Cottard stared at him in a puzzled manner, and Tarrou went on to say that there were far too many slackers, that this plague was everybody's business, and everyone should do his duty. For instance, any able-bodied man was welcome in the sanitary squads.
"That's an idea," said Cottard, "but it won't get you anywhere. The plague has the whip hand of you and there's nothing to be done about it."
"We shall know whether that is so"—Tarrou's voice was carefully controlled—"only when we've tried everything."
Meanwhile Rieux had been sitting at his desk, copying out reports. Tarrou was still gazing at the little business man, who was stirring uneasily in his chair.
"Look here, Monsieur Cottard, why don't you join us?"
Picking up his derby hat, Cottard rose from his chair with an offended expression.
"It's not my job," he said. Then, with an air of bravado, he added: "What's more, the plague suits me quite well and I see no reason why I should bother about trying to stop it."
As if a new idea had just waylaid him, Tarrou struck his forehead.
"Why, of course, I was forgetting. If it wasn't for that, you'd be arrested."
Cottard gave a start and gripped the back of the chair, as if he were about to fall. Rieux had stopped writing and was observing him with grave interest.
"Who told you that?" Cottard almost screamed.
"Why, you yourself!" Tarrou looked surprised. "At least, that's what the doctor and I have gathered from the way you speak."
Losing all control of himself, Cottard let out a volley of oaths.
"Don't get excited," Tarrou said quietly. "Neither I nor the doctor would dream of reporting you to the police. What you may have done is no business of ours. And, anyway, we've never had much use for the police. Come, now! Sit down again."
Cottard looked at the chair, then hesitantly lowered himself into it. He heaved a deep sigh.
"It's something that happened ages ago," he began. "Somehow they've dug it up. I thought it had all been forgotten. But somebody started talking, damn him! They sent for me and told me not to budge till the inquiry was finished. And I felt pretty sure they'd end up by arresting me."
"Was it anything serious?" Tarrou asked.
"That depends on what you mean by 'serious.' It wasn't murder, anyhow."
"Prison or transportation with hard labor?"
Cottard was looking almost abject.
"Well, prison—if I'm lucky." But after a moment he grew excited again. "It was all a mistake. Everybody makes mistakes. And I can't bear the idea of being pulled in for that, of being torn from my home and habits and everyone I know."
"And is that the reason," Tarrou asked, "why you had the bright idea of hanging yourself?"
"Yes. It was a damn-fool thing to do, I admit."
For the first time Rieux spoke. He told Cottard that he quite understood his anxiety, but perhaps everything would come right in the end.
"Oh, for the moment I've nothing to fear."
"I can see," Tarrou said, "that you're not going to join in our effort."
Twiddling his hat uneasily, Cottard gazed at Tarrou with shifty eyes.
"I hope you won't bear me a grudge."
"Certainly not. But"—Tarrou smiled—"do try at least not to propagate the microbe deliberately."
Cottard protested that he'd never wanted the plague, it was pure chance that it had broken out, and he wasn't to blame if it happened to make things easier for him just now. Then he seemed to pluck up courage again and when Rambert entered was shouting almost aggressively:
"What's more, I'm pretty sure you won't get anywhere."
Rambert learned to his chagrin that Cottard didn't know where Gonzales lived; he suggested that they'd better pay mother visit to the small cafe. They made an appointment for the following day. When Rieux gave him to understand :hat he'd like to be kept posted, Rambert proposed that he and Tarrou should look him up one night at the end of the
week. They could come as late as they liked and would be sure to find him in his room.
Next morning Cottard and Rambert went to the cafe and left a message for Garcia, asking him to come that evening, or if this could not be managed, next day. They waited for him in vain that evening. Next day Garcia turned up. He listened in silence to what Rambert had to say; then informed him he had no idea what had happened, but knew that several districts of the town had been isolated for twenty-four hours for a house-to-house inspection. Quite possibly Gonzales and the two youngsters hadn't been able to get through the cordon. All he could do was to put them in touch once more with Raoul. Naturally this couldn't be done before the next day but one.
