Ask 5
questions. Label __/5
Highlight and DISCUSS 5 quotes that
reveal characterization. Label O+< __/5
Highlight
and DISCUSS 5 words that evoke a
mood. Label M __/5
Summarize
what they read. Label it S __/5
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 didnÕt 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 corning in our
direction. I looked at Raymond and he said, "It's him." We kept
walking. Masson asked how theyÕd 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 couldnÕt
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 pointed out as his and hit him twice, as
hard as he could. The Arab fell flat 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 t 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 ex plain 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 corner 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 corning
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 corner 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 heÕd 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 came 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 weÕd 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 flashed 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 womenÕs 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 with out 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 IÕd 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 couldnÕt stand anymore, that made me move
forward. I knew that it was stupid,
that I wouldnÕt get the sun off me by stepping forward. But I took a step, one
step, and 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 flashing blade cutting at my forehead. At the same instant the sweat in my
eye brows 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 fore head
and, indistinctly, the dazzling spear flying 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.