On November 7, 1913, Albert Camus was born, a world-famous writer and philosopher, who during his lifetime received the common name “Conscience of the West.” His works became famous, first of all, for highlighting the most pressing problems consuming modern society. Albert Camus's literary talent earned him the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1957. We bring to your attention 25 quotes and statements by Albert Camus from the novel “The Plague,” the stories “The Stranger” and “The Fall,” as well as other works of the writer.
ALBERT CAMUS QUOTES ABOUT LOVE
Since I know that you will come, I can wait for you as long as I like (Albert Camus quote from the novel “The Plague”, 1947).
Every reasonable person, one way or another, has ever wished death for those he loves (quote by Albert Camus from the story “The Stranger”, 1942, words by Meursault).
To love means to agree to grow old with another person (quote by Albert Camus from the play “Caligula”, 1945, words by Caligula).
Love is a disease of such a kind that it spares neither wise men nor idiots (quote by Albert Camus from the play “Caligula”, 1945, words by Helikon).
Is it necessary to love rarely in order to love deeply? (Albert Camus quote from the writer’s diaries).
Carnal jealousy is the result of the imagination, as well as a person’s opinion about himself. He attributes to his opponent those bad thoughts that he himself had under the same circumstances (quote from Albert Camus from the story “The Fall”, 1956).
ALBERT CAMUS QUOTES ABOUT FREEDOM
Thoughts about freedom and independence are born only to those who still live in hope (Albert Camus quote from the story “A Happy Death”, 1947).
Just don’t expect happiness to come with a man. How many women make this mistake! Happiness is in you, you just need to wait for it (Albert Camus quote from the story “A Happy Death”, 1947, words by Meursault).
My problem is that I understand everything (quote by Albert Camus from the play “Caligula”, 1945, words by Scipio).
This world is devoid of meaning, and those who realize this gain freedom (quote by Albert Camus from the play “Caligula”, 1945, words of Caligula).
Every time it seems to me that I have comprehended the world to its very depths, it shocks me with its simplicity (Albert Camus quote from the essay “Between Yes and No,” 1937).
There are moments when sudden sincerity is tantamount to an unforgivable loss of control over oneself (Albert Camus quote from the writer’s notebooks).
ALBERT CAMUS QUOTES ABOUT LIFE
When you wait too long, you don’t wait at all (Albert Camus quote from the novel “The Plague”, 1947).
The habit of despair is much worse than despair itself (Albert Camus quote from the novel “The Plague”, 1947).
Beauty leads us to despair, it is eternity, lasting a moment, and we would like to prolong it forever (Albert Camus quote from the writer’s diaries).
Don't wait for the Last Judgment. It happens every day (Albert Camus quote from the story “The Fall”, 1956).
The absurd is born from the collision of the human mind and the reckless silence of the world (Albert Camus quote from the essay “The Myth of Sisyphus”, 1942).
Boredom is the result of mechanical life, but it also sets consciousness in motion (Albert Camus quote from the essay “The Myth of Sisyphus”, 1942).
ALBERT CAMUS QUOTES ABOUT MAN
We don't have time to be ourselves. We only have enough time to be happy (Albert Camus quote from the writer’s diaries).
The most bitter mistake is to make a person suffer (Albert Camus quote from the essay “Between Yes and No,” 1937).
Even sitting in the dock, it is always interesting to hear what they are saying about you (Albert Camus quote from the story “The Stranger”, 1942, words by Meursault).
What you don’t know, you always exaggerate (Albert Camus quote from the story “The Stranger”, 1942, words by Meursault).
They asked what he thought of me, and he replied that I was a MAN (quote by Albert Camus from the story “The Stranger”, 1942, words by Meursault).
Do you know what charm is? The ability to feel how they say “yes” to you, although you didn’t ask for anything (Albert Camus quote from the story “The Fall”, 1956).
“It seemed as if the very earth on which our houses were built was being cleansed of the filth accumulated in its depths, as if ichor was pouring out from there and ulcers were swelling, corroding the earth from the inside.”
""Question: how to ensure that you do not waste time?
Answer: experience time in its entirety.
Remedies: spend days in the dentist's waiting room on a hard chair; sitting on the balcony on a Sunday afternoon; listen to reports in a language you don’t understand; choose the longest and most inconvenient railway routes and, of course, ride trains while standing; hang around in line at the theater box office and not get a ticket to the show, etc. and so on.""
