On one of the few occasions when she spoke, it was to ask him if he wasn’t afraid of infecting his wife with plague. He replied that there might be some risk of that, but only a very slight one; while if he stayed in the town, there was a fair chance of their never seeing each other again.
The old woman smiled. “Is she nice?” “Very nice.”
“Pretty?”
“I think so.”
“Ah,” she nodded, “that explains it.”
Rambert reflected. No doubt that explained it, but it was impossible that that alone explained it.
The old woman went to Mass every morning. “Don’t you believe in God?” she asked him.
On Rambert’s admitting he did not, she said again that “that explained it.” “Yes,” she added, “you’re right. You must go back to her. Or else what would be
left you?”
Rambert spent most of the day prowling round the room, gazing vaguely at the distempered walls, idly fingering the fans that were their only decoration, or counting the woollen balls on the tablecloth fringe. In the evening the youngsters came home; they hadn’t much to say, except that the time hadn’t come yet. After dinner Marcel played the guitar, and they drank an anise-flavored liqueur. Rambert seemed lost in thought.
On Wednesday Marcel announced: “It’s for tomorrow night, at midnight. Be ready on time.” Of the two men sharing the sentry post with them, he explained, one had got plague and the other, who had slept in the same room, was now under observation. Thus for two or three days Marcel and Louis would be alone at the post. They’d fix up the final details in the course of the night, and he could count on them to see it through. Rambert thanked them.
“Pleased?” the old woman asked.
He said yes, but his thoughts were elsewhere.
The next day was very hot and muggy and a heat-mist veiled the sun. The total of deaths had jumped up. But the old Spanish woman lost nothing of her serenity.
“There’s so much wickedness in the world,” she said. “So what can you expect?” Like Marcel and Louis, Rambert was stripped to the waist. But, even so, sweat
was trickling down his chest and between his shoulder-blades. In the dim light of the shuttered room their torsos glowed like highly polished mahogany. Rambert kept prowling round like a caged animal, without speaking. Abruptly at four in the afternoon he announced that he was going out.
“Don’t forget,” Marcel said. “At midnight sharp. Everything’s set.”
Rambert went to the doctor’s apartment. Rieux’s mother told him he would find the doctor at the hospital in the upper town. As before, a crowd was circling in front of the entrance gates. “Move on, there!” a police sergeant with bulging eyes bawled every few minutes. And the crowd kept moving, but always in a circle. “No use hanging round here.” The sergeant’s coat was soaked in sweat. They knew it was “no use,” but they stayed on, despite the devastating heat.
Rambert showed his pass to the sergeant, who told him to go to Tarrou’s office. Its door opened on the courtyard. He passed Father Paneloux, who was coming
out of the office.
Tarrou was sitting at a black wood desk, with his sleeves rolled up, mopping up with his handkerchief a trickle of sweat in the bend of his arm. The office, a small, white-painted room, smelt of drugs and damp cloth.
“Still here?” asked Tarrou.
“Yes. I’d like to have a word with Rieux.”
“He’s in the ward. Look here! Don’t you think you could fix up whatever you’ve come for without seeing him?”
“Why?”
“He’s overdoing it. I spare him as much as I can.”
Rambert gazed thoughtfully at Tarrou. He’d grown thinner, his eyes and features were blurred with fatigue, his broad shoulders sagged. There was a knock at the door. A male attendant, wearing a white mask, entered. He laid a little sheaf of cards on Tarrou’s desk and, his voice coming thickly through the cloth, said:
“Six,” then went out. Tarrou looked at the journalist and showed him the cards, spreading them fanwise.
“Neat little gadgets, aren’t they? Well, they’re deaths.
Last night’s deaths.” Frowning, he slipped the cards together. “The only thing that’s left us is accountancy!”
Taking his purchase on the table, Tarrou rose to his feet. “You’re off quite soon, I take it?”
“Tonight, at midnight.”
Tarrou said he was glad to hear it, and Rambert had better look after himself for a bit.
“Did you say that, sincerely?” Tarrou shrugged his shoulders.
“At my age one’s got to be sincere. Lying’s too much effort.”
