Jacques's mother, came home one evening, fresh and rejuvenated and with his hair cut, saying, with a false joy, what transpired behind the unrest, he wanted to give them a surprise. In fact it was a surprise for her grandmother, who had merely to say, in front of her son, who now looked like a whore. And it was then returned to the kitchen. Catherine had stopped smiling, and his face had been painted all the misery and weariness of the world. Then he met the eyes of his son, he tried again a smile but his lips trembled and tears rushed into his room. Jacques le had approached. "Mom, Mom," he said, touching it tentatively with one hand. "You're so beautiful." But she had heard, and with a wave of his hand, asked him to leave her alone. And the boy had retreated from the doorway, leaning against the doorpost, he began to turn into tears of love ed'impotenza.
Camus also raises the veil on her secret desire for life:
this anguished heart, eager for life, deadly rebel order of the world, continued to fly with the same force against the wall that separated him from the secrets of all life, with the will to go farther, go further, and to know before you die, to be finally know, once, just one second, but forever.
Years before he had long worked on developing Caligula . The intellectual contemporaries recognized, behind the mask of the mad emperor, the figure of Hitler and other prominent personalities the clear consciousness of those who, at that time, although aware of the tyranny, he could not oppose it because of the weakness of their own identity culture.