“When war is annoying, people usually say: “Well, this can’t last long, it’s too stupid.” And indeed, war is indeed too stupid, which, however, does not prevent it from lasting a long time. In fact, stupidity is an extremely persistent thing, it’s not difficult to notice if you don’t think only about yourself all the time.”
“That’s when this scourge appeared in history to defeat the enemies of God. Pharaoh opposed the plans of the Eternal, and the plague forced him to kneel. From the very beginning of human history, the scourge of God humbled the stiff-necked and the blind. Think carefully about this and kneel.”
"Oh, if only there was an earthquake! Give it a good shake - and that's the end of it... They count the dead, the living - and that's it. But this bitch is a plague! Even someone who is not sick still carries the disease in his heart."
“Impatiently pushing the present, hostilely looking sideways at the past, deprived of the future, we were like those whom human justice or human malice keep behind bars. In short, the only way to avoid these unbearably prolonged holidays was to put the train on the rails again, by the sheer power of imagination, and fill the empty hours with waiting for the bell to ring at the front door, which, however, remained stubbornly silent.”
“The smell of salt and seaweed came from the restless and invisible sea from here. And our deserted city, all white with dust, oversaturated with the smells of the sea, all echoing with the screams of the wind, groaned like an island cursed by God.”
“If by chance one of us tried to confide in the other or even just talk about our feelings, the response that followed, any response, was usually perceived as an insult. Only then did he notice that he and his interlocutor were talking about completely different things. after all, he was speaking from the very depths of his endless thoughts all about the same thing, from the depths of his torment, and the image that he wanted to reveal to another had long been languishing on the fire of expectation and passion. and the other, on the contrary, mentally pictured to himself very banal emotions, ordinary common pain, standard melancholy. and whatever the answer was - hostile or completely benevolent, it usually did not hit the mark, so that the attempt at intimate conversations had to be abandoned.
“A natural disaster is beyond human standards, which is why it is believed that a disaster is something unreal, that it is like a bad dream that will soon pass. but it is not the dream that ends, but from one bad dream to another people end, and first of all humanists, because they neglect precautions. In this regard, our fellow citizens were no more guilty than other people, they simply forgot about modesty and believed that everything was still possible for them, thereby suggesting that natural disasters were impossible. They still did things, prepared for travel, and had their own opinions. How could they believe in a plague that at once cancels the future, all trips and disputes? They considered themselves free, but no one will ever be free as long as there are disasters. »
“By attaching inordinate importance to good deeds, we end up giving indirect but immoderate praise to evil itself. for in this case it is easy to assume that good deeds have a price only because they are a rare phenomenon, and anger and indifference are much more common drivers of human actions.”
“People are more good than bad, and, in essence, that’s not the point. But they are, to one degree or another, in ignorance, and this is called virtue or vice, and the most terrible vice is ignorance, which believes that it knows everything, and therefore allows itself to kill.”
“Now I know that man is capable of great deeds. But if at the same time he is not capable of great feelings, he does not exist for me.”
“And from the far corners of the earth, across thousands of kilometers, unfamiliar fraternal voices tried to clumsily express their solidarity, talked about it, but at the same time they felt tragic powerlessness, since a person cannot truly share someone else’s grief that he does not see with my own eyes."
“It is clear that our love was still with us, only it was not applicable to anything, weighed us all down with a heavy burden, nestled sluggishly in our souls, fruitless, like a crime or a death sentence. Our love was long-suffering without a future and stubborn waiting. and from this point of view, the behavior of some of our fellow citizens brought to mind the long lines that gathered in all parts of the city in front of grocery stores. And here and there - the same ability to humble yourself and endure, at the same time limitless and devoid of illusions. you just need to multiply this feeling a thousand times, for here we are talking about separation, about another hunger that can devour everything.
