Rieux couldn't believe his ears. "But you've only just come out of it!"
"I'm afraid I did not make myself clear. I'm told there are some voluntary workers from government offices in that camp." The magistrate rolled his round eyes a little and tried to smooth down a tuft of hair. "It would keep me busy, you see. And also—I know it may sound absurd, but I'd feel less separated from my little boy."
Rieux stared at him. Could it be that a sudden gentleness showed in those hard, inexpressive eyes? Yes, they had grown misted, lost their steely glitter.
"Certainly," Rieux said. "Since that's your wish, I'll fix it up for you."
The doctor kept his word; and the life of the plague-ridden town resumed its course until Christmas. Tarrou continued to bring his quiet efficiency to bear on every problem. Rambert confided in the doctor that, with the connivance of the two young guards, he was sending letters to his wife and now and then receiving an answer. He suggested to Rieux that he should avail himself of this clandestine channel, and Rieux agreed to do so. For the first time for many months he sat down to write a letter. He found it a laborious business, as if he were manipulating a language that he had forgotten. The letter was dispatched. The reply was slow in coming. As for Cottard, he was prospering, making money hand over fist in small, somewhat shady transactions. With Grand, however, it was otherwise; the Christmas season did not seem to agree with him.
Indeed, Christmas that year had none of its old-time associations; it smacked of hell rather than of heaven. Empty, unlighted shops, dummy chocolates or empty boxes in the confectioners' windows, streetcars laden with listless, dispirited passengers—all was as unlike previous Christmas-
tides as it well could be. In the past all the townspeople, rich and poor alike, indulged in seasonable festivity; now only a privileged few, those with money to burn, could do so, and they caroused in shamefast solitude in a dingy back shop or a private room. In the churches there were more supplications than carols. You saw a few children, too young to realize what threatened them, playing in the frosty, cheerless streets. But no one dared to bid them welcome-in the God of former days, bringer of gifts, and old as human sorrow, yet new as the hopes of youth. There was no room in any heart but for a very old, gray hope, that hope which keeps men from letting themselves drift into death and is nothing but a dogged will to live.
Grand had failed to show up as usual on the previous evening. Feeling somewhat anxious, Rieux called at his place early in the morning, but he wasn't at home. His friends were asked to keep a lookout for him. At about eleven Rambert came to the hospital with the news that he'd had a distant glimpse of Grand, who seemed to be wandering aimlessly, "looking very queer." Unfortunately he had lost sight of him almost at once. Tarrou and the doctor set out in the car to hunt for Grand.
At noon Rieux stepped out of his car into the frozen air; he had just caught sight of Grand some distance away, his face glued to a shop-window full of crudely carved wooden toys. Tears were steadily flowing down the old fellow's cheeks, and they wrung the doctor's heart, for he could understand them, and he felt his own tears welling up in sympathy. A picture rose before him of that scene of long ago—the youngster standing in front of another shop-window, like this one dressed for Christmas, and Jeanne turning toward him in a sudden access of emotion and saying how happy she was. He could guess that through the mists of the past years, from the depth of his fond despair, Jeanne's young voice was rising, echoing in Grand's ears. And he knew, also, what the old man was thinking as his tears
flowed, and he, Rieux, thought it too: that a loveless world is a dead world, and always there comes an hour when one is weary of prisons, of one's work, and of devotion to duty, and all one craves for is a loved face, the warmth and wonder of a loving heart.
Grand saw the doctor's reflection in the window. Still weeping, he turned and, leaning against the shop-front, watched Rieux approach.
"Oh, doctor, doctor!" He could say no more.
Rieux, too, couldn't speak; he made a vague, understanding gesture. At this moment he suffered with Grand's sorrow, and what filled his breast was the passionate indignation we feel when confronted by the anguish all men share.
"Yes, Grand," he murmured.
"Oh, if only I could have time to write to her! To let her know . . . and to let her be happy without remorse!"
Almost roughly Rieux took Grand's arm and drew him forward. Grand did not resist and went on muttering broken phrases.
