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Albert Camus: Caligula France

Solitude! You know of solitude? That of po­ets and the powerless. Solitude? But which? Ah! You’re not aware that by oneself, a man is never so! And that everywhere the very weight of the future and the past accompanies us! The lives that we have slaughtered are with us. And this would still be easy for those ones. But those that we have loved, those that we haven’t loved and who have loved us, the regrets, the desire, the bitterness and the sweetness, the whores and the clan of the gods. (He lets Scipio go and moves back towards his seat) Alone! Ah! Suppose however, instead of this solitude poisoned with coffins that is mine, I could taste the truth, the si­lence and the trembling of a tree! (Sitting with a sudden weariness) Solitude! But no, Scipio. It is filled with the gnashing of teeth and wholly resounding with noises and doomed cries. And by the side of the women that I caress, when the night closes upon us and then I think, remote from my finally satisfied flesh, to seize a little of me be­tween life and death, my complete solitude fills up with the sour smell of pleasure in the armpits of the woman who sinks further down against my side.