“And in the end you see that no one is able to truly think about anyone, even in the hours of the most bitter trials. For to truly think about someone means to think about him constantly, minute after minute, without being distracted by anything from these thoughts: not by housework, not by a fly flying past, not by eating, not by itching. But there have always been and will be flies and itching. That's why life is very difficult. »
“Have you ever seen a person being shot? No, of course, you can’t get there without a special invitation, and the audience is selected in advance. And as a result, you all supplement yourself in this regard with pictures and book descriptions. a blindfold, a pillar and several soldiers in the distance. No matter how it is! Do you know that just the opposite, a platoon of soldiers is lined up one and a half meters from the person being shot? Do you know that if the convicted person takes even a step, he will rest his chest against the muzzles of the rifles? Do you know that from this extremely close distance they fire aimed fire at the heart area, and since the bullets are large, it creates a hole where you can stick your fist? No, you don’t know any of this, because it’s not customary to talk about such details. A person's sleep is a much more sacred thing than life for those infected with the plague. You shouldn't ruin the sleep of honest people. It would be in bad taste, and taste is precisely about not chewing anything - everyone knows that. but since then I began to sleep poorly. the bad taste remained in my mouth, and I did not stop chewing, in other words, thinking.
“Cheerful, with a constant smile on his lips, he seemed to give himself up to all entertainment, but was by no means a slave to them...”
“A natural disaster is actually a fairly common thing, but it’s hard to believe in, even when it hits you.”
“In fact, stupidity is an extremely persistent thing, it’s not difficult to notice if you don’t think only about yourself all the time.”
“...it is precisely the feeling of an exile that should be called that state of unfulfillment in which we constantly found ourselves, that clearly felt, reckless desire to turn back time or, conversely, speed up its run, all these burning arrows of memories. »
“...and only one thing remained for us - the past, and if any of us tried to live in the future, then such a daredevil was in a hurry to abandon his attempts, to the extent, of course, that this was successful, so painfully wounded his imagination, inevitably hurting everyone who trusts him.”
“...for the lover to know in detail what the beloved being is doing is a source of greatest joy.”
“- Or maybe I was born into the world to love a woman? Isn't this in the order of things?
“Pity is very tiresome when pity is useless...”
“To fight abstraction, you must be at least partly akin to it.”
“Until four o’clock in the morning, a person, in essence, does nothing and sleeps peacefully, even if that night was a night of betrayal. Yes, a person is sleeping at this hour, and it is very good that he is sleeping, for the only desire of a heart tormented by anxiety is to undividedly possess the one you love, or, when the hour of separation has come, to plunge this being into a dreamless sleep, so that it will last until the day of meeting ."
“...the first half of a person’s life is an ascent, and the second is a descent, and when this very descent begins, a person’s days no longer belong to him, they can be taken away at any moment. There’s nothing you can do about it, so it’s better to do nothing at all.”
“...by attaching an inordinate amount of importance to good deeds, we end up offering indirect but immoderate praise to evil itself. For in this case it is easy to assume that good deeds have a price only because they are a rare phenomenon, and anger and indifference are much more common drivers of human actions.”
“The evil that exists in the world is almost always the result of ignorance, and any good will can do as much damage as an evil one, unless that good will is not sufficiently enlightened.”
“People are more good than bad, and, in essence, that’s not the point. But they are, to one degree or another, in ignorance, and this is called virtue or vice, and the most terrible vice is ignorance, which believes that it knows everything. The soul of a murderer is blind, and there is neither true kindness nor the most beautiful love without absolute clarity of vision.”
“And now he, like everyone else crowding on the platform, wanted to believe or pretend that they believed that the plague could come and go without changing anything in a person’s heart.”
“A person who is sick with a dangerous disease or in a state of deep fear is therefore protected from other illnesses or from fears.”
“All you have to do is acquire habits, and the days will flow smoothly.”
“.Where some saw abstraction, others saw truth.”
“The warmth of life and the image of death - that is knowledge.”
“But if this means winning the game, how hard it must be to live only with what you know and what you remember, and not have hope ahead. This is obviously how Tarrou lived; he understood how fruitless a life is, devoid of illusions. There is no peace without hope."
“There was room in our hearts only for a very ancient gloomy hope, for that hope that prevents people from humbly accepting death and which is not hope at all, but simply a stubborn clinging to life.”
“They fought at the gate again.
“We’ve already finished,” he said. Rie.
Tarru muttered that this never ends and there will be victims again, because that is the order of things.
“Perhaps,” the doctor agreed, “but, as you know, I feel more at one with the vanquished than with the saints.” I think I am. simply lacks a taste for heroism and holiness. The only thing,. what matters to me is to be. person.
“Yes, we are both looking for the same thing, but I don’t have such high claims.”
