Albert Camus: Caligula

Caligula: Cherea, do you believe that two men whose soul and pride are alike could, at least once in their lifetime, speak to each other with all their heart? As if they were naked before each other, stripped of any prejudices, special interests and lies by which they live?

Cherea: I think that is possible, Caius, but I believe that you’re incapable of it.

Caligula: You’re right; I just wanted to know if you thought like me. So let’s conceal ourselves with masks. Make use of our lies. Speak like we’re having a fight, covered up to the hilt. Cherea, why don’t you like me?

Cherea: Because there is nothing lovable within you, Caius. Because such things don’t come on command. And also, because I understand you too well and that a man cannot like the person of one’s own countenances that one tries to hide from oneself.

Caligula: Why do you hate me?

Cherea: Here you deceive yourself, Caius. I don’t hate you. I judge you harmful and cruel, selfish and conceited, but I cannot hate you since I don’t believe you’re happy. And I cannot disregard you as I know that you’re not cowardly.

Caligula: Then for what reason do you wish to kill me?

Cherea: I’ve told you: I judge you harmful. I have the taste and the need for security. Most men are like me. They’re unable to live in a universe in which the strangest thinking can, in one second, come into reality — where, generally, it penetrates like a knife into a heart. For my part, though, I don’t want to live in such a universe. I prefer to hold my life tightly in my hand.

Caligula: Security and logic don’t fit together.

Cherea: It’s true. It isn’t logical, but it is sane.

Caligula: Keep going.

Cherea: I have nothing more to say. I won’t participate in your logic. I have a different idea of my duties as a man. I know that most of your subjects think like me. You’re troublesome for everyone. It’s natural that you should disappear.

Caligula: All that is very clear and very legitimate. For the majority of men, that would be self-evident. Not for you, however. You are intelligent and intelligence must be paid for dearly or is denied. Me, I pay. But you, why deny it and not bewilling to pay?

Cherea: Because I have the desire to live and to be happy. I believe that men cannot be one or the other while inciting the absurd to all its consequences. I’m like everyone else. Sometimes for the sake of feeling liberated from them I wish for the death of those whom I love. I covet some women that family laws or friendship prohibit me from coveting. To embody logic, I ought then to kill or possess, but I discern that these loose ideas haven’t any worth. If everybody concerned themselves with realizing these thoughts we could neither live nor be happy. Once more, that is the thing which matters to me.

Caligula: Therefore it requires that you believe in some higher plan?

Cherea: I believe that there are some actions which are nobler than others.

Caligula: I believe that all are equivalent.

Cherea: I know it, Caius, and that’s why I don’t hate you. But you are troublesome and it’s necessary that you should vanish.

Caligula: That’s very correct. But why give me notice of it and risk your life?

Cherea: Because others will replace me and because I don’t like to conceal the truth.

(Silence)

Caligula: Cherea.

Cherea: Yes, Caius.

Caligula: Do you believe that two men whose soul and pride are alike could, at least once in their lifetime, speak to each other with all their heart?

Cherea: I believe that’s what we’ve just been doing.

Caligula: Yes, Cherea. However, you believed me incapable of it.

Cherea: I was wrong, Caius. I recognize it and I thank you. Now I wait for your sentence.