The Stranger by Albert Camus Read Free Book Online

I told her we could have dinner together at Céleste’s. She would have liked to but she had something to do. We were near my place and I said goodbye to her. She looked at me. “Don’t you want to know what I have to do?” I did, but I hadn’t thought to ask, and she seemed to be scolding me. Then, seeing me so confused, shelaughed again and she moved toward me with her whole body to offer me her lips.
    I had dinner at Céleste’s. I’d already started eating when a strange little woman came in and asked me if she could sit at my table. Of course she could. Her gestures were jerky and she had bright eyes in a little face like an apple. She took off her jacket, sat down, and studied the menu feverishly. She called Céleste over and ordered her whole meal all at once, in a voice that was clear and very fast at the same time. While she was waiting for her first course, she opened her bag, took out a slip of paper and a pencil, added up the bill in advance, then took the exact amount, plus tip, out of a vest pocket and set it down on the table in front of her. At that point the waiter brought her first course and she gulped it down. While waiting for the next course, she again took out of her bag a blue pencil and a magazine that listed the radio programs for the week. One by one, and with great care, she checked off almost every program. Since the magazine was about a dozen pages long, she meticulously continued this task throughout the meal. I had already finished and she was still checking away with the same zeal. Then she stood up, put her jacket back on with the same robotlike movements, and left. I didn’t have anything to do, so I left too and followed her for a while. She had positioned herself right next to the curb and was making her way with incredible speed and assurance, never once swerving or looking around. I eventually lost sight of her and turnedback. I thought about how peculiar she was but forgot about her a few minutes later.
    I found old Salamano waiting outside my door. I asked him in and he told me that his dog was lost, because it wasn’t at the pound. The people who worked there had told him that maybe it had been run over. He asked if he could find out at the police station. They told him that they didn’t keep track of things like that because they happened every day. I told old Salamano that he could get another dog, but he was right to point out to me that he was used to this one.
    I was sitting cross-legged on my bed and Salamano had sat down on a chair in front of the table. He was facing me and he had both hands on his knees. He had kept his old felt hat on. He was mumbling bits and pieces of sentences through his yellowing moustache. He was getting on my nerves a little, but I didn’t have anything to do and I didn’t feel sleepy. Just for something to say, I asked him about his dog. He told me he’d gotten it after his wife died. He had married fairly late. When he was young he’d wanted to go into the theater: in the army he used to act in military vaudevilles. But he had ended up working on the railroads, and he didn’t regret it, because now he had a small pension. He hadn’t been happy with his wife, but he’d pretty much gotten used to her. When she died he had been very lonely. So he asked a shop buddy for a dog and he’d gotten this one very young. He’d had to feed it from a bottle. But since a dog doesn’t live as long as a man, they’d ended upbeing old together. “He was bad-tempered,” Salamano said. “We’d have a run-in every now and then. But he was a good dog just the same.” I said he was well bred and Salamano looked pleased. “And,” he added, “you didn’t know him before he got sick. His coat was the best thing about him.” Every night and every morning after the dog had gotten that skin disease, Salamano rubbed him with ointment. But according to him, the dog’s real sickness was old age, and there’s no cure for old age.
    At that point I