“Everyone carries it, the plague, within themselves, for there is no such person in the world, yes, yes, there is no such person, whom it would not touch. And therefore, we must constantly watch ourselves so that, if we accidentally forget ourselves, we don’t breathe on someone else’s face and pass on the infection to him. Because a microbe is something natural. Everything else: health, incorruptibility, even cleanliness if you want - all this is already a product of will, and a will that should not give itself a break. An honest person who does not transmit infection to anyone is precisely one who does not dare to relax for a moment. And how much will and effort is required, Rie, not to forget! Yes, Rieux, being plagued is very tiring. But it’s even more tiring not to want to be one. That’s why everyone is clearly tired, because nowadays everyone is a little plagued. But that is precisely why those few who do not want to live in a state of plague reach the extreme limits of fatigue, from which only death can free them.”
“Have you ever seen a person being shot? No, of course, you can’t get there without a special invitation, and the audience is selected in advance. And as a result, you all supplement yourself in this regard with pictures and book descriptions. There is a blindfold on the pillar and several soldiers in the distance. No matter how it is! Do you know that just the opposite, a platoon of soldiers is lined up one and a half meters from the person being shot? Do you know that if the convicted person takes even a step, he will rest his chest against the muzzles of the rifles? Do you know that from this extremely close distance they fire aimed fire at the heart area, and since the bullets are large, it creates a hole where you can stick your fist? No, you don’t know any of this, because it’s not customary to talk about such details. A person's sleep is a much more sacred thing than life for those infected with the plague. You shouldn't ruin the sleep of honest people. It would be in bad taste, and taste is precisely about not chewing anything - everyone knows that. But since then I began to have trouble sleeping. The bad taste remained in my mouth, and I did not stop chewing, in other words, thinking.”
“Of course, I knew that on occasion we also handed down death sentences. But they assured me that these few deaths were necessary in order to build a world where no one would be killed. To a certain extent this was true, but I must simply not be able to hold on to this kind of truth. The only thing that is certain is that I hesitated. »
“And in the end you see that no one is able to truly think about anyone, even in the hours of the most bitter trials. For to truly think about someone means to think about him constantly, minute after minute, without being distracted by anything from these thoughts: not by housework, not by a fly flying past, not by eating, not by itching. But there have always been and will be flies and itching. That's why life is very difficult. And they know this very well."
“It would seem that the plague should have strengthened the bonds of equality between our fellow citizens precisely because of the inexorable impartiality with which it acted in its department, but it turned out the other way around - the epidemic, due to the usual play of selfish interests, further exacerbated the sense of injustice in the hearts of people. Of course, we retained the most perfect equality of death, but no one wanted it. »
“When an innocent creature loses its eyes, a Christian can only either lose faith or agree to remain without eyes. Panelu does not want to lose faith, he will go to the end. That's what he wanted to say."
“Is there anything in the world for which you can give up what you love? However, I also refused, I don’t know why.”
". She turns a lonely person and at the same time burdened by his loneliness into an accomplice. For he is a clear accomplice, an accomplice who revels in his position. He is an accomplice to everything that comes into his field of vision: superstitions, unacceptable fears, the painful vulnerability of alarmed souls, their manic reluctance to talk about the plague and yet talk only about it, their almost panicky horror and pallor during a trifling migraine, because everyone already it is known that the plague begins with a headache, and, finally, with their increased sensitivity, irritable, changeable, interpreting forgetfulness as a blood grudge, and the loss of a trouser button almost as a disaster.”
“However, the most fatal consequence of the exhaustion and fatigue that gradually took possession of all who fought against the disaster was not even indifference to the events of the outside world and to the emotions of others, but the general negligence to which they succumbed. For they all equally tried not to do anything superfluous, but only the most necessary, and believed that even this was beyond their strength.”
“It turned out that the epidemic, which, it would seem, should have united the residents of the city, as they unite during a siege, destroyed traditional communities and again doomed people to loneliness. All this caused confusion."
“To fight abstraction, you must be at least partly akin to it. »
“Pity is very tiresome when pity is useless...”
“While we loved each other, we did without words and understood everything. But love passes. I should have found the right words to keep her, but I didn’t.”
