chapter 25
though this sudden setback of the gue was as wee as it was unlooked-for, our townsfolk were in no hurry to jubte.while intensifying their desire to be set free, the terrible months they had lived through had taught them prudence, and they hade to count less and less on a speedy end of the epidemic.all the same, this new development was the talk of the town, and people began to nurse hopes none the less heartfelt for being unavowed.all else took a back ce; that daily there were new victims counted for little beside that staggering fact: the weekly total showed a decrease.one of the signs that a return to the golden age of health was secretly awaited was that our fellow citizens, careful though they were not to voice their hope, now began to talk—in, it is true, a carefully detached tone—of the new order of life that would set in after the gue.
all agreed that the amenities of the past couldn’t be restored at once; destruction is an easier, speedier process than reconstruction.however, it was thought that a slight improvement in the food-supply could safely be counted on, and this would relieve what was just now the acutest worry of every household.but in reality behind these mild aspirations lurked wild, extravagant hopes, and often one of us, bing aware of this, would hastily add that, even on the rosiest view, you couldn’t expect the gue to stop from one day to another.
actually, while the epidemic did not stop “from one day to another,” it declined more rapidly than we could reasonably have expected.with the first week of january an unusually persistent spell of very cold weather settled in and seemed to crystallize above the town.yet never before had the sky been so blue; day after day its icy radiance flooded the town with brilliant light, and in the frost-cleansed air the epidemic seemed to lose its virulence, and in each of three consecutive weeks a big drop in the death-roll was announced.thus over a rtively brief period the disease lost practically all the gains piled up over many months.its setbacks with seemingly predestined victims, like grand and rieux’s girl patient, its bursts of activity for two or three days in some districts synchronizing with its total disappearance from others, its new practice of multiplying its victims on, say, a monday, and on wednesday letting almost all escape—in short, its esses of violence followed by spells ofplete inactivity—all these gave an impression that its energy was gging, out of exhaustion and exasperation, and it was losing, with its selfmand, the ruthless, almost mathematical efficiency that had been its trump card hitherto.
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of a sudden castel’s anti-gue injections scored frequent sesses, denied it until now.indeed, all the treatments the doctors had tentatively employed, without definite results, now seemed almost uniformly efficacious.it was as if the gue had .been hounded down and cornered, and its sudden weakness lent new strength to the blunted weapons so far used against it.only at rare moments did the disease brace itself and make as it were a blind and fatal leap at three or four patients whose recovery had been expected—a truly ill-starred few, killed off when hope ran highest.such was the case of m. othon, the magistrate, evacuated from the quarantine c& tarrou said of him that “he’d had no luck,” but one couldn’t tell if he had in mind the life or the death of m. othon.but, generally speaking, the epidemic was in retreat all along the line; the officialmuniques, which had at first encouraged no more than shadowy, half-hearted hopes, now confirmed the popr belief that the victory was won and the enemy abandoning his positions.really, however, it is doubtful if this could be called a victory.all that could be said was that the disease seemed to be leaving as unountably as it hade.our strategy had not changed, but whereas yesterday it had obviously failed, today it seemed triumphant.indeed, one’s chief impression was that the epidemic had called a retreat after reaching all its objectives; it had, so to speak, achieved its purpose.
nevertheless, it seemed as if nothing had changed in the town.silent as ever by day, the streets filled up at nightfall with the usual crowds of people, now wearing overcoats and scarves.cafes and picture-houses did as much business as before.but on a closer view you might notice that people looked less strained, and they asionally smiled.and this brought home the fact that since the outbreak of gue no one had hitherto been seen to smile in public.the truth was that for many months the town had been stifling under an airless shroud, in which a rent had now been made, and every monday when he turned on the radio, each of us learned that the rift was widening; soon he would be able to breathe freely.it was at best a negative sce, with no immediate impact on men’s lives.still, had anyone been told a month earlier that a train had just left or a boat put in, or that cars were to be allowed on the streets again, the news would have been received with looks of incredulity; whereas in mid-january an announcement of this kind would have caused no surprise.the change, no doubt, was slight.yet, however slight, it proved what a vast forward stride our townsfolk had made in the way of hope.and indeed it could be said that once the faintest stirring of hope became possible, the dominion of the gue was ended.
