Albert Camus was a French philosopher. He focused most of his philosophy around existential questions. The absurdity of life, the inevitable ending (death) is highlighted in his acts, his belief that the absurd – life being void of meaning, or man's inability to know that meaning if it were to exist – was something that man should embrace.
My favorite book by Albert Camus is "The Stranger"(pdf here). The plot revolves around a murder and a stoic killer, but there's a story within the story. That tale unfolds through three conversations the main character has with his neighbor.
At the first meeting in the stairwell of their building:
At the first meeting in the stairwell of their building:
I almost bumped into old Salamano, who lived on the same floor as I. As usual, he had his dog with him. For eight years the two had been inseparable. Salamano’s spaniel is an ugly brute, afflicted with some skin disease—mange, I suspect; anyhow, it has lost all its hair and its body is covered with brown scabs.
Perhaps through living in one small room, cooped up with his dog, Salamano has come to resemble it. His towy hair has gone very thin, and he has reddish blotches on his face. And the dog has developed something of its master’s queer hunched-up gait; it always has its muzzle stretched far forward and its nose to the ground. But, oddly enough, though so much alike, they detest each other.
Twice a day, at eleven and six, the old fellow takes his dog for a walk, and for eight years that walk has never varied. You can see them in the rue de Lyon, the dog pulling his master along as hard as he can, till finally the old chap misses a step and nearly falls. Then he beats his dog and calls it names.
The dog cowers and lags behind, and it’s his master’s turn to drag him along. Presently the dog forgets, starts tugging at the leash again, gets another hiding and more abuse. Then they halt on the pavement, the pair of them, and glare at each other; the dog with terror and the man with hatred in his eyes. Every time they’re out, this happens.
When the dog wants to stop at a lamppost, the old boy won’t let him, and drags him on, and the wretched spaniel leaves behind him a trail of little drops. But, if he does it in the room, it means another hiding. It’s been going on like this for eight years, and Céleste always says it’s a “crying shame,” and something should be done about it; but really one can’t be sure.
When I met him in the hall, Salamano was bawling at his dog, calling him a bastard, a lousy mongrel, and so forth, and the dog was whining. I said, “Good evening,” but the old fellow took no notice and went on cursing. So I thought I’d ask him what the dog had done. Again, he didn’t answer, but went on shouting, “You bloody cur!” and the rest of it. I couldn’t see very clearly, but he seemed to be fixing something on the dog’s collar.
I raised my voice a little. Without looking round, he mumbled in a sort of suppressed fury: “He’s always in the way, blast him!” Then he started up the stairs, but the dog tried to resist and flattened itself out on the floor, so he had to haul it up on the leash, step by step.
Page 18- 19 pdf here
The second time they met the writer was with a friend, Raymond.
When we were nearly home I saw old Salamano on the doorstep; he seemed very excited. I noticed that his dog wasn’t with him. He was turning like a teetotum, looking in all directions, and sometimes peering into the darkness of the hall with his little bloodshot eyes. Then he’d mutter something to himself and start gazing up and down the street again. Raymond asked him what was wrong, but he didn’t answer at once.
Then I heard him grunt, “The bastard! The filthy cur!” When I asked him where his dog was, he scowled at me and snapped out, “Gone!” A moment later, all of a sudden, he launched out into it.
“I’d taken him to the Parade Ground as usual. There was a fair on, and you could hardly move for the crowd. I stopped at one of the booths to look at the Handcuff King. When I turned to go, the dog was gone. I’d been meaning to get a smaller collar, but I never thought the brute could slip it and get away like that.”
Raymond assured him the dog would find its way home, and told him stories of dogs that had traveled miles and miles to get back to their masters. But this seemed to make the old fellow even more worried than before.
“Don’t you understand, they’ll do away with him; the police, I mean. It’s not likely anyone will take him in and look after him; with all those scabs he puts everybody off.”
I told him that there was a pound at the police station, where stray dogs are taken. His dog was certain to be there and he could get it back on payment of a small charge. He asked me how much the charge was, but there I couldn’t help him. Then he flew into a rage again
“Is it likely I’d give money for a mutt like that? No damned fear! They can kill him, for all I care.”
And he went on calling his dog the usual names. Raymond gave a laugh and turned into the hall. I followed him upstairs, and we parted on the landing. A minute or two later I heard Salamano’s footsteps and a knock on my door.
When I opened it, he halted for a moment in the doorway. “Excuse me . I hope I’m not disturbing you.” I asked him in, but he shook his head. He was staring at his toe caps, and the gnarled old hands were trembling. Without meeting my eyes, he started talking.
“They won’t really take him from me, will they, Monsieur Meursault? Surely they wouldn’t do a thing like that. If they do—I don’t know what will become of me.”
I told him that, so far as I knew, they kept stray dogs in the pound for three days, waiting for their owners to call for them. After that they disposed of the dogs as they thought fit. He stared at me in silence for a moment, then said, “Good evening.”
After that I heard him pacing up and down his room for quite a while. Then his bed creaked. Through the wall there came to me a little wheezing sound, and I guessed that he was weeping.
Page 26-27 pdf here
The third and final act of this story within a story.
As I was turning in at my door I ran into old Salamano. I asked him into my room, and he informed me that his dog was definitely lost. He’d been to the pound to inquire, but it wasn’t there, and the staff told him it had probably been run over. When he asked them whether it was any use inquiring about it at the police station, they said the police had more important things to attend to than keeping records of stray dogs run over in the streets.
I suggested he should get another dog, but, reasonably enough, he pointed out that he’d become used to this one, and it wouldn’t be the same thing. I was seated on my bed, with my legs up, and Salamano on a chair beside the table, facing me, his hands spread on his knees. He had kept on his battered felt hat and was mumbling away behind his draggled yellowish mustache. I found him rather boring, but I had nothing to do and didn’t feel sleepy. So, to keep the conversation going, I asked some questions about his dog—how long he had had it and so forth.
He told me he had got it soon after his wife’s death. He’d married rather late in life. When a young man, he wanted to go on the stage; during his military service he’d often played in the regimental theatricals and acted rather well, so everybody said. However, finally, he had taken a job in the railway, and he didn’t regret it, as now he had a small pension.
He and his wife had never hit it off very well, but they’d got used to each other, and when she died he felt lonely. One of his mates on the railway whose bitch had just had pups had offered him one, and he had taken it, as a companion. He’d had to feed it from the bottle at first. But, as a dog’s life is shorter than a man’s, they’d grown old together, so to speak.
“He was a cantankerous brute,” Salamano said. “Now and then we had some proper set-tos, he and I. But he was a good mutt all the same.”
I said he looked well bred, and that evidently pleased the old man.
For the first time since I’d known him he held out his hand to me—rather shyly, I thought—and I could feel the scales on his skin. Just as he was going out of the door, he turned and, smiling a little, said:
The Stranger
Albert Camus
Albert Camus
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