Rieux replied that he had not described a “syndrome,” but merely what he’d seen with his own eyes.
And what he’d seen was buboes, and high fever accompanied by delirium, ending fatally within forty-eight hours.
Could Dr. Richard take the responsibility of declaring that the epidemic would die out without the imposition of rigorous prophylactic measures?
Richard hesitated, then fixed his eyes on Rieux.
“Please answer me quite frankly. Are you absolutely convinced it’s plague?”
“You’re stating the problem wrongly.
It’s not a question of the term I use; it’s a question of time.”
“Your view, I take it,” the Prefect put in, “is this. Even if it isn’t plague, the prophylactic measures enjoined by law for coping with a state of plague should be put into force immediately?”
“If you insist on my having a ‘view,’ that conveys it accurately enough.”
The doctors confabulated. Richard was their spokesman:
“It comes to this. We are to take the responsibility of acting as though the epidemic were plague.”
This way of putting it met with general approval.
“It doesn’t matter to me,” Rieux said, “how you phrase it.
My point is that we should not act as if there were no likelihood that half the population would be wiped out; for then it would be.”
Followed by scowls and protestations, Rieux left the committee-room.
Some minutes later, as he was driving down a back street redolent of fried fish and urine, a woman screaming in agony, her groin dripping blood, stretched out her arms toward him.
On the day after the committee meeting the fever notched another small advance.
It even found its way into the papers, but discreetly; only a few brief references to it were made.
On the following day, however, Rieux observed that small official notices had been just put up about the town, though in places where they would not attract much attention.
It was hard to find in these notices any indication that the authorities were facing the situation squarely.
The measures enjoined were far from Draconian and one had the feeling that many concessions had been made to a desire not to alarm the public.
The instructions began with a bald statement that a few cases of a malignant fever had been reported in Oran; it was not possible as yet to say if this fever was contagious.
The symptoms were not so marked as to be really perturbing and the authorities felt sure they could rely on the townspeople to treat the situation with composure.
None the less, guided by a spirit of prudence that all would appreciate, the Prefect was putting into force some precautionary measures.
If these measures were carefully studied and properly applied, they would obviate any risk of an epidemic.
This being so, the Prefect felt no doubt that everybody in his jurisdiction would wholeheartedly second his personal efforts.
The notice outlined the general program that the authorities had drawn up. It included a systematic extermination of the rat population by injecting poison gas into the sewers, and a strict supervision of the water-supply.
The townspeople were advised to practice extreme cleanliness, and any who found fleas on their person were directed to call at the municipal dispensaries.
Also heads of households were ordered promptly to report any fever case diagnosed by their doctors and to permit the isolation of sick members of their families in special wards at the hospital.
These wards, it was explained, were equipped to provide patients with immediate treatment and ensure the maximum prospect of recovery.
Some supplementary regulations enjoined compulsory disinfection of the sickroom and of the vehicle in which the patient traveled.
For the rest, the Prefect confined himself to advising all who had been in contact with the patient to consult the sanitary inspector and strictly to follow his advice.
Dr. Rieux swung round brusquely from the poster and started back to his surgery. Grand, who was awaiting him there, raised his arms dramatically when the doctor entered.
“Yes,” Rieux said, “I know. The figures are rising.”
On the previous day ten deaths had been reported.
The doctor told Grand that he might be seeing him in the evening, as he had promised to visit Cottard.
“An excellent idea,” Grand said. “You’ll do him good. As a matter of fact, I find him greatly changed.”
“In what way?”
“He’s become amiable.”
“Wasn’t he amiable before?”
Grand seemed at a loss.
He couldn’t say that Cottard used to be unamiable; the term wouldn’t have been correct.
But Cottard was a silent, secretive man, with something about him that made Grand think of a wild boar.
His bedroom, meals at a cheap restaurant, some rather mysterious comings and goings—these were the sum of Cottard’s days.
He described himself as a traveling salesman in wines and spirits.
Now and then he was visited by two or three men, presumably customers.
Sometimes in the evening he would go to a movie across the way.
In this connection Grand mentioned a detail he had noticed—that Cottard seemed to have a preference for gangster films.
But the thing that had struck him most about the man was his aloofness, not to say his mistrust of everyone he met.
And now, so Grand said, there had been a complete change.