This is merely the sketch of a comparison which a close study, attached less to the substance than to the
style of these two works, could establish in depth. The superiority of The Stranger would be merely emphasized. But may we not merely say, finally, that A Happy Death, not published by Camus, is a document rather than a work, and that it is enough in the long run that there figure in this document, to be accounted for in the dossier of his genius, certain positive elements? We leave the reader the pleasure of discovering them for himself.
The files in the possession of Mme Camus contain two versions of A Happy Death typed by Camus. The first is amplified by manuscript additions and corrections that are typed in the second, along with several variants. In May and June of 1961, Mme Camus had three copies of a new typescript prepared, representing the first typescript on which the variants of the second are registered in ink. The present edition reproduces this typescript, following the correction of certain errors of transcription. The variants of the second typescript, though not in Camus's hand, were doubtless made with his consent and have been, for the most part, retained.
In this typescript the divisions into chapters are indicated by a blank. We have nonetheless restored the numerals which existed in the first typescript, and which are to be found, as well, in The Stranger.
There also exist preparatory dossiers and notes for A Happy Death, to which must be added the fragments in the Notebooks. These, in manuscript form, but generally in very disjunct fragments, constitute nearly the entire novel, for which there exists no manuscript version except for the third chapter of the second part.
In order to show how the various fragments of the novel have been assembled, a choice of the variants has
been made. Those taken from the preparatory dossiers and notes are designated by Ms., those taken from the first typescript by T. When the Notebooks have been drawn on, the fact has been indicated. In the case of some chapters, we have been able to compare several manuscript texts, which have been carefully distinguished.
Words or phrases scratched out on the typescript or the manuscript have been put in parentheses in the Notes. Words and phrases in italics indicate variant readings.
The establishment of these notes and variants, as of the text itself, owes a great deal to Mme Camus, whom we herewith thank.
Jean Sarocchi
Notes and Variants
Part One
Natural Death
The significance of this title relates to "The Wind at Dejemila" in Noces (Nuptials) and to a manuscript fragment of "Entre oui et non" ("Between Yes and No").
Chapter 1
A series of manuscript pages gives successively chapters 4 and 1. As we know, Chapter 1 was originally Chapter 5.
page 3, line 1
The name Mersault may be regarded as a combination
of mer (sea) and soleil (sun).
page 3, line 2
What is the source of the name Zagreus? Was Camus thinking of Orphism's Dionysos-Zagreus, victim of the Titans, whose heart gave birth to the Theban Dionysos of popular legend? In which case Zagreus would be a Promethean figure, belonging to the type of sacrificial being who affords liberation. This is merely a conjecture.
page 3, line 4
Ms.: deserted. This was two days after his conversation
with Roland.
page 3, line 8
Ms.: hillside, like the proud laughter of the golden earth.
page 3, line 21
Ms.: his gloves. Everything depended on knowing if the
chest was unlocked and the revolver loaded.
page 3, line 24
knocked. ("You can come in, Mersault," Zagreus
said.)
page 3, line 25
Ms.: Zagreus was there in his study by the fire.
T.: Zagreus was there in his study of course, sitting in
an armchair with a blanket over the stumps of his legs.
page 4, line 7
Ms.: rejoiced, showing all its blue and gleaming teeth,
page 4, line 8
Ms.: A great icy joy, a classical dance of the world over
the little valley
page 6, line 19
Ms.: an expression that combined the child and the mandarin. It was the very aspect of truth which smiled at Mersault out of the sky.
page 7, line 19
The manuscript text includes another paragraph, beginning "That evening, still in bed, he sent for the neighborhood doctor," which is now to be found at the end of Chapter 5.
Chapter 2
This is the most laboriously and the least skillfully composed chapter in the novel. It consists of several fragments, all intended to create the impression of a prosaic and routine existence. In all the sketches and outlines for The Right Death where it figures, it is located in Part One. In the Notebooks for August 1937, we read: "Part One. His life hitherto." Or: "Part One. Al. M. Mersault's day seen from outside. Bl. Workingmen's neighborhood of Paris (word illegible). Horse butcher's. Patrice and his family. The mute. The grand-
mother." Some of these elements will be transferred to Chapter 5.
Considerably later an outline specifies: "Part One: 1 the workingmen's neighborhood; 2 Patrice Mersault . . ." and at about the same date, two plans for Part One are given as follows on the same page:
Part One.
Mersault goes home. Detail . . . Sunday. His dead mother (the butcher shop across the street To Man's Noblest Conquest). Sign: to rent. (His office. His neighbor the barrelmaker. Knock at the door. The barrelmaker asking him to come with him to the graveyard.) The filthy street.
1 Marthe waits for him impatiently (her jealousies)
2 Marthe and her infidelities; jealousy; her first lover Zagreus
3 Zagreus and conversation.
This outline is crossed out and replaced by the following one:
a) Mersault goes home. Detail. Sunday.
b) His house. Horse butcher's. His neighbor the barrelmaker and his sister. (Today M.'s mother died. Story of the . . . word illegible)
At the restaurant: M. Lopez who eats at his table . . . several words eligible
c) Marthe
d) Zagreus.
