«In other words,» Cottard said promptly, «there’s no knowing. It may start again at any moment.»
«Quite so. Just as it’s equally possible the improvement may speed up.» Distressing to everyone else, this state of uncertainty seemed to agree with Cottard. Tarrou observed that he would enter into conversations with shopkeepers in his part of the town, with the obvious desire of propagating the opinion expressed by Rieux. Indeed, he had no trouble in doing this. After the first exhilaration following the announcement of the plague’s decline had worn off, doubts had returned to many minds. And the sight of their anxiety reassured Cottard. Just as at other times he yielded to discouragement. «Yes,» he said gloomily to Tarrou, «one of these days the gates will be opened. And then, you’ll see, they’ll drop me like a live coal!»
Everyone was struck by his abrupt changes of mood during the first three weeks of January. Though normally he spared no pains to make himself liked by neighbors and acquaintances, now, for whole days, he deliberately cold-shouldered them. On these occasions, so Tarrou gathered, he abruptly cut off outside contacts and retired morosely into his shell. He was no more to be seen in restaurants or at the theater or in his favorite cafes.
However, he seemed unable to resume the obscure, humdrum life he had led before the epidemic. He stayed in his room and had his meals sent up from a near-by restaurant. Only at nightfall did he venture forth to make some small purchases, and on leaving the shop he would furtively roam the darker, less-frequented streets. Once or twice Tarrou ran into him on these occasions, but failed to elicit more than a few gruff monosyllables. Then, from one day to another, he became sociable again, talked volubly about the plague, asking everyone for his views on it, and mingled in the crowd with evident pleasure.
On January 25, the day of the official announcement, Cottard went to cover again. Two days later Tarrou came across him loitering in a side-street. When Cottard suggested he should accompany him home, Tarrou demurred; he’d had a particularly tiring day. But Cottard wouldn’t hear of a refusal. He seemed much agitated, gesticulated freely, spoke very rapidly and in a very loud tone. He began by asking Tarrou if he really thought the official communique meant an end of the plague. Tarrou replied that obviously a mere official announcement couldn’t stop an epidemic, but it certainly looked as if, barring accidents, it would shortly cease.
«Yes,» Cottard said. «Barring accidents. And accidents will happen, won’t they?» Tarrou pointed out that the authorities had allowed for that possibility by refusing
to open the gates for another fortnight.
«And very wise they were!» Cottard exclaimed in the same excited tone. «By the way things are going, I should say they’ll have to eat their words.»
Tarrou agreed this might be so; still, he thought it wiser to count on the opening of the gates and a return to normal life in the near future.
«Granted!» Cottard rejoined. «But what do you mean by ‘a return to normal life’?» Tarrou smiled. «New films at the picture-houses.»
But Cottard didn’t smile. Was it supposed, he asked, that the plague wouldn’t have changed anything and the life of the town would go on as before, exactly as if nothing had happened? Tarrou thought that the plague would have changed things and not changed them; naturally our fellow citizens’ strongest desire was, and would be, to behave as if nothing had changed and for that reason nothing would be changed, in a sense. But, to look at it from another angle, one can’t forget everything, however great one’s wish to do so; the plague was bound to leave traces, anyhow, in people’s hearts.
To this Cottard rejoined curtly that he wasn’t interested in hearts; indeed, they were the last thing he bothered about. What interested him was knowing whether the whole administration wouldn’t be changed, lock, stock, and barrel; whether, for instance, the public services would function as before. Tarrou had to admit he had no inside knowledge on the matter; his personal theory was that after the upheaval caused by the epidemic, there would be some delay in getting these services under way again. Also, it seemed likely that all sorts of new problems would arise and necessitate at least some reorganization of the administrative system.
Cottard nodded. «Yes, that’s quite on the cards; in fact everyone will have to make a fresh start.»
They were nearing Cottard’s house. He now seemed more cheerful, determined to take a rosier view of the future. Obviously he was picturing the town entering on a new lease of life, blotting out its past and starting again with a clean sheet.