"I see," Rambert said. "I'll have to start it all over again, from scratch."
On the next day but one, Raoul, whom Rambert met at a street corner, confirmed Garcia's surmise; the low-lying districts had, in fact, been isolated and a cordon put round them. The next thing was to get in contact with Gonzales. Two days later Rambert was lunching with the footballer.
"It's too damn silly," Gonzales said. "Of course you should have arranged some way of seeing each other."
Rambert heartily agreed.
"Tomorrow morning," Gonzales continued, "we'll look up the kids and try to get a real move on."
When they called next day, however, the youngsters were out. A note was left fixing a meeting for the following day at noon, outside the high school. When Rambert came back to his hotel, Tarrou was struck by the look on his face.
"Not feeling well?" he asked.
"It's having to start it all over again that's got me down." Then he added: "You'll come tonight, won't you?"
When the two friends entered Rambert's room that night, they found him lying on the bed. He got up at once and filled the glasses he had ready. Before lifting his to his lips,
Rieux asked him if he was making progress. The journalist replied that he'd started the same round again and got to the same point as Before; in a day or two he was to have his last appointment. Then he took a sip of his drink and added gloomily: "Needless to say, they won't turn up."
"Oh come! That doesn't follow because they let you down last time."
"So you haven't understood yet?" Rambert shrugged his shoulders almost scornfully.
"Understood what?"
"The plague."
"Ah!" Rieux exclaimed.
"No, you haven't understood that it means exactly that— the same thing over and over and over again."
He went to a corner of the room and started a small phonograph.
"What's that record?" Tarrou asked. "I've heard it before."
"It's St. James Infirmary."
While the phonograph was playing, two shots rang out in the distance.
"A dog or a get-away," Tarrou remarked.
When, a moment later, the record ended, an ambulance bell could be heard clanging past under the window and receding into silence.
"Rather a boring record," Rambert remarked. "And this must be the tenth time I've put it on today."
"Are you really so fond of it?"
"No, but it's the only one I have." And after a moment he added: "That's what I said 'it' was—the same thing over and over again."
He asked Rieux how the sanitary groups were functioning. Five teams were now at work, and it was hoped to form others. Sitting on the bed, the journalist seemed to be studying his fingernails. Rieux was gazing at his squat, powerfully built form, hunched up on the edge of the bed.
Suddenly he realized that Rambert was returning his gaze.
"You know, doctor, I've given a lot of thought to your campaign. And if I'm not with you, I have my reasons. No, I don't think it's that I'm afraid to risk my skin again. I took part in the Spanish Civil War."
"On which side?" Tarrou asked.
"The losing side. But since then I've done a bit of thinking."
"About what?"
"Courage. I know now that man is capable of great deeds. But if he isn't capable of a great emotion, wel
l, he leaves me cold."
"One has the idea that he is capable of everything," Tarrou remarked.
"I can't agree; he's incapable of suffering for a long time, or being happy for a long time. Which means that he's incapable of anything really worth while." He looked at the two men in turn, then asked: "Tell me, Tarrou, are you capable of dying for love?"
"I couldn't say, but I hardly think so—as I am now."
"You see. But you're capable of dying for an idea; one can see that right away. Well, personally, I've seen enough of people who die for an idea. I don't believe in heroism; I know it's easy and I've learned it can be murderous. What interests me is living and dying for what one loves."
Rieux had been watching the journalist attentively. With his eyes still on him he said quietly:
"Man isn't an idea, Rambert."
Rambert sprang off the bed, his face ablaze with passion.
"Man is an idea, and a precious small idea, once he turns his back on love. And that's my point; we—mankind— have lost the capacity for love. We must face that fact, doctor. Let's wait to acquire that capacity or, if really it's beyond us, wait for the deliverance that will come to each of us anyway, without his playing the hero. Personally, I look no farther."
Rieux rose. He suddenly appeared very tired.
