The Guest

“Now shiploads of wheat were arriving from France and the worst was over. But it would be hard to forget that poverty, that army of ragged ghosts wandering in the sunlight, the plateaus burned to a cinder month after month, the earth shriveled up little by little, literally scorched, every stone bursting into dust under one’s foot. The sheep had died then by thousands and even a few men, here and there, sometimes without anyone’s knowing […] And suddenly this snow, without warning, without the foretaste of rain. This is the way the region was, cruel to live in, even without men—who didn’t help matters either. But Daru had been born here. Everywhere else, he felt exiled.”

Here the brutal landscape of extremes figures prominently, with details of the recent, unexpected, seasonally early blizzard after eight months of drought, which scorched nearby inhabitants’ crops and killed off many livestock. The remark that humans’ presence in this area only exacerbates the difficulty of its living conditions presages the human drama that will unfold in the tale. That Daru, a native to the region, feels exiled anywhere but in this harsh environment speaks to human isolation and alienation, as well as to the intricacies of living as a pied-noir in French colonial Algeria.

“At first Daru noticed only his huge lips, fat, smooth, almost Negroid; yet his nose was straight, his eyes were dark and full of fever. The chèche revealed an obstinate forehead and, under the weathered skin now rather discolored by the cold, the whole face had a restless and rebellious look that struck Daru when the Arab, turning his face toward him, looked him straight in the eyes.”

In this initial description of the Arab, Daru notices his features, which include a mix of African traits (the prisoner’s lips) and European ones (his nose). This juxtaposition emphasizes the geographic location of the story’s Algerian setting—in between France, the colonial power, and sub-Saharan Africa. Clad in traditional regional garb, the Arab, whose fever-emanating eyes and rebellious expression serve as a metonymy for the imminent indigenous revolts against French forces in the region. The silent prisoner’s pointedly turns his gaze towards that of Daru suggests the oppressed directly confronting the oppressor through the gateway of vision, the portal to the human soul. The Arab confronts Daru man-to-man rather than through a political lens.

“With the tea, Daru brought a chair. But Balducci was already enthroned on the nearest pupil’s desk and the Arab had squatted against the teacher’s platform facing the stove, which stood between the desk and the window. When he held out the glass of tea to the prisoner, Daru hesitated at the sight of his bound hands.” 

This passage highlights the hierarchy that exists in the roles played by the three men. As a proper host, Daru serves tea—in accordance with North African custom—to his guests, also bringing a chair to seat the gendarme, who, claiming his right to comfort, has taken it upon himself to “enthrone” himself—like a king—on a desk. Cognizant of his inferior status, the Arab remains squatted, initially unable to grasp his cup of tea given that his hands are bound.

“‘The orders? I’m not…’ Daru hesitated, not wanting to hurt the old Corsican. ‘I mean, that’s not my job.’ ‘What? What’s the meaning of that? In wartime people do all kinds of jobs.’ ‘Then I’ll wait for the declaration of war!’” 

Daru’s wish not to hurt Balducci attests to the longstanding bond between them, repeatedly qualified as a father–son relationship, at least from the gendarme’s point of view. Initially, rather than outright disobey Balducci, Daru rejects his orders by claiming that they don’t fall under the purview of this job. To the former’s insistence that exceptions are de rigueur during wartime, Daru grows increasingly feisty and resistant, exclaiming that, though trouble is reputedly stirring in the region, they are not, technically speaking, experiencing wartime conditions. 

“When all the snow was melted, the sun would take over again and once more would burn the fields of stone. For days, still, the unchanging sky would shed its dry light on the solitary expanse where nothing had any connection with man.”

Interspersing the contentious dialogue between the two men with climate-related details, Camus once again indicates the extreme nature of the region’s meteorological patterns via this evocation of the cyclical, brusque shift from snowstorm to blazing sun, both of which have the capacity to kill crops and sentient beings. Highlighting both the unalterable sky and the isolated region’s lack of connection to humankind, Camus paints the ultimate existential landscape—one in which each individual stands alone, confronted with the responsibility of their personal choices. 

“‘You’re crazy, son. If there’s an uprising, no one is safe, we’re all in the same boat.’ ‘I’ll defend myself. I’ll have time to see them coming.’ Balducci began to laugh, then suddenly the mustache covered the white teeth. ‘You’ll have time? O.K. That’s just what I was saying. You have always been a little cracked. That’s why I like you, my son was like that.’”

Here Balducci beckons Daru to accept the extra weapon he’s offering as protection in the likely event of an imminent uprising. His laughter, coupled with a sneering expression, indicate a paternalistic attitude towards the schoolmaster, whom he considers naïve—and somewhat crazy—for thinking that he would have time between glimpsing approaching insurgents and their arrival to grab his gun from his trunk and protect himself. This stance also derives from Balducci’s fatherly attitude towards Daru, who he repeatedly refers to as “son”; here the gendarme indicates that his son is no longer alive.