«So that’s that,» Tarrou smiled. «Quite likely things will pan out all right for you, too, who can say? It’ll be a new life for all of us, in a manner of speaking.»
They were shaking hands at the door of the apartment house where Cottard lived. «Quite right!» Cottard was growing more and more excited. «That would be a
great idea, starting again with a clean sheet.»
Suddenly from the lightless hall two men emerged. Tarrou had hardly time to hear his companion mutter: «Now, what do those birds want?» when the men in question, who looked like subordinate government employees in their best clothes, cut in with an inquiry if his name was Cottard. With a stifled exclamation Cottard swung round and dashed off into the darkness. Taken by surprise, Tarrou and the two men gazed blankly at each other for some moments.
Then Tarrou asked them what they wanted. In noncommittal tones they informed him that they wanted «some information,» and walked away, unhurrying, in the direction Cottard had taken.
On his return home Tarrou wrote out an account of this peculiar incident, following it up with a «Feeling very tired tonight», which is confirmed by his handwriting in this entry. He added that he had still much to do, but that was no reason for not «holding himself in readiness,» and he questioned if he were ready.
As a sort of postscript, and, in fact, it is here that Tarrou’s diary ends, he noted that there is always a certain hour of the day and of the night when a man’s courage is at its lowest ebb, and it was that hour only that he feared.
When next day, a few days before the date fixed for the opening of the gates, Dr. Rieux came home at noon, he was wondering if the telegram he was expecting had arrived. Though his days were no less strenuous than at the height of the epidemic, the prospect of imminent release had obliterated his fatigue. Hope had returned and with it a new zest for life. No man can live on the stretch all the time, with his energy and willpower strained to the breaking-point, and it is a joy to be able to relax at last and loosen nerves and muscles that were braced for the struggle. If the telegram, too, that he awaited brought good news, Rieux would be able to make a fresh start. Indeed, he had a feeling that everyone in those days was making a fresh start.
He walked past the concierge’s room in the hall. The new man, old Michel’s successor, his face pressed to the window looking on the hall, gave him a smile.
As he went up the stairs, the man’s face, pale with exhaustion and privation, but smiling, hovered before his eyes.
Yes, he’d make a fresh start, once the period of «abstractions» was over, and with any luck? He was opening the door with these thoughts in his mind when he saw his mother coming down the hall to meet him. M. Tarrou, she told him, wasn’t well. He had risen at the usual time, but did not feel up to going out and had returned to bed. Mme Rieux felt worried about him.
«Quite likely it’s nothing serious,» her son said.
Tarrou was lying on his back, his heavy head deeply indenting the pillow, the coverlet bulging above his massive chest. His head was aching and his temperature up. The symptoms weren’t very definite, he told Rieux, but they might well be those of plague.
After examining him Rieux said: «No, there’s nothing definite as yet.»
But Tarrou also suffered from a raging thirst, and in the hallway the doctor told his mother that it might be plague.
«Oh!» she exclaimed. «Surely that’s not possible, not now!» And after a moment added: «Let’s keep him here, Bernard.»
Rieux pondered. «Strictly speaking, I’ve no right to do that,» he said doubtfully. «Still, the gates will be opened quite soon. If you weren’t here, I think I’d take it on myself.»
«Bernard, let him stay, and let me stay too. You know, I’ve just had another inoculation.»
The doctor pointed out that Tarrou, too, had had inoculations, though it was possible, tired as he was, he’d overlooked the last one or omitted to take the necessary precautions.
Rieux was going to the surgery as he spoke, and when he returned to the bedroom Tarrou noticed that he had a box of the big ampoules containing the serum.
«Ah, so it is that,» he said.
«Not necessarily; but we mustn’t run any risks.»
Without replying Tarrou extended his arm and submitted to the prolonged injections he himself had so often administered to others.
«We’ll judge better this evening.» Rieux looked Tarrou in the eyes.
