"a gentle indifference"

"What really counted was the possibility of escape, a leap to freedom, out of the implacable ritual, a wild run for it that give whatever chance for hope there was. Of course, hope meant being cut down on some street corner, as you ran like mad, by a random bullet. But when I really thought it through, nothing was going to allow me such a luxury. Everything was against it; I would just be caught up in the machinery again."
-The Stranger, Albert Camus

Meursault stopped having hope, or allowing himself to hope, while he was in prison awaiting his death. Hope meant allowing himself to imagine his life if he were to live. Outside his cell, on the beach, with Marie. But that didn't matter. What mattered was whether or not they came to get him at dawn the next morning.


-mmr