“If by chance one of us tried to confide in the other or even just talk about our feelings, the response that followed, any response, was usually perceived as an insult. Only then did he notice that he and his interlocutor were talking about completely different things. After all, he was speaking from the very depths of his endless thoughts all about the same thing, from the depths of his torment, and the image that he wanted to reveal to another had long been languishing on the fire of expectation and passion. And the other one, on the contrary, mentally pictured to himself very banal emotions, ordinary common pain, standard melancholy. And whatever the answer was - hostile or completely benevolent, it usually did not hit the mark, so they had to abandon the attempt at intimate conversations. Or, in any case, those for whom silence became torment, willy-nilly resorted to the common jargon and also used a stamped dictionary, a dictionary of simple information from the category of incidents - in a word, something like a newspaper report, because no one around spoke the language, coming straight from the heart. That is why the most genuine suffering began to gradually and habitually be expressed in a system of erased phrases. Only at this price could prisoners of the plague count on a sympathetic sigh from the gatekeeper or hope to win the interest of listeners.”
“So, each of us was forced to live alone from day to day, face to face with this sky. This absolute general abandonment could have strengthened characters over time, but it turned out differently, people became somehow more fussy. Many of our fellow citizens, for example, fell under the yoke of a different kind of slavery; these, as they say, were directly dependent on the bucket or bad weather. Seeing them, it began to seem as if for the first time they were directly noticing the weather outside. As soon as a simple sunbeam ran along the sidewalk, they would already break into a contented smile, and on rainy days, their faces and thoughts would also be shrouded in a thick veil. But a few weeks earlier they knew how not to succumb to this weakness, this stupid enslavement, because then they were not alone in the face of the universe and the creature that was with them before, to one degree or another, shielded their world from the weather. Now, apparently, they were at the mercy of heavenly whims, in other words, they were tormented like the rest of us, and, like the rest of us, they harbored senseless hopes.”
“But human memory is more demanding. And by virtue of iron logic, the misfortune that came to us from outside and fell on the entire city brought us not only undeserved torment, which else could be indignant. It also forced us to torment ourselves and thereby accept the pain without protest. This was one of the ways in which the epidemic distracted attention from itself and confused all the cards."
“Thus, they experienced the primordial torment of all prisoners and all exiles, and this torment is what it is - to live in memory, when memory is no longer needed for anything. The past itself, which they thought about incessantly, even then acquired a taste of regret. They would like to add to this past everything that, to their greatest chagrin, they did not have time to do, to experience when they still could, together with the one or the one for whom they were now waiting, and in exactly the same way to all circumstances, even relatively prosperous ones. , their present life as prisoners, they constantly mixed in those who were absent, and the way they lived now could not satisfy them. Impatiently pushing the present, hostilely looking sideways at the past, deprived of the future, we were like those whom human justice or human malice keep behind bars. In short, the only way to avoid these unbearably prolonged holidays was to put the train on the rails again, by the sheer power of imagination, and fill the empty hours with waiting for the bell to ring at the front door, which, however, remained stubbornly silent.”
“And, stuck somewhere halfway between this abyss and these mountain peaks, they did not live, they were carried by a wave of days escaped from obedience and fruitless memories - they, restless, wandering shadows, who could acquire flesh and blood only by voluntarily taking root in the land of your sorrows."
“At such moments, the complete collapse of their courage, will and patience was so sudden and abrupt that it seemed that they would never get out of the pit into which they had fallen. That is why they forced themselves under no circumstances to think about the timing of their release, not to turn their gaze to the future and to live with their eyes downcast, so to speak. But, naturally, these good impulses, this effort to deceive the pain - to hide the sword in its sheath in order to refuse the fight - all this was rewarded very, very meagerly. And if they managed to avoid the final collapse, and they wanted to prevent it at any cost, they thereby deprived themselves of moments, and not infrequent ones, when the pictures of a close reunion with a beloved being make them forget about the plague.”
“And, having understood, we were finally convinced that, in essence, we were the most ordinary prisoners and only one thing remained for us - the past, and if any of us tried to live in the future, then such a daredevil was in a hurry to abandon his attempts, to the extent Of course, to what extent this was successful, his imagination so painfully wounded, which inevitably hurts everyone who trusts him.”