"Too long! It's lasted too long. All the time one's wanting to let oneself go, and then one day one has to. Oh, doctor, I know I look a quiet sort, just like anybody else. But it's always been a terrible effort only to be—just normal. And now—well, even that's too much for me."
He stopped dead. He was trembling violently, his eyes were fever-bright. Rieux took his hand; it was burning hot.
"You must go home."
But Grand wrenched himself free and started running. After a few steps he halted and stretched out his arms, swaying to and fro. Then he spun round on himself and fell flat on the pavement, his face stained with the tears that went on flowing. Some people who were approaching stopped abruptly and watched the scene from a little way off, not daring to come nearer. Rieux had to carry the old man to the car.
Grand lay in bed, gasping for breath; his lungs were con-
gested. Rieux pondered. The old fellow hadn't any family. What would be the point of having him evacuated? He and Tarrou could look after him.
Grand's head was buried in the pillow, his cheeks were a greenish gray, his eyes had gone dull, opaque. He seemed to be gazing fixedly at the scanty fire Tarrou was kindling with the remains of an old packing-case. "I'm in a bad way," he muttered. A queer crackling sound came from his flame-seared lungs whenever he tried to speak. Rieux told him not to talk and promised to come back. The sick man's lips parted in a curious smile, and a look of humorous complicity flickered across the haggard face. "If I pull through, doctor—hats off!" A moment later he sank into extreme prostration.
Visiting him again some hours later, they found him half sitting up in bed, and Rieux was horrified by the rapid change that had come over his face, ravaged by the fires of the disease consuming him. However, he seemed more lucid and almost immediately asked them to get his manuscript from the drawer where he always kept it. When Tarrou handed him the sheets, he pressed them to his chest without looking at them, then held them out to the doctor, indicating by a gesture that he was to read them. There were some fifty pages of manuscript. Glancing through them, Rieux saw that the bulk of the writing consisted of the same sentence written again and again with small variants, simplifications or elaborations. Persistently the month of May, the lady on horseback, the avenues of the Bois recurred, regrouped in different patterns. There were, besides, explanatory notes, some exceedingly long, and lists of alternatives. But at the foot of the last page was written in a studiously clear hand: "My dearest Jeanne, Today is Christmas Day and . . ." Eight words only. Above it, in copperplate script, was the latest version of the famous phrase. "Read it," Grand whispered. And Rieux read:
"One fine morning in May, a slim young horsewoman
might have been seen riding a glossy sorrel mare along the avenues of the Bois, among the flowers. . . ."
"Is that it?" There was a feverish quaver in the old voice. Rieux refrained from looking at him, and he began to toss about in the bed. "Yes, I know. I know what you're thinking. 'Fine' isn't the word. It's—"
Rieux clasped his hand under the coverlet.
"No, doctor. It's too late—no time . . ." His breast heaved painfully, then suddenly he said in a loud, shrill voice: "Burn it!"
The doctor hesitated, but Grand repeated his injunction in so violent a tone and with such agony in his voice that Rieux walked across to the fireplace and dropped the sheets on the dying fire. It blazed up, and there was a sudden flood of light, a fleeting warmth, in the room. When the doctor came back to the bed, Grand had his back turned, his face almo
st touching the wall. After injecting the serum Rieux whispered to his friend that Grand wouldn't last the night, and Tarrou volunteered to stay with him. The doctor approved.
All night Rieux was haunted by the idea of Grand's death. But next morning he found his patient sitting up in bed, talking to Tarrou. His temperature was down to normal and there were no symptoms other than a generalized prostration.
"Yes, doctor," Grand said. "I was overhasty. But I'll make another start. You'll see, I can remember every word."
Rieux looked at Tarrou dubiously. "We must wait," he said.
But at noon there was no change. By nightfall Grand could be considered out of danger. Rieux was completely baffled by this "resurrection."
