Birmandreis and the house of Bernarda.
The story of [Dr. Tonnac], the first settler in Mitidja.
Cf. de Bandicorn, Histoire de la colonisation de I'Algerie,
p. 21.
Pirette's history, idem, pp. 50 and 51.
SHEET III
10—Saint-Brieuc1
14—Malan
20—Childhood games
30—Algiers. The father and his death (+ the bombing)
42—The family
69—M. Germain and the School
91—Mondovi—the settlement and the father
11
101—Lycee
140—Unknown to himself 145—The adolescent2
1. The numbers correspond to the pages of the manuscript.
2. The manuscript stops at page 144.
SHEET IV
Also important is the theme of performing for others. What rescues us from our worst sorrows is the feeling of being abandoned and alone, yet not so alone that "others" do not "take notice" of us in our unhappiness. It is in this sense that our moments of happiness are sometimes those when the feeling that we are abandoned inflates us and lifts us into an endless sadness. In the sense also that happiness often is no more than self-pity for our unhappiness.
Striking among the poor—God put resignation alongside despair like the cure alongside the disease.a
When I was young, I asked more of people than they could give: everlasting friendship, endless feeling.
Now I know to ask less of them than they can give: a straightforward companionship. And their feelings, their friendship, their generous actions seem in my eyes to be wholly miraculous: a consequence of grace alone.
Marie Viton: airplane
SHEET V
He was the prince of the world, with a crown of shining talent, of passions, of strength, of joy, and it was from all that that he was coming to beg her forgiveness, she who had been a submissive slave to life and the passing days, who knew
a. death of the grandmother.
nothing, desired nothing, and did not dare to desire, and who nonetheless had preserved intact a truth he had lost and that was all that justified our existence.
Thursdays in Kouba
Practice, sports
Uncle
Baccalaureate
Illness
O mother, O love, dear child, greater than my times, greater than the history that subjected you to itself, more true than all I have loved in this world, O mother, forgive your son for having fled the night of your truth.
The grandmother, a tyrant, but she serves standing up at the table.
The son who makes his mother respected and strikes at his uncle.
The First Man (Notes and Sketches)
"Nothing compares to a life that is humble, ignorant, stubborn ..."
CLAUDEL, The Exchange
Or else
Conversation about terrorism:
Objectively she is responsible (answerable)
Change the adverb or I'll hit you
What?
Don't take what's most asinine from the West. Don't say objectively or I'll hit you.
Why?
Did your mother lie down in front of the Algiers-Oran train? (the trolleybus)
I don't understand.
The train blew up, four children died. Your mother didn't move. If objectively she is nonetheless responsible,* then you approve of shooting hostages.
* answerable
She didn't know.
Neither did she. Never say objectively again. Concede that there are innocent people or I'll kill you too.
You know I could do it. Yes, I've seen you.
aJean is the first man.
Then use Pierre as a reference point and give him a past, a country, a family, a morality (?)—Pierre—Didier?
Adolescent loves on the beach - and night falling on the sea—and nights of stars.
Meeting the Arab in Saint-Etienne. And this befriending by the two exiles in France.
Mobilization. When my father was called to the colors, he had never seen France. He saw it and was killed.
(What a modest family like mine has given to France.)
Last conversation with Saddok when J. is already against terrorism. But he receives Saddok, the right of asylum being sacred. At his mother's. Their conversation takes place in his mother's presence. At the end, "Look," said J., indicating his mother. Saddok got up, went to his mother, hand on his heart, to kiss his mother while bowing in the Arab manner. "She is my mother," he said. "Mine is dead. I love and respect her as if she were my mother."
(She fell because of a terrorist attack. She isn't well.)
a. Cf. Histoire de la colonisation.
Or else:
Yes I hate you. For me honor in the world is found among the oppressed, not those who hold power. And it is from that alone that dishonor arises. When just once in history an oppressed person understands ... then ...
Goodbye, said Saddok.
Stay, they'll catch you.
That's better. Them I can hate, and I join them in hatred. You're my brother and we're separated ...
J. is on the balcony at night... In the distance they hear two shots and speeding...
What is it? said the mother.
It's nothing.
Ah! I was afraid for you.
He falls against her ...
Then he is arrested for harboring.
They would send to be baked the two francs in
The grandmother, her authority, the hole
her energy
He stole the change.
The sense of honor among Algerians.
Learning justice and morality means to decide whether an emotion is good or bad according to its consequences. J. can give in to women—but if they take all his time ...
"I've lived too long, and acted and felt, to say this one is right and that one wrong. I've had enough of living according to the image others show me of myself. I'm resolved on autonomy, I demand independence in interdependence."
Would Pierre be the actor?
Jean's father a teamster?
After Marie's illness, Pierre has an outburst like Clamence (I don't love anything . . . ), then it's J. (or Grenier) who responds to the fall.1
Contrast the mother and the universe (the airplane, the most distant countries brought together).
Pierre a lawyer. And lawyer for Yveton.2
"Men like us are good and proud and strong ... if we had a faith, a God, nothing could undermine us. But we had nothing, we had to learn everything, and living for honor alone has its weaknesses..."
