Thus it was only natural that old Dr. Castel should plod away with unshaken confidence, never sparing himself, at making anti-plague serum on the spot with the makeshift equipment at his disposal. Rieux shared his hope that a vaccine made with cultures of the bacilli obtained locally would take effect more actively than serum coming from outside, since the local bacillus differed slightly from the normal plague bacillus as defined in textbooks of tropical diseases. And Castel expected to have his first supply ready within a surprisingly short period.
That, too, is why it was natural that Grand, who had nothing of the hero about him, should now be acting as a sort of general secretary to the sanitary squads.
A certain number of the groups organized by Tarrou were working in the congested areas of the town, with a view to improving the sanitary conditions there.
Their duties were to see that houses were kept in a proper hygienic state and to list attics and cellars that had not been disinfected by the official sanitary service. Other teams of volunteers accompanied the doctors on their house-to-house visits, saw to the evacuation of infected persons, and subsequently, owing to the shortage of drivers, even drove the vehicles conveying sick persons and dead bodies. All this involved the upkeep of registers and statistics, and Grand undertook the task.
From this angle, the narrator holds that, more than Rieux or Tarrou, Grand was the true embodiment of the quiet courage that inspired the sanitary groups. He had said yes without a moment’s hesitation and with the large-hearted-ness that was a second nature with him. All he had asked was to be allotted light duties: he was too old for anything else. He could give his time from six to eight every evening. When Rieux thanked him with some warmth, he seemed surprised.
«Why, that’s not difficult! Plague is here and we’ve got to make a stand, that’s obvious. Ah, I only wish everything were as simple!» And he went back to his phrase. Sometimes in the evening, when he had filed his reports and worked out his statistics, Grand and Rieux would have a chat. Soon they formed the habit of including Tarrou in their talks and Grand unburdened himself with increasingly apparent pleasure to his two companions.
They began to take a genuine interest in the laborious literary task to which he was applying himself while plague raged around him. Indeed, they, too, found in it a relaxation of the strain.
«How’s your young lady on horseback progressing?» Tarrou would ask. And invariably Grand would answer with a wry smile: «Trotting along, trotting along!» One evening Grand announced that he had definitely discarded the adjective «elegant» for his horsewoman.
From now on it was replaced by «slim.» «That’s more concrete,» he explained.
Soon after, he read out to his two friends the new version of the sentence:
» ‘One fine morning in May a slim young horsewoman might have been seen riding a handsome sorrel mare along the flowery avenues of the Bois de Boulogne.’
«Don’t you agree with me one sees her better that way? And I’ve put ‘one fine morning in May’ because ‘in the month of May’ tended rather to drag out the trot, if you see what I mean.»
Next he showed some anxiety about the adjective «handsome.» In his opinion it didn’t convey enough, and he set to looking for an epithet that would promptly and clearly «photograph» the superb animal he saw with his mind’s eye. «Plump» wouldn’t do; though concrete enough, it sounded perhaps a little disparaging, also a shade vulgar. «Beautifully groomed» had tempted him for a moment, but it was cumbrous and made the rhythm limp somewhat. Then one evening he announced triumphantly that he had got it: «A black sorrel mare.» To his thinking, he explained, «black» conveyed a hint of elegance and opulence.
«It won’t do,» Rieux said. «Why not?»
«Because ‘sorrel’ doesn’t mean a breed of horse; it’s a color.» «What color?»
«Well, er, a color that, anyhow, isn’t black.» Grand seemed greatly troubled. «Thank you,» he said warmly. «How fortunate you’re here to help me! But you see
how difficult it is.»
«How about ‘glossy’?» Tarrou suggested.
Grand gazed at him meditatively, then «Yes!» he exclaimed. «That’s good.» And slowly his lips parted in a smile.
Some days later he confessed that the word «flowery» was bothering him considerably. As the only towns he knew were Oran and Montelimar, he sometimes asked his friends to tell him about the avenues of the Bois de Boulogne, what sort of flowers grew in them and how they were disposed. Actually neither Rieux nor Tarrou had ever gathered the impression that those avenues were «flowery,» but Grand’s conviction on the subject shook their confidence in their memories.
He was amazed at their uncertainty. «It’s only artists who know how to use their eyes,» was his conclusion. But one evening the doctor found him in a state of much excitement. For «flowery» he had substituted «flower-strewn.» He was rubbing his hands. «At last one can see them, smell them! Hats off, gentlemen!» Triumphantly he read out the sentence:
«One fine morning in May a slim young horsewoman might have been seen riding a glossy sorrel mare along the flower-strewn avenues of the Bois de Boulogne.»
But, spoken aloud, the numerous «s» sounds had a disagreeable effect and Grand stumbled over them, lisping here and there. He sat down, crestfallen; then he asked the doctor if he might go. Some hard thinking lay ahead of him.
It was about this time, as was subsequently learned, that he began to display signs of absentmindedness in the office. A serious view was taken of these lapses of attention, as the municipality not only was working at high pressure with a reduced staff, but was constantly having new duties thrust upon it. His department suffered, and his chief took him severely to task, pointing out that he was paid to do certain work and was failing to do it as it should be done. «I am told that you are acting as a voluntary helper in the sanitary groups. You do this out of office hours, so it’s no concern of mine. But the best way of making yourself useful in a terrible time like this is to do your work well. Otherwise all the rest is useless.»
«He’s right,» Grand said to Rieux. «Yes, he’s right,» the doctor agreed.
«But I can’t steady my thoughts; it’s the end of my phrase that’s worrying me, I don’t seem able to sort it out.»
The plethora of sibilants in the sentence still offended his ear, but he saw no way of amending them without using what were, to his mind, inferior synonyms.
And that «flower-strewn» which had rejoiced him when he first lit on it now seemed unsatisfactory. How could one say the flowers were «strewn» when presumably they had been planted along the avenues, or else grew there naturally? On some evenings, indeed, he looked more tired than Rieux.
Yes, this unavailing quest which never left his mind had worn him out; none the less, he went on adding up the figures and compiling the statistics needed for the sanitary groups. Patiently every evening he brought his totals up to date, illustrated them with graphs, and racked his brains to present his data in the most exact, clearest form. Quite often he went to see Rieux at one of the hospitals and asked to be given a table in an office or the dispensary. He would settle down at it with his papers, exactly as he settled down at his desk in the Municipal Office, and wave each completed sheet to dry the ink in the warm air, noisome with disinfectants and the disease itself. At these times he made honest efforts not to think about his «horsewoman,» and concentrate on what he had to do.
Yes, if it is a fact that people like to have examples given them, men of the type they call heroic, and if it is absolutely necessary that this narrative should include a «hero,» the narrator commends to his readers, with, to his thinking, perfect justice, this insignificant and obscure hero who had to his credit only a little goodness of heart and a seemingly absurd ideal. This will render to the truth its due, to the addition of two and two its sum of four, and to heroism the secondary place that rightly falls to it, just after, never before, the noble claim of happiness. It will also give this chronicle its character, which is intended to be that of a narrative made with good feelings, that is to say, feelings that are neither demonstrably bad nor overcharged with emotion in the ugly manner of a stage-play.
Such at least was Dr. Rieux’s opinion when he read in newspapers or heard on the radio the messages and encouragement the outer world transmitted to the plague-ridden populace. Besides the comforts sent by air or overland, compassionate or admiring comments were lavished on the henceforth isolated town, by way of newspaper articles or broadcast talks. And invariably their epical or prize-speech verbiage jarred on the doctor. Needless to say, he knew the sympathy was genuine enough. But it could be expressed only in the conventional language with which men try to express what
