.. You, a man like you!"
Clerambault tried to calm his brother-in-law, begging him not to judge
until he knew all; but Camus would do nothing but shout, calling him
crazy, and screaming: "I don't know anything about all that. Have you
written against the war, or the country. Yes, or no?"
"I wrote that war is a crime, and that all countries are stained by
it...."
Without allowing Clerambault to explain himself farther, Camus sprang
at him, as if he meant to shake him by the collar; but restraining
himself, he hissed in his face that he was the criminal, and deserved
to be tried by court-martial at once.
The raised voices brought the servant to listen at the door, and
Madame Clerambault ran in, trying to appease her brother, in a high
key. Clerambault volunteered to read the obnoxious pamphlet to Camus,
but in vain, as he refused furiously, declaring that the papers had
told him all he wanted to know about such filth. (He said all papers
were liars, but acted on their falsehoods, none the less.) Then, in a
magisterial tone, he called on Clerambault to sit down and write on
the spot a public recantation. Clerambault shrugged his shoulders,
saying that he was accountable to nothing but his own conscience--that
he was free.
"No!" roared Camus.
"Do you mean that I am not free to say what I think?"
"You are not free, you have no right to say such things," cried the
exasperated Camus.
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