At the same time it should be the history of the end of a world ... with regret for those years of light running through it. . .
Philippe Coulombel and the big farm in Tipasa. Friendship with Jean. His death in a plane over the farm. They found him with the stick in his side, his face crushed against the instrument panel. A bloody pulp sprinkled with glass splinters.
Title: The Nomads. Begin with a move and end with evacuation from Algerian soil.
1. Clamence is the protagonist of Camus's The Fall—Trans. 2. Communist activist who put explosives in a factory. Guillotined during the Algerian war.
Two exaltations: the poor woman and the world of paganism (intelligence and happiness).
Everyone likes Pierre. J.'s success and his conceit make him enemies.
Lynching scene: 4 Arabs thrown off the Kassour.
His mother is Christ.
Have others speak about J., bring him on, show him, through the contradictory picture that together they paint of him.
Cultivated, athletic, debauched, a loner and the best of friends, spiteful, unfailingly dependable, etc., etc.
"He doesn't like anyone," "No one could be more noble in spirit," "cold and distant," "warm and passionate," everyone thinks he's an energizer except he himself, always lying down.
Thus expand the personality.
When he speaks: "I began to believe in my in
nocence. I was Tsar. I reigned over everything and everyone, at my disposal (etc.). Then I found out I didn't have enough heart truly to love and I thought I would die of contempt for myself. Then I recognized that others don't truly love either and that I just had to accept being like just about everyone.
"Then I decided no, I would blame myself alone for not being great enough and be comfortable in my hopelessness until I was given the opportunity to become great.
"In other words, I'm waiting for the time when I'll be Tsar and won't enjoy it."
Or else:
One cannot live with truth—"knowingly"—, he who does so sets himself apart from other men, he can no longer in any way share their illusion. He is an alien—and that is what I am.
Maxime Rasteil: the ordeal of the 1848 settlers. Mondovi— Insert history of Mondovi? Ex: 1) the grave the return and the [ ]1 at Mondovi 1A) Mondovi in 1848 —» 1913.
His Spanish side sobriety and sensuality
energy and nada
J.: "No one can imagine the pain I've suffered . . . They honor men who do great things. But they should honor even more those who, in spite of what they are, have been able to restrain themselves from committing the worst crimes. Yes, honor me."
Conversation with the paratroop lieutenant:
"You talk too well. We're going to give you the third degree and see if you're still so smart."
"All right, but first I want to warn you because no doubt you've never encountered any real men. Listen carefully. I am holding you responsible for what's going to happen in that third degree, as you call it. If I don't crack, it doesn't matter. I'll just spit in your face in public on the day it becomes possible for me to do so. But if I crack and if I get out
1. Word illegible.
alive, and whether it takes a year or twenty years, I personally will kill you."
"Take good care of him," said the lieutenant, "he's a wise guy."a
J.'s friend kills himself "to make Europe possible." To make Europe requires a willing victim.
J. has four women at the same time and thus is leading an empty life.
C.S.: when the soul suffers too much, it develops a taste for misfortune...
Cf. History of the Combat movement.1
Darling who dies in the hospital while her neighbor's radio is blaring nonsense.
—Heart disease. Living on borrowed time. "If I commit suicide, at least it will be my choice."
"You alone will know why I killed myself. You know my principles. I hate those who commit suicide. Because of what they do to others. If you have to do it, you must disguise it. Out of kindness. Why am I telling you this? Because you love misfortune. It's a present I'm giving you. Bon appetit!"
a. (he meets him again unarmed [and provokes] a duel), 1. Combat was a Resistance newspaper of which Camus was editor—Trans.
J.: A life that is surging, reborn, a multitude of people and experiences, the capacity for renewal and [propulsion] (Lope)—
The end. She lifts her knotted hands to him and strokes his face. "You, you're the greatest one." There was so much love and adoration in her somber eyes (under the somewhat worn brow) that something in him—the one who knew—rebelled ... A moment later he took her in his arms. Since she, who saw more clearly, loved him, he had to accept it, and to admit that to love he had to love himself a little ...
A Musil theme: the search for salvation of the soul in the modern world—D: [meeting] and parting in The Possessed.
Torture. Executioner by proxy. I could never get close to another man—now we are side by side.
The Christian condition: pure feeling.
The book must be unfinished. Ex.: "And on the ship bringing him back to France ..."
Jealous, he pretends not to be and plays the man of the world. And then he is no longer jealous.
At age 40, he realizes he needs someone to show him the way and to give him censure or praise: a father. Authority and not power.
X sees a terrorist fire at . . , He hears someone running after him in a dark street, stands still, turns suddenly, trips
him so he falls, the revolver drops. He takes the weapon and trains it on the man, then realizes he cannot turn him in, takes him to a remote street, makes him run ahead of him and fires.
The young actress in the camp: the blade of grass, the first grass amidst the slag and that acute feeling of happiness. Miserable and joyful. Later on she loves Jean—because he is pure. I? Those who arouse love, even if it is disappointed, are princes who make the world worthwhile.
