«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 nothing in the world is it worth turning one’s back on what one loves. Yet that is what I’m doing, though why I do not know.»
He sank back on the cushion. «That’s how it is,» he added wearily, «and there’s nothing to be done about it. So let’s recognize the fact and draw the conclusions.»
«What conclusions?»
«Ah,» Rieux said, «a man can’t cure and know at the same time. So let’s cure as quickly as we can. That’s the more urgent job.»
At midnight Tarrou and Rieux were giving Rambert the map of the district he was to keep under surveillance. Tarrou glanced at his watch. Looking up, he met Rambert’s gaze.
«Have you let them know?» he asked. The journalist looked away.
«I’d sent them a note», he spoke with an effort, «before coming to see you.» Toward the close of October Castel’s anti-plague serum was tried for the first
time. Practically speaking, it was Rieux’s last card. If it failed, the doctor was convinced the whole town would be at the mercy of the epidemic, which would either continue its ravages for an unpredictable period or perhaps die out abruptly of its own accord.
The day before Castel called on Rieux, M. Othon’s son had fallen ill and all the family had to go into quarantine. Thus the mother, who had only recently come out of it, found herself isolated once again. In deference to the official regulations the magistrate had promptly sent for Dr. Rieux the moment he saw symptoms of the disease in his little boy. Mother and father were standing at the bedside when Rieux entered the room. The boy was in the phase of extreme prostration and submitted without a whimper to the doctor’s examination. When Rieux raised his eyes he saw the magistrate’s gaze intent on him, and, behind, the mother’s pale face. She was holding a handkerchief to her mouth, and her big, dilated eyes followed each of the doctor’s movements.
«He has it, I suppose?» the magistrate asked in a toneless voice. «Yes.» Rieux gazed down at the child again.
The mother’s eyes widened yet more, but she still said nothing. M. Othon, too, kept silent for a while before saying in an even lower tone:
«Well, doctor, we must do as we are told to do.»
Rieux avoided looking at Mme Othon, who was still holding her handkerchief to her mouth.
«It needn’t take long,» he said rather awkwardly, «if you’ll let me use your phone.» The magistrate said he would take him to the telephone. But before going, the
doctor turned toward Mme Othon.
«I regret very much indeed, but I’m afraid you’ll have to get your things ready. You know how it is.»
Mme Othon seemed disconcerted. She was staring at the floor.
Then, «I understand,» she murmured, slowly nodding her head. «I’ll set about it at once.»
Before leaving, Rieux on a sudden impulse asked the Othons if there wasn’t anything they’d like him to do for them. The mother gazed at him in silence. And now the magistrate averted his eyes.
«No,» he said, then swallowed hard. «But, save my son.»
In the early days a mere formality, quarantine had now been reorganized by Rieux and Rambert on very strict lines.
In particular they insisted on having members of the family of a patient kept apart. If, unawares, one of them had been infected, the risks of an extension of the infection must not be multiplied. Rieux explained this to the magistrate, who signified his approval of the procedure. Nevertheless, he and his wife exchanged a glance that made it clear to Rieux how keenly they both felt the separation thus imposed on them. Mme Othon and her little girl could be given rooms in the quarantine hospital under Rambert’s charge. For the magistrate, however, no accommodation was available except in an isolation camp the authorities were now installing in the municipal stadium, using tents supplied by the highway department. When Rieux apologized for the poor accommodation, M.
Othon replied that there was one rule for all alike, and it was only proper to abide by it.
The boy was taken to the auxiliary hospital and put in a ward of ten beds which had formerly been a classroom. After some twenty hours Rieux became convinced that the case was hopeless. The infection was steadily spreading, and the boy’s body putting up no resistance. Tiny, half-formed, but acutely painful buboes were clogging the joints of the child’s puny limbs. Obviously it was a losing fight.
Under the circumstances Rieux had no qualms about testing Castel’s serum on the boy. That night, after dinner, they performed the inoculation, a lengthy process, without getting the slightest reaction. At daybreak on the following day they gathered round the bed to observe the effects of this test inoculation on which so much hung.
The child had come out of his extreme prostration and was tossing about convulsively on the bed. From four in the morning Dr. Castel and Tarrou had been keeping watch and noting, stage by stage, the progress and remissions of the malady. Tarrou’s bulky form was slightly drooping at the head of the bed, while at its foot, with Rieux standing beside him, Castel was seated, reading, with every appearance of calm, an old leather-bound book. One by one, as the light increased in the former classroom, the others arrived. Paneloux, the first to come, leaned against the wall on the opposite side of the bed to Tarrou.
His face was drawn with grief, and the accumulated weariness of many weeks, during which he had never spared himself, had deeply seamed his somewhat prominent forehead. Grand came next. It was seven o’clock, and he apologized for being out of breath; he could only stay a moment, but wanted to know if any definite results had been observed. Without speaking, Rieux pointed to the child. His eyes shut, his teeth clenched, his features frozen in an agonized grimace, he was rolling his head from side to side on the bolster. When there was just light enough to make out the half-obliterated figures of an equation chalked on a blackboard that still hung on the wall at the far end of the room, Rambert entered. Posting himself at the foot of the next bed, he took a package of cigarettes from his pocket. But after his first glance at the child’s face he put it back.
From his chair Castel looked at
