In this respect they were wrong, and their views obviously called for revision.
Still, if things had gone thus far and no farther, force of habit would doubtless have gained the day, as usual.
But other members of our community, not all menials or poor people, were to follow the path down which M. Michel had led the way.
And it was then that fear, and with fear serious reflection, began.
However, before entering on a detailed account of the next phase, the narrator proposes to give the opinion of another witness on the period that has been described.
Jean Tarrou, whose acquaintance we have already made at the beginning of this narrative, had come to Oran some weeks before and was staying in a big hotel in the center of the town.
Apparently he had private means and was not engaged in business.
But though he gradually became a familiar figure in our midst, no one knew where he hailed from or what had brought him to Oran.
He was often to be seen in public and at the beginning of spring was seen on one or other of the beaches almost every day; obviously he was fond of swimming.
Good-humored, always ready with a smile, he seemed an addict of all normal pleasures without being their slave. In fact, the only habit he was known to have was that of cultivating the society of the Spanish dancers and musicians who abound in our town.
His notebooks comprise a sort of chronicle of those strange early days we all lived through.
But an unusual type of chronicle, since the writer seems to make a point of understatement, and at first sight we might almost imagine that Tarrou had a habit of observing events and people through the wrong end of a telescope.
In those chaotic times he set himself to recording the history of what the normal historian passes over.
Obviously we may deplore this curious kink in his character and suspect in him a lack of proper feeling.
All the same, it is undeniable that these notebooks, which form a sort of discursive diary, supply the chronicler of the period with a host of seemingly trivial details which yet have their importance, and whose very oddity should be enough to prevent the reader from passing hasty judgment on this singular man.
The earliest entries made by Jean Tarrou synchronize with his coming to Oran.
From the outset they reveal a paradoxical satisfaction at the discovery of a town so intrinsically ugly.
We find in them a minute description of the two bronze lions adorning the Municipal Office, and appropriate comments on the lack of trees, the hideousness of the houses, and the absurd lay-out of the town.
Tarrou sprinkles his descriptions with bits of conversation overheard in streetcars and in the streets, never adding a comment on them except—this comes somewhat later—in the report of a dialogue concerning a man named Camps.
It was a chat between two streetcar conductors.
“You knew Camps, didn’t you?” asked one of them.
“Camps?
A tall chap with a black mustache?”
“That’s him.
A switchman.”
“Ah yes, I remember now.”
“Well, he’s dead.”
“Oh? When did he die?”
“After that business about the rats.”
“You don’t say so!
What did he die of?”
“I couldn’t say exactly. Some kind of fever.
Of course, he never was what you might call fit.
He got abscesses under the arms, and they did him in, it seems.”
“Still, he didn’t look that different from other people.”
“I wouldn’t say that. He had a weak chest and he used to play the trombone in the town band.
It’s hard on the lungs, blowing a trombone.”
“Ah, if you’ve got weak lungs, it don’t do you any good, blowing down a big instrument like that.”
After jotting down this dialogue Tarrou went on to speculate why Camps had joined a band when it was so clearly inadvisable, and what obscure motive had led him to risk his life for the sake of parading the streets on Sunday mornings.
We gather that Tarrou was agreeably impressed by a little scene that took place daily on the balcony of a house facing his window.
His room at the hotel looked on to a small side street and there were always several cats sleeping in the shadow of the walls.
Every day, soon after lunch, at a time when most people stayed indoors, enjoying a siesta, a dapper little old man stepped out on the balcony on the other side of the street.
He had a soldierly bearing, very erect, and affected a military style of dressing; his snow-white hair was always brushed to perfect smoothness. Leaning over the balcony he would call: “Pussy! Pussy!” in a voice at once haughty and endearing.
The cats blinked up at him with sleep-pale eyes, but made no move as yet.
He then proceeded to tear some paper into scraps and let them fall into the street; interested by the fluttering shower of white butterflies, the cats came forward, lifting tentative paws toward the last scraps of paper.
Then, taking careful aim, the old man would spit vigorously at the cats and, whenever a liquid missile hit the quarry, would beam with delight.
Lastly, Tarrou seemed to have been quite fascinated by the commercial character of the town, whose aspect, activities, and even pleasures all seemed to be dictated by considerations of business.
This idiosyncrasy—the term he uses in his diary—was warmly approved of by Tarrou; indeed, one of his appreciative comments ends on the exclamation:
“At last!”
These are the only passages in which our visitor’s record, at this period, strikes a seemingly personal note.