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it must, however, be admitted that our fellow citizens’ reactions during that month were diverse to the point of incoherence.more precisely, they fluctuated between high optimism and extreme depression.hence the odd circumstance that several more attempts to escape took ce at the very moment when the statistics were most encouraging.this took the authorities by surprise, and, apparently, the sentries too—since most of the “escapists” brought it off.but, looking into it, one saw that people who tried to escape at this time were prompted by quite understandable motives.some of them gue had imbued with a skepticism so thorough that it was now a second nature; they had be allergic to hope in any form.thus even when the gue had run its course, they went on living by its standards.they were, in short, behind the times.in the case of others—chiefly those who had been living until now in forced separation from those they loved—the rising wind of hope, after all these months of durance and depression, had fanned impatience to a ze and swept away their self-control.they were seized with a sort of panic at the thought that they might die so near the goal and never see again the ones they loved, and their long privation have no rpense.thus, though for weary months and months they had endured their long ordeal with dogged perseverance, the first thrill of hope had been enough to shatter what fear and hopelessness had failed to impair.and in the frenzy of their haste they tried to outstrip the gue, incapable of keeping pace with it up to the end.
meanwhile, there were various symptoms of the growing optimism.prices, for instance, fell sharply.this fall was unountable from the purely economic viewpoint.our difficulties were as great as ever, the gates were kept rigorously closed, and the food situation was far from showing any improvement.thus it was a purely psychological reaction—as if the dwindling of the gue must have repercussions in all fields.others to profit by the spread of optimism were those who used to live in groups and had been forced to live apart.the two convents reopened and theirmunal life was resumed.the troops, too, were regrouped in such barracks as had not been requisitioned, and settled down to the garrison life of the past.minor details, but significant.
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this state of subdued yet active ferment prevailed until january 25, when the weekly total showed so striking a decline that, after consulting the medical board, the authorities announced that the epidemic could be regarded as definitely stemmed.true, themunique went on to say that, acting with a prudence of which the poption would certainly approve, the prefect had decided that the gates of the town were to remain closed for two weeks more, and the prophctic measures to remain in force for another month.during this period, at the least sign of danger ‘‘the standing orders would be strictly enforced and, if necessary, prolonged thereafter for such a period as might be deemed desirable.”all, however, concurred in regarding these phrases as mere official verbiage, and the night of january 25 was the asion of much festivity.to associate himself with the popr rejoicings, the prefect gave orders for the street lighting to be resumed as in the past.and the townspeople paraded the brilliantly lighted streets in boisterous groups,ughing and singing.true, in some houses the shutters remained closed, and those within listened in silence to the joyful shouts outside.yet even in these houses of mourning a feeling of deep relief prevailed; whether because atst the fear of seeing other members of the household taken from them was calmed or because the shadow of personal anxiety was lifted from their hearts.
the families that perforce withdrew themselves the most from the general jubtion were those who at this hour had one of their members down with gue in hospital and, whether in a quarantine camp or at home, waited in enforced seclusion for the epidemic to have done with them as it had done with the others.no doubt these families had hopes, but they hoarded them and forbade themselves to draw on them before feeling quite sure they were justified.and this time of waiting in silence and exile, in a limbo between joy and grief, seemed still crueler for the dness all around them.but these exceptions did not diminish the satisfaction of the great majority.no doubt the gue was not yet ended—a fact of which they were to be reminded; still, in imagination they could already hear, weeks in advance, trains whistling on their way to an outside world that had no limit, and steamers hooting as they put out from the harbor across shining seas.next day these fancies would have passed and qualms of doubt returned.but for the moment the whole town was on the move, quitting the dark, lugubrious confines where it had struck its roots of stone, and setting forth atst, like a shipload of survivors, toward and of promise.