“Excuse me, Tarrou,” the journalist said, “but I’d greatly like to see the doctor.” “I know. He’s more human than I. All right, come along.”
“It’s not that.” Rambert stumbled over his words and broke off. Tarrou stared at him; then, unexpectedly, his face broke into a smile.
They walked down a narrow passage; the walls were painted pale green, and the light was glaucous, like that in an aquarium. Before they reached the glazed double door at the end of the passage, behind which shadowy forms could be seen moving, Tarrou took Rambert into a small room, all the wall space of which was occupied by cupboards. Opening one of these, he took from a sterilizer two masks of cotton-wool enclosed in muslin, handed one to Rambert, and told him to put it on.
The journalist asked if it was really any use. Tarrou said no, but it inspired confidence in others.
They opened the glazed door. It led into a very large room, all the windows of which were shut, in spite of the great heat. Electric fans buzzed near the ceiling, churning up the stagnant, overheated air above two long rows of gray beds. Groans shrill or stifled rose on all sides, blending in a monotonous dirgelike refrain. Men in white moved slowly from bed to bed under the garish light flooding in from high, barred windows.
The appalling heat in the ward made Rambert ill at ease, and he had difficulty in recognizing Rieux, who was bending over a groaning form. The doctor was lancing the patient’s groin, while two nurses, one on each side, held his legs apart. Presently Rieux straightened up, dropped his instruments into a tray that an attendant held out to him, and remained without moving for some moments, gazing down at the man, whose wound was now being dressed.
“Any news?” he asked Tarrou, who had come beside him.
“Paneloux is prepared to replace Rambert at the quarantine station. He has put in a lot of useful work already. All that remains is to reorganize group number three, now that Rambert’s going.”
Rieux nodded.
“Castel has his first lot of serum ready now,” Tarrou continued. “He’s in favor of its being tried at once.”
“Good,” Rieux said. “That’s good news.” “And Rambert’s come.”
Rieux looked round. His eyes narrowed above the mask when he saw the journalist.
“Why have you come?” he asked. “Surely you should be elsewhere?”
Tarrou explained that it was fixed for midnight, to which Rambert added: “That’s the idea, anyhow.”
Whenever any of them spoke through the mask, the muslin bulged and grew moist over the lips. This gave a sort of unreality to the conversation; it was like a colloquy of statues.
“I’d like to have a word with you,” Rambert said. “Right. I’m just going. Wait for me in Tarrou’s office.”
A minute or so later Rambert and Rieux were sitting at the back of the doctor’s car. Tarrou, who was at the wheel, looked round as he let in the gear.
“Gas is running out,” he said. “We’ll have to foot-slog it tomorrow.” “Doctor,” Rambert said, “I’m not going. I want to stay with you.”
Tarrou made no movement; he went on driving. Rieux seemed unable to shake off his fatigue.
“And what about her?” His voice was hardly audible.
Rambert said he’d thought it over very carefully, and his views hadn’t changed, but if he went away, he would feel ashamed of himself, and that would embarrass his relations with the woman he loved.
Showing more animation, Rieux told him that was sheer nonsense; there was nothing shameful in preferring happiness.
“Certainly,” Rambert replied. “But it may be shameful to be happy by oneself.” Tarrou, who had not spoken so far, now remarked, without turning his head, that
if Rambert wished to take a share in other people’s unhappiness, he’d have no time left for happiness. So the choice had to be made.
“That’s not it,” Rambert rejoined. “Until now I always felt a stranger in this town, and that I’d no concern with you people. But now that I’ve seen what I have seen, I know that I belong here whether I want it or not. This business is everybody’s business.” When there was no reply from either of the others, Rambert seemed to grow annoyed. “But you
know that as well as I do, damn it! Or else what are you up to in that hospital of yours? Have you made a definite choice and turned down happiness?”
Rieux and Tarrou still said nothing, and the silence lasted until they were at the doctor’s home. Then Rambert repeated his last question in a yet more emphatic tone.
Only then Rieux turned toward him, raising himself with an effort from the cushion.
“Forgive me, Rambert, only, well, I simply don’t know. But stay with us if you want to.” A swerve of the car made him break off. Then, looking straight in front of him, he said: “For