“‘You’re being a fool,’ he said slowly. ‘I don’t like it either. You don’t get used to putting a rope on a man even after years of it, and you’re even ashamed—yes, ashamed. But you can’t let them have their way.’” 

Forthright in his admission that he, like Daru, dislikes—to the point of feeling shame, as he emphasizes in his repetition of the adjective “ashamed”—holding a fellow man prisoner, Balducci denigrates the schoolmaster not only for refusing to follow orders, but also for claiming that he doesn’t need the weapon the gendarme offers him as protection in the imminent uprising. Intent on reinforcing the hierarchy of power in the region, Balducci perpetuates the us-against-them rhetoric that fuels the regional unrest.

“Don’t be mean with me. I know you’ll tell the truth. You’re from hereabouts and you are a man. But you must sign, that’s the rule.” 

Confronted with Daru’s initial refusal to sign the form confirming that Balducci has completed his assigned task of delivering the Arab to him, the gendarme appeals to the latter’s sense of honor by asserting his faith in the schoolmaster’s probity. Whether this claim derives from a deep-seated knowledge of/interest in Daru as an individual or simply a presumption that the latter hails from the region and is a fellow man—i.e., a French man—is speculative, given Balducci’s harsh tone and words echoing the fallacious and presumptuous logic that people of the same nation and race must all think and behave similarly. 

“In the beginning, the solitude and the silence had been hard for him on these wastelands populated only by stones. Occasionally, furrows suggested cultivation, but they had been dug to uncover a certain kind of stone good for building. The only plowing here was to harvest rocks. […] This is the way it was: bare rock covered three quarters of the region. Towns sprang up, flourished, then disappeared; men came by, loved one another or fought bitterly, then died. No one in this desert, neither he nor his guest, mattered. And yet, outside this desert neither of them, Daru knew, could have really lived.” 

In language reminiscent of the opening words of Genesis, this passage provides insight into Daru’s contradictory stance towards his surroundings, the greater part of which cannot sustain plant life. Rich in rocks and stones used for building—a notably human endeavor—the desert, ironically, cannot produce the food necessary to feed its dwellers, hence the necessity of the colonial government providing regular food rations. However, born there, neither Daru nor the Arab could live elsewhere, the former realizes. This eternal land exists independently from—and in utter indifference towards—its inhabitants’ actions and lives; ultimately, all humans are guests on the earth throughout their lives.

“The meal over, the Arab looked at the schoolmaster. ‘Are you the judge?’ ‘No, I’m simply keeping you until tomorrow.’ ‘Why do you eat with me?’ ‘I’m hungry.’”

In this short, sparse dialogue, the Arab, scared and confused about what awaits him the following day, wonders if Daru is his appointed judge—an ironic question since, though he is repelled by the prisoner’s crime, the schoolmaster refuses to select his path for him, hoping instead that he can empower the Arab to choose his own freedom. Questioned as to why he eats alongside the Arab—eating being, in the region, an intimate act suggesting the equal station of those partaking—Daru offers a simple response underscoring that, despite their ostensibly quite divergent ranks in society, they are both humans with the same biological needs.

“He listened to that breath so close to him and mused without being able to go to sleep. In this room where he had been sleeping alone for a year, this presence bothered him. But it bothered him also by imposing on him a sort of brotherhood he knew well but refused to accept in the present circumstances. Men who share the same rooms, soldiers or prisoners, develop a strange alliance as if, having cast off their armor with their clothing, they fraternized every evening, over and above their differences, in the ancient community of dream and fatigue.” 

Accustomed to solitude, Daru is unable to sleep with the Arab in his room. Mildly annoyed and reflecting in silence, he considers circumstances in which humans in shared living quarters find themselves allied by basic human needs—eating, sleeping, etc.—despite pronounced differences. The lexical items “brotherhood” and “fraternized” suggest a family relationship of false parity since his assigned role—which he rejects—involves delivering a stranger who is politically his inferior to justice.

“And he cursed at one and the same time his own people who had sent him this Arab and the Arab too who had dared to kill and not managed to get away.”

Here Daru’s frustration at his situation boils over into anger ignited by personal and political beliefs. As a pied-noir, Daru, though born in the region, is nevertheless French, and his people, the colonial French oppressors, have forced him to deliver the prisoner to their justice system. Furthermore, the schoolmaster reproaches not only the Arab’s crime, but also his lack of agency and know-how in fleeing the wrath of the French penal system.

“Daru held out the package to him. ‘Take it,’ he said. ‘There are dates, bread, and sugar. You can hold out for two days. Here are a thousand francs too.’ The Arab took the package and the money but kept his full hands at chest level as if he didn’t know what to do with what was being given him.” 

This passage marks the climax in the story: Daru tenders life-sustaining sustenance—both food and money—to the Arab, leaving him at a crossroads where he can choose the certainty of imprisonment at the hand of French authorities or shelter and hospitality with Berbers. To Daru’s subsequent dismay, the prisoner, here clumsily receiving the gift, chooses prison, no doubt because of his country’s having existed for so long under colonial rule that he lacks both the experience and comprehension of what freedom entails.