The journalist tugged at his tie to straighten it.
“So, I take it, I can’t count on help from you.
Very good. But”—his tone was challenging—“leave this town I shall.”
The doctor repeated that he quite understood, but all that was none of his business.
“Excuse me, but it is your business.” Rambert raised his voice again. “I approached you because I’d been told you played a large part in drawing up the orders that have been issued.
So I thought that in one case anyhow you could unmake what you’d helped to make.
But you don’t care; you never gave a thought to anybody, you didn’t take the case of people who are separated into account.”
Rieux admitted this was true up to a point; he’d preferred not to take such cases into account.
“Ah, I see now!” Rambert exclaimed. “You’ll soon be talking about the interests of the general public.
But public welfare is merely the sum total of the private welfares of each of us.”
The doctor seemed abruptly to come out of a dream. “Oh, come!” he said. “There’s that, but there’s much more to it than that.
It doesn’t do to rush to conclusions, you know.
But you’ve no reason to feel angered.
I assure you that if you find a way out of your quandary, I shall be extremely pleased.
Only, there are things that my official position debars me from doing.”
Rambert tossed his head petulantly.
“Yes, yes, I was wrong to show annoyance.
And I’ve taken up too much of your time already.”
Rieux asked him to let him know how he got on with his project, and not to bear him a grudge for not having been more amenable.
He was sure, he added, that there was some common ground on which they could meet.
Rambert looked perplexed.
Then, “Yes,” he said after a short silence, “I rather think so, too—in spite of myself, and of all you’ve just been saying.” He paused. “Still, I can’t agree with you.”
Pulling down his hat over his eyes, he walked quickly away.
Rieux saw him enter the hotel where Tarrou was staying.
After a moment the doctor gave a slight nod, as if approving of some thought that had crossed his mind.
Yes, the journalist was right in refusing to be balked of happiness.
But was he right in reproaching him, Rieux, with living in a world of abstractions?
Could that term “abstraction” really apply to these days he spent in his hospital while the plague was battening on the town, raising its death-toll to five hundred victims a week?
Yes, an element of abstraction, of a divorce from reality, entered into such calamities.
Still when abstraction sets to killing you, you’ve got to get busy with it.
And so much Rieux knew: that this wasn’t the easiest course.
Running this auxiliary hospital, for instance, of which he was in charge—there were now three such hospitals—was no light task.
He had had an anteroom, leading into his surgery, installed, equipped for dealing with patients on arrival.
The floor had been excavated and replaced by a shallow lake of water and cresylic acid, in the center of which was a sort of island made of bricks.
The patient was carried to the island, rapidly undressed, and his clothes dropped into the disinfectant water.
After being washed, dried, and dressed in one of the coarse hospital nightshirts, he was taken to Rieux for examination, then carried to one of the wards.
This hospital, a requisitioned schoolhouse, now contained five hundred beds, almost all of which were occupied.
After the reception of the patients, which he personally supervised, Rieux injected serum, lanced buboes, checked the statistics again, and returned for his afternoon consultations.
Only when night was setting in did he start on his round of visits, and he never got home till a very late hour. On the previous night his mother, when handing him a telegram from his wife, had remarked that his hands were shaking.
“Yes,” he said.
“But it’s only a matter of sticking to it, and my nerves will steady down, you’ll see.”
He had a robust constitution and, as yet, wasn’t really tired.
Still his visits, for one thing, were beginning to put a great strain on his endurance.
Once the epidemic was diagnosed, the patient had to be evacuated forthwith.
Then indeed began “abstraction” and a tussle with the family, who knew they would not see the sick man again until he was dead or cured.
“Have some pity, Doctor!” It was Mme. Loret, mother of the chambermaid at Tarrou’s hotel, who made the appeal.
An unnecessary appeal; of course he had pity.
But what purpose could it serve?
He had to telephone, and soon the ambulance could be heard clanging down the street. (At first the neighbors used to open windows and watch.
Later they promptly shut them.) Then came a second phase of conflict, tears and pleadings—abstraction, in a word.