A new set of people took the other chairs at his table.
He ordered dinner.
At half past eight he had finished without having seen either Gonzales or the two young men.
He smoked several cigarettes.
The restaurant was gradually emptying.
Outside, night was falling rapidly.
The curtains hung across the doorway were billowing in a warm breeze from the sea.
At nine Rambert realized that the restaurant was quite empty and the waitress was eyeing him curiously.
He paid, went out, and, noticing that a cafe across the street was open, settled down there at a place from which he could keep an eye on the entrance of the restaurant.
At half past nine he walked slowly back to his hotel, racking his brains for some method of tracking down Gonzales, whose address he did not know, and bitterly discouraged by the not unlikely prospect of having to start the tiresome business all over again.
It was at this moment, as he walked in the dark streets along which ambulances were speeding, that it suddenly struck him—as he informed Dr. Rieux subsequently—that all this time he’d practically forgotten the woman he loved, so absorbed had he been in trying to find a rift in the walls that cut him off from her.
But at this same moment, now that once more all ways of escape were sealed against him, he felt his longing for her blaze up again, with a violence so sudden, so intense, that he started running to his hotel, as if to escape the burning pain that none the less pervaded him, racing like wildfire in his blood.
Very early next day, however, he called on Rieux, to ask him where he could find Cottard.
“The only thing to do is to pick up the thread again where I dropped it.”
“Come tomorrow night,” Rieux said. “Tarrou asked me to invite Cottard here—I don’t know why.
He’s due to come at ten.
Come at half past ten.”
When Cottard visited the doctor next day, Tarrou and Rieux were discussing the case of one of Rieux’s patients who against all expectation had recovered.
“It was ten to one against,” Tarrou commented.
“He was in luck.”
“Oh, come now,” Cottard said. “It can’t have been plague, that’s all.”
They assured him there was no doubt it was a case of plague.
“That’s impossible, since he recovered.
You know as well as I do, once you have plague your number’s up.”
“True enough, as a general rule,” Rieux replied. “But if you refuse to be beaten, you have some pleasant surprises.”
Cottard laughed.
“Precious few, anyhow.
You saw the number of deaths this evening?”
Tarrou, who was gazing amiably at Cottard, said he knew the latest figures, and that the position was extremely serious. But what did that prove?
Only that still more stringent measures should be applied.
“How?
You can’t make more stringent ones than those we have now.” “No. But every person in the town must apply them to himself.”
Cottard stared at him in a puzzled manner, and Tarrou went on to say that there were far too many slackers, that this plague was everybody’s business, and everyone should do his duty.
For instance, any able-bodied man was welcome in the sanitary squads.
“That’s an idea,” said Cottard, “but it won’t get you anywhere.
The plague has the whip hand of you and there’s nothing to be done about it.”
“We shall know whether that is so”—Tarrou’s voice was carefully controlled—“only when we’ve tried everything.”
Meanwhile Rieux had been sitting at his desk, copying out reports.
Tarrou was still gazing at the little businessman, who was stirring uneasily in his chair.
“Look here, Monsieur Cottard, why don’t you join us?”
Picking up his derby hat, Cottard rose from his chair with an offended expression.
“It’s not my job,” he said.
Then, with an air of bravado, he added:
“What’s more, the plague suits me quite well and I see no reason why I should bother about trying to stop it.”
As if a new idea had just waylaid him, Tarrou struck his forehead.
“Why, of course, I was forgetting. If it wasn’t for that, you’d be arrested.”
Cottard gave a start and gripped the back of the chair, as if he were about to fall.
Rieux had stopped writing and was observing him with grave interest.
“Who told you that?” Cottard almost screamed.
“Why, you yourself!” Tarrou looked surprised.