that night tarrou, rieux, rambert, and their colleagues joined for a while the marching crowds and they, too, felt as if they trod on air.long after they had turned off the main streets, even when in empty byways they walked past shuttered houses, the joyful mor followed them up, and because of their fatigue somehow they could not disassociate the sorrow behind those closed shutters from the joy filling the central streets.thus theing liberation had a twofold aspect, of happiness and tears.
at one moment, when the cries of exultation in the distance were swelling to a roar, tarrou stopped abruptly.a small, sleek form was scampering along the roadway: a cat, the first cat any of them had seen since the spring.it stopped in the middle of the road, hesitated, licked a paw and quickly passed it behind its right ear; then it started forward again and vanished into the darkness.tarrou smiled to himself; the little old man on the balcony, too, would be pleased.
chapter 26
but in those days when the gue seemed to be retreating, slinking back to the obscureir from which it had stealthily emerged, at least one person in the town viewed this retreat with consternation, if tarrou’s notes are to be trusted; and that man was cottard.
to tell the truth, these diary notes take a rather curious turn from the date on which the death returns began to drop.the handwriting bes much harder to read—this may have been due to fatigue—and the diarist jumps from one topic to another without transition.what is more, theseter notesck the objectivity of the earlier ones; personal considerations creep in.thus, sandwiched between long passages dealing with the case of cottard, we find a brief ount of the old man and the cats.tarrou conveys to us that the gue had in no wise lessened his appreciation of the old fellow, who continued equally to interest him after the epidemic had run its course; unfortunately, he could not go on interesting him, and this through nock of good intentions on tarrou’s part.he had done his best to see him again.some days after that memorable 25th of january he stationed himself at the corner of the little street.the cats were back at their usual ces, basking in the patches of sunlight.but at the ritual hour the shutters stayed closed.and never once did tarrou see them open on the following days.he drew the rather odd conclusion that the old fellow was either dead or vexed—if vexed, the reason being that he had thought that he was right and the gue had put him in the wrong; if dead, the question was (as in the case of the old asthmatic) had he been a saint?tarrou hardly thought so, but he found in the old man’s case “a pointer.”“perhaps,” he wrote, “we can only reach approximations of sainthood.in which case we must make shift with a mild, benevolent diabolism.”
interspersed with observations rting to cottard are remarks, scattered here and there, about grand—he was now convalescent and had gone back to work as if nothing had happened—and about rieux’s mother.the asional conversations he had with her, when living under the same roof, the olddy’s attitudes, her opinions on the gue, are all recorded in detail in the diary.tarrouys stress above all on mme rieux’s self-effacement, her way of exining things in the simplest possible words, her predilection for a special window at which she always sat in the early evening, holding herself rather straight, her hands at rest, her eyes fixed on the quiet street below, until twilight filled the room and she showed among the gathering shadows as a motionless ck form which gradually merged into the invading darkness.
he remarks on the “lightness” with which she moved from one room to the other; on her kindness—though no precise instances hade to his notice he discerned its gentle glow in all she said and did; on the gift she had of knowing everything without (apparently) taking thought; andstly that, dim and silent though she was, she quailed before no light, even the garish light of the gue.at this point tarrou’s handwriting began to fall off oddly; indeed, the following lines were almost illegible.and, as if in confirmation of this loss of grip upon himself, thest lines of the entry deal—for the first time in the diary—with his personal life.“she reminds me of my mother; what i loved most in mother was her self-effacement, her ‘dimness,’ as they say, and it’s she i’ve always wanted to get back to.it happened eight years ago; but i can’t say she died.she only effaced herself a trifle more than usual, and when i looked round she was no longer there.”
