If only he could put the clock back and be
once more the man who, at the outset of his
imprisonment, had only one thought and one desire: to escape
and return to his former life! But that, he knew,
was out of the question; he had changed too greatly.
Prison had forced on him a detachment which, try as
he might, he couldn’t think away, and which like a
formless fear haunted his mind. Almost he thought that prison
had ended too abruptly, he hadn’t had time to pull
himself together. Freedom was bearing down on him full speed.
______________________________________________________
Paraphrases from the novel The Plague by Albert Camus.
Advertisements