Perfectly at One
“Neither had said a word, but they were conscious of being perfectly at one, and the memory of this night would be cherished by them both.” ALBERT CAMUS · THE PLAGUE
Rieux and Tarrou are in the dark water off the harbor, out of reach of the city for an hour.
Camus is careful about what happens between them. Nothing is said. No agreement is reached. They simply swim, and they both know that they are completely together, and they both know they will remember it. Notice that the wordlessness is not incidental. Nothing said would have improved this. Any attempt to name what was happening would have been smaller than what was happening.
We tend to assume closeness gets built out of disclosure, that you become close to somebody by telling them things. Sometimes. But the friendships that hold often rest on something else. Doing a thing alongside a person. Silence that is comfortable rather than awkward. The evidence is not what got confided. It is that neither of you needed to fill the air.
The two men have very little time left. Camus lets them have this.
Spend an hour with someone doing something rather than discussing something. Let the silence stand.