but to return to cottard.when the weekly totals began to show a decline, he visited rieux several times on various pretexts.but obviously what he really wanted was to get from rieux his opinion on the probable course of the epidemic.“do you really think it can stop like that, all of a sudden?”he was skeptical about this, or anyhow professed to be.but the fact that he kept on asking the question seemed to imply he was less sure than he professed to be.from the middle of january rieux gave him fairly optimistic answers.but these were not to cottard’s liking, and his reactions varied on each asion, from mere petnce to great despondency.one day the doctor was moved to tell him that, though the statistics were highly promising, it was too soon to say definitely that we were out of the wood.
“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 exhration following the announcement of the gue’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 asions, 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 asions, but failed to elicit more than a few gruff monosybles.then, from one day to another, he became sociable again, talked volubly about the gue, asking everyone for his views on it, and mingled in the crowd with evident pleasure.
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on january 25, the day of the official announcement, cottard went to cover again.two dayster tarrou came across him loitering in a side-street.when cottard suggested he should apany him home, tarrou demurred; he’d had a particrly tiring day.but cottard wouldn’t hear of a refusal.he seemed much agitated, gesticted freely, spoke very rapidly and in a very loud tone.he began by asking tarrou if he really thought the officialmunique meant an end of the gue.tarrou replied that obviously a mere official announcement couldn’t stop an epidemic, but it certainly looked as if, barring idents, it would shortly cease.“yes,” cottard said.“barring idents.and idents 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 eximed 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 gue 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 gue 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 gue was bound to leave traces, anyhow, in people’s hearts.
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to this cottard rejoined curtly that he wasn’t interested in hearts; indeed, they were thest 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 dy 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 hispanion 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 exmation cottard swung round and dashed off into the darkness.taken by surprise, tarrou and the two men gazed nkly at each other for some moments.then tarrou asked them what they wanted.in nomittal tones they informed him that they wanted “some information,” and walked away, unhurrying, in the direction cottard had taken.
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though this sudden setback of the gue was as wee as it was unlooked-for, our townsfolk were in no hurry to jubte.while intensifying their desire to be set free, the terrible months they had lived through had taught them prudence, and they hade to count less and less on a speedy end of the epidemic.all the same, this new development was the talk of the town, and people began to nurse hopes none the less heartfelt for being unavowed.all else took a back ce; that daily there were new victims counted for little beside that staggering fact: the weekly total showed a decrease.one of the signs that a return to the golden age of health was secretly awaited was that our fellow citizens, careful though they were not to voice their hope, now began to talk—in, it is true, a carefully detached tone—of the new order of life that would set in after the gue.
all agreed that the amenities of the past couldn’t be restored at once; destruction is an easier, speedier process than reconstruction.however, it was thought that a slight improvement in the food-supply could safely be counted on, and this would relieve what was just now the acutest worry of every household.but in reality behind these mild aspirations lurked wild, extravagant hopes, and often one of us, bing aware of this, would hastily add that, even on the rosiest view, you couldn’t expect the gue to stop from one day to another.
actually, while the epidemic did not stop “from one day to another,” it declined more rapidly than we could reasonably have expected.with the first week of january an unusually persistent spell of very cold weather settled in and seemed to crystallize above the town.yet never before had the sky been so blue; day after day its icy radiance flooded the town with brilliant light, and in the frost-cleansed air the epidemic seemed to lose its virulence, and in each of three consecutive weeks a big drop in the death-roll was announced.thus over a rtively brief period the disease lost practically all the gains piled up over many months.its setbacks with seemingly predestined victims, like grand and rieux’s girl patient, its bursts of activity for two or three days in some districts synchronizing with its total disappearance from others, its new practice of multiplying its victims on, say, a monday, and on wednesday letting almost all escape—in short, its esses of violence followed by spells ofplete inactivity—all these gave an impression that its energy was gging, out of exhaustion and exasperation, and it was losing, with its selfmand, the ruthless, almost mathematical efficiency that had been its trump card hitherto.