28 Nov. 1885: birth of Lucien C. in Ouled-Fayet: son of Bap-tiste C. (age 43) and Marie Cormery (age 33). Married 1909 (13 Nov.) to Mile. Catherine Sintes (born 5 Nov. 1882). Died in Saint-Brieuc 11 Oct. 1914.
When he is 45, he discovers by comparing the dates that his brother was born two months after the wedding? But the uncle who has just described the ceremony speaks of a long slender dress ...
It is a doctor who delivers the second son in the new home where the furniture is piled up.
She leaves in July 14 with the child swollen with mosquito bites from the Seybouse. August, mobilization. The husband goes directly to his [unit] in Algiers. He gets out one night to kiss his two children. They will not see him again till word of his death.
A settler who, expelled, destroys the vines, lets in brackish water . . . "If what we did here is a crime, it must be wiped out..."
Maman (about N.): the day you "graduated"—"when they gave you the bonus."
Criklinski and ascetic love.
He expresses surprise that Marcelle, who has just become his mistress, takes no interest in her country's misfortune. "Come," she says. She opens a door: her nine-year-old child—delivered with forceps motor nerves smashed—paralyzed, speechless, left side of the face higher than the right, must be fed, washed, etc. He closes the door.
He knows he has cancer, but does not say he knows. Others think they are fooling him.
1st part: Algiers, Mondovi. And he meets an Arab who speaks to him of his father. His relations with Arab workers.
J. Douai: L'Ecluse.
Beral's death in the war.
How F. cries out in tears when she learns of his affair with Y.: "Me too, I'm beautiful also." And Y.'s cry: "Ah! Let someone come and carry me off."
Later, long after the tragedy, F. and M. meet.
Christ did not set foot in Algeria.
The first letter he received from her and his feeling on seeing his own name in her handwriting.
Ideally, if the book were written to the mother, from beginning to end—and if one learned only at the end that she cannot read—yes, that would be it.
And what he wanted most in the world, which was for his mother to read everything that was his life and his being, that was impossible. His love, his only love, would be forever speechless.
Rescue this poor family from the fate of the poor, which is to disappear from history without a trace. The Speechless Ones. They were and they are greater than I.
Begin with the night of the birth. Chap. I, then chap. II: 35 years later, a man would get off the train at Saint-Brieuc.
Gr,1 whom I acknowledge as father, was born where my real father died and was buried.
Pierre with Marie. At the beginning he could not take her: that is why he came to love her. On the contrary, J. with Jessica, immediate bliss. That is why it takes him time to really love her—her body conceals her.
The hearse on the high plains [Figari].
The story of the German officer and the child: nothing makes it worth dying for him.
1. Grenier.
The pages of the Quillet dictionary: their smell, the plates.
The odors of the cooperage: the chip that smells more [ ]1 than sawdust.
Jean, eternally unsatisfied.
He leaves home as an adolescent in order to sleep alone.
Discovery of religion in Italy: through art.
End of chap. I: during this time, Europe was tuning its cannons. They went off
six months later. The mother arrives in Algiers, holding a four-year-old by the hand, another child in her arms, this one swollen with bites from the Seybouse mosquitoes. They arrive at the grandmother's, three rooms in a poor neighborhood. "Mother, thank you for taking us in." The grandmother erect, looking at her with hard clear eyes: "Daughter, you'll have to go to work."
Maman: like an ignorant Myshkin. She does not know Christ's life, except on the cross. Yet who is closer to it?
One morning, in the courtyard of a provincial hotel, waiting for M. That feeling of happiness he could never experience except in what was temporary, illicit—which by the fact that it was illicit guaranteed the happiness could never last—infected him most of the time, except the few times, like now, when it appeared in its pure state, in the gentle light of morning, among dahlias still shiny with dew . ..
1. An illegible word.
Story of XX.
She arrives, pushes her way in, "I'm free," etc., plays the emancipated woman. Then she gets in bed naked, does everything for ... a bad [ ]1 Unfortunate.
She leaves her husband—in despair, etc. The husband writes to the other man: "You're responsible. Go on seeing her or she'll kill herself." Actually, sure failure: infatuated with the absolute, and in that case trying to woo the impossible—so she killed herself. The husband came. "You know what brings me here." "Yes." "All right, it's your choice, I kill you or you kill me." "No, it's you who has to bear the burden of the choice." "Go ahead and kill." Actually, the kind of predicament that the victim is really not accountable for. But [no doubt] she was responsible for something else she never paid for. Foolishness.
XX. She has in her a disposition toward destruction and death. She is [dedicated] to God.
A naturist: in an eternal state of suspicion about food, air, etc.
In occupied Germany:
Good evening, herr officer.
Good evening, says J., closing the door. He is surprised at the tone of his voice. And he understands that many conquerors use that tone only because they are embarrassed to be conquering and occupying.
J. wants not to be. What he does, loses his reputation, etc. 1. An illegible word.
Character: Nicole Ladmiral.
The father's "African sadness."
End. Takes his son to Saint-Brieuc. On the little square, standing facing each other. How do you live? says the son. What? Yes, who are you, etc. (Happy) he feels the shadow of death thickening around him.