On entering the stadium they found the stands full of people. The field was dotted with several hundred red tents, inside which one had glimpses of bedding and bundles of clothes or rugs. The stands had been kept open for the use of the internees in hot or rainy weather. But it was a rule of the camp that everyone must be in his tent at sunset.
Shower-baths had been installed under the stands, and what used to be the players’ dressing-rooms converted into offices and infirmaries. The majority of the inmates of the camp were sitting about on the stands. Some, however, were strolling on the touchlines, and a few, squatting at the entrances of their tents, were listlessly contemplating the scene around them. In the stands many of those slumped on the wooden tiers had a look of vague expectancy.
«What do they do with themselves all day?» Tarrou asked Rambert. «Nothing.»
Almost all, indeed, had empty hands and idly dangling arms. Another curious thing about this multitude of derelicts was its silence.
«When they first came there was such a din you couldn’t hear yourself speak,» Rambert said. «But as the days went by they grew quieter and quieter.»
In his notes Tarrou gives what to his mind would explain this change. He pictures them in the early days bundled together in the tents, listening to the buzz of flies, scratching themselves, and, whenever they found an obliging listener, shrilly voicing their fear or indignation. But when the camp grew overcrowded, fewer and fewer people were inclined to play the part of sympathetic listener. So they had no choice but to hold their peace and nurse their mistrust of everything and everyone. One had, indeed, a feeling that suspicion was falling, dewlike, from the grayly shining sky over the brick-red camp.
Yes, there was suspicion in the eyes of all. Obviously, they were thinking, there must be some good reason for the isolation inflicted on them, and they had the air of people who are puzzling over their problem and are afraid. Everyone Tarrou set eyes on had that vacant gaze and was visibly suffering from the complete break with all that life had meant to him. And since they could not be thinking of their death all the time, they thought of nothing. They were on vacation.
«But worst of all,» Tarrou writes, «is that they’re forgotten, and they know it. Their friends have forgotten them because they have other things to think about, naturally enough. And those they love have forgotten them because all their energies are devoted to making schemes and taking steps to get them out of the camp. And by dint of always thinking about these schemes and steps they have ceased thinking about those whose release they’re trying to secure. And that, too, is natural enough. In fact, it comes to this: nobody is capable of really thinking about anyone, even in the worst calamity. For really to think about someone means thinking about that person every minute of the day, without letting one’s thoughts be diverted by anything, by meals, by a fly that settles on one’s cheek, by household duties, or by a sudden itch somewhere. But there are always flies and itches. That’s why life is difficult to live. And these people know it only too well.»
The camp manager came up; a gentleman named Othon, he said, would like to see them. Leaving Gonzales in the office, he led the others to a corner of the grandstand, where they saw M. Othon sitting by himself. He rose as they approached.
The magistrate was dressed exactly as in the past and still wore a stiff collar. The only changes Tarrou noted were that the tufts of hair over his temples were
not brushed back and that one of his shoelaces was undone. M. Othon appeared very tired and not once did he look his visitors in the face. He said he was glad to see them and requested them to thank Dr. Rieux for all he had done.
Some moments of silence ensued, then with an effort the magistrate spoke again: «I hope Jacques did not suffer too much.»
This was the first time Tarrou heard him utter his son’s name, and he realized that something had changed. The sun was setting and, flooding through a rift in the clouds, the level rays raked the stands, tingeing their faces with a yellow glow.
«No,» Tarrou said. «No, I couldn’t really say he suffered.»
When they took their leave, the magistrate was still gazing toward the light.
They called in at the office to say good-by to Gonzales, whom they found studying the duty roster. The footballer was laughing when he shook hands with them.
«Anyhow, I’m back in the good old dressing-room,» he chuckled. «That’s something to go on with.»
Soon after, when the camp manager was seeing Tarrou and Rambert out, they heard a crackling noise coming from the stands. A moment later the loud-speakers, which in happier times served to announce the results of games or to introduce the teams, informed the inmates of the camp that they were to go back to their tents for the evening meal. Slowly everyone filed off the stands and shuffled toward the tents. After all were under canvas two small electric trucks, of the kind used for transporting baggage on railroad platforms, began to wend their way between the tents. While the occupants held forth their arms, two ladles plunged into the two big caldrons on each truck and neatly tipped their contents into the waiting mess-kits. Then the truck moved on to the next tent.
«Very efficient,» Tarrou remarked.
The camp manager beamed as he shook hands.
«Yes, isn’t it? We’re great believers in efficiency in this camp.»
Dusk was falling. The sky had cleared and the camp was bathed in cool, soft light. Through the hush of evening came a faint tinkle of spoons and plates.
Above the tents bats were circling, vanishing abruptly into the darkness. A streetcar squealed on a switch outside the walls.
«Poor Monsieur Othon!» Tarrou murmured as the gate closed behind them. «One would like to do something to help him. But how can you help a judge?»
There were other camps of much the same kind in the town, but the narrator, for lack of firsthand information and in deference to veracity, has nothing to add about them. This much, however, he can say; the mere existence of these camps, the smell of crowded humanity coming from them, the baying of their loud-speakers in the dusk, the air of mystery that clung about them, and the dread these forbidden places inspired told seriously on our fellow citizens’ morale and added to the general nervousness and apprehension. Breaches of the peace and minor riots became more frequent.
As November drew to a close, the mornings turned much colder. Heavy downpours had scoured the streets and washed the sky clean of clouds. In the mornings a weak sunlight bathed the town in a cold, sparkling sheen. The air warmed up, however, as night approached. It was such a night that Tarrou chose for telling something of himself to Dr. Rieux.
After a particularly tiring day, about ten o’clock Tarrou proposed to the doctor that they should go together for the evening visit to Rieux’s old asthma patient. There was a soft glow above the housetops in the Old Town and a light breeze fanned their faces at the street crossings. Coming from the silent streets, they found the old man’s loquacity rather irksome at first. He launched into a long harangue to the effect that some folks were getting fed up, that it was always the same people had all the jam, and things couldn’t go on like that indefinitely, one day there’d be, he rubbed his hands, «a fine old row.» He continued expatiating on this theme all the time the doctor was attending to him.
They heard footsteps overhead. Noticing Tarrou’s upward glance, the old woman explained that it was the girls from next door walking on the terrace. She added that one had a lovely view up there, and that as the terraces in this part of the town often joined up with the next one on one side, the women could visit their neighbors without having to go into the street.
«Why not go up and have a look?» the old man suggested. «You’ll get a breath of nice fresh air.»
They found nobody on the terrace, only three empty chairs. On one side, as far as eye could reach, was a row of terraces, the most remote of which abutted on a dark, rugged mass that they recognized as the hill nearest the town. On the other side, spanning some streets and the unseen harbor, their gaze came to rest on the horizon, where sea and sky merged in a dim, vibrant grayness.
Beyond a black patch that they knew to be the cliffs a sudden glow, whose source they could not see, sprang up at regular intervals; the lighthouse at the entrance of the fairway was still functioning for the benefit of ships that, passing Oran’s unused harbor,
