The protagonist in this story is a schoolteacher, Daru, living in a schoolhouse at the top of a hillside.

As far as I understand, the story takes place in Algeria where Camus grew up.

The land is covered with snow.

Daru sees two men and a horse ascending the hillside.

The horseman was Balducci, an old gendarme. The other man with hands bound and lowered head was an Arab, tied to Balducci with a rope.

Balducci asks Daru to deliver the Arab to police headquarters in TANGUIT.

But Daru says it’s not his job to do so.

The Arab has a “restless and rebellious” look about him.

There is talk of a forthcoming revolt.

Daru too has an obstinate look.

Daru lived on “a solitary expanse where nothing had any connection with man”.

The Arab had killed his cousin but later when asked cannot give a reasonable explanation as to why.

Daru felt a sudden wrath against them all, against all men with their rotten spite, their tireless hates, their blood lust.

Daru tells Balducci he will not turn over the man. Balducci replies that it’s an order – he has to do it.

He gives Daru a revolver.

It was a solitary, silent wasteland “peopled only by stones”.

“No one in this desert, neither he nor his guest, mattered.”

But neither of them could have lived elsewhere.

Daru makes food for them, a “cake" and an omelette.

He gives the prisoner a camp bed to sleep on perpendicular to his own.

The presence of the other bothered him “by imposing on him a sort of brotherhood he knew well but refused to accept in the present circumstances”.

Daru had sent the gendarme off “in a way as if he didn’t want to be associated with him”. He felt “strangely empty and vulnerable”.

He was revolted by the prisoner’s “stupid crime”” but to hand him over was contrary to honor”.

He cursed both his own people who had sent him the Arab and also the Arab who had not managed to get away.

In the morning, he made a package of pieces of rusk, dates and sugar, and walked towards the east followed by the Arab.

The snow was melting faster and faster. A bird let out a joyful cry, Daru felt “a sort of rapture”” before the vast familiar expanse”. The landscape had a chaotic look. (Daru’s feelings must have been chaotic.)

They came to a crossroads with two paths. Daru gave the Arab the food and a thousand francs. He showed him the way east to Tinguit and the police and told him they were expecting him. He also showed him a path to the south which led to pasturelands and nomads. They’ll take you in and shelter you according to their law”.

The Arab looked panicky. He evidently wanted Daru to come with him.

Daru walked home but later looked back and saw the Arab walking slowly on the road to the prison.

When he got back to his classroom, Daru found a message on the blackboard that said “You handed over our brother. You must pay for this.”

“He was alone.”

So the Arab was treated kindly by the schoolmaster and given food and the choice of freedom. The latter did the right thing according to his conscience.

But the Arab did not choose freedom but punishment, which would perhaps be the death penalty, we’re not told.

Nonetheless, the schoolmaster will probaby be killed by the Arab’s friends/family.

Camus seems to be saying “Such are the vagaries of life. There is no justice.”

As regards the title, “The guest”, Daru had treated the prisoner as a guest, plying him with food and kindness, and offering him freedom, but apparently the latter does not dare to accept freedom, or feels he should be punished. ( )

Unlike his three well-known novels – ‘The Stranger’, ‘The Plague’ and ‘The Fall’, all written with a 1st person narrator, Albert Camus’s ‘The Guest’ has an objective 3rd person narrator telling the tale. Easily located as an on-line PDF, ‘The Guest’ can be read in less than an hour, a story written in 29 short paragraphs, each paragraph sectioned off with its own paragraph number, giving the impression Camus wanted to clearly delineate his existential musings at each point in the story.

The story begins when the main character, a schoolmaster by the name of Daru, watches from his empty schoolhouse built on a steep hillside in the Algerian desert as two men approach, one an old gendarme (French police officer) on horseback and the other an Arab walking with his hands bound by a rope. Once they are all seated in the schoolroom, Daru asks where the two of them are headed. The old gendarme, Balducci by name, a man Daru has known for a long time, tells Daru how it is with him and the Arab. Here are Camus’s words:

"No. I'm going back to El Ameur. And you will deliver this fellow to Tinguit. He is expected at police headquarters."
Balducci was looking at Daru with a friendly little smile.
"What's this story?" asked the schoolmaster. "Are you pulling my leg?"
"No, son. Those are the orders."
"The orders? I'm not . . ." Daru hesitated, not wanting to hurt the old Corsican. "I mean, that's not my job."
"What! What's the meaning of that? In wartime people do all kinds of jobs."
"Then I'll wait for the declaration of war!"
Balducci nodded. "O. K. But the orders exist and they concern you too. Things are brewing, it appears. There is talk of a forthcoming revolt. . . . “

