The sun was shining almost directly overhead onto
the sand, and the glare on the water was unbearable.
There was no one left on the beach. From inside the
bungalows bordering the plateau and jutting out over
the water, we could hear the rattling of plates and
silverware. It was hard to breathe in the rocky heat
rising from the ground. At first Raymond and Masson
discussed people and things I didn’t know about. I
gathered they’d known each other for a long time and
had even lived together at one point. We headed down to the sea and walked along the water’s edge. Now and
then a little wave would come up higher than the
others and wet our canvas shoes. I wasn’t thinking
about anything, because I was half asleep from the sun
beating down on my bare head.
At that point Raymond said something to Masson
which I didn’t quite catch. But at the same time I
noticed, at the far end of the beach and a long way from
us, two Arabs in blue overalls coming in our direction.
I looked at Raymond and he said, “It’s him.” We kept
walking. Masson asked how they’d managed to follow
us all this way. I thought they must have seen us get on
the bus with a beach bag, but I didn’t say anything.
The Arabs were walking slowly, but they were
already much closer. We didn’t change our pace, but
Raymond said, “If there’s any trouble, Masson, you
take the other one. I’ll take care of my man. Meursault,
if another one shows up, he’s yours.” I said, “Yes,” and
Masson put his hands in his pockets. The blazing sand
looked red to me now. We moved steadily toward the
Arabs. The distance between us was getting shorter and
shorter. When we were just a few steps away from each
other, the Arabs stopped. Masson and I slowed down.
Raymond went right up to his man. I couldn’t hear
what he said to him, but the other guy made a move as
though he were going to butt him. Then Raymond struck
the first blow and called Masson right away. Masson went
for the one that had been poin ted out as his and hit him
twice, as hard as he could. The Arab fell Aat in the water,
facedown, and lay there for several seconds with bubbles
bursting on the surface around his head. Meanwhile
Raymond had landed one too, and the other Arab’s face
was bleeding. Raymond turned to me and said, “Watch
this. I’m gonna let him have it now.” I shouted, “Look
out, he’s got a knife!” But Raymond’s arm had already
been cut open and his mouth slashed. Masson lunged
forward. But the other Arab had gotten back up and gone
around behind the one with the knife. We didn’t dare
move. They started backing off slowly, without taking
their eyes off us, keeping us at bay with the knife. When
they thought they were far enough away, they took off
running as fast as they could while we stood there
motionless in the sun and Raymond clutched at his arm
dripping with blood.
Masson immediately said there was a doctor who
spent his Sundays up on the plateau. Raymond wanted
to go see him right away. But every time he tried to talk
the blood bubbled in his mouth. We steadied him and
made our way back to the bungalow as quickly as we
could. Once there, Raymond said that they were only
flesh wounds and that he could make it to the doctor’s.
He left with Masson and I stayed to explain to the
women what had happened. Madame Masson was crying and Marie was very pale. I didn’t like having to explain to them, so I just shut up, smoked a cigarette, and
looked at the sea.
Raymond came back with Masson around one-thirty.
His arm was bandaged up and he had an adhesive plaster on the comer of his mouth . The doctor had told
him that it was nothing, but Raymond looked pretty
grim. Masson tried to make him laugh. But he still
wouldn’t say anything. When he said he was going
down to the beach, I asked him where he was going.
He said he wanted to get some air. Masson and I said
we’d go with him. But that made him angry and he swore
at us. Masson said not to argue with him. I followed
him anyway.
We walked on the beach for a long time. By now
the sun was overpowering. It shattered into little pieces
on the sand and water. I had the impression that Raymond knew where he was going, but I was probably
wrong. At the far end of the beach we finally came to a
little spring running down through the sand behind a
large rock. There we found our two Arabs. They were
lying down, in their greasy overalls. They seemed perfectly calm and almost content. Our coming changed
nothing. The one who had attacked Raymond was
looking at him without saying anything. The other one
was blowing through a little reed over and over again,
watching us out of the comer of his eye. He kept repeating the only three notes he could get out of his instrument.
The whole time there was nothing but the sun and
the silence, with the low gurgling from the spring and
the three notes. Then Raymond put his hand in his
hip pocket, but the others didn’t move, they just kept
looking at each other. I noticed that the toes on the one playing the flute were tensed. But without taking his
eyes off his adversary, Raymond asked me, “Should I
let him have it?” I thought that if I said no he’d get
himself all worked up and shoot for sure. All I said was,
“He hasn’t said anything yet. It’d be pretty lousy to
shoot him like that.” You could still hear the sound of
the water and the flute deep within the silence and the
heat. Then Raymond said, “So I’ll call him something
and when he answers back, I’ll let him have it.” I
answered, “Right. But if he doesn’t draw his knife, you
can’t shoot.” Raymond started getting worked up. The
other Arab went on playing, and both of them were
watching every move Raymond made. “No,” I said
to Raymond, “take him on man to man and give me your
gun. If the other one moves in, or if he draws his knife,
I’ll let him have it.”
