“Your name?” Raymond gave his name. “Take that cigarette out of your mouth when you’re talking to me,” the policeman said gruffly. Raymond hesitated, glanced at me, and kept the cigarette in his mouth. The policeman promptly swung his arm and gave him a good hard smack on the left cheek. The cigarette shot from his lips and dropped a yard away. Raymond made a wry face, but said nothing for a moment. Then in a humble tone he asked if he mightn’t pick up his cigarette.
The officer said, “Yes,” and added: “But don’t you forget next time that we don’t stand for any nonsense, not from guys like you.”
Meanwhile the girl went on sobbing and repeating: “He hit me, the coward. He’s a pimp.”
“Excuse me, officer,” Raymond put in, “but is that in order, calling a man a pimp in the presence of witnesses?”
The policeman told him to shut his trap.
Raymond then turned to the girl. “Don’t you worry, my pet. We’ll meet again.”
“That’s enough,” the policeman said, and told the girl to go away. Raymond was to stay in his room till summoned to the police station. “You ought to be ashamed of yourself,” the policeman added, “getting so tight you can’t stand steady. Why, you’re shaking all over!”
“I’m not tight,” Raymond explained. “Only when I see you standing there and looking at me, I can’t help trembling. That’s only natural.”
Then he closed his door, and we all went away. Marie and I finished getting our lunch ready. But she hadn’t any appetite, and I ate nearly all. She left at one, and then I had a nap.
Toward three there was a knock at my door and Raymond came in. He sat down on the edge of my bed and for a minute or two said nothing. I asked him how it had gone off. He said it had all gone quite smoothly at first, as per program; only then she’d slapped his face and he’d seen red, and started thrashing her. As for what happened after that, he needn’t tell me, as I was there.
“Well,” I said, “you taught her a lesson, all right, and that’s what you wanted, isn’t it?”
He agreed, and pointed out that whatever the police did, that wouldn’t change the fact she’d had her punishment. As for the police, he knew exactly how to handle them. But he’d like to know if I’d expected him to return the blow when the policeman hit him.
I told him I hadn’t expected anything whatsoever and, anyhow, I had no use for the police. Raymond seemed pleased and asked if I’d like to come out for a stroll with him. I got up from the bed and started brushing my hair. Then Raymond said that what he really wanted was for me to act as his witness. I told him I had no objection; only I didn’t know what he expected me to say.
“It’s quite simple,” he replied. “You’ve only got to tell them that the girl had let me down.”
So I agreed to be his witness.
We went out together, and Raymond stood me a brandy in a café. Then we had a game of billiards; it was a close game and I lost by only a few points. After that he proposed going to a brothel, but I refused; I didn’t feel like it. As we were walking slowly back he told me how pleased he was at having paid out his mistress so satisfactorily. He made himself extremely amiable to me, and I quite enjoyed our walk.
When we were nearly home I saw old Salamano on the doorstep; he seemed very excited. I noticed that his dog wasn’t with him. He was turning like a teetotum, looking in all directions, and sometimes peering into the darkness of the hall with his little bloodshot eyes. Then he’d mutter something to himself and start gazing up and down the street again.
Raymond asked him what was wrong, but he didn’t answer at once. Then I heard him grunt, “The bastard! The filthy cur!” When I asked him where his dog was, he scowled at me and snapped out, “Gone!” A moment later, all of a sudden, he launched out into it.
“I’d taken him to the Parade Ground as usual. There was a fair on, and you could hardly move for the crowd. I stopped at one of the booths to look at the Handcuff King. When I turned to go, the dog was gone. I’d been meaning to get a smaller collar, but I never thought the brute could slip it and get away like that.”
Raymond assured him the dog would find its way home, and told him stories of dogs that had traveled miles and miles to get back to their masters. But this seemed to make the old fellow even more worried than before.
“Don’t you understand, they’ll do away with him; the police, I mean. It’s not likely anyone will take him in and look after him; with all those scabs he puts everybody off.”
I told him that there was a pound at the police station, where stray dogs are taken. His dog was certain to be there and he could get it back on payment of a small charge. He asked me how much the charge was, but there I couldn’t help him. Then he flew into a rage again.
“Is it likely I’d give money for a mutt like that? No damned fear! They can kill him, for all I care.” And he went on calling his dog the usual names.
Raymond gave a laugh and turned into the hall. I followed him upstairs, and we parted on the landing. A minute or two later I heard Salamano’s footsteps and a knock on my door.
When I opened it, he halted for a moment in the doorway.
“Excuse me ... I hope I’m not disturbing you.”
I asked him in, but he shook his head. He was staring at his toe caps, and the gnarled old hands were trembling. Without meeting my eyes, he started talking.
“They won’t really take him from me, will they, Monsieur Meursault? Surely they wouldn’t do a thing like that. If they do—I don’t know what will become of me.”
I told him that, so far as I knew, they kept stray dogs in the pound for three days, waiting for their owners to call for them. After that they disposed of the dogs as they thought fit.
He stared at me in silence for a moment, then said, “Good evening.” After that I heard him pacing up and down his room for quite a while. Then his bed creaked. Through the wall there came to me a little wheezing sound, and I guessed that he was weeping. For some reason, I don’t know what, I began thinking of Mother. But I had to get up early next day; so, as I wasn’t feeling hungry, I did without supper, and went straight to bed.
V
RAYMOND rang me up at the office. He said that a friend of his—to whom he’d spoken about me—invited me to spend next Sunday at his little seaside bungalow just outside Algiers. I told him I’d have been delighted; only I had promised to spend Sunday with a girl. Raymond promptly replied that she could come, too. In fact, his friend’s wife would be very pleased not to be the only woman in a party of men.
I’d have liked to hang up at once, as my employer doesn’t approve of my using the office phone for private calls. But Raymond asked me to hold on; he had something else to tell me, and that was why he’d rung me up, though he could have waited till the evening to pass on the invitation.
“It’s like this,” he said. “I’ve been shadowed all the morning by some Arabs. One of them’s the brother of that girl I had the row with. If you see him hanging round the house when you come back, pass me the word.”
I promised to do so.
Just then my employer sent for me. For a moment I felt uneasy, as I expected he was going to tell me to stick to my work and not waste time chattering with friends over the phone. However, it was nothing of the kind. He wanted to discuss a project he had in view, though so far he’d come to no decision. It was to open a branch at Paris, so as to be able to deal with the big companies on the spot, without postal delays, and he wanted to know if I’d like a post there.