Story 1: THE ADULTEROUS WOMAN

[yodha]

Her yearning for the vitality of Africa is her crime against France.

The man and the woman in the story are Pied-Noir, people of European descent but born in Algeria. Hence, I find this interpretation of adultery also as a strong one for the story.

[WildCityWoman]

[quote="Thomas Hood"]Janine is in the midst of a midlife crisis, and then:

"Janine, leaning her whole body against the parapet, was speechless, unable to tear herself away from the void opening before her. Beside her, Marcel was getting restless. He was cold; he wanted to go back down. What was there to see here, after all? But she could not take her gaze from the horizon. Over yonder, still farther south, at that point where sky and earth met in a pure line

[WildCityWoman]

Tom said . . .

Camus may have had in mind the Barberini Faun:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barberini_Faun

>It's odd when you see a fly in winter time. Says a lot for the keepers of that bus - ha ha!

Unlike the American housefly, the African fly is especially aggressive. Usually they go for moisture in the eyes:

"Recently, my male counterpart noted that one can tell how horrible the lives of starving African children are simply by the fact that they have flies in their eyes. Clearly, these children have given up on life to such a degree that they cannot even be bothered to swat the flies off of their eyeballs."
http://salmonellapoison.blogspot.com/20 ... ies-on-som e-of-your.html

This blog is mistaken. Even when well fed, many Africans tolerate flies drinking from their eyes.

Tom

Thanks for that link, Tom - 'tis not something I'll be hanging on the wall anytime - ha ha!

I didn't go read about the African children - just too much to take, these stories - but your quote was enough anyway.

Thanks for that.

Carly

[/i]

[WildCityWoman]

But the light began to move; the sun, clear and devoid of warmth, went down toward the west, which became slightly pink, while a gray wave took shape in the east ready to roll slowly over the vast expanse. A first dog barked and its distant bark rose in the now even colder air. Janine noticed that her teeth were chattering. "We are catching our death of cold," Marcel said. "You're a fool. Let's go back." But he took her hand awkwardly. Docile now, she turned away from the parapet and followed him. Without moving, the old Arab on the stairs watched them go down toward the town. She walked along without seeing anyone, bent under a tremendous and sudden fatigue, dragging her body, whose weight now seemed to her unbearable. Her exaltation had left her. Now she felt too tall, too thick, too white too for this world she had just entered. A child, the girl, the dry man, the furtive jackal were the only creatures who could silently walk that earth. What would she do there henceforth except to drag herself toward sleep, toward death?

I'm sure everyone's felt this way before - when we're caught up in the most magnificent thoughts, somebody (husband? wife?) says 'let's go in - it's cold out here'.

And it make us so frustrated! How can this person speak to ME of such mundane things? Does he not realize I AM the light of the world?!

Heh! Heh!

Carly

[WildCityWoman]

So, before I go on reading these paragraphs, let me stop and express what I said about how I took Janine's thoughts to be . . . I don't normally look for symbolism - even in school, at library discussions, I'm the one who puts my head in my arms and mutters 'geesh! It's just a story! Leave it alone!'

That's not to say I don't find all your comments interesting - I do. And I am sure Camus was deliberately using actions in this story 'symbolically'. Being who he was, I mean, with his political interests - he probably wrote, even in fiction, with a deliberate agenda.

Reading through all your posts, I felt kinda' silly having posted to say what I thought about Janine's 'enlightenment' up on the fort (roof?) there.

So I hope you don't think I'm too much of a plebe, writing my 'own take' on the story as I go along - maybe you'll even appreciate it, hearing how I interpret the story, just as a 'reader', not an educated scholar, trained to look for the symbols.

I shoulda' paid more attention in school, I guess.

[WildCityWoman]

She dragged herself, in fact, toward the restaurant with a husband suddenly taciturn unless he was telling how tired he was, while she was struggling weakly against a cold, aware of a fever rising within her. Then she dragged herself toward her bed, where Marcel came to join her and put the light out at once without asking anything of her. The room was frigid. Janine felt the cold creeping up while the fever was increasing. She breathed with difficulty, her blood pumped without warming her; a sort of fear grew within her. She turned over and the old iron bedstead groaned under her weight. No, she didn't want to fall ill. Her husband was already asleep; she too had to sleep; it was essential. The muffled sounds of the town reached her through the window-slit. With a nasal twang old phonographs in the Moorish cafes ground out tunes she recognized vaguely; they reached her borne on the sound of a slow-moving crowd. She must sleep. But she was counting black tents; behind her eyelids motionless camels were grazing; immense solitudes were whirling within her. Yes, why had she come? She fell asleep on that question.

