After that he told me he would be attending thefuneral and I thanked him. He sat down behind his deskand crossed his short legs. He informed me that he andI would be the only ones there, apart from the nurse onduty. The residents usually weren’t allowed to attendfunerals. He only let them keep the vigil. “It’s morehumane that way,” he remarked. But in this case he’dgiven one of mother’s old friends-Thomas Perezpermission to join the funeral procession . At that thedirector smiled. He said, “I’m sure you understand. It’sa rather childish sentiment. But he and your mother werealmost inseparable. The others used to tease them andsay, ‘Perez has a fiancee.’ He’d laugh. They enjoyed it.And the truth is he’s taking Madame Meursault’s deathvery hard. I didn’t think I could rightfully refuse himpermission. But on the advice of our visiting physician,I did not allow him to keep the vigil last night.”We didn’t say anything for quite a long time. Thedirector stood up and looked out the window of his office.A moment later he said, “Here’s the priest from Marengoalready. He’s early.” He warned me that it would take at least three-quarters of an hour to walk to the church,which is in the village itself. We went downstairs. Outin front of the building stood the priest and two altarboys. One of them was holding a censer, and the priestwas leaning toward him, adjusting the length of its silverchain. As we approached, the priest straightened up. Hecalled me “my son” and said a few words to me. He wentinside; I followed.I noticed right away that the screws on the caskethad been tightened and that there were four men wearing black in the room. The director vas telling me that thehearse was waiting out in the road and at the same timeI could hear the priest beginning his prayers. From thenon everything happened very quickly. The men movedtoward the casket with a pall. The priest, his acolytes, thedirector and I all went outside. A woman I didn’t knowwas standing by the door. “Monsieur Meursault,” thedirector said. I didn’t catch the woman’s name; I justunderstood that she was the nurse assigned by the home.Without smiling she lowered her long, gaunt face. Thenwe stepped aside to make way for the body. We followed the pall bearers and left the horne. Outside thegate stood the hearse. Varnished, glossy, and oblong, itreminded me of a pencil box. Next to it was the funeraldirector, a little man in a ridiculous getup, and an awkward, embarrassed-looking old man. I realized that it wasMonsieur Perez. He was wearing a soft felt hat with around crown and a wide brim (he took it off as thecasket was coming through the gate), a suit with trousers that were corkscrewed down around his ankles, and ablack tie with a knot that was too small for the big whitecollar of his shirt. His lips were trembling below a nosedotted with blackheads. Strange, floppy, thick-rimmedears stuck out through his fine, white hair, and I wasstruck by their blood-red color next to the pallor of hisface. The funeral director assigned us our places. Firstcame the priest, then the hearse. Flanking it, the fourmen. Behind it, the director and myself and, bringing upthe rear, the nurse and Monsieur Perez.The sky was already filled with light. The sun wasbeginning to bear down on the earth and it was gettinghotter by the minute. I don’t know why we waited solong before getting under way. I was hot in my darkclothes. The little old man, who had put his hat back on,took it off again. I turned a little in his direction andwas looking at him when the director started talking tome about him. He told me that my mother and MonsieurPerez often used to walk down to the village together inthe evenings, accompanied by a nurse. I was looking atthe countryside around me. Seeing the rows of cypresstrees leading up to the hills next to the sky, and thehouses standing out here and there against that redand green earth, I was able to understand Maman better.Evenings in that part of the country must have been akind of sad relief. But today, with the sun bearing down,making the whole landscape shimmer with heat, it was inhuman and oppressive.We got under way. It was then that I noticed that Perez had a slight limp. Little by little, the hearse waspicking up speed and the old man was losing ground.One of the men Banking the hearse had also droppedback and was now even with me. I was surprised athow fast the sun was climbing in the sky. I noticed thatfor quite some time the countryside had been buzzingwith the sound of insects and the crackling of grass. Thesweat was pouring down my face. I wasn’t wearing ahat, so I fanned myself with my handkerchief. The manfrom the undertaker’s said something to me then whichI missed. He was lifting the edge of his cap with hisright hand and wiping his head with a handkerchiefwith his left at the same time. I said, “What?” He pointedup at the sky and repeated, “Pretty hot.” I said, “Yes.”A minute later he asked, “Is that your mother in there?”Again I said, “Yes.” “Was she old?” I answered, “Fairly,”because I didn’t know the exact number. After that hewas quiet. I turned around and saw old Perez about fiftymeters behind us. He was going as fast as he could, swinging his felt hat at the end of his arm. I looked at thedirector, too. He was walking with great dignity, withouta single wasted motion. A few beads of sweat were forming on his forehead, but he didn’t wipe them off.The procession seemed to me to be moving a littlefaster. All around me there was still the same glowingcountryside Hooded with sunlight. The glare from thesky was unbearable. At one point, we went over a sectionof the road that had just been repaved. The tar hadburst open in the sun. Our feet sank into it, leaving its shiny pulp exposed. Sticking up above the top of thehearse, the coachman’s hard leather hat looked as if ithad been molded out of the same black mud. I felt alittle lost between the blue and white of the sky and themonotony of the colors around me-the sticky black ofthe tar, the dull black of all the clothes, and the shinyblack of the hearse. All of it-the sun, the smell of leatherand horse dung from the hearse, the smell of varnish andincense, and my fatigue after a night without sleep-wasmaking it hard for me to see or think straight. I turnedaround again : Perez seemed to be way back there, fadingin the shimmering heat. Then I lost sight of him altogether. I looked around and saw that he’d left the roadand cut out across the fields. I also noticed there was abend in the road up ahead. I realized that Perez, whoknew the country, was taking a short cut in order to catchup with us. By the time we rounded the bend, he wasback with us. Then we lost him again. He set off crosscountry once more, and so it went on. I could feel theblood pounding in my temples.After that, everything seemed to happen so fast, sodeliberately, so naturally that I don’t remember any ofit anymore. Except for one thing : as we entered thevillage, the nurse spoke to me. She had a remarkablevoice which didn’t go with her face at all, a melodious,quavering voice. She said, “If you go slowly, you riskgetting sunstroke. But if you go too fast, you work upa sweat and then catch a chill inside the church.” Shewas right.
There was no way out. Several other images from that day have stuck in my mind : for instance,
Perez’s face when he caught up with us for the last time,
just outside the village. Big tears of frustration and exhaustion were streaming down his cheeks. But because
of all the wrinkles, they weren’t dripping off. They
spread out and ran together again, leaving a watery film
over his ruined face. Then there was the church and
the villagers on the sidewalks, the red geraniums on the
graves in the cemetery, Perez fainting (he crumpled like
a rag doll), the blood-red earth spilling over Maman’s
casket, the white flesh of the roots mixed in with it, more
people, voices, the village, waiting in front of a cafe, the
incessant drone of the motor, and my joy when the bus
entered the nest of lights that was Algiers and I knew I
was going to go to bed and sleep for twelve hours.