Committed Writings by Albert Camus

Author:Albert Camus [Camus, Albert]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2020-08-04T00:00:00+00:00

* * *

—

Such a basic injustice has repercussions, besides, on the relatives of the executed man. The victim has his family, whose sufferings are generally very great and who, most often, want to be avenged. They are, but the relatives of the condemned man then discover an excess of suffering that punishes them beyond all justice. A mother’s or a father’s long months of waiting, the visiting room, the artificial conversations filling up the brief moments spent with the condemned man, the visions of the execution are all tortures that were not imposed on the relatives of the victim. Whatever may be the feelings of the latter, they cannot want the revenge to extend so far beyond the crime and to torture people who share their own grief. “I have been reprieved, Father,” writes a condemned man, “I can’t yet realize the good fortune that has come my way. My reprieve was signed on April 30 and I was told Wednesday as I came back from the visiting room. I immediately informed Papa and Mama, who had not yet left the prison. You can imagine their happiness.”*18 We can indeed imagine it, but only insofar as we can imagine their uninterrupted suffering until the moment of the reprieve, and the final despair of those who receive the other notification, which punishes, in iniquity, their innocence and their misfortune.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.