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of a sudden castel’s anti-gue injections scored frequent sesses, denied it until now.indeed, all the treatments the doctors had tentatively employed, without definite results, now seemed almost uniformly efficacious.it was as if the gue had .been hounded down and cornered, and its sudden weakness lent new strength to the blunted weapons so far used against it.only at rare moments did the disease brace itself and make as it were a blind and fatal leap at three or four patients whose recovery had been expected—a truly ill-starred few, killed off when hope ran highest.such was the case of m. othon, the magistrate, evacuated from the quarantine c& tarrou said of him that “he’d had no luck,” but one couldn’t tell if he had in mind the life or the death of m. othon.but, generally speaking, the epidemic was in retreat all along the line; the officialmuniques, which had at first encouraged no more than shadowy, half-hearted hopes, now confirmed the popr belief that the victory was won and the enemy abandoning his positions.really, however, it is doubtful if this could be called a victory.all that could be said was that the disease seemed to be leaving as unountably as it hade.our strategy had not changed, but whereas yesterday it had obviously failed, today it seemed triumphant.indeed, one’s chief impression was that the epidemic had called a retreat after reaching all its objectives; it had, so to speak, achieved its purpose.
nevertheless, it seemed as if nothing had changed in the town.silent as ever by day, the streets filled up at nightfall with the usual crowds of people, now wearing overcoats and scarves.cafes and picture-houses did as much business as before.but on a closer view you might notice that people looked less strained, and they asionally smiled.and this brought home the fact that since the outbreak of gue no one had hitherto been seen to smile in public.the truth was that for many months the town had been stifling under an airless shroud, in which a rent had now been made, and every monday when he turned on the radio, each of us learned that the rift was widening; soon he would be able to breathe freely.it was at best a negative sce, with no immediate impact on men’s lives.still, had anyone been told a month earlier that a train had just left or a boat put in, or that cars were to be allowed on the streets again, the news would have been received with looks of incredulity; whereas in mid-january an announcement of this kind would have caused no surprise.the change, no doubt, was slight.yet, however slight, it proved what a vast forward stride our townsfolk had made in the way of hope.and indeed it could be said that once the faintest stirring of hope became possible, the dominion of the gue was ended.
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it must, however, be admitted that our fellow citizens’ reactions during that month were diverse to the point of incoherence.more precisely, they fluctuated between high optimism and extreme depression.hence the odd circumstance that several more attempts to escape took ce at the very moment when the statistics were most encouraging.this took the authorities by surprise, and, apparently, the sentries too—since most of the “escapists” brought it off.but, looking into it, one saw that people who tried to escape at this time were prompted by quite understandable motives.some of them gue had imbued with a skepticism so thorough that it was now a second nature; they had be allergic to hope in any form.thus even when the gue had run its course, they went on living by its standards.they were, in short, behind the times.in the case of others—chiefly those who had been living until now in forced separation from those they loved—the rising wind of hope, after all these months of durance and depression, had fanned impatience to a ze and swept away their self-control.they were seized with a sort of panic at the thought that they might die so near the goal and never see again the ones they loved, and their long privation have no rpense.thus, though for weary months and months they had endured their long ordeal with dogged perseverance, the first thrill of hope had been enough to shatter what fear and hopelessness had failed to impair.and in the frenzy of their haste they tried to outstrip the gue, incapable of keeping pace with it up to the end.
meanwhile, there were various symptoms of the growing optimism.prices, for instance, fell sharply.this fall was unountable from the purely economic viewpoint.our difficulties were as great as ever, the gates were kept rigorously closed, and the food situation was far from showing any improvement.thus it was a purely psychological reaction—as if the dwindling of the gue must have repercussions in all fields.others to profit by the spread of optimism were those who used to live in groups and had been forced to live apart.the two convents reopened and theirmunal life was resumed.the troops, too, were regrouped in such barracks as had not been requisitioned, and settled down to the garrison life of the past.minor details, but significant.
