Sartre's second century

Hidden Wordplay in the Works of Jean-Paul Sartre 149
von Gerlach, who has tortured Russian prisoners during the Second World
War and who feels intolerably guilty in consequence, sequesters himself in
an upstairs room of the large family house in Altona, which is a suburb of
Hamburg. He is still there, although officially dead, in 1959. His sister
Leni, with whom he has an incestuous relationship, brings him food. His
remorse has driven him completely mad. He believes himself to be
persecuted, as a man who embodies the entire twentieth century, by a
Tribunal of Crabs sitting in the thirtieth. The crabs are decapods who
"understand nothing", and he is a man who regards himself as a crab. But
as he says to his sister, he is defending his century before magistrates
whom he has not the pleasure of knowing. But who exactly are these
magistrates? When Johanna, his sister-in-law, who manages to violate his
solitude, speaks to him of crabs, he replies:
What Crabs? Are you mad? What Crabs? Ah! Yes. Well, yes... The Crabs
are men. What, you say? Where did I get that idea from? [...] Real men,
fine and good, on all the balconies of the centuries. As for me, I was
crawling in the courtyard; I thought I could hear them: "Brother, what's
that I see?" That was me... Me the Crab... Well, I said no: my time will
not be judged by men. What will they be, after all? The sons of our sons.
Do we allow brats to condemn their grandfathers? I turned the tables on
them; I yelled: "Here is man; after me the flood; after the flood, Crabs,
you\" Unmasked, all of them! The balconies were swarming with arthropods.
21
The Tribunal of Crustaceans consists then, after all, of men. Naturally
Frantz is in bad faith; and it is clear that he knows very well that it is he
himself who is judging himself when he says: "The defendant bears
witness for himself... I am Man, Johanna; I am every man and the whole
of Man, I am the Century, like absolutely anyone." 22 Judge and defendant,
he is also witness for the defence. So why does he not find himself guilty
21 "Quels Crabes? fites-vous folle? Quels Crabes? Ah! oui. Eh bien, oui... Les
Crabes sont des hommes. Hein, quoi? Oil ai-je 6t6 chercher cela? [...] De vrais
hommes, bons et beaux, h tous les balcons des si&cles. Moi, je rampais dans la
cour; je croyais les entendre: 'Fr&re, qu'est-ce que c'est que ga?' Qa, c'&ait moi...
Moi le Crabe... Eh bien, j'ai dit non: des hommes ne jugeront pas mon temps. Que
seront-ils, apr£s tout? Les fils de nos fils. Est-ce qu'on permet aux marmots de
condamner leurs grands-pfcres? J'ai retournd la situation; j'ai crte: 'Void l'homme;
apr&s moi, le deluge; apr&s le deluge, les Crabes, vousV D6masqu£s, tous! les
balcons grouillaient d'arthropodes" {Les Sequestres d'Altona, in Theatre, 838-39).
22 "L'accusd tdmoigne pour lui-meme... Je suis l'Homme, Johanna; je suis tout
homme et tout l'Homme, je suis le Sfecle comme n'importe qui" (ibid., 839).