The Stranger Or the Boy from Belcourt

THE STRANGER, OR THE BOY FROM BELCOURTimagination or notion of roots which offer his friend Didier a ready-made guide for actionprecisely because he, Albert, lacks an anchored sense of identity. As a result, Camus will haveto figure out things for himself, including who he is and what he has to do with his life. Suchpressure creates feelings of alienation, anxiety, and apathy in the young Camus, with theauthor explaining in Le Premier homme that he “felt [himself] to be of another species, withno past, no family home, no attic full of letters and photos, theoretical citizens of a nebulousnation where snow covered the roofs while [he himself] grew up under an eternal and savagesun, equipped with a most elementary morality.” 34That “nebulous nation” was metropolitan France, a country Camus never visiteduntil he was well into his twenties. 35 In Algeria, the Camuses were decidedly poor. Lucienhad earned ten to twenty francs a day as a cellarman, while Catherine, a cleaning woman forprivate homes and businesses, would have been lucky to earn that much in a week. AfterLucien died, the French Pension Ministry supplemented Catherine’s income with 1,400francs per year because of her status as a war widow; as war orphans, Albert and his brotherLucien Jr. received free medical treatment. 36Poverty was one of Camus’s first teachers. The tiny, three-bedroom apartment heand his relatives inhabited at 93 Rue de Lyon, Belcourt was no three-star hotel — it lackedelectricity and running water, and bathroom facilities on the landing were shared with twoother households. 37 A barber, a wine seller, and a milliner occupied the first floor of thehouse. Meanwhile, the main room of the Camus-Sintès’s apartment was sparsely furnished,containing only a table, a desk, a sideboard, and a covered mattress on the floor. This waswhere uncle Etienne — partially mute like his sister Catherine — slept at night. A seconduncle, Joseph, also lived in the apartment until 1920. Albert and Lucien Jr. shared a roomwith their mother and a bed with each other, a night table positioned between the two cots.Only grandmother Sintès had her own room, though that was to be expected given herstatus as head of household, and her stubborn personality. 38 She more than anyone else34ibid. p. 20935supra Todd, Olivier. Camus: A Life. p. 2736ibid. p. 737ibid. p. 838 “Erect in her long black robe of a prophetess, uniformed and stubborn, [Jacques’s grandmother] had neverknown resignation…Raised by her parents from Mahon on a small farm in the Sahel, she was very young whenshe married…She [had] nine children, of whom two died in infancy, another was saved only at the price ofbeing handicapped, and the last was born deaf and mute. She raised her brood on that somber little farm whiledoing her share of their hard common labor; she sat at the end of the table with a long stick at hand that sparedher any superfluous speech, the guilty one being immediately hit over the head. She held sway, demandingrespect for herself and her husband, whom the children had to address in the polite form of speech, accordingto Spanish practice. Her husband would not long enjoy this respect: He died prematurely, worn out by sun andlabor, and perhaps by his marriage, without Jacques ever being able to discover what disease he had died of.Left alone, the grandmother disposed of the little farm and went to live in Algiers with her younger children,the others having been sent out to work as soon as they were old enough to be apprenticed.” supra Camus,Albert. The First Man. trans. by David Hapgood. p. 83-4130