The sun glinted off Raymond’s gun as he handed it
to me. But we just stood there motionless, as if everything had closed in around us. We stared at each other
without blinking, and everything carne to a stop there
between the sea, the sand, and the sun, and the double
silence of the flute and the water. It was then that I
realized that you could either shoot or not shoot. But
all of a sudden, the Arabs, backing away, slipped behind the rock. So Raymond and I turned and headed
back the way we’d come. He seemed better and talked
about the bus back I went with him as far as the bungalow, and as he
climbed the wooden steps, I just stood there at the bottom, my head ringing from the sun, unable to face
the effort it would take to climb the wooden staircase
and face the women again. But the heat was so intense
that it was just as bad standing still in the blinding
stream falling from the sky. To stay or to go, it amounted
to the same thing. A minute later I turned back toward
the beach and started walking.
There was the same dazzling red glare. The sea
gasped for air with each shallow, stifled little wave that
broke on the sand. I was walking slowly toward the
rocks and I could feel my forehead swelling under the
sun. All that heat was pressing down on me and making
it hard for me to go on. And every time I felt a blast of
its hot breath strike my face, I gritted my teeth, clenched
my fists in my trouser pockets, and strained every nerve
in order to overcome the sun and the thick drunkenness
it was spilling over me. With every blade of light that
Hashed off the sand, from a bleached shell or a piece of
broken glass, my jaws tightened. I walked for a long
time.
From a distance I could see the small, dark mass of
rock surrounded by a blinding halo of light and sea
spray. I was thinking of the cool spring behind the rock.
I wanted to hear the murmur of its water again, to escape
the sun and the strain and the women’s tears, and to
find shade and rest again at last. But as I got closer, I
saw that Raymond’s man had come back.
He was alone. He was lying on his back, with his
hands behind his head, his forehead in the shade of the rock, the rest of his body in the sun. His blue overalls
seemed to be steaming in the heat. I was a little surprised. As far as I was concerned, the whole thing was
over, and I’d gone there without even thinking about it.
As soon as he saw me, he sat up a little and put his
hand in his pocket. Naturally, I gripped Raymond’s
gun inside my jacket. Then he lay back again, but without taking his hand out of his pocket. I was pretty far
away from him, about ten meters or so. I could tell he was
glancing at me now and then through half-closed eyes.
But most of the time, he was just a form shimmering
before my eyes in the fiery air. The sound of the waves
was even lazier, more drawn out than at noon. It was
the same sun, the same light still shining on the same
sand as before. For two hours the day had stood still;
for two hours it had been anchored in a sea of molten
lead. On the horizon, a tiny steamer went by, and I
made out the black dot from the corner of my eye because I hadn’t stopped watching the Arab.
It occurred to me that all I had to do was turn
around and that would be the end of it. But the whole
beach, throbbing in the sun, was pressing on my back. I
took a few steps toward the spring. The Arab didn’t
move. Besides, he was still pretty far away. Maybe it
was the shadows on his face, but it looked like he was
laughing. I waited. The sun was starting to burn my
cheeks, and I could feel drops of sweat gathering in my
eyebrows. The sun was the same as it had been the
day I’d buried Maman, and like then, my forehead especially was hurting me, all the veins in it throbbing
under the skin. It was this burning, which I couldn’t
stand anymore, that made me move forward. I knew
that it was stupid, that I wouldn’t get the sun off me
by stepping forward. But I took a step, one step, forward.
And this time, without getting up, the Arab drew his
knife and held it up to me in the sun. The light shot off
the steel and it was like a long Hashing blade cutting at
my forehead. At the same instant the sweat in my eyebrows dripped down over my eyelids all at once and
covered them with a warm, thick film. My eyes were
blinded behind the curtain of tears and salt. All I could
feel were the cymbals of sunlight crashing on my forehead and, indistinctly, the dazzling spear Hying up from
the knife in front of me. The scorching blade slashed at
my eyelashes and stabbed at my stinging eyes. That’s
when everything began to reel. The sea carried up a
thick, fiery breath. It seemed to me as if the sky split open
from one end to the other to rain down fire. My whole
being tensed and I squeezed my hand around the
revolver. The trigger gave; I felt the smooth underside
of the butt; and there, in that noise, sharp and deafening at the same time, is where it all started. I shook off
the sweat and sun. I knew that I had shattered the
harmony of the day, the exceptional silence of a beach
where I’d been happy. Then I fired four more times at
the motionless body where the bullets lodged without
leaving a trace. And it was like knocking four quick times
on the door of unhappiness