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And now I realized that the silence of these people was telling on my nerves. The only sound was a rather queer one; it came at longish intervals, and at first I was puzzled by it. However, after listening attentively, I guessed what it was; the old men were sucking at the insides of their cheeks, and this caused the odd, wheezing noises that had mystified me.
Albert Camus,The Outsider, Penguin Modern Classics, Penguin Books Ltd., Harmondsworth, Middlesex England, 1972, p.20.
PLACE: Marengo, 50 miles from Algiers.
TIME: 1930s
CIRCUMSTANCE: Night vigil at old people's home around one of the dead inmates.
I was surprised to see how quickly the sun was climbing up the sky, and just then it struck me that for quite a while the air had been throbbing with the hum of insects and the rustle of grass warming up.
Albert Camus,The Outsider, Penguin Modern Classics, Penguin Books Ltd., Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England, 1972, p.25.
PLACE: Marengo, Algeria
TIME: 1930s
CIRCUMSTANCE: Morning, funeral procession.
The other man was blowing down a little reed and extracting from it three notes of the scale, which he played over and over again, while he watched us from the corner of the eye.
Albert Camus,The Outsider, Penguin Modern Classics, Penguin Books Ltd., Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England, 1972, p.60.
PLACE: Algiers
TIME: 1930's
CIRCUMSTANCE: group of Arabs.
When I came into the room the babel of voices echoing on the bare walls, and the sunlight streaming in, flooding everything in a harsh white glare, made me feel quite dizzy. After the relative darkness and the silence of my cell it took me some moments to get used to these conditions ... ... The native prisoners and their relations on the other side were squatting opposite each other. They didn't raise their voices and, in spite of the din, managed to converse almost in whispers. This murmur of voices coming from below made a sort of accompaniment to the conversations going on above their heads.
Albert Camus,The Outsider, Penguin Modern Classics, Penguin Books Ltd., Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England, 1972, p.76.
PLACE: Algiers
TIME: 1930's
CIRCUMSTANCE: Prison, visitors room; showing the contrast between the French and the Arabs.
And, sitting in the darkness of my moving cell, I recognized, echoing in my tired brain, all the characteristic sounds of a town I'd loved, and of a certain hour of the day which I had always particularly enjoyed. The shouts of newspaper-boys in the already languid air, the last calls of birds in the public garden, the cries of sandwich-vendors, the screech of trams at the steep corners of the upper town, and that faint rustling overhead as darkness sifted down upon the harbour - all these sounds made my return to prison like a blind man's journey along a route whose every inch he knows by heart.
Albert Camus,The Outsider, Penguin Modern Classics, Penguin Books Ltd., Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England, 1972, p.98.
PLACE: Algiers
TIME: 1930's
Only one incident stands out; towards the end, while my counsel rambled on, I heard the tin trumpet of an ice-cream vendor in the street, a small, shrill sound cutting across the flow of words.
Albert Camus,The Outrider, Penguin Modern Classics, Penguin Books Ltd., Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England, 1972, p.104.
PLACE: Algiers
TIME: 1930's
CIRCUMSTANCE: Outside of a courtroom.
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