I'm so lost!!!

I have just finished the book and let me say that I am so shocked and I have never had more questions!! He finds out that he's getting the guillotine penalty and of course, it scares him. Even someone with no emotions doesn't want to die. He sits in his cell contemplating whether it really matters if he dies or not. He gets all depressed and starts thinking, "but everyone knows life isn't worth living. Deep down I knew perfectly well that it doesn't much matter whether you die at thirty or at seventy, since in either case other men and women will naturally go on living and for thousands of years" (pg. 114). He comes to terms with his somewhat inevitable death and then the chaplain comes in, gets him upset with his obsession with converting him to Christianity, and Mersault ends up screaming at him so fiercly that the guards have to restrain him. He thinks about Maman's death and says something that shocks me: "So close to Maman's death, Maman must have felt free then and ready to live it all again. Nobody, nobody had the right to cry for her" (pg. 122). I suddenly realized that he's not a completely souless person. He had a reason not to cry although he just realized it himself. But this is what really shocked me: "I felt that I had been happy and that I was happy again. For everything to be consummated, for me to feel less alone, I had only to wish that there would be a large crowd of spectators the day of my execution and that they greet me with cries of hate" (pg. 123). Okay, so I get why he wouldn't want to be alone on the day of his death but why would he want cries of hate? Obviously, I wouldn't want anyone to see me die and be happy about it but why would someone want to die with whole town hating him? Maybe to feel like your death was justified? But that still doesn't make sense.
Those last few pages of the book brought out a chracter I never would have expected. This Mersault wanted to speak for himself, he felt genuine emotions instead of just anoyance and he "opened himself to gentle indifference" ( pg. 122) consiously. He had a transformation without anything really changing about him. I don't think I'll ever meet someone like him in my lifetime and to be perfectly honest, I'm not sure I would want to.