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this state of subdued yet active ferment prevailed until january 25, when the weekly total showed so striking a decline that, after consulting the medical board, the authorities announced that the epidemic could be regarded as definitely stemmed.true, themunique went on to say that, acting with a prudence of which the poption would certainly approve, the prefect had decided that the gates of the town were to remain closed for two weeks more, and the prophctic measures to remain in force for another month.during this period, at the least sign of danger ‘‘the standing orders would be strictly enforced and, if necessary, prolonged thereafter for such a period as might be deemed desirable.”all, however, concurred in regarding these phrases as mere official verbiage, and the night of january 25 was the asion of much festivity.to associate himself with the popr rejoicings, the prefect gave orders for the street lighting to be resumed as in the past.and the townspeople paraded the brilliantly lighted streets in boisterous groups,ughing and singing.true, in some houses the shutters remained closed, and those within listened in silence to the joyful shouts outside.yet even in these houses of mourning a feeling of deep relief prevailed; whether because atst the fear of seeing other members of the household taken from them was calmed or because the shadow of personal anxiety was lifted from their hearts.
the families that perforce withdrew themselves the most from the general jubtion were those who at this hour had one of their members down with gue in hospital and, whether in a quarantine camp or at home, waited in enforced seclusion for the epidemic to have done with them as it had done with the others.no doubt these families had hopes, but they hoarded them and forbade themselves to draw on them before feeling quite sure they were justified.and this time of waiting in silence and exile, in a limbo between joy and grief, seemed still crueler for the dness all around them.but these exceptions did not diminish the satisfaction of the great majority.no doubt the gue was not yet ended—a fact of which they were to be reminded; still, in imagination they could already hear, weeks in advance, trains whistling on their way to an outside world that had no limit, and steamers hooting as they put out from the harbor across shining seas.next day these fancies would have passed and qualms of doubt returned.but for the moment the whole town was on the move, quitting the dark, lugubrious confines where it had struck its roots of stone, and setting forth atst, like a shipload of survivors, toward and of promise.
that night tarrou, rieux, rambert, and their colleagues joined for a while the marching crowds and they, too, felt as if they trod on air.long after they had turned off the main streets, even when in empty byways they walked past shuttered houses, the joyful mor followed them up, and because of their fatigue somehow they could not disassociate the sorrow behind those closed shutters from the joy filling the central streets.thus theing liberation had a twofold aspect, of happiness and tears.
at one moment, when the cries of exultation in the distance were swelling to a roar, tarrou stopped abruptly.a small, sleek form was scampering along the roadway: a cat, the first cat any of them had seen since the spring.it stopped in the middle of the road, hesitated, licked a paw and quickly passed it behind its right ear; then it started forward again and vanished into the darkness.tarrou smiled to himself; the little old man on the balcony, too, would be pleased.
chapter 26
but in those days when the gue seemed to be retreating, slinking back to the obscureir from which it had stealthily emerged, at least one person in the town viewed this retreat with consternation, if tarrou’s notes are to be trusted; and that man was cottard.
to tell the truth, these diary notes take a rather curious turn from the date on which the death returns began to drop.the handwriting bes much harder to read—this may have been due to fatigue—and the diarist jumps from one topic to another without transition.what is more, theseter notesck the objectivity of the earlier ones; personal considerations creep in.thus, sandwiched between long passages dealing with the case of cottard, we find a brief ount of the old man and the cats.tarrou conveys to us that the gue had in no wise lessened his appreciation of the old fellow, who continued equally to interest him after the epidemic had run its course; unfortunately, he could not go on interesting him, and this through nock of good intentions on tarrou’s part.he had done his best to see him again.some days after that memorable 25th of january he stationed himself at the corner of the little street.the cats were back at their usual ces, basking in the patches of sunlight.but at the ritual hour the shutters stayed closed.and never once did tarrou see them open on the following days.he drew the rather odd conclusion that the old fellow was either dead or vexed—if vexed, the reason being that he had thought that he was right and the gue had put him in the wrong; if dead, the question was (as in the case of the old asthmatic) had he been a saint?tarrou hardly thought so, but he found in the old man’s case “a pointer.”“perhaps,” he wrote, “we can only reach approximations of sainthood.in which case we must make shift with a mild, benevolent diabolism.”