Other surprises were in store for him. About the same time there was brought to the hospital a girl whose case Rieux diagnosed as hopeless, and he had her sent immediately to the isolation ward. She was delirious' and had all
the symptoms of pneumonic plague. Next morning, however, the temperature had fallen. As in Grand's case the doctor assumed this was the ordinary morning fall that his experience had taught him to regard as a bad sign. But at noon her temperature still showed no rise and at night it went up only a few degrees. Next morning it was down to normal. Though very exhausted, the girl was breathing freely. Rieux remarked to Tarrou that her recovery was "against all the rules!" But in the course of the next week four similar cases came to his notice.
The old asthma patient was bubbling over with excitement when Rieux and Tarrou visited him at the end of the week.
"Would you ever have believed it! They're coming out again," he said.
"Who?"
"Why, the rats!"
Not one dead or living rat had been seen in the town since April.
"Does that mean it's starting all over again?" Tarrou asked Rieux.
The old man was rubbing his hands.
"You should see 'em running, doctor! It's a treat, it is!"
He himself had seen two rats slipping into the house by the street door, and some neighbors, too, had told him they'd seen rats in their basements. In some houses people had heard those, once familiar scratchings and rustlings behind the woodwork. Rieux awaited with much interest the mortality figures that were announced every Monday. They showed a decrease.
PART V
T
hough this sudden setback of the plague was as welcome as it was unlooked-for, our townsfolk were in no hurry to jubilate. While intensifying their desire to be set free, the terrible months they had lived through had taught them prudence, and they had come to count less and less on a speedy end of the epidemic. All the same, this new development was the talk of the town, and people began to nurse hopes none the less heartfelt for being unavowed. All else took a back place; that daily there were new victims counted for little beside that staggering fact: the weekly total showed a decrease. One of the signs that a return to the golden age of health was secretly awaited was that our fellow citizens, careful though they were not to voice their hope, now began to talk—in, it is true, a carefully detached tone—of the new order of life that would set in after the plague.
All agreed that the amenities of the past couldn't be restored at once; destruction is an easier, speedier process than reconstruction. However, it was thought that a slight improvement in the food-supply could safely be counted on, and this would relieve what was just now the acutest worry of every household. But in reality behind these mild aspirations lurked wild, extravagant hopes, and often one of us, becoming aware of this, would hastily add that, even on the rosiest view, you couldn't expect the plague to stop from one day to another.
Actually, while the epidemic did. not stop "from one day to another," it declined more rapidly than we could reasonably have expected. With the first week of January an unusually persistent spell of very cold weather settled in and seemed to crystallize above the town. Yet never before had the sky been so blue; day after day its icy radiance flooded the town with brilliant light, and in the frost-cleansed air the epidemic seemed to lose its virulence, and in each of three consecutive weeks a big drop in the death-roll was announced. Thus over a relatively brief period the disease lost practically all the gains piled up over many months. Its setbacks with seemingly predestined victims, like Grand and Rieux's girl patient, its bursts of activity for two or three days in some districts synchronizing with its total disappearance from others, its new practice of multiplying its victims on, say, a Monday, and on Wednesday letting almost all escape—in short, its accesses of violence followed by spells of complete inactivity—all these gave an impression that its energy was flagging, out of exhaustion and exasperation, and it was losing, with its self-command, the ruthless, almost mathematical efficiency that had been its trump card hitherto. Of a sudden Castel's anti-plague injections scored frequent successes, denied it until now. Indeed, all the treatments the doctors had tentatively employed, without definite results, now seemed almost uniformly efficacious. It was as if the plague had .been hounded down and cornered, and its sudden weakness lent new strength to the blunted weapons so far used against it. Only at rare moments did the disease brace itself and make as it were a blind and fatal leap at three or four patients whose recovery had been expected—a truly ill-starred few, killed off when hope ran highest. Such was the case of M. Othon, the magistrate, evacuated from the quarantine camp; Tarrou said of him that "he'd had no luck," but one couldn't tell if he had in mind the life or the death of M. Othon. But, generally speaking, the epidemic was in retreat all
along the line; the official communiques, which had at first encouraged no more than shadowy, half-hearted hopes, now confirmed the popular belief that the victory was won and the enemy abandoning his positions. Really, however, it is doubtful if this could be called a victory. All that could be said was that the disease seemed to be leaving as unaccountably as it had come. Our strategy had not changed, but whereas yesterday it had obviously failed, today it seemed triumphant. Indeed, one's chief impression was that the epidemic had called a retreat after reaching all its objectives; it had, so to speak, achieved its purpose.