We may note that if the chapter's place is ascertained—it is still the first—its substance as well as its composition is indeterminate; for example, the restaurant scene, initially to come after the description of Mer-sault's house and Sunday, will be moved to an earlier
place in the final version. The barrelmaker's story will be isolated and transferred to Chapter 5.
No complete manuscript exists of this chapter, composed of various fragments, some of which are taken from the first version of "Voix du quartier pauvre" in L'Envers et I'Endroit ("The Wrong Side and the Right Side" in Lyrical and Critical Essays)
A. The harbor, the injured man, racing for the truck with Emmanuel. This part of the text was added much later to the chapter, and in the manuscript ends with "When they reached Belcourt, Mersault got off. Emmanuel went on . . ." Sketches for this text are to be found in the Notebooks, I, pp. 23-4.
B. For the rest of the chapter, after the arrival at Belcourt, a series of manuscript pages forms an arrangement.
a) Up to the restaurant. Mersault's actions are the subject of a fragment which has been added to the typescript. On the manuscript pages, Emmanuel is named Marcel.
page 10, line 17
Ms.: young and vigorous, under the anonymous jacket
page 10, line 18 Ms.: joy, discovery
page 10, line 21
Ms.: from sports. And if this knowledge overemphasized the "handsome fellow" aspect in Mersault, at the same time his body inspired an instructive self-confidence.
b) Celeste's anecdote.
This is left blank on the manuscript pages, which merely note, as a transition, the following episode:
"Good for him," Mersault said, in order to say
something. "Oh you can't be a bastard in life. All the
&nbs
p; same . . ." This anecdote exists in three manuscript versions, one inserted in the hospital conversations. It was not, therefore, in a cafe that it was taken from life.
page 10, line 30
The earliest manuscript version contains this sentence: "Something in this man expressed the intelligence and frankness inseparable from a simple heart."
page 11, line 15
Ms.: Fine with me.' " Louis fiddled with the tassels of a
rep cushion . . .
The name Louis, which preceded that of Mersault, designates Camus in the hospital fragments.
page 11, line 30
Ms.: the wind was blowing. He laughed self-indul-gently. But just when Louis stood up to leave, he suddenly said to him: "You always have to look at life from the right side, and walk straight ahead." Louis was already out in the street. He walked very fast, avoided a shoeshine boy, pushed another away, then stopped short and yielded his foot to a third.
c) Emmanuel's anecdote.
This is sketched in the manuscript pages. It is obviously another anecdote taken from life, but it does not exist in extenso in manuscript. Another hospital recollection? In any case, Emmanuel is too young to have participated in the battle of the Marne.
d) the owner and his son.
e) the anecdote about Jean Perez, left blank in the
manuscript pages. It is taken from the pages of the text "l'Hopital du quartier pauvre."
f) Mersault's reflections, his return home (up to "he had kept the best room for himself").
page 12, line 1 Ms.: ate his banana
page 12, line 19
Ms.: on his back. His arms did the rest.
g) the mother's death; the burial.
Blank on the manuscript pages. This text, developed in the first chapter of The Stranger, reveals one of Camus's obsessions: death of the mother, the wife, or even of the mistress. Camus is never tired of writing on this theme.
In what appears to be the earliest text from which this one proceeds, the bereaved is not Mer-sault (Camus), but a trucker—"inhabitant of the workingmen's neighborhood"—who loses his wife. The text in extenso follows:
A young man must have a powerful imagination to believe he can grow old. And were it not for death, few would ever believe they had. Thus this man's life had been surprised by old age. His family's existence had been confined to this neighborhood, where they lived according to the opinion of their neighbors and the pity of the world.
A beautiful woman enjoys—and expects to enjoy—a life of diversion, a life of pleasure. This man's wife had been beautiful, and she had expected to enjoy a life of diversion and pleasure. He was a trucker, and worked hard all during their married life. They had had two
daughters, both of whom were married. And a lame son who was a leatherworker and lived with his parents.
At about forty, this woman had been stricken by a terrible disease. She was, etc., enriched by her heedless life. For a decade she dragged out an unendurable existence. This martyrdom lasted so long that those around her . . . she could die.
She had a tubercular nephew who occasionally came to see her. She enjoyed his visits because she felt on an equal footing with him. But he was very young, and his natural cowardice shrank from these (illegible) which sapped all his resistance.
One day she died. She was fifty-six. She had married very young. Then her husband realized how old he was. He had worked too hard to notice up till now. People felt sorry for him. In the neighborhood, they looked forward to the funeral. They recalled the husband's deep feeling for the dead woman. The daughters were warned not to cry, so that their father would not give way to his grief. He was urged not to mourn, to take care of himself. Meanwhile, the man dressed in his best clothes. And with his hat in his hand, he watched the arrangements, etc., that was all.