interspersed with observations rting to cottard are remarks, scattered here and there, about grand—he was now convalescent and had gone back to work as if nothing had happened—and about rieux’s mother.the asional conversations he had with her, when living under the same roof, the olddy’s attitudes, her opinions on the gue, are all recorded in detail in the diary.tarrouys stress above all on mme rieux’s self-effacement, her way of exining things in the simplest possible words, her predilection for a special window at which she always sat in the early evening, holding herself rather straight, her hands at rest, her eyes fixed on the quiet street below, until twilight filled the room and she showed among the gathering shadows as a motionless ck form which gradually merged into the invading darkness.
he remarks on the “lightness” with which she moved from one room to the other; on her kindness—though no precise instances hade to his notice he discerned its gentle glow in all she said and did; on the gift she had of knowing everything without (apparently) taking thought; andstly that, dim and silent though she was, she quailed before no light, even the garish light of the gue.at this point tarrou’s handwriting began to fall off oddly; indeed, the following lines were almost illegible.and, as if in confirmation of this loss of grip upon himself, thest lines of the entry deal—for the first time in the diary—with his personal life.“she reminds me of my mother; what i loved most in mother was her self-effacement, her ‘dimness,’ as they say, and it’s she i’ve always wanted to get back to.it happened eight years ago; but i can’t say she died.she only effaced herself a trifle more than usual, and when i looked round she was no longer there.”
but to return to cottard.when the weekly totals began to show a decline, he visited rieux several times on various pretexts.but obviously what he really wanted was to get from rieux his opinion on the probable course of the epidemic.“do you really think it can stop like that, all of a sudden?”he was skeptical about this, or anyhow professed to be.but the fact that he kept on asking the question seemed to imply he was less sure than he professed to be.from the middle of january rieux gave him fairly optimistic answers.but these were not to cottard’s liking, and his reactions varied on each asion, from mere petnce to great despondency.one day the doctor was moved to tell him that, though the statistics were highly promising, it was too soon to say definitely that we were out of the wood.
“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 exhration following the announcement of the gue’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 asions, 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 asions, but failed to elicit more than a few gruff monosybles.then, from one day to another, he became sociable again, talked volubly about the gue, asking everyone for his views on it, and mingled in the crowd with evident pleasure.
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on january 25, the day of the official announcement, cottard went to cover again.two dayster tarrou came across him loitering in a side-street.when cottard suggested he should apany him home, tarrou demurred; he’d had a particrly tiring day.but cottard wouldn’t hear of a refusal.he seemed much agitated, gesticted freely, spoke very rapidly and in a very loud tone.he began by asking tarrou if he really thought the officialmunique meant an end of the gue.tarrou replied that obviously a mere official announcement couldn’t stop an epidemic, but it certainly looked as if, barring idents, it would shortly cease.“yes,” cottard said.“barring idents.and idents 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 eximed 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 gue 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 gue 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 gue was bound to leave traces, anyhow, in people’s hearts.
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to this cottard rejoined curtly that he wasn’t interested in hearts; indeed, they were thest 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 dy 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 hispanion 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 exmation cottard swung round and dashed off into the darkness.taken by surprise, tarrou and the two men gazed nkly at each other for some moments.then tarrou asked them what they wanted.in nomittal tones they informed him that they wanted “some information,” and walked away, unhurrying, in the direction cottard had taken.
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