In Search of the Father
An excerpt from "The First Man" By Albert Camus:
Jacques Cormery did not answer. Surely too many had died, but, as to his father, he could not muster a filial devotion he did not feel. For all these years he had been living in France, he had promised himself to do what his mother, who stayed in Algeria, what she for such a long time had been asking him to do: visit the grave of his father that she herself had never seen. He thought this visit made no sense, first of all for himself, who had never known his father, who knew next to nothing of what he had been, and who loathed conventional gestures and behaviour; and then for his mother, who never spoke of the dead man and could picture nothing of what he was going to see. But since his old mentor had retired to Saint-Brieuc and he would have an opportunity to see him again, Cormery made up his mind to go and visit this dead stranger, and had even insisted on doing it before joining his old friend so that afterward he would feel completely free.
'It's here,' said the caretaker. They had arrived at a square-shaped area enclosed by small markers of grey stone connected with a heavy chain that had been painted black. The gravestones- and they were many - were all alike: plain inscribed rectangles set at equal intervals row on row. Each grave was decorated with a small bouquet of fresh flowers. 'For forty years the French Remembrance had been responsible for the upkeep. Look, here he is.' He indicated a stone in the first row. Jacques Cormery stopped at some distance from the grave. 'I'll leave you,' the caretaker said.
Cormery approached the stone and gazed vacantly at it. Yes, that was indeed his name. He looked up. Small white and grey clouds were passing slowly across the sky, which was paler now, and from it fell a light that was alternately bright and overcast. Around him, in the vast field of the dead, silence reigned. Nothing but a muffled murmur from the town came over the high walls. Occasionally a black silhouette would pass among the distant graves. Jacques Cormery, gazing up at the slow navigation of the clouds across the sky, ans was trying to discern, beyond the odour of damp flowers, the salty smell just then coming from the distant motionless sea when the clink of a bucket against the marble of the tombstone drew him from his reverie. At that moment he read on the tomb the date of this father's birth, which he now discovered he had not known. Then he read two dates, '1885-1914', and automatically did the arithmetic: twenty-nine years. Suddenly he was struck by an idea that shook his body. He was forty years old. The man buried under that slab, who had been his father, was younger than he.
And the wave of tenderness and pity that at once filled his heart was not stirring of the soul that lead the son to the memory of the vanished father, but the overwhelming compassion that a grown man feels for an unjustly murdered child - something here was not in natural order and, in truth, there was no order but only madness and chaos when the son was older than the father. The course of time itself was shattering around him while he remained motionless among those tombs he no longer saw, and the years no longer kept to their places in the great river that flows to its end. They were no more than waves and surf and eddies where Jacques Cormery was now struggling in the grip of anguish and pity. He looked at the other inscriptions in that section and realized from the dates that this soil was strewn with children who had been fathers of greying men who thought they were living in this present time. For he too believed he was living, he alone had created himself, he knew his own strength, his vigour, he could cope and he himself well in hand. But, in the strange dizziness of that moment, the statue every man eventually erects and that hardens in the fire of the years, into which he then creeps and there awaits its final crumbling - that statue was rapidly cracking, it was already collapsing. All that was left was this anguished heart, eager to live, rebelling against the deadly order of the world that had been with him for forty years, and still struggling against the wall that separated him from the secret of all life, wanting to go farther, to go beyond, and to discover, discover before dying, discover at last in order to be, just once to be, for a single second, but for ever.
He looked back on his life, a life that had been foolish, courageous, cowardly, wilful, and always straining towards that goal which he knew nothing about, and actually that life had all gone by without his having tried to imagine who this man who given him that life and then immediately had gone off to die in a strange land on the other side of the seas. At twenty-nine, had he himself not been frail, been ailing, tense stubborn, sensual, dreamy, cynical and brave? Yes, he had been all that and much else besides; he had been alive, in short had been a man, and yet he had never thought of the man that slept there as a living being, but as a stranger who passed by on the land where he himself was born, of whom his mother said that he looked like him and that he died on the field of battle. Yet the secret he had eagerly sought to learn through books and people now seemed to him intimately linked with this dead man, this younger father, with what he had been and what he had become, and it seemed that he himself had gone far afield in search of what was close to him in time and in blood. To tell the truth, he had received no help. In a family where they spoke little, where no one read or wrote, with an unhappy and listless mother who would have informed him of about this young and pitiable father? No one had known him but his mother and she had forgotten him. Of that he was sure. And he had died unknown on this earth where he had fleetingly passed, like a stranger. No doubt it was up to him to ask, to inform himself. But for someone like him, who was nothing and wants the world entire, all his energy is not enough to create himself and to conquer or to understand the world. After all, it was not too late; he could still search, he could learn who this man had been who now seemed closer to him than any other being on the earth. He could...
Now the afternoon was coming to its end. The rustle of a skirt, a black shadow, brought him back to the landscape of tombs and sky that surrounded him. He had to leave; there was nothing more for him to do here. But he could not turn away from this name, those dates. Under that slab were left only ashes and dust. But, for him, his father was again alive, a strange silent life, ans it seemed to him that again he was again going to forsake him, to leave his father to haunt yet another night the endless solitude he had been hurled into and then deserted. The empty sky resounded with a sudden loud explosion: an invisible aero-plane had crossed the sound barrier. Turning his back on the grave, Jacques Cormery abandoned his father.
