The Fall by Albert Camus

Author:Albert Camus
Format: mobi, epub, azw3, pdf
Publisher: Vintage Books
Published: 2010-01-28T05:00:00+00:00

You are wrong, cher, the boat is going at top speed. But the Zuider Zee is a dead sea, or al­most. With its flat shores, lost in the fog, there’s no saying where it begins or ends. So we are steaming along without any landmark; we can’t gauge our speed We are making progress and yet nothing is changing. It’s not navigation but dreaming.

In the Greek archipelago I had the contrary feeling. Constantly new islands would appear on the horizon. Their treeless backbone marked the limit of the sky and their rocky shore contrasted sharply with the sea. No confusion possible; in the sharp light everything was a landmark. And from one island to another, ceaselessly on our little boat, which was nevertheless dawdling, I felt as if we were scudding along, night and day, on the crest of the short, cool waves in a race full of spray and laughter. Since then, Greece itself drifts somewhere within me, on the edge of my memory, tirelessly ... Hold on, I, too, am drifting; I am becoming lyrical! Stop me, cher, I beg you.

[98] By the way, do you know Greece? No? So much the better. What should we do there, I ask you? There one has to be pure in heart. Do you know that there male friends walk along the street in pairs holding hands? Yes, the women stay home and you often see a middle-aged, respectable man, sporting mustaches, gravely striding along the side­walks, his fingers locked in those of his friend. In the Orient likewise, at times? All right. But tell me, would you take my hand in the streets of Paris? Oh, I’m joking. We have a sense of decorum; scum makes us stilted. Before appearing in the Greek is­lands, we should have to wash at length. There the air is chaste and sensual enjoyment as transparent as the sea. And we ...

Let’s sit down on these steamer chairs. What a fog! I interrupted myself, I believe, on the way to the little-ease. Yes, I’ll tell you what I mean. After having struggled, after having used up all my in­solent airs, discouraged by the uselessness of my efforts, I made up my mind to leave the society of men. No, no, I didn’t look for a desert island; there are no more. I simply took refuge among women. As you know, they don’t really condemn any [99] weak­ness; they would be more inclined to try to humili­ate or disarm our strength. This is why woman is the reward, not of the warrior, but of the criminal. She is his harbor, his haven; it is in a woman’s bed that he is generally arrested. Is she not all that re­mains to us of earthly paradise? In distress, I has­tened to my natural harbor. But I no longer in­dulged in pretty speeches. I still gambled a little, out of habit; but invention was lacking. I hesitate to admit it for fear of using a few more naughty words: it seems to me that at that time I felt the need of love.

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