“I don’t quite know how to put it, but I must say I’ve an impression that he is trying to make himself agreeable to all and sundry, to be in everybody’s good books.
Nowadays he often talks to me, he suggests we should go out together, and I can’t bring myself to refuse.
What’s more, he interests me, and of course I saved his life.”
Since his attempt at suicide Cottard had had no more visitors.
In the streets, in shops, he was always trying to strike up friendships.
To the grocer he was all affability; no one could take more pains than he to show his interest in the tobacconist’s gossip.
“This particular tobacconist—a woman, by the way,” Grand explained, “is a holy terror. I told Cottard so, but he replied that I was prejudiced and she had plenty of good points, only one had to find them out.”
On two or three occasions Cottard had invited Grand to come with him to the luxury restaurants and cafes of the town, which he had recently taken to patronizing.
“There’s a pleasant atmosphere in them,” he explained, “and then one’s in good company.”
Grand noticed that the staff made much of Cottard and he soon discovered why, when he saw the lavish tips his companion gave.
The traveling salesman seemed greatly to appreciate the amiability shown him in return for his largesse.
One day when the head waiter had escorted him to the door and helped him into his overcoat, Cottard said to Grand:
“He’s a nice fellow, and he’d make a good witness.”
“A witness? I don’t follow.”
Cottard hesitated before answering.
“Well, he could say I’m not really a bad kind of man.”
But his humor had its ups and downs.
One day when the grocer had shown less affability, he came home in a tearing rage.
“He’s siding with the others, the swine!”
“With what others?”
“The whole damned lot of them.”
Grand had personally witnessed an odd scene that took place at the tobacconist’s.
An animated conversation was in progress and the woman behind the counter started airing her views about a murder case that had created some stir in Algiers.
A young commercial employee had killed an Algerian on a beach.
“I always say,” the woman began, “if they clapped all that scum in jail, decent folks could breathe more freely.”
She was too much startled by Cottard’s reaction—he dashed out of the shop without a word of excuse—to continue.
Grand and the woman gazed after him, dumbfounded.
Subsequently Grand reported to the doctor other changes in Cottard’s character.
Cottard had always professed very liberal ideas, as his pet dictum on economic questions,
“Big fish eat little fish,” implied.
But now the only Oran newspaper he bought was the conservative organ, and one could hardly help suspecting that he made a point of reading it in public places.
Somewhat of the same order was a request he made to Grand shortly before he left his sick-bed; Grand mentioned he was going to the post office and Cottard asked him to be kind enough to dispatch a money order for a hundred francs to a sister living at a distance, mentioning that he sent her this sum every month.
Then, just when Grand was leaving the room, he called him back.
“No, send her two hundred francs. That’ll be a nice surprise for her.
She believes I never give her a thought.
But actually I’m devoted to her.”
Not long after this he made some curious remarks to Grand in the course of conversation.
He had badgered Grand into telling him about the somewhat mysterious “private work” to which Grand gave his evenings.
“I know!” Cottard exclaimed. “You’re writing a book, aren’t you?”
“Something of the kind. But it’s not so simple as that.”
“Ah!” Cottard sighed. “I only wish I had a knack for writing.”
When Grand showed his surprise, Cottard explained with some embarrassment that being a literary man must make things easier in lots of ways.
“Why?” Grand asked.
“Why, because an author has more rights than ordinary people, as everybody knows.
People will stand much more from him.”
“It looks,” said Rieux to Grand on the morning when the official notices were posted, “as if this business of the rats had addled his brain, as it has done for so many other people.
That’s all it is. Or perhaps he’s scared of the ‘fever.’ ”
“I doubt it, Doctor. If you want to know my opinion, he—”
He paused; with a machine-gun rattle from its exhaust the “deratization” van was clattering by.
Rieux kept silent until it was possible to make himself audible, then asked, without much interest, what Grand’s opinion was.