tall beside Emmanuel, his broad shoulders rolling. In the way he stepped onto the curb, the way he twisted his hips to avoid the crowd that occasionally closed in on him, his body seemed curiously young and vigorous, capable of bearing him to any extreme of physical joy. Relaxed, he rested his weight on one hip with a self-conscious litheness, like a man whose body has acquired its style from sports. His eyes sparkled under the heavy brows, and as he talked to Emmanuel he would tug at his collar with a mechanical gesture to free his neck muscles, tensing his curved mobile lips at the same time. They walked into their restaurant, sat down at a table, and ate in silence. It was cool inside, among the flies, the clatter of plates, the hum of conversation. The owner, Celeste, a tall man with huge mustaches, walked over to greet them, scratching his belly under his apron. "Pretty good," Celeste answered them, "good for an

  old man." Celeste and Emmanuel exchanged exclamations and thumped each other on the shoulder. "Old men," Celeste said, "you know what old men are, they're all the same. Shitheads. They tell you a real man's got to be fifty. But that's because they're fifty. I knew this one guy who could have his good times just with his son. They'd go out together. On the town. They'd go to the Casino, and this guy would say: 'Why should I hang around with a lot of old men! Every day they tell me they've taken some medicine, there's always something wrong with their liver. I have a better time with my son. Sometimes he picks up a whore, I look the other way, I take the streetcar. So long and thanks. Fine with me.' " Emmanuel laughed. "Of course," Celeste said, "the guy was no authority, but I liked him all right." He turned to Mersault. "Anyway, it's better than this other guy I knew. When he made his money, he would talk with his head way up making gestures all the time. Now he's not so proud of himself—he's lost it all."

  "Serves him right," Mersault said.

  "Oh, you can't be a bastard in life. This guy took it while he had it, and he was right. Almost a million francs he had . . . Now if it had been me!"

  "What would you do?" Emmanuel asked.

  "I'd buy myself a cabin on the beach, I'd put some glue in my navel, and I'd stick a flag in there. Then I'd wait to see which way the wind was blowing."

  Mersault ate quietly until Emmanuel started to tell Celeste how he had fought the battle of the Marne. "See, they sent us Zouaves out in front . . ."

  "Cut the bullshit," Mersault said calmly.

  "The major said, 'Charge!' and we ran down into a kind of gully, only with trees in it. He told us to charge, but no one was there. So we just marched right on, kept on walking. And then all of a sudden these machineguns are firing right into us. We all fall on top of each other. There were so many dead and wounded that you could have rowed a boat across the blood in that gully. Some of them kept screaming, 'Mama!' Christ, it was awful."

  Mersault stood up and tied a knot in his napkin. The owner walked over to the kitchen door and chalked the price of his dinner on it. When one of his customers hadn't paid up, Celeste would take the door off its hinges and bring the evidence on his back. Rene, his son, was eating a boiled egg over in a corner. "Poor kid," Emmanuel said, thumping his own chest, "he's had it." It was true. Rene was usually quiet and seriou
s. Though he was not particularly thin, his eyes glittered. Just now another customer was explaining to him that "with time and patience, TB can be cured." Rene nodded and answered solemnly between bites. Mersault walked over to the counter and ordered coffee, leaning on his elbows. The other customer went on: "Did you ever know Jean Perez? He worked for the gas company. He's dead now. He had this one bad lung. But

  he wanted to get out of the hospital and go home. His wife was there, see. She was nothing but his horse. You know, his sickness made him like that— he was always on top of her. She wouldn't want it, but he had to. So two, three times, every day of the week—it ends up killing a sick man." Rene stopped eating, a piece a bread between his teeth, and stared at the man. "Yes," he said finally, "the thing comes on fast, but it takes time to get rid of it." Mersault wrote his name with one finger on the steamed-over percolator. He blinked his eyes. Every day his life alternated between this calm consumptive and Emmanuel bursting into song, between the smell of coffee and the smell of tar, alienated from himself and his interests, from his heart, his truth. Things that in other circumstances would have excited him left him unmoved now, for they were simply part of his life, until the moment he was back in his room using all his strength and care to smother the flame of life that burned within him.

  "What do you think, Mersault? You've been to school," Celeste said.

  "Oh, cut it out," Patrice said, "you'll get over it."

  "You're touchy this morning."

  Mersault smiled and, leaving the restaurant, crossed the street and went upstairs to his room. The apartment was over a horse butcher's. Leaning over his balcony, he could smell blood as he read the sign: "To Man's Noblest Conquest." He stretched out on his bed, smoked a cigarette, and fell asleep.

  He slept in what used to be his mother's room. They had had this little three-room apartment a long time. Now that he was alone, Mersault rented two rooms to a man he knew, a barrelmaker who lived with his sister, and he had kept the best room for himself. His mother had been fifty-six when she died. A beautiful woman, she had enjoyed—and expected to enjoy—a life of diversion, a life of pleasure. At forty, she had been stricken by a terrible disease. She had had to give up her clothes, her cosmetics, and was reduced to hospital gowns, her face deformed by terrible swellings; her swollen legs and her weakness kept her almost immobilized, and she would grope frantically around the colorless apartment she could no longer take care of, for she was half blind as well. The diabetes she had neglected had been further aggravated by her careless life. Mersault had had to abandon his studies and take a job. Until his mother's death, he had continued to read, to reflect. And for ten years, the sick woman endured that life. The suffering had lasted so long that those around her grew accustomed to her disease and forgot that she was deathly ill, that she would die. One day she died. People in the neighborhood felt sorry for Mersault. They expected a lot from the funeral. They recalled the son's deep feeling for his mother. They warned distant relatives not to mourn too much, so that Patrice would not feel his own grief too intensely. They were asked to protect him, to take care of him. But Patrice, dressed in his best and with his hat in his hand,