Nevertheless, it seemed as if nothing had changed in the town. Silent as ever by day, the streets filled up at nightfall with the usual crowds of people, now wearing overcoats and scarves. Cafes and picture-houses did as much business as before. But on a closer view you might notice that people looked less strained, and they occasionally smiled. And this brought home the fact that since the outbreak of plague no one had hitherto been seen to smile in public. The truth was that for many months the town had been stifling under an airless shroud, in which a rent had now been made, and every Monday when he turned on the radio, each of us learned that the rift was widening; soon he would be able to breathe freely. It was at best a negative solace, with no immediate impact on men's lives. Still, had anyone been told a month earlier that a train had just left or a boat put in, or that cars were to be allowed on the streets again, the news would have been received with looks of incredulity; whereas in mid-January an announcement of this kind would have caused no surprise. The change, no doubt, was slight. Yet, however slight, it proved what a vast forward stride our townsfolk had made in the way of hope. And indeed it could be said that once the faintest stirring of hope became possible, the dominion of the plague was ended.
It must, however, be admitted that our fellow citizens' reactions during that month were diverse to the point of in-
coherence. More precisely, they fluctuated between high optimism and extreme depression. Hence the odd circumstance that several more attempts to escape took place at the very moment when the statistics were most encouraging. This took the authorities by surprise, and, apparently, the sentries too—since most of the "escapists" brought it off. But, looking into it, one saw that people who tried to escape at this time were prompted by quite understandable motives. Some of them plague had imbued with a skepticism so thorough that it was now a second nature; they had become allergic to hope in any form. Thus even
when the plague had run its course, they went on living by its standards. They were, in short, behind the times. In the case of others—chiefly those who had been living until now in forced separation from those they loved—the rising wind of hope, after all these months of durance and depression, had fanned impatience to a blaze and swept away their self-control. They were seized with a sort of panic at the thought that they might die so near the goal and never see again the ones they loved, and their long privation have no recompense. Thus, though for weary months and months they had endured their long ordeal with dogged perseverance, the first thrill of hope had been enough to shatter what fear and hopelessness had failed to impair. And in the frenzy of their haste they tried to outstrip the plague, incapable of keeping pace with it up to the end.
Meanwhile, there were various symptoms of the growing optimism. Prices, for instance, fell sharply. This fall was unaccountable from the purely economic viewpoint. Our difficulties were as great as ever, the gates were kept rigorously closed, and the food situation was far from showing any improvement. Thus it was a purely psychological reaction—as if the dwindling of the plague must have repercussions in all fields. Others to profit by the spread of optimism were those who used to live in groups and had been forced to live apart. The two convents reopened and their
communal life was resumed. The troops, too, were regrouped in such barracks as had not been requisitioned, and settled down to the garrison life of the past. Minor details, but significant.
This state of subdued yet active ferment prevailed until January 25, when the weekly total showed so striking a decline that, after consulting the medical board, the authorities announced that the epidemic could be regarded as definitely stemmed. True, the communique went on to say that, acting with a prudence of which the population would certainly approve, the Prefect had decided that the gates of the town were to remain closed for two weeks more, and the prophylactic measures to remain in force for another month. During this period, at the least sign of danger ''the standing orders would be strictly enforced and, if necessary, prolonged thereafter for such a period as might be deemed desirable." All, however, concurred in regarding these phrases as mere official verbiage, and the night of January 25 was the occasion of much festivity. To associate himself with the popular rejoicings, the Prefect gave orders for the street lighting to be resumed as in the past. And the townspeople paraded the brilliantly lighted streets in boisterous groups, laughing and singing.