Jacques Cormery did not answer. Surely too many had died, but, as to his father, he could not muster a filial devotion he did not feel. For all these years he had been living in France, he had promised himself to do what his mother, who stayed in Algeria, what she for such a long time had been asking him to do: visit the grave of his father that she herself had never seen. He thought this visit made no sense, first of all for himself, who had never known his father, who knew next to nothing of what he had been, and who loathed conventional gestures and behaviour; and then for his mother, who never spoke of the dead man and could picture nothing of what he was going to see. But since his old mentor had retired to Saint-Brieuc and he would have an opportunity to see him again, Cormery made up his mind to go and visit this dead stranger, and had even insisted on doing it before joining his old friend so that afterward he would feel completely free.
'It's here,' said the caretaker. They had arrived at a square-shaped area enclosed by small markers of grey stone connected with a heavy chain that had been painted black. The gravestones- and they were many - were all alike: plain inscribed rectangles set at equal intervals row on row. Each grave was decorated with a small bouquet of fresh flowers. 'For forty years the French Remembrance had been responsible for the upkeep. Look, here he is.' He indicated a stone in the first row. Jacques Cormery stopped at some distance from the grave. 'I'll leave you,' the caretaker said.
Cormery approached the stone and gazed vacantly at it. Yes, that was indeed his name. He looked up. Small white and grey clouds were passing slowly across the sky, which was paler now, and from it fell a light that was alternately bright and overcast. Around him, in the vast field of the dead, silence reigned. Nothing but a muffled murmur from the town came over the high walls. Occasionally a black silhouette would pass among the distant graves. Jacques Cormery, gazing up at the slow navigation of the clouds across the sky, ans was trying to discern, beyond the odour of damp flowers, the salty smell just then coming from the distant motionless sea when the clink of a bucket against the marble of the tombstone drew him from his reverie. At that moment he read on the tomb the date of this father's birth, which he now discovered he had not known. Then he read two dates, '1885-1914', and automatically did the arithmetic: twenty-nine years. Suddenly he was struck by an idea that shook his body. He was forty years old. The man buried under that slab, who had been his father, was younger than he.
And the wave of tenderness and pity that at once filled his heart was not stirring of the soul that lead the son to the memory of the vanished father, but the overwhelming compassion that a grown man feels for an unjustly murdered child - something here was not in natural order and, in truth, there was no order but only madness and chaos when the son was older than the father. The course of time itself was shattering around him while he remained motionless among those tombs he no longer saw, and the years no longer kept to their places in the great river that flows to its end. They were no more than waves and surf and eddies where Jacques Cormery was now struggling in the grip of anguish and pity. He looked at the other inscriptions in that section and realized from the dates that this soil was strewn with children who had been fathers of greying men who thought they were living in this present time. For he too believed he was living, he alone had created himself, he knew his own strength, his vigour, he could cope and he himself well in hand. But, in the strange dizziness of that moment, the statue every man eventually erects and that hardens in the fire of the years, into which he then creeps and there awaits its final crumbling - that statue was rapidly cracking, it was already collapsing. All that was left was this anguished heart, eager to live, rebelling against the deadly order of the world that had been with him for forty years, and still struggling against the wall that separated him from the secret of all life, wanting to go farther, to go beyond, and to discover, discover before dying, discover at last in order to be, just once to be, for a single second, but for ever.
He looked back on his life, a life that had been foolish, courageous, cowardly, wilful, and always straining towards that goal which he knew nothing about, and actually that life had all gone by without his having tried to imagine who this man who given him that life and then immediately had gone off to die in a strange land on the other side of the seas. At twenty-nine, had he himself not been frail, been ailing, tense stubborn, sensual, dreamy, cynical and brave? Yes, he had been all that and much else besides; he had been alive, in short had been a man, and yet he had never thought of the man that slept there as a living being, but as a stranger who passed by on the land where he himself was born, of whom his mother said that he looked like him and that he died on the field of battle. Yet the secret he had eagerly sought to learn through books and people now seemed to him intimately linked with this dead man, this younger father, with what he had been and what he had become, and it seemed that he himself had gone far afield in search of what was close to him in time and in blood. To tell the truth, he had received no help. In a family where they spoke little, where no one read or wrote, with an unhappy and listless mother who would have informed him of about this young and pitiable father? No one had known him but his mother and she had forgotten him. Of that he was sure. And he had died unknown on this earth where he had fleetingly passed, like a stranger. No doubt it was up to him to ask, to inform himself. But for someone like him, who was nothing and wants the world entire, all his energy is not enough to create himself and to conquer or to understand the world. After all, it was not too late; he could still search, he could learn who this man had been who now seemed closer to him than any other being on the earth. He could...
Now the afternoon was coming to its end. The rustle of a skirt, a black shadow, brought him back to the landscape of tombs and sky that surrounded him. He had to leave; there was nothing more for him to do here. But he could not turn away from this name, those dates. Under that slab were left only ashes and dust. But, for him, his father was again alive, a strange silent life, ans it seemed to him that again he was again going to forsake him, to leave his father to haunt yet another night the endless solitude he had been hurled into and then deserted. The empty sky resounded with a sudden loud explosion: an invisible aero-plane had crossed the sound barrier. Turning his back on the grave, Jacques Cormery abandoned his father.