LA CHUTE

Having taken refuge in Amsterdam, a city of canals and cold light, this former lawyer waits in a dodgy bar for sympathetic listeners. He has a modern heart, which means he cannot bear to be judged. So he hastens to put himself on trial, but only to better judge others. The mirror in which he gazes at himself, he eventually holds out to others.

Where does the confession begin, and where does the accusation?

Is the speaker putting himself on trial, or his era? Is he a special case, or the man of the moment? In any event, there is but one truth in this carefully orchestrated game of mirrors: pain, and what it promises.

Excerpt from *Prière d’insérer* by Camus