“I couldn’t say, but I hardly think so—as I am now.”
“You see.
But you’re capable of dying for an idea; one can see that right away.
Well, personally, I’ve seen enough of people who die for an idea.
I don’t believe in heroism; I know it’s easy and I’ve learned it can be murderous.
What interests me is living and dying for what one loves.”
Rieux had been watching the journalist attentively.
With his eyes still on him he said quietly:
“Man isn’t an idea, Rambert.”
Rambert sprang off the bed, his face ablaze with passion.
“Man is an idea, and a precious small idea, once he turns his back on love.
And that’s my point; we—mankind—have lost the capacity for love.
We must face that fact, Doctor.
Let’s wait to acquire that capacity or, if really it’s beyond us, wait for the deliverance that will come to each of us anyway, without his playing the hero.
Personally, I look no farther.”
Rieux rose. He suddenly appeared very tired.
“You’re right, Rambert, quite right, and for nothing in the world would I try to dissuade you from what you’re going to do; it seems to me absolutely right and proper.
However, there’s one thing I must tell you: there’s no question of heroism in all this.
It’s a matter of common decency.
That’s an idea which may make some people smile, but the only means of fighting a plague is—common decency.”
“What do you mean by ‘common decency’?” Rambert’s tone was grave.
“I don’t know what it means for other people.
But in my case I know that it consists in doing my job.”
“Your job! I only wish I were sure what my job is!” There was a mordant edge to Rambert’s voice. “Maybe I’m all wrong in putting love first.”
Rieux looked him in the eyes.
“No,” he said vehemently, “you are not wrong.”
Rambert gazed thoughtfully at them.
“You two,” he said, “I suppose you’ve nothing to lose in all this.
It’s easier, that way, to be on the side of the angels.”
Rieux drained his glass.
“Come along,” he said to Tarrou. “We’ve work to do.”
He went out.
Tarrou followed, but seemed to change his mind when he reached the door. He stopped and looked at the journalist.
“I suppose you don’t know that Rieux’s wife is in a sanatorium, a hundred miles or so away.”
Rambert showed surprise and began to say something; but Tarrou had already left the room.
At a very early hour next day Rambert rang up the doctor.
“Would you agree to my working with you until I find some way of getting out of the town?”
There was a moment’s silence before the reply came.
“Certainly, Rambert.
Thanks.”
PART THREE
Thus week by week the prisoners of plague put up what fight they could.
Some, like Rambert, even contrived to fancy they were still behaving as free men and had the power of choice.
But actually it would have been truer to say that by this time, mid-August, the plague had swallowed up everything and everyone.
No longer were there individual destinies; only a collective destiny, made of plague and the emotions shared by all.
Strongest of these emotions was the sense of exile and of deprivation, with all the crosscurrents of revolt and fear set up by these.
That is why the narrator thinks this moment, registering the climax of the summer heat and the disease, the best for describing, on general lines and by way of illustration, the excesses of the living, burials of the dead, and the plight of parted lovers.
It was at this time that a high wind rose and blew for several days through the plague-stricken city.
Wind is particularly dreaded by the inhabitants of Oran, since the plateau on which the town is built presents no natural obstacle, and it can sweep our streets with unimpeded violence.
During the months when not a drop of rain had refreshed the town, a gray crust had formed on everything, and this flaked off under the wind, disintegrating into dust-clouds.