Well, yes . . . good question too - and she came because he insisted she come along and if y'all remember it was because 'it took too much energy to refuse'. Which made perfect sense to me.

So her having come along with him could be put down to fate? It was in her 'path'? Destiny? She was meant to come to this moment, have these thoughts and experience the ensuing 'growth' in her spiritual (psychological?) nature.

----------------------------

Another thought I had while reading this paragraph - Marcel . . . the poor guy! Is he really that awful for just being a tired man with a lot on his mind? Business - which happens to be necessary if he and Janine are to eat.

Back in Camus's time, and location, a couple couldn't check into the nearest Social Services office and make an application for 'assistance'. No green stamps either.

The guy had to work - he didn't have time for gazing across deserts, thinking deep thoughts about roaming vagabonds.

Carly

[WildCityWoman]

She awoke a little later. The silence around her was absolute. But, on the edges of town, hoarse dogs were howling in the soundless night. Janine shivered. She turned over, felt her husband's hard shoulder against hers, and suddenly, half asleep, huddled against him. She was drifting on the surface of sleep without sinking in and she clung to that shoulder with unconscious eagerness as her safest haven. She was talking, but no sound issued from her mouth. She was talking, but she herself hardly heard what she was saying. She could feel only Marcel's warmth. For more than twenty years every night thus, in his warmth, just the two of them, even when ill, even when traveling, as at present... Besides, what would she have done alone at home? No child! Wasn't that what she lacked? She didn't know. She simply followed Marcel, pleased to know that someone needed her. The only joy he gave her was the knowledge that she was necessary. Probably he didn't love her. Love, even when filled with hate, doesn't have that sullen face. But what is his face like? They made love in the dark by feel, without seeing each other. Is there another love than that of darkness, a love that would cry aloud in daylight? She didn't know, but she did know that Marcel needed her and that she needed that need, that she lived on it night and day, at night especially

[WildCityWoman]

Marcel stirred as if to move away from her. No, he didn't love her; he was merely afraid of what was not she, and she and he should long ago have separated and slept alone until the end. But who can always sleep alone? Some men do, cut off from others by a vocation or misfortune, who go to bed every night in the same bed as death. Marcel never could do so

[WildCityWoman]

She called him with all her heart. After all, she too needed him, his strength, his little eccentricities, and she too was afraid of death. "If I could overcome that fear, I'd be happy...." Immediately, a nameless anguish seized her. She drew back from Marcel. No, she was overcoming nothing, she was not happy, she was going to die, in truth, without having been liberated. Her heart pained her; she was stifling under a huge weight that she suddenly discovered she had been dragging around for twenty years. Now she was struggling under it with all her strength. She wanted to be liberated even if Marcel, even if the others, never were! Fully awake, she sat up in bed and listened to a call that seemed very close. But from the edges of night the exhausted and yet indefatigable voices of the dogs of the oasis were all that reached her ears. A slight wind had risen and she heard its light waters flow in the palm grove. It came from the south, where desert and night mingled now under the again unchanging sky, where life stopped, where no one would ever age or die any more. Then the waters of the wind dried up and she was not even sure of having heard anything except a mute call that she could, after all, silence or notice. But never again would she know its meaning unless she responded to it at once. At once

[WildCityWoman]

She got up gently and stood motionless beside the bed, listening to her husband's breathing. Marcel was asleep. The next moment, the bed's warmth left her and the cold gripped her. She dressed slowly, feeling for her clothes in the faint light coming through the blinds from the street-lamps. Her shoes in her hand, she reached the door. She waited a moment more in the darkness, then gently opened the door. The knob squeaked and she stood still. Her heart was beating madly. She listened with her body tense and, reassured by the silence, turned her hand a little more. The knob's turning seemed to her interminable. At last she opened the door, slipped outside, and closed the door with the same stealth. Then, with her cheek against the wood, she waited. After a moment she made out, in the distance, Marcel's breathing. She faced about, felt the icy night air against her cheek, and ran the length of the balcony. The outer door was closed. While she was slipping the bolt, the night watchman appeared at the top of the stairs, his face blurred with sleep, and spoke to her in Arabic. "I'll be back," said Janine as she stepped out into the night.

Had it been him who wanted to slip out in the night, just to take in the air, maybe go up on the roof, he wouldn't have to sneak