Obviously we may deplore this curious kink in his character and suspect in him a lack of proper feeling. All the same, it is undeniable that these notebooks, which form a sort of discursive diary, supply the chronicler of the period with a host of seeming-trivial details which yet have their importance, and whose very oddity should be enough to prevent the reader from passing hasty judgment on this singular man.
The earliest entries made by Jean Tarrou synchronize with his coming to Oran. From the outset they reveal a paradoxical satisfaction at the discovery of a town
so intrinsically ugly. We find in them a minute description of the two bronze lions adorning the Municipal Office, and appropriate comments on the lack of trees, the hideousness of the houses, and the absurd lay-out of the town.
Tarrou sprinkles his descriptions with bits of conversation overheard in streetcars and in the streets, never adding a comment on them except, this comes somewhat later’ in the report of a dialogue concerning a man named Camps. It was a chat between two streetcar conductors.
«You knew Camps, didn’t you?» asked one of them. «Camps? A tall chap with a black mustache?»
«That’s him. A switchman.» «Ah yes, I remember now.» «Well, he’s dead.» «Oh? When did he die?» «After that business about the rats.» «You don’t say so! What did he die of?» «I couldn’t say exactly. Some kind of fever.
Of course, he never was what you might call fit. He got abscesses under the arms, and they did him in, it seems.»
«Still, he didn’t look that different from other people.» «I wouldn’t say that. He had a weak chest and he used to play the trombone in the town band. It’s hard on the lungs, blowing a trombone.»
«Ah, if you’ve got weak lungs, it don’t do you any good, blowing down a big instrument like that.»
After jotting down this dialogue Tarrou went on to speculate why Camps had joined a band when it was so clearly inadvisable, and what obscure motive had led him to risk his life for the sake of parading the streets on Sunday mornings.
We gather that Tarrou was agreeably impressed by a little scene that took place daily on the balcony of a house facing his window. His room at the hotel looked on to a small side street and there were always several cats sleeping in the shadow of the walls. Every day, soon after lunch, at a time when most people stayed indoors, enjoying a siesta, a dapper little old man stepped out on the balcony on the other side of the street. He had a soldierly bearing, very erect, and affected a military style of dressing; his snow-white hair was always brushed to perfect smoothness. Leaning over the balcony he would call: «Pussy!
Pussy!» in a voice at once haughty and endearing. The cats blinked up at him with sleep-pale eyes, but made no move as yet. He then proceeded to tear some paper into scraps and let them fall into the street; interested by the fluttering shower of white butterflies, the cats came forward, lifting tentative paws toward the last scraps of paper. Then, taking careful aim, the old man would spit vigorously at the cats and, whenever a liquid missile hit the quarry, would beam with delight.
Lastly, Tarrou seemed to have been quite fascinated by the commercial character of the town, whose aspect, activities, and even pleasures all seemed to be dictated by considerations of business. This idiosyncrasy, the term he uses in his diary?was warmly approved of by Tarrou; indeed, one of his appreciative comments ends on the exclamation: «At last!»
These are the only passages in which our visitor’s record, at this period, strikes a seemingly personal note. Its significance and the earnestness behind it might escape the reader on a casual perusal. For example, after describing how the discovery of a dead rat led the hotel cashier to make an error in his bill, Tarrou added: «Query: How contrive not to waste one’s time? Answer: By being fully aware of it all the while.
Ways in which this can be done: By spending one’s days on an uneasy chair in a dentist’s waiting-room; by remaining on one’s balcony all a Sunday afternoon; by listening to lectures in a language one doesn’t know; by traveling by the longest and least-convenient train routes, and of course standing all the way; by lining up at the box-office of theaters and then not buying a seat; and so forth.»
Then, immediately following these eccentricities of thought and expression, we come on a detailed description of the streetcar service in the town, the structure of the cars, their indeterminate color, their unvarying dirtiness, and he concludes his observations with a «Very odd,» which explains nothing.
So much by way of introduction to Tarrou’s comments on the phenomenon of the rats.
«The little old fellow opposite is quite disconsolate today. There are no more cats. The sight of all those dead rats strewn about the street may have excited their hunting instinct; anyhow, they all have vanished. To my thinking, there’s no question of their eating the dead rats. Mine, I remember, turned up their noses at dead things. All the same, they’re probably busy hunting in the cellars, hence the old boy’s plight. His hair isn’t as well brushed as usual, and he looks less alert, less military. You can see he is worried. After a few moments he went back into the room. But first he spat once on emptiness.
«In town today a streetcar was stopped because a dead rat had been found in it. (Query: How did it get there?) Two or three women promptly alighted. The rat
was thrown out. The car went on.
«The night watchman at the hotel, a level-headed man, assured me that all these rats meant trouble coming. ‘When the rat leave a ship…’ I replied that this held good for ships, but for towns it hadn’t yet been demonstrated. But he stuck to his point. I asked what sort of ‘trouble’ we might expect. That he couldn’t say; disasters always come out of the blue. But he wouldn’t be surprised if there were an earthquake brewing. I admitted that was possible, and then he asked if the prospect didn’t alarm me.
» ‘The only thing I’m interested in,’ I told him, ‘is acquiring peace of mind.’ «He understood me perfectly.
«I find a family that has its meals in this hotel quite interesting. The father is a tall, thin man, always dressed in black and wearing a starched collar. The top of his head is bald, with two tufts of gray hair on each side. His small, beady eyes, narrow nose, and hard, straight mouth make him look like a well-brought-up owl. He is always first at the door of the restaurant, stands aside to let his wife, a tiny woman, like a black mouse, go in, and then comes in himself with a small boy and girl, dressed like performing poodles, at his heels. When they are at the table he remains standing till his wife is seated and only then the two poodles can perch themselves on their chairs. He uses no terms of endearment to his family, addresses politely spiteful remarks to his wife, and bluntly tells the kids what he thinks of them.
» ‘Nicole, you’re behaving quite disgracefully.’
«The little girl is on the brink of tears, which is as it should be.
«This morning the small boy was all excitement about the rats, and started saying something on the subject.
» ‘Philippe, one doesn’t talk of rats at table. For the future I forbid you to use the word.’
» ‘Your father’s right,’ approved the mouse.
«The two poodles buried their noses in their plates, and the owl acknowledged thanks by a curt, perfunctory nod.
«This excellent example notwithstanding, everybody in town is talking about the rats, and the local newspaper has taken a hand. The town-topics column, usually very varied, is now devoted exclusively to a campaign against the local authorities. ‘Are our city fathers aware that the decaying bodies of these rodents constitute a grave danger to the population?’ The manager of the hotel can talk of nothing else. But he has a personal grievance, too; that dead rats should be found in the elevator of a three-star hotel seems to him the end of all things. To console him, I said: ‘But, you know, everybody’s in the same boat.’
» ‘That’s just it,’ he replied. ‘Now we’re like everybody else.’
«He was the first to tell me about the outbreak of this queer kind of fever which is causing much alarm. One of his chambermaids has got it.
» ‘But I feel sure it’s not contagious,’ he hastened to assure me. «I told him it was all the same to me.
» ‘Ah, I understand, sir. You’re like me, you’re a fatalist.’
«I had said nothing of the kind and, what’s more, am not a fatalist. I told him so….»
From this point onwards Tarrou’s entries deal in some detail with the curious fever that was causing much anxiety among the public. When noting that the little old man, now that the rats had ceased appearing, had regained his cats and was studiously perfecting his shooting, Tarrou adds that a dozen or so cases of this fever were known to have occurred, and most had ended
