The Stranger by Albert Camus Page A

Maman’s funeral said. No, there was no way out, and no one can imagine what nights in prison are like.

3
    But I can honestly say that the time from summer to summer went very quickly. And I knew as soon as the weather turned hot that something new was in store for me. My case was set down for the last session of the Court of Assizes, and that session was due to end some time in June. The trial opened with the sun glaring outside. My lawyer had assured me that it wouldn’t last more than two or three days. “Besides,” he had added, “the court will be pressed for time. Yours isn’t the most important case of the session. Right after you, there’s a parricide coming up.”
    They came for me at seven-thirty in the morning and I was driven to the courthouse in the prison van. The two policemen took me into a small room that smelled of darkness. We waited, seated near a door through which we could hear voices, shouts, chairs being dragged across the floor, and a lot of commotion which made me think of those neighborhood fêtes when the hall is cleared for dancing after the concert. The policemen told me we had to wait for the judges and one of them offered me a cigarette, which I turned down. Shortlyafter that he asked me if I had the “jitters.” I said no—and that, in a way, I was even interested in seeing a trial. I’d never had the chance before. “Yeah,” said the other policeman, “but it gets a little boring after a while.”
    A short time later a small bell rang in the room. Then they took my handcuffs off. They opened the door and led me into the dock. The room was packed. Despite the blinds, the sun filtered through in places and the air was already stifling. They hadn’t opened the windows. I sat down with the policemen standing on either side of me. It was then that I noticed a row of faces in front of me. They were all looking at me: I realized that they were the jury. But I can’t say what distinguished one from another. I had just one impression: I was sitting across from a row of seats on a streetcar and all these anonymous passengers were looking over the new arrival to see if they could find something funny about him. I knew it was a silly idea since it wasn’t anything funny they were after but a crime. There isn’t much difference, though—in any case that was the idea that came to me.
    I was feeling a little dizzy too, with all those people in that stuffy room. I looked around the courtroom again but I couldn’t make out a single face. I think that at first I hadn’t realized that all those people were crowding in to see me. Usually people didn’t pay much attention to me. It took some doing on my part to understand that I was the cause of all the excitement. I said to the policeman, “Some crowd!” He told me it was because of thepress and he pointed to a group of men at a table just below the jury box. He said, “That’s them.” I asked, “Who?” and he repeated, “The press.” He knew one of the reporters, who just then spotted him and was making his way toward us. He was an older, friendly man with a twisted little grin on his face. He gave the policeman a warm handshake. I noticed then that everyone was waving and exchanging greetings and talking, as if they were in a club where people are glad to find themselves among others from the same world. That is how I explained to myself the strange impression I had of being odd man out, a kind of intruder. Yet the reporter turned and spoke to me with a smile. He told me that he hoped everything would go well for me. I thanked him and he added, “You know, we’ve blown your case up a little. Summer is the slow season for the news. And your story and the parricide were the only ones worth bothering about.” Then he pointed in the direction of the group he had just left, at a little man who looked like a fattened-up weasel. He told me that the man was a special correspondent for a Paris paper. “Actually, he didn’t come