"You're right, Rambert, quite right, and for nothing in the world would I try to dissuade you from what you're going to do; it seems to me absolutely right and proper. However, there's one thing I must tell you: there's no question of heroism in all this. It's a matter of common decency. That's an idea which may make some people smile, but the only means of righting a plague is—common decency."
"What do you mean by 'common decency'?" Rambert's tone was grave.
"I don't know what it means for other people. But in my case I know that it consists in doing my job."
"Your job! I only wish I were sure what my job is!" There was a mordant edge to Rambert's voice. "Maybe I'm all wrong in putting love first."
Rieux looked him in the eyes.
"No," he said vehemently, "you are not wrong."
Rambert gazed thoughtfully at them.
"You two," he said, "I suppose you've nothing to lose in all this. It's easier, that way, to be on the side of the angels."
Rieux drained his glass.
"Come along," he said to Tarrou. "We've work to do."
He went out.
Tarrou followed, but seemed to change his mind when he reached the door. He stopped and looked at the journalist.
"I suppose you don't know that Rieux's wife is in a sanatorium, a hundred miles or so away."
Rambert showed surprise and began to say something; but Tarrou had already left the room.
At a very early hour next day Rambert rang up the doctor.
"Would you agree to my working with you until I find some way of getting out of the town?"
There was a moment's silence before the reply came.
"Certainly, Rambert. Thanks."
PART III
T
hus week by week the prisoners of plague put up what fight they could. Some, like Rambert, even contrived to fancy they were still behaving as free men and had the power of choice. But actually it would have been truer to say that by this time, mid-August, the plague had swallowed up everything and everyone. No longer were there individual destinies; only a collective destiny, made of plague and the emotions shared by all. Strongest of these emotions was the sense of exile and of deprivation, with all the crosscurrents of revolt and fear set up by these. That is why the narrator thinks this moment, registering the climax of the summer heat and the disease, the best for describing, on general lines and by way of illustration, the excesses of the living, burials of the dead, and the plight of parted lovers.
It was at this time that a high wind rose and blew for several days through the plague-stricken city. Wind is particularly dreaded by the inhabitants of Oran, since the plateau on which the town is built presents no natural obstacle, and it can sweep our streets with unimpeded violence. During the months when not a drop of rain had refreshed the town, a gray crust had formed on everything, and this flaked off under the wind, disintegrating into dust-
clouds. What with the dust and scraps of paper whirled against peoples' legs, the streets grew emptier. Those few who went out could be seen hurrying along, bent forward, with handkerchiefs or their hands pressed to their mouths. At nightfall, instead of the usual throng of people, each trying to prolong a day that might well be his last, you met only small groups hastening home or to a favorite cafe. With the result that for several days when twilight came— it fell much quicker at this time of the year—the streets were almost empty, and silent but for the long-drawn stridence of the wind. A smell of brine and seaweed came from the unseen, storm-tossed sea. And in the growing darkness the almost empty town, palled in dust, swept by bitter sea-spray, and loud with the shrilling of the wind, seemed a lost island of the damned.
Hitherto the plague had found far more victims in the more thickly populated and less well-appointed outer districts than in the heart of the town. Quite suddenly, however, it launched a new attack and established itself in the business center. Residents accused the wind of carrying infection, "broadcasting germs," as the hotel manager put it. Whatever the reason might be, people living in the central districts realized that their turn had come when each night they heard oftener and oftener the ambulances clanging past, sounding the plague's dismal, passionless tocsin under their windows.
The authorities had the idea of segregating certain particularly affected central areas and permitting only those whose services were indispensable to cross the cordon. Dwellers in these districts could not help regarding these regulations as a sort of taboo specially directed at themselves, and thus they came, by contrast, to envy residents in other areas their freedom. And the latter, to cheer themselves up in despondent moments, fell to picturing the lot of those others less free than themselves. "Anyhow, there are
some worse off than I," was a remark that voiced the only solace to be had in those days.
