By Albert Camus

After a while you could get used to anything

In one sense it threw me off balance but in another it killed time

I believed it but didn’t understand it

All i could see in his lopsided face were his two very bright eyes which were examining me closely without betraying any definable emotion.

They had before them the basest of crimes, a crime made worse than sordid by the at they were dealing with a monster, a man without morals.

Of course we cannot blame him for this. We cannot complain that he lacks what was not in his power to acquire. But here in this court the wholly negative virtue of tolerance must give way to the sterner but loftier virtue of justice. Especially when the emptiness of a man’s heart becomes as we find it has in this man, an abyss reheating to swallow up society.

I was assailed by memories of a life that wasn’t mine anymore but one in which is founded the simplest and most lasting joys.

I said that I didn’t believe in god. He wanted to know if I was sure and I said that I didn’t see any reason to ask myself that question: it seemed unimportant.

That was unthinkable, he said; all men believe in God, even those who reject Him. Of this he was absolutely sure; if ever he came to doubt it, his life would lose all meaning. “Do you wish,” he asked indignantly, “my life to have no meaning?” Really I couldn’t see how my wishes came into it, and I told him as much.