As the story unfolds, we are given an opportunity to see how these three men respond to the challenge of making choices. For existential writers such as Albert Camus and Jean-Paul Sartre, accepting the responsibility of freedom and making our own decisions and choices, thereby defining who we really are as individuals, is of prime importance. Sidebar: this 3 character tale shares some common ground with Jean-Paul Sartre’s 3 person play, ‘No Exit’. At Sartre’s request, Albert Camus was the first director and the first actor to play Joseph Garcin in ‘No Exit’. Quite possibly, Camus’s experience with ‘No Ext’ influenced his writing of this short-story.

And Camus writes with the same sparse, clean prose we find in ‘The Stranger’. For example, here is a quote when Daru and the Arab are out in the desert: “Daru breathed in deeply the fresh morning light. He felt a sort of rapture before the vast familiar expanse, now almost entirely yellow under its dome of blue sky. They walked an hour more, descending toward the south. They reached a level height made up of crumbly rocks. From there on, the plateau sloped down, eastward, toward a low plain where there were a few spindly trees and, to the south, toward outcroppings of rock that gave the landscape a chaotic look.”

I read this short-story and listened to the audiobook multiple times. What really strikes me is the precision of language. Nothing is wasted -- not a word, not an image, nor the briefest encounter. It is as if Camus is performing laser surgery on the human condition.


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Unlike his three well-known novels – ‘The Stranger’, ‘The Plague’ and ‘The Fall’, all written with a 1st person narrator, Albert Camus’s ‘The Guest’ has an objective 3rd person narrator telling the tale. Easily located as an on-line PDF, ‘The Guest’ can be read in less than an hour, a story written in 29 short paragraphs, each paragraph sectioned off with its own paragraph number, giving the impression Camus wanted to clearly delineate his existential musings at each point in the story.

The story begins when the main character, a schoolmaster by the name of Daru, watches from his empty schoolhouse built on a steep hillside in the Algerian desert as two men approach, one an old gendarme (French police officer) on horseback and the other an Arab walking with his hands bound by a rope. Once they are all seated in the schoolroom, Daru asks where the two of them are headed. The old gendarme, Balducci by name, a man Daru has known for a long time, tells Daru how it is with him and the Arab. Here are Camus’s words:

"No. I'm going back to El Ameur. And you will deliver this fellow to Tinguit. He is expected at police headquarters."
Balducci was looking at Daru with a friendly little smile.
"What's this story?" asked the schoolmaster. "Are you pulling my leg?"
"No, son. Those are the orders."
"The orders? I'm not . . ." Daru hesitated, not wanting to hurt the old Corsican. "I mean, that's not my job."
"What! What's the meaning of that? In wartime people do all kinds of jobs."
"Then I'll wait for the declaration of war!"
Balducci nodded. "O. K. But the orders exist and they concern you too. Things are brewing, it appears. There is talk of a forthcoming revolt. . . . “

As the story unfolds, we are given an opportunity to see how these three men respond to the challenge of making choices. For existential writers such as Albert Camus and Jean-Paul Sartre, accepting the responsibility of freedom and making our own decisions and choices, thereby defining who we really are as individuals, is of prime importance. Sidebar: this 3 character tale shares some common ground with Jean-Paul Sartre’s 3 person play, ‘No Exit’. At Sartre’s request, Albert Camus was the first director and the first actor to play Joseph Garcin in ‘No Exit’. Quite possibly, Camus’s experience with ‘No Ext’ influenced his writing of this short-story.

And Camus writes with the same sparse, clean prose we find in ‘The Stranger’. For example, here is a quote when Daru and the Arab are out in the desert: “Daru breathed in deeply the fresh morning light. He felt a sort of rapture before the vast familiar expanse, now almost entirely yellow under its dome of blue sky. They walked an hour more, descending toward the south. They reached a level height made up of crumbly rocks. From there on, the plateau sloped down, eastward, toward a low plain where there were a few spindly trees and, to the south, toward outcroppings of rock that gave the landscape a chaotic look.”

I read this short-story and listened to the audiobook multiple times. What really strikes me is the precision of language. Nothing is wasted -- not a word, not an image, nor the briefest encounter. It is as if Camus is performing laser surgery on the human condition.


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