“For the majority, separation, obviously, should have ended only with the epidemic. And for all of us, the feeling that ran like a red thread through our entire lives and, apparently, was so familiar to us (we have already said that the passions of our fellow citizens are the simplest), turned out to have a new face. Husbands and lovers who trusted their girlfriends suddenly discovered that they were capable of jealousy. Men who considered themselves frivolous in love affairs suddenly found constancy. The son, who almost did not notice his mother living next to him, now with anxiety and regret mentally peered into every wrinkle of his mother’s face, which did not leave his memory. This brutal separation, separation without a single loophole, without a realistically imaginable future, plunged us into confusion, deprived us of the ability to fight the memories of such a close, but already so distant vision, and these memories now filled all our days. In essence, we were tormented twice - by our own torment and then also by that which, in our imagination, was tormented by those who were absent - a son, a wife or a lover.”
“Imagine, for example, that even such a deeply personal feeling as separation from a beloved being, unexpectedly from the very first weeks became a general, nationwide feeling and, along with a feeling of fear, became the main torment of this long-term exile.”
“It seemed as if the very earth on which our houses were built was being cleansed of the filth accumulated in its depths, as if ichor was pouring out from there and ulcers were swelling, corroding the earth from the inside. Imagine how taken our hitherto peaceful town was, how these few days shook it; “So a healthy person suddenly discovers that his blood, which had been flowing slowly in his veins for the time being, suddenly rebelled.”
“A natural disaster is actually quite an ordinary thing, but it’s hard to believe in it, even when it hits you. There has always been a plague in the world, there has always been war. And yet, both plague and war, as a rule, took people by surprise. And Dr. Rieux, like our fellow citizens, was taken by surprise by the plague, and therefore let us try to understand his hesitation, And let us also try to understand why he was silent, moving from anxiety to hope. When a war breaks out, people usually say, "Well, this can't last, it's too stupid." And indeed, war is indeed too stupid, which, however, does not prevent it from lasting a long time. In fact, stupidity is an extremely persistent thing, it’s not difficult to notice if you don’t think only about yourself all the time. In this respect, our fellow citizens behaved like all people - they thought about themselves, that is, they were humanists in this sense: they did not believe in the scourge of God. A natural disaster is beyond human standards, which is why it is believed that a disaster is something unreal, that it is like a bad dream that will soon pass. But it is not the dream that ends, but from one bad dream to another people end, and first of all humanists, because they neglect precautions. In this regard, our fellow citizens were no more guilty than other people, they simply forgot about modesty and believed that everything was still possible for them, thereby suggesting that natural disasters were impossible. They still did things, prepared for travel, and had their own opinions. How could they believe in a plague that at once cancels the future, all trips and disputes? They thought themselves free, but no one will ever be free as long as there are disasters."
“It’s just that if you are a doctor, you have a certain idea of suffering and this somehow spurs your imagination. And, looking out the window at his city, which had not changed at all, it is unlikely that the doctor felt that slight disgust for the future, which is called anxiety, arising in him. He tried to mentally summarize all his information about this disease. Numbers came up randomly in his memory, and he repeated to himself that history knows about three dozen large plague epidemics that killed a hundred million people. But what is a hundred million dead? Having gone through the war, you can hardly even imagine what one dead person is like. And since a dead person acquires weight in your eyes only if you have seen him dead, then a hundred million corpses scattered throughout the history of mankind are, in essence, a haze clouding the imagination.”
“... in history there always and inevitably comes an hour when the one who dares to say that two and two are four is punished with death. The teacher knows this very well. And the question is not to know what punishment or what reward this reasoning entails. The question is to know whether two and two make four or not.”
Please or to add a quote to The Plague. That's not for long.
The parable novel “The Plague” was written during the Second World War, published in 1947, and received the Nobel Prize.
According to the author, the content of “The Plague” is the struggle of European resistance against Nazism and fascism. But its content does not end there. As Albert Camus noted, he “extended the meaning of this image (of the plague) to existence as a whole.” This is not only a plague (brown plague, as fascism was called in Europe), but evil in general, inseparable from being, always inherent in it.
People of good will are able to defeat specific evil, but they cannot destroy it as a category of the universe.
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The most terrible vice is ignorance, which believes that it knows everything.
The habit of despair is much worse than despair itself.
Since I know that you will come, I can wait for you as long as I like.
In general, stupidity is an extremely persistent thing.
“I understand,” muttered Father Panlu. - This really causes protest, because it exceeds all our human standards. But perhaps we are obliged to love what we cannot grasp with our minds.