However, he immediately sold his truck, despite his lack of means, paid his debts, and then found himself poor and penniless. He lived with one of his daughters now, spending long days on the balcony. He had left his old neighborhood. On the house where he had lived was a sign: For Rent, and speculation over its meaning never ceased.
Another manuscript, virtually without erasures and obviously subsequent to the one just quoted, gives virtually the same text, but begins with this sentence added to the preceding manuscript, a sentence Camus appears to have valued for its own sake: "A beautiful woman, she had enjoyed—and expected to enjoy—a life of diversion, a life of pleasure." Then: "Her husband was a trucker . . ." etc. Another modification in the last sentence may be noted: "this sign: For Rent, which always means more than it says."
h) Mersault's attachment to his room.
The manuscript pages, after the blank left for the insertion of the mother's death and burial, continue:
But he had had to abandon his studies and his ambitions and take a job. At first he had resisted, he had wanted to live for himself, work, write, have a life of his own. Later on, he had given it all up and tried to expunge his own life. He wakened, etc. (Mersault at the office).
i) Mersault at the office.
This text is given in extenso in the manuscript pages. j) Mersault at home.
Idem.
page 17, line 19
Ms.: M. Langlois. M. Langlois had read Courteline.
page 18, line 1
Ms.: in front of his name or in an influential position.
page 18, line 4
Ms.: strutting and slobbering
page 18, line 7
Ms.: vegetables. The secretaries were giggling openly. The old lady bending (illegible) glancing up and still writing finally announced: "I should appreciate it, M. Langlois, if you would do without my approval."
"One to zero," P. said calmly. And he listened to the thousand noises of the harbor behind the walls (illegible) tasting of salt and blood, so remote and yet so close to him. Then comes the line: In the evening he returned at 6 o'clock—It was Saturday.
page 18, line 27
Ms.: pasted carefully into a booklet printed for the purpose
page 18, line 30 Ms.: beautiful, sultry
page 19, line 8
Ms.: silk dress and cloche hat,
page 21, line 18
T.: The chapter ends as follows:
bread. He scratched his head and walked toward the mirror, meeting himself. He yawned and turned toward his bed. Already he was taking off his shoes. He said: "Another Sunday shot."
page 21, line 23
Ms. his windows. He went to bed and slept till the next
morning, when he left for his office. For several years
he lived this way, except for certain evenings when
Marthe came or when he went out with her, certain
rarer Sundays which he shared with Zagreus and
Marthe's girlfriends.
Here the manuscript pages end.
Chapter 3
Devoted to relations between Marthe and Mersault, this chapter, in the first outlines, was to take its place in the second part of the novel, and was to be subdivided. Thus, in the first outline in the Notebooks, if we read Marthe instead of Lucienne, we find:
Chapter Bl Recollections. Liaison with Lucienne. Chapter B2 Lucienne describes her infidelities. Chapter B4 Sexual jealousy. Salzburg. Prague.
It will be noted that the trip and the liaison, by means of sexual jealousy, are linked as effect to cause.
Somewhat later Camus sketches, among his six stories, that of "sexual jealousy." An outline dated August 1937 specifies, in the second part; ". . . Liaison with Catherine . . . Caught in the game. Sexual jealousy. Flight." Catherine now takes the role of Lucienne. But in this same month, another sketch situates the episode of sexual jealousy in the first part, right at the beginning. This episode and that of the trip which follows it then form the essentials of the plot, as this note proves: "Reduce and condense. Story of sexual jealousy which leads to departure. Return to life." Later, when Marthe's name has been adopted, the two episodes are again united; this results in a part
ial outline.
1 Liaison with Marthe . . .
2 Marthe describes her infidelities
3 Innsbruck and Salzburg operetta
the letter and the room departure with fever
The heading "Liaison with Marthe" is followed by a bracket in which can be made out, among several names, that of Othello. Did Camus want to make some reference to Shakespeare's study of jealousy? A curious
text, which begins with "Of beware, my lord, of jealousy / It is the green-ey'd monster" suggests as much. But Camus will decide that Iago, Desdemona, and the Moor of Venice have nothing to do with Algiers, where Mersault walks with Marthe on his arm. Moreover, he will reduce the importance of this affair and cut it by the trip to central Europe. The only trace of the old connection, at the end of the first part, is found in the letter breaking off the affair.
Of this third chapter two manuscripts exist, one for the first pages, down to "all the shame and humiliation that had been awakened in Mersault's angry heart," and the penultimate paragraph, down to ". . . and after that he went back to visit Zagreus by himself," the rest originally forming the beginning of the chapter devoted to their conversation, the other for the rest of the chapter, from "That was the day Mersault began to be attached to Marthe" to "He wanted to meet him, and his relations with Zagreus began that evening. He saw him frequently, visiting almost every Sunday morning."