Most of those who took part in the Week of Prayer would have echoed a remark made by one of the churchgoers in Dr. Rieux’s hearing:
“Anyhow, it can’t do any harm.”
Even Tarrou, after recording in his notebook that in such cases the Chinese fall to playing tambourines before the Genius of Plague, observed that there was no means of telling whether, in practice, tambourines proved more efficacious than prophylactic measures.
He merely added that, to decide the point, we should need first to ascertain if a Genius of Plague actually existed, and our ignorance on this point nullified any opinions we might form.
In any case the Cathedral was practically always full of worshippers throughout the Week of Prayer.
For the first two or three days many stayed outside, under the palms and pomegranate trees in the garden in front of the porch, and listened from a distance to the swelling tide of prayers and invocations whose backwash filled the neighboring streets.
But once an example had been given, they began to enter the Cathedral and join timidly in the responses.
And on the Sunday of the sermon a huge congregation filled the nave, overflowing onto the steps and precincts.
The sky had clouded up on the previous day, and now it was raining heavily.
Those in the open unfurled umbrellas.
The air inside the Cathedral was heavy with fumes of incense and the smell of wet clothes when Father Paneloux stepped into the pulpit.
He was a stockily built man, of medium height.
When he leaned on the edge of the pulpit, grasping the woodwork with his big hands, all one saw was a black, massive torso and, above it, two rosy cheeks overhung by steel-rimmed spectacles.
He had a powerful, rather emotional delivery, which carried to a great distance, and when he launched at the congregation his opening phrase in clear, emphatic tones:
“Calamity has come on you, my brethren, and, my brethren, you deserved it,” there was a flutter that extended to the crowd massed in the rain outside the porch.
In strict logic what came next did not seem to follow from this dramatic opening.
Only as the sermon proceeded did it become apparent to the congregation that, by a skillful oratorical device, Father Paneloux had launched at them, like a fisticuff, the gist of his whole discourse.
After launching it he went on at once to quote a text from Exodus relating to the plague of Egypt, and said:
“The first time this scourge appears in history, it was wielded to strike down the enemies of God.
Pharaoh set himself up against the divine will, and the plague beat him to his knees. Thus from the dawn of recorded history the scourge of God has humbled the proud of heart and laid low those who hardened themselves against Him.
Ponder this well, my friends, and fall on your knees.”
The downpour had increased in violence, and these words, striking through a silence intensified by the drumming of raindrops on the chancel windows, carried such conviction that, after a momentary hesitation, some of the worshippers slipped forward from their seats on to their knees.
Others felt it right to follow their example, and the movement gradually spread until presently everyone was kneeling, from end to end of the cathedral. No sound, except an occasional creak of chairs, accompanied the movement.
Then Paneloux drew himself up to his full height, took a deep breath, and continued his sermon in a voice that gathered strength as it proceeded.
“If today the plague is in your midst, that is because the hour has struck for taking thought.
The just man need have no fear, but the evildoer has good cause to tremble.
For plague is the flail of God and the world His threshing-floor, and implacably He will thresh out His harvest until the wheat is separated from the chaff.
There will be more chaff than wheat, few chosen of the many called. Yet this calamity was not willed by God.
Too long this world of ours has connived at evil, too long has it counted on the divine mercy, on God’s forgiveness.
Repentance was enough, men thought; nothing was forbidden.
Everyone felt comfortably assured; when the day came, he would surely turn from his sins and repent.
Pending that day, the easiest course was to surrender all along the line; divine compassion would do the rest.
For a long while God gazed down on this town with eyes of compassion; but He grew weary of waiting, His eternal hope was too long deferred, and now He has turned His face away from us.
And so, God’s light withdrawn, we walk in darkness, in the thick darkness of this plague.”
Someone in the congregation gave a little snort, like that of a restive horse.
After a short silence the preacher continued in a lower tone.
“We read in the Golden Legend that in the time of King Umberto Italy was swept by plague and its greatest ravages took place in Rome and Pavia. So dreadful were these that the living hardly sufficed to bury the dead.
And a good angel was made visible to human eyes, giving his orders to an evil angel who bore a great hunting-spear, and bidding him strike the houses; and as many strokes as he dealt a house, so many dead were carried out of it.”
Here Paneloux stretched forth his two short arms toward the open porch, as if pointing to something behind the tumbling curtain of the rain.
“My brothers,” he cried, “that fatal hunt is up, and harrying our streets today.
See him there, that angel of the pestilence, comely as Lucifer, shining like Evil’s very self! He is hovering above your roofs with his great spear in his right hand, poised to strike, while his left hand is stretched toward one or other of your houses.
Maybe at this very moment his finger is pointing to your door, the red spear crashing on its panels, and even now the plague is entering your home and settling down in your bedroom to await your return.
Patient and watchful, ineluctable as the order of the scheme of things, it bides its time.
No earthly power, nay, not even—mark me well—the vaunted might of human science can avail you to avert that hand once it is stretched toward you.
And winnowed like corn on the blood-stained threshing-floor of suffering, you will be cast away with the chaff.”
At this point the Father reverted with heightened eloquence to the symbol of the flail.
He bade his hearers picture a huge wooden bar whirling above the town, striking at random, swinging up again in a shower of drops of blood, and spreading carnage and suffering on earth, “for the seedtime that shall prepare the harvest of the truth.”
At the end of his long phrase Father Paneloux paused; his hair was straggling over his forehead, his body shaken by tremors that his hands communicated to the pulpit. When he spoke again, his voice was lower, but vibrant with accusation.
“Yes, the hour has come for serious thought.
You fondly imagined it was enough to visit God on Sundays, and thus you could make free of your weekdays.