Rie straightened up sharply. He looked at Father Panelu, putting into his gaze all the strength and passion that nature had given him, and shook his head.
“No, my father,” he said. - I personally have a different idea of love. And even on my deathbed I will not accept this world of God, where children are tortured.
Of course, I knew that on occasion we, too, passed death sentences. But they assured me that these few deaths were necessary in order to build a world where no one would be killed. To a certain extent this was true, but I must simply not be able to hold on to this kind of truth. The only thing that is certain is that I hesitated. Right down to the bottom when I was personally present at the death penalty (it was in Hungary), and the same insanity that clouded the eyes of a teenager, as I once was, clouded the eyes of an adult man.
Have you ever seen a person being shot? No, of course, you can’t get there without a special invitation, and the audience is selected in advance. And as a result, you all supplement yourself in this regard with pictures and book descriptions. There is a blindfold on the pillar and several soldiers in the distance. No matter how it is! Do you know that just the opposite, a platoon of soldiers is lined up one and a half meters from the person being shot? Do you know that if the convicted person takes even a step, he will rest his chest against the muzzles of the rifles? Do you know that from this extremely close distance they fire aimed fire at the heart area, and since the bullets are large, it creates a hole where you can stick your fist? No, you don’t know any of this, because it’s not customary to talk about such details. A person's sleep is a much more sacred thing than life for those infected with the plague.
You shouldn't ruin the sleep of honest people. It would be in bad taste, and taste is precisely about not chewing anything - everyone knows that. But since then I began to have trouble sleeping. The bad taste remained in my mouth, and I did not stop chewing, in other words, thinking.
It was then that I realized that, at least during all these long years, I was and remained plagued by the plague, and I myself believed with all the strength of my soul that I was fighting the plague. I realized that, albeit indirectly, I condemned thousands of people to death, that I even myself contributed to these deaths, approving the actions and principles that inevitably entailed it.
I don’t know about others, but I personally did not proceed from reasoning. For me, it was all about that dirty story, when dirty, plague-ridden lips announced to a shackled man that he must die, and really carefully made sure that he died after endlessly long nights of agony, while he waited with open eyes for his will kill. I don’t know about others, but for me it was all about this hole gaping in my chest. And I told myself that, in any case, I personally would not agree with a single one, you hear, with a single argument in favor of this most disgusting massacre. Yes, I deliberately chose this stubborn blindness in anticipation of the day when I would see more clearly.
I haven't changed since then. For a long time now I have been ashamed, ashamed to death, that I, at least indirectly, at least with the best intentions, was also a murderer. Over time, I could not help but notice that even the best are now unable to refrain from killing with their own or someone else’s hands, because this is the logic of their lives, and in this world we cannot make a single gesture without risking death. Yes, I was still ashamed, I realized that we were all living in the plague, and I lost peace. Even now I'm still searching for peace, trying to understand them all, trying not to be anyone's mortal enemy. I only know what needs to be done to stop being plagued, and only in this way can we hope for the reign of peace or, if such is impossible, at least for a glorious death. This is how you can ease people’s souls and if you don’t save them,
I know for certain that everyone carries it, the plague, within themselves, for there is no such person in the world, yes, yes, there is no such person, whom it would not touch. And therefore, we must constantly watch ourselves so that, if we accidentally forget ourselves, we don’t breathe on someone else’s face and pass on the infection to him. Because a microbe is something natural. Everything else: health, incorruptibility, even cleanliness if you want - all this is already a product of will, and a will that should not give itself a break. An honest person who does not transmit infection to anyone is precisely one who does not dare to relax for a moment. And how much will and effort is required, Rie, not to forget! Yes, Rieux, being plagued is very tiring. But it’s even more tiring not to want to be one. That’s why everyone is clearly tired, because nowadays everyone is a little plagued. But that is precisely why those few who do not want to live in a state of plague reach the extreme limits of fatigue, from which only death can free them.
For he knew what this jubilant crowd did not know and what one can read about in books - that the plague microbe never dies, never disappears, that it can sleep for decades somewhere in the curls of furniture or in a pile of laundry, that it patiently waiting in the wings in the bedroom, in the basement, in a suitcase, in handkerchiefs and in papers, and that perhaps the day will come to grief and as a lesson to people when the plague awakens the rats and sends them to die on the streets of a happy city.