“No reason, I agree.
Only, I now can picture what this plague must mean for you.”
“Yes. A never ending defeat.”
Tarrou stared at the doctor for a moment, then turned and tramped heavily toward the door.
Rieux followed him and was almost at his side when Tarrou, who was staring at the floor, suddenly said:
“Who taught you all this, Doctor?”
The reply came promptly:
“Suffering.”
Rieux opened the door of his surgery and told Tarrou that he, too, was going out; he had a patient to visit in the suburbs.
Tarrou suggested they should go together and he agreed.
In the hall they encountered Mme. Rieux, and the doctor introduced Tarrou to her.
“A friend of mine,” he said.
“Indeed,” said Mme. Rieux, “I’m very pleased to make your acquaintance.”
When she left them Tarrou turned to gaze after her.
On the landing the doctor pressed a switch to turn on the lights along the stairs.
But the stairs remained in darkness.
Possibly some new light-saving order had come into force.
Really, however, there was no knowing; for some time past, in the streets no less than in private houses, everything had been going out of order.
It might be only that the concierge, like nearly everyone in the town, was ceasing to bother about his duties.
The doctor had no time to follow up his thoughts; Tarrou’s voice came from behind him.
“Just one word more, Doctor, even if it sounds to you a bit nonsensical. You are perfectly right.”
The doctor merely gave a little shrug, unseen in the darkness.
“To tell the truth, all that’s outside my range.
But you—what do you know about it?”
“Ah,” Tarrou replied quite coolly, “I’ve little left to learn.”
Rieux paused and, behind him, Tarrou’s foot slipped on a step.
He steadied himself by gripping the doctor’s shoulder.
“Do you really imagine you know everything about life?”
The answer came through the darkness in the same cool, confident tone.
“Yes.”
Once in the street, they realized it must be quite late, eleven perhaps.
All was silence in the town, except for some vague rustlings.
An ambulance bell clanged faintly in the distance.
They stepped into the car and Rieux started the engine.
“You must come to the hospital tomorrow,” he said, “for an injection.
But, before embarking on this adventure, you’d better know your chances of coming out of it alive; they’re one in three.”
“That sort of reckoning doesn’t hold water; you know it, Doctor, as well as I.
A hundred years ago plague wiped out the entire population of a town in Persia, with one exception. And the sole survivor was precisely the man whose job it was to wash the dead bodies, and who carried on throughout the epidemic.”
“He pulled off his one-in-three chance, that’s all.” Rieux had lowered his voice. “But you’re right; we know next to nothing on the subject.”
They were entering the suburbs.
The headlights lit up empty streets.
The car stopped.
Standing in front of it, Rieux asked Tarrou if he’d like to come in. Tarrou said: “Yes.”
A glimmer of light from the sky lit up their faces.
Suddenly Rieux gave a short laugh, and there was much friendliness in it.
“Out with it, Tarrou! What on earth prompted you to take a hand in this?”
“I don’t know.
My code of morals, perhaps.”
“Your code of morals?
What code?” “Comprehension.”