About the same time we had a recrudescence of outbreaks of fire, especially in the residential area near the west gate. It was found, after inquiry, that people who had returned from quarantine were responsible for these fires. Thrown off their balance by bereavement and anxiety, they were burning their houses under the odd delusion that they were killing off the plague in the holocaust. Great difficulty was experienced in fighting these fires, whose numbers and frequency exposed whole districts to constant danger, owing to the high wind. When the attempts made by the authorities to convince these well-meaning incendiaries that the official fumigation of their houses effectively removed any risk of infection had proved unavailing, it became necessary to decree very heavy penalties for this type of arson. And most likely it was not the prospect of mere imprisonment that deterred these unhappy people, but the common belief that a sentence of imprisonment was tantamount to a death sentence, owing to the very high mortality prevailing in the town jail. It must be admitted that there was some foundation for this belief. It seemed that, for obvious reasons, the plague launched its most virulent attacks on those who lived, by choice or by necessity, in groups: soldiers, prisoners, monks, and nuns. For though some prisoners are kept solitary, a prison forms a sort of community, as is proved by the fact that in our town jail the guards died of plague in the same proportion as the prisoners. The plague was no respecter of persons and under its despotic rule everyone, from the warden down to the humblest delinquent, was under sentence and, perhaps for the first time, impartial justice reigned in the prison.
Attempts made by the authorities to redress this leveling-out by some sort of hierarchy—the idea was to confer a decoration on guards who died in the exercise of their
duties—came to nothing. Since martial law had been declared and the guards might, from a certain angle, be regarded as on active service, they were awarded posthumously the military medal.
But though the prisoners raised no protest, strong exception was taken in military circles, and it was pointed out, logically enough, that a most regrettable confusion in the public mind would certainly ensue. The civil authority conceded the point and decided that the simplest solution was to bestow on guards who died at their post a "plague medal." Even so, since as regards the first recipients of the military medal the harm had been done and there was no question of withdrawing the decoration from them, the military were still dissatisfied. Moreover, the plague medal had the disadvantage of having far less moral effect than that attaching to a military award, since in time of pestilence a decoration of this sort is too easily acquired. Thus nobody was satisfied.
Another difficulty was that the jail administration could not follow the procedure adopted by the religious and, in a less degree, the military authorities. The monks in the two monasteries of the town had been evacuated and lodged for the time being with religious-minded families. In the same way, whenever possible, small bodies of men had been moved out of barracks and billeted in schools or public buildings. Thus the disease, which apparently had forced on us the solidarity of a beleaguered town, disrupted at the same time long-established communities and sent men out to live, as individuals, in relative isolation. This, too, added to the general feeling of unrest.
Indeed, it can easily be imagined that these changes, combined with the high wind, also had an incendiary effect on certain minds. There were frequent attacks on the gates of the town, and the men who made them now were armed. Shots were exchanged, there were casualties, and some few got away. Then the sentry posts were reinforced, and such attempts quickly ceased. None the less, they sufficed to start
a wave of revolutionary violence, though only on a small scale. Houses that had been burnt or closed by the sanitary control were looted. However, it seemed unlikely that these excesses were premeditated. Usually it was some chance incentive that led normally well-behaved people to acts which promptly had their imitators. Thus you sometimes saw a man, acting on some crazy impulse, dash into a blazing house under the eyes of its owner, who was standing by, dazed with grief, watching the flames. Seeing his indifference, many of the onlookers would follow the lead given by the first man, and presently the dark street was full of running men, changed to hunched, misshapen gnomes by the flickering glow from the dying flames and the ornaments or furniture they carried on their shoulders. It was incidents of this sort that compelled the authorities to declare martial law and enforce the regulations deriving from it. Two looters were shot, but we may doubt if this made much impression on the others; with so many deaths taking place every day, these two executions went unheeded—a mere drop in the ocean. Actually scenes of this kind continued to take place fairly often, without the authorities' making even a show of intervening. The only regulation that seemed to have some effect on the populace was the establishment of a curfew hour. From eleven onwards, plunged in complete darkness, Oran seemed a huge necropolis.