“They’re coming out, you can see them in all the trash cans.
It’s hunger!”
Rieux soon discovered that the rats were the great topic of conversation in that part of the town.
After his round of visits he drove home.
“There’s a telegram for you, sir, upstairs,” M. Michel informed him.
The doctor asked him if he’d seen any more rats.
“No,” the concierge replied, “there ain’t been any more. I’m keeping a sharp lookout, you know.
Those youngsters wouldn’t dare when I’m around.”
The telegram informed Rieux that his mother would be arriving next day.
She was going to keep house for her son during his wife’s absence.
When the doctor entered his apartment he found the nurse already there. He looked at his wife.
She was in a tailor-made suit, and he noticed that she had used rouge.
He smiled to her.
“That’s splendid,” he said. “You’re looking very nice.”
A few minutes later he was seeing her into the sleeping-car.
She glanced round the compartment.
“It’s too expensive for us really, isn’t it?”
“It had to be done,” Rieux replied.
“What’s this story about rats that’s going round?”
“I can’t explain it.
It certainly is queer, but it’ll pass.”
Then hurriedly he begged her to forgive him; he felt he should have looked after her better, he’d been most remiss.
When she shook her head, as if to make him stop, he added:
“Anyhow, once you’re back everything will be better.
We’ll make a fresh start.”
“That’s it!” Her eyes were sparkling. “Let’s make a fresh start.”
But then she turned her head and seemed to be gazing through the car window at the people on the platform, jostling one another in their haste.
The hissing of the locomotive reached their ears.
Gently he called his wife’s first name; when she looked round he saw her face wet with tears.
“Don’t,” he murmured.
Behind the tears the smile returned, a little tense.
She drew a deep breath.
“Now off you go! Everything will be all right.”
He took her in his arms, then stepped back on the platform. Now he could only see her smile through the window.
“Please, dear,” he said, “take great care of yourself.”
But she could not hear him.
As he was leaving the platform, near the exit he met M. Othon, the police magistrate, holding his small boy by the hand.
The doctor asked him if he was going away.
Tall and dark, M. Othon had something of the air of what used to be called a man of the world, and something of an undertaker’s assistant.
“No,” the magistrate replied, “I’ve come to meet Madame Othon, who’s been to present her respects to my family.”
The engine whistled.
“These rats, now—” the magistrate began.
Rieux made a brief movement in the direction of the train, then turned back toward the exit.
“The rats?” he said. “It’s nothing.”
The only impression of that moment which, afterwards, he could recall was the passing of the railroadman with a box full of dead rats under his arm.
Early in the afternoon of that day, when his consultations were beginning, a young man called on Rieux. The doctor gathered that he had called before, in the morning, and was a journalist by profession.
His name was Raymond Rambert.
Short, square-shouldered, with a determined-looking face and keen, intelligent eyes, he gave the impression of someone who could keep his end up in any circumstances. He wore a sports type of clothes.
He came straight to the point.
His newspaper, one of the leading Paris dailies, had commissioned him to make a report on the living conditions prevailing among the Arab population, and especially on the sanitary conditions.