I know what it amounts to, all this. Ulcers and spectacularly bad poetry. But I think I'll live.

Mersault recollected what his mother told him when he was in prison - something like, if you are forced to live inside a hollow tree trunk, you'll hate it at first, but eventually get used it.

"I often thought in those days that even if I'd been made to live in a hollow tree trunk, with nothing to do but look up at the bit of sky overhead, I'd gradually have got used to it. I'd have looked forward to seeing birds fly past or clouds run together just as here I looked forward to seeing my lawyer's curious ties and just as, in another world, I used to wait for Saturdays to embrace Marie's